Today’s comic by Matt Bors is Why are they ditching Trump?
• David Farenthold wins Sydney Award for reports on Donald Trump. The award was given for his
stunning series of scoops about Donald Trump’s misuse and mismanagement of his personal foundation and his degrading and abusive comments about women.
Fahrenthold’s investigative odyssey began when Trump skipped a GOP debate to hold a charitable event which he claims raised $6 million for veterans, including a $1 million donation from his own pocket. Fahrenthold set out to determine whether Trump had actually turned over the cash. He hadn’t. Months later, national media pressure finally forced him to pay up.
• Paid. Yes, they get paid for this.
• Another victim of the climate crisis—languages.
• Obama ponders the possibility of an AI-backed nuclear weapons hack:
In an exclusive interview with MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito and WIRED Editor-in-Chief Scott Dadich, Obama discusses the possibilities—and possible dangers—of AI. In an era when hackers can steal the fingerprints of 5.6 million federal employees and or pull off a modern version of Watergate, he wonders whether sophisticated adversaries might use AI to infiltrate the government’s most sensitive systems.
“There could be an algorithm that said, ‘Go penetrate the nuclear codes and figure out how to launch some missiles,'” Obama says. “If that’s its only job, if it’s self-teaching and it’s just a really effective algorithm, then you’ve got problems.”
• Study says climate change has doubled wildfires since 1980:
Climate change has already doubled the number of forest fires in the western US since the 1980s − and it is a trend that will continue to increase, according to new research.
The study says the rise in temperatures and aridity sucks the moisture out of the plants, trees, dead vegetation on the ground and the soil, and is part of a worldwide trend of ever-increasing wildfires.
Scientists from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory pin the blame firmly on human-induced climate change − a significant statement in a country where many Republican supporters still refuse to accept that the burning of fossil fuels is causing global warming.
• Scientists find teensy new dwarf planet 8.5 billion miles away.
• Left is divided over whether Democrats should try to win over Trump supporters or just move on. The Nation has published a small collection of diverse opinions on the subject.
• Ed Kilgore discusses whether Trump’s campaign may turn out to be the undoing of the Christian Right:
There are growing signs that the conflicted feelings among conservative Evangelicals are not just about Trump, but instead reflect an evolution whereby the culture-war verities of Christian nationalism are slowly giving way to a counterculture sensibility that regards fidelity to the Republican Party and even the conservative movement as a sinful temptation.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, we’ve been wondering for a long time WTF is up with Trump and all those beauty pageants and the modeling agency. SwedishJewfish’s "We All Knew About the Trafficking.” The Untold Story of Trump Model Management starts putting it all together.
YouTube | iTunes | LibSyn | Support the show: Patreon; PayPal; PayPal Subscription