Tilting at turbines
Flávio Bolsonaro surged past Lula in Brazil’s presidential election yesterday, with both candidates now headed to a runoff later this month. / Associated Press
Related: Ahead of the election, Brazil’s spy agency “confirmed the existence of interference from the United States as well as Russia.” / Common Dreams
According to the Internet Watch Foundation, the amount of AI-generated CSAM found online in the first half of 2026 surpassed last year’s total. / The Guardian
An explanation of how AI tokens work shows why businesses can’t budget for their employees’ AI usage. / The Wall Street Journal [$]
What it’s like to find out your child is being tutored by an AI character at school, and that the company actively avoided getting your consent. / Coyote
“You’re allergic to shellfish, and ChatGPT says there’s no shellfish in this, and we are telling you, yes there is!” Workers explain all the ways AI is cooking customers’ brains. / The Verge [$]
See also: Therapists describe what AI is doing to their patients. “In my clinical lifetime, I’ve never seen an existential threat like this.” / The New York Times [$]
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According to a physician who worked the New York City Marathon, public races are woefully underprepared for the escalating dangers of climate change. / STAT
Inside the network of American highschoolers buying and stealing guns and selling them to Mexican cartels. / The New York Times [$]
In his TIME interview, Trump suggested turning the Oval Office into a federal landmark would make his gold plating permanent. / The Washington Post [$]
Without warning, Meta is taking down—and sometimes reinstating—LGBTQ bars’ social media pages, hindering their ability to advertise events. / Chron
Pushing for permanent daylight savings time, Trump wants Americans to think of the golf industry, which, according to 2016 figures, would earn an extra $400 million if the clocks changed a month earlier. / Reuters, Golf Digest
“There’s as much brain involved in processing color as there is in face recognition” is part of the reason we can’t agree on the color of a tennis ball. / Vox [$]
Restaurant music matters, or why it’s a bad idea to let the line cooks blast screamo in the dining room. / Ravenous
“The comedy of self-improvement has fueled the novel ever since the origins of the genre, whether one traces it back to Don Quixote or Confessions.” / Commonweal