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Lydia Polgreen: “It might not yet be a civil war, but what the White House has called Operation Metro Surge is definitely not just—or even primarily—an immigration enforcement operation.” / The New York Times [$]
Coinbase pretty much runs the Senate now, and isn’t hiding how much control it has over crypto legislation—setting the company up for a power struggle with Trump. / Citation Needed
“Prediction markets are ushering in a world in which news becomes as much about gambling as about the event itself.” America is slow-walking into a Polymarket disaster. / The Atlantic [$]
“It’s a moment I’d wager every woman has lived a lighter variant of.” The palpable misogyny just before Renee Good’s murder. / Rax King
Now that it’s partnering with Flock, Ring cameras just became instruments of ICE. / TechCrunch
Texas police won’t explain how they’re using a suspicious phone-tracking product, which is only adding to the many alarms privacy experts are sounding over it. / Texas Observer
Former federal tech officials are organizing to fix what DOGE broke, in hopes of having a plan in place if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2028. / Wired
“You can rest assured that hundreds of millions of people just like you can see what is happening. And they are pissed.” What is going to happen? / How Things Work
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The authors behind a class-action lawsuit alleging Nvidia trained AI models on pirated books have expanded their claim upon the discovery of a paper trail with Anna’s Archive. / TorrentFreak
A new scam targeting authors promises to introduce your book—for a fee—to a fervent Discord book club, except all the participants are artificial. / Jason Sanford’s Genre Grapevine
“There are tangible benefits to drawing a line between the real and unreal.” Jeff VanderMeer is hot on Bigfoot’s trail. / Orion
Watch: A short documentary on the craft of museum dioramas. / Aeon
Unrelated: From 2017, what’s your favorite extinct Epcot song? / Paleofuture
A new retrospective celebrates Dorothy Waugh, the designer behind the first National Parks posters, who’s finally receiving her well-earned notoriety. / Artnet
With around 500 parts and a need to source specialty woods, building an oboe is no small task—yet purists balk at changing a process that’s taken centuries to create / The New York Times [$]
A seventh-grader reviews the software today’s classrooms contend with: “The IT Department thinks it’s the best thing ever. No one else feels so strongly.” / Micah Blachman
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