News and insights from The Tyee

Will Alberta be UCP in Perpetuity? Mired in corruption scandals, besieged by bad press and at the mercy of fringe separatist groups that the vast majority of the public is against, you’d think the United Conservative Party would be in hard times. And yet… A new poll for the CBC shows the UCP is actually holding its popularity, while the provincial NDP under Naheed Nenshi has dropped. Historically New Democrats have been more tolerant of their leaders’ failings than Conservatives, writes David Climenhaga in this week’s cover story, but there’s got to be a limit. “Sooner or later someone has to ask if Nenshi is the person best suited for his job.” In other news this week, Brett McKay with the Investigative Journalism Foundation got the full list of the more than 170 books pulled from library shelves. The premier is launching a propaganda blitz using taxpayers’ money to sway votes on this fall’s referendum, writes Climenhaga. University of Calgary economics professor Lindsay Tedds says Pierre Poilievre doesn’t understand one of the key insights of his economic hero, Adam Smith. And a new study confirms what regulators got wrong and Andrew Nikiforuk was right about — the cause of record earthquakes in the Peace River region a few years ago was the result of industry injecting wastewater underground. Elsewhere... Elections Alberta obtained a court injunction to force David Parker’s separatist Centurion Project to remove an online database of voter information from the province’s electoral list. That data is strictly controlled as it contains full names, addresses, phone numbers and other details of the province’s millions of registered voters. The list was apparently provided to Parker’s group by the Republican Party of Alberta, and subsequently was able to be viewed by any of the more than 100 volunteers who signed up to help Centurion’s work. The RCMP and Elections Alberta are both investigating. [Various] Elections Alberta says it learned of the unauthorized use of the list in late April. But the organization was sent a tip that Centurion volunteers could access the voter list in late March. How does Jen Gerson know that? “I know this because that person was me. I wrote that email.” [The Line] Even the talk of separating — let alone actually leaving — will have a disastrous effect on Alberta’s economic climate. “The province might be rich, but as a country, it could be rather broke.” [The Walrus] An analysis by The Narwhal shows millions in taxpayer dollars are going to some Alberta ranchers to cover debts owed by delinquent oil and gas companies. [The Narwhal] Mary Scaletta tells Maclean’s why she’s forever Canadian, and what she heard canvassing for the petition to keep the country together. [Maclean’s] Shell is expanding its operations in Alberta after acquiring Calgary-based ARC Resources for $22 billion. “It is the latest in a series of deals in the Canadian oilpatch in recent months, and more are expected as companies search the globe for secure, low-cost and long-term sources of oil and natural gas, especially after the disruptions caused by the U.S. war with Iran.” [CBC]

Ope, the diarrhea parasite is in the Midwest

 

Ope, the diarrhea parasite is in the Midwest

Marvin Joseph/Getty Images

Romaine is always causing problems. An explosive, diarrhea-causing outbreak of the cyclospora parasite has been running flowing spreading making its way through the Midwest, most prominently in Michigan.

Health officials haven’t identified a source of the outbreak but are investigating Taco Bell, according to the Washington Post. A few Michigan locations aren’t serving lettuce or cilantro out of caution.

Here’s what else we know about the outbreak:

• The parasite usually spreads through particles of infected human feces that get into water and end up on fresh produce through either irrigation or cleaning. Produce that has high water content—like leafy greens, berries, and snow peas—is particularly susceptible.
• The parasite isn’t deadly, but it can last for several months if left untreated, causing severe dehydration and, of course, some unforgettable bathroom visits.
• Michigan’s health department reported at least 3,309 cases as of yesterday, while the CDC said 34 states have reported cases.

Unlike the stool this outbreak will cause, tracking down the source is especially hard. Symptoms can be delayed for weeks (and tracking relies on people remembering exactly where and when they ate certain items). Plus, the CDC scaled back one of the programs it used to proactively track cyclospora last year.

In a statement, Taco Bell said that the health and safety of it guests are its “top priority” and noted that officials haven’t confirmed a link to the restaurant.

What you can do: Wash and scrub your produce, avoid bagged lettuce, cook your veggies, and wash your hands.

Zoom Has a ‘SWAT Team’ to Stand Out on ChatGPT and Gemini - WSJ

 Zoom Has a ‘SWAT Team’ to Stand Out on ChatGPT and Gemini - WSJ

Yet another new job duty has skyrocketed in importance for chief marketing officers: optimizing how their companies appear in conversations with large language models like ChatGPT or Google Gemini.

For Kimberly Storin, CMO at the video meeting provider Zoom Communications, that has meant working quickly to stay on top of emerging research and trying to make sure material—whether it’s chatter on Reddit or executive commentary on LinkedIn—is showing up in a way that leads users to consider Zoom.

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett says threats are high

Supreme Court Justice Barrett says the threat level against judges ‘is really high’
Published Tue, Jul 14 202610:47 AM EDT Updated Tue, Jul 14 20263:42 PM EDT

Dan Mangan@in/danmangancnbc/@_DanMangan
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Key Points
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett told a House subcommittee that “the threat level” against her and other federal judges “is really high” as she testified about the high court’s budget request.
“Those statistics sound abstract, but being on the receiving end of them is not,” Barrett told the panel.
Barrett and Justice Elena Kagan are the first Supreme Court justices to testify to Congress since 2019. Kagan testified that year with Justice Samuel Alito about the budget request.
The Supreme Court is asking Congress to appropriate $228.4 million for fiscal 2027, a nearly 10% rise since the $207.8 million appropriated for 2026. The increase reflects higher spending on security-related measures.


Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett testify before the House Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill on July 14, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Finn Gomez | Getty Images


Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett told a House subcommittee on Tuesday that “the threat level” against her and other federal judges “is really high” as she testified about the high court’s 2027 budget request.

“Those statistics sound abstract, but being on the receiving end of them is not,” Barrett told the House Appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government, before she shared several anecdotes about threats affecting her and her family.


The Supreme Court is asking Congress to appropriate $228.4 million for fiscal 2027, a nearly 10% rise since the $207.8 million appropriated for 2026. The increase reflects higher spending on security-related measures, both for the protection of justices and for cybersecurity.

Justice Elena Kagan, who was testifying with Barrett, noted that the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police recently testified that threats against Congress are up 50% this year compared with 2025.

“The Supreme Court Police expect a smaller but still very substantial 38% annual increase in threats this year, which follows a 25% increase last year” in threats to the court and its justices, Kagan said.

“For some of us, those threats have come very close, and all of us live with the knowledge that they may again materialize,” she said.

According to data from the U.S. Marshals Service, since the beginning of 2026, there have been a total of 512 investigations of threats to federal judges, of which there are 2,600 active judges. That compares wish 807 investigations of threats for all of 2025.


Barrett and Kagan are the first Supreme Court justices to testify to Congress since 2019. That year, Kagan and Justice Samuel Alito testified about the court’s budget request.

The two justices are scheduled to testify on Tuesday afternoon to the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government.

Barrett said the increased threats “have required my children to think about and see things that children should not have to see or think about.”

She told the panel that in the spring of 2022, “My security detail sent me home with a bulletproof vest” when threats to her life escalated after the leak to a media outlet of a draft Supreme Court opinion that more than a month later reversed a 1973 decision that had said there was a constitutional right to abortion.

“I carried it into my house, put it into my bedroom, dropped it down on a table, turned around, and my 12-year-old son was standing in the doorway of my bedroom, and he wanted to know what it was and why I had it,” Barrett said.

“I didn’t know how to respond because maybe I lack imagination, but I didn’t expect that performing this service was going to put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one.”

Barrett, who was nominated to the court by President Donald Trump in his first term, also discussed having recently been the target of a “swatting” attack.

“My teenage son, one of my teenage sons, opened the door to go out with friends and saw in our street, it was full of police cars, who had responded to a false report of gunshots and raised voices in my home,” Barrett said.

“I was very, very grateful that I had Supreme Court Police outside my home because they were able to stop and meet with and explain to the county police that it had been a false alarm, and so the police did not actually attempt to enter our home.”

She also said that “any of us, me included, have received threatening anonymous deliveries designed to intimidate and harass us.”

The hearing comes nine months after a 29-year-old California man, Nicholas Roske, was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for his 2022 plot to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanagh at his Maryland home. Roske told police after his arrest that he was upset about the leaked Supreme Court decision on abortion.

Kagan, in her testimony, noted that “the majority of last year’s funding increase went to shifting the responsibility for residential security of the justices from the Marshals Service to the Supreme Court Police.

Kagan said that when she first joined the court in 2010, after being nominated by President Barack Obama, “Our security was very different at the time.”

“The Supreme Court Police focused almost exclusively on protecting the building, and our IT department focused on supporting the latest BlackBerry devices,” she said.

“I didn’t have a security team of my own, and I was accompanied by security personnel only when I participated in work-related public events,” Kagan said. “We began expanding our security program in earnest in 2017, initially at the behest of members of Congress.”

Barrett said that in addition to increased threats to judges personally, “the cybersecurity attacks have been up ... by magnitudes year after year.”

“The rapid advancement of AI is making that more and more possible,” Barrett said. “We haven’t suffered the kind of paralyzing attacks that some of the lower courts have, but in seeing that, that has caused us to try to ramp up very quickly our cybersecurity protection, and so some of the funding that we’re seeking is for additional cybersecurity experts.”

The subcommittee’s chairman, Rep. Dave Joyce, R-Ohio, opened the hearing by saying, “Whatever one’s view of the specific Supreme Court ruling, judicial officers — up to and including the justices of the Supreme Court — must be able to do their jobs without fear for their safety or their family’s safety.”

Correction: This article has been updated to correct a quote from Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Bell completes ground station build in step toward launching space-based service - Victoria Times Colonist

Bell completes ground station build in step toward launching space-based service - Victoria Times Colonist

Bell completes ground station build in step toward launching space-based service
Bell Canada says it has reached a key milestone toward launching satellite-to-mobile coverage after it finished building a ground station in Quebec.
Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press about 4 hours ago

Bell Canada's first sovereign direct-to-device satellite ground station in Quebec, which connects with AST SpaceMobile's constellation of satellites, is shown in this undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - Bell Canada (Mandatory Credit)


Bell Canada says it has reached a key milestone toward launching satellite-to-mobile coverage after it finished building a ground station in Quebec.

Last fall, the telecommunications company announced plans to launch space-based cellular service through a partnership with Texas-based AST SpaceMobile using low-earth orbit satellites.

Bell said testing has begun at the ground station facility, which connects with AST SpaceMobile’s satellite constellation to integrate its space-based cellular broadband network with Bell’s terrestrial network. The site will form part of the Canadian infrastructure supporting direct-to-device satellite service.

The company has completed integration testing, including text messaging, data connectivity, voice call and video call tests on standard smartphones through its ground station, with plans to test video streaming, Internet-of-Things and public alerts in the coming weeks.

The technology is meant to keep Bell customers connected in areas beyond the reach of traditional wireless networks, such as northern communities and remote coastal regions.




"The satellite ground infrastructure we’re building is designed to support a full suite of direct-to-device capabilities ... helping extend connectivity to remote and underserved areas," said Bell executive vice-president and chief technology officer Mark McDonald in a news release.

"Together with Bell’s world-class wireless network, it will help keep customers connected wherever they live, work and travel."

Bell is aiming to launch its satellite coverage early next year.



Chris Ivory, chief commercial officer for AST SpaceMobile, said customers should expect a "seamless connectivity experience" on their smartphones.

“Canada’s vast and diverse geography presents a unique need to extend cellular broadband beyond the reach of traditional terrestrial infrastructure," Ivory said in a news release.


"Bell’s continued investment in their mobile network, combined with AST SpaceMobile’s unique space-based cellular broadband technology, will extend coverage beyond the reach of traditional terrestrial networks."

Competitor Rogers Communications Inc. launched its own version of satellite-to-mobile service a year ago in partnership with Elon Musk's SpaceX, combining its wireless network with Starlink's low-earth orbit satellites to connect cellphones in dead zones.

Rogers initially offered text message capability for beta users before adding WhatsApp voice and video calling in December. Other apps such as Google Maps now work through Rogers Satellite as well, and the company previously said it planned to enable traditional cellphone calls, including 911 voice services, this year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 15, 2026.

Companies in this story: (TSX:BCE)

Former public servant accused in foreign interference

Former public servant accused in foreign interference case involving China
Dennis Lu, retired from Natural Resources Canada, charged with breach of trust, unauthorized use of a computer


Kristy Nease · CBC News · Posted: Jul 13, 2026 1:00 AM PDT | Last Updated: July 13


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Dennis Lu, seen here in his LinkedIn profile, is charged with breach of trust and two counts of unauthorized use of a computer. (Dennis Lu/LinkedIn)

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A former federal scientist in an alleged foreign interference case is accused of copying more than 2,000 documents off a shared departmental server to share with China as his lifelong career was nearing its end, CBC News has learned.

Dennis Lu faces trial in Ottawa next year. He researched clean energy with Natural Resource Canada’s Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology for decades, specializing in carbon capture and decarbonization. He was fired during the week of his scheduled retirement in August 2023.

The 65-year-old is charged under the Criminal Code with two counts of unauthorized use of a computer and one count of breach of trust relating to his federal duties.


The alleged breach dates from the day Lu began a leave of absence to travel to Taiwan and China in 2023 to the date of his arrest in 2024. He had recently returned to Canada after living in China for about a year following his departure from Natural Resources Canada.

Courthouse records prepared by the Crown and defence, obtained by CBC News, show there is no evidence of Lu actually sharing the documents he downloaded.

Instead the Crown alleges that Lu's devices, seized during the execution of a search warrant at his Ottawa home, contain evidence of questionable affiliations and employment with Chinese companies, universities and academics against Natural Resources Canada’s internal rules — and that Lu intended to share the documents with China, the records state.

The allegations against Lu are unproven.

Courthouse records state that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, seen here in Ottawa in 2013, briefed Natural Resources Canada about Lu at least three times starting in 2000. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
CSIS briefed Lu's employer about him

The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) briefed Natural Resources Canada about Lu at least three times between 2000 and 2021, the court records show.

The last CSIS briefing was made to Natural Resources Canada's chief of security in February 2021. That prompted an internal investigation in January 2023 to monitor, search and seize information from Lu's computer using "specific word phrases" to see if any of Lu's conduct was "actionable" and to "determine the credibility of the CSIS flags," the records state.

In February 2023 Lu took a leave of absence to travel and the following month he told his manager that he intended to retire in August that year, according to the records.

It's alleged that Lu sent nearly 2,000 emails from his work email account to his personal email account while he was in China, the records state.

Natural Resources Canada cut Lu's access to his work email and its servers in early June 2023, and when Lu returned to Canada at the end of that month, he asked about it. A manager ordered Lu's access reinstated so his retirement could be processed.
Arrested, charged by Ottawa INSET

On July 7, 2023, Lu allegedly copied 2,414 documents from a Natural Resources Canada shared server onto a device, and on Aug. 9, 2023, a further 188 documents from the shared drive onto a separate device.


Natural Resource Canada officials interviewed Lu about the copied documents on Aug. 17, 2023. That same day, the department told the RCMP about the findings of its internal investigation into Lu, the records state.

A year later, he was arrested and charged by members of Ottawa INSET, an RCMP-led team of law enforcement and intelligence partners that handles threats to national security. He had just returned to Ottawa after spending his first year of retirement living in China.

Lu was released from custody after he and a surety promised to pay $10,000 each if Lu leaves Ontario, applies for a passport or any other travel permits or documents, or violates any other release conditions.

Canada should do more to screen visitors from China: former CSIS analyst


It's time to act on foreign interference, attacks on dissidents, say opposition MPs
Video

Former RCMP officer charged with foreign interference on behalf of China
Lu had expectation of privacy at work: defence

Arguments and allegations that defence lawyers Reem Zaia and Michael Nesbitt are making include the following:Natural Resource Canada was acting as an agent of the state — an extension of law enforcement — from the moment it began surveilling Lu, and that Lu had an expectation of privacy as an employee, the records state.
The department's shared drive wasn't password-protected, Lu had authorized access to it, and employees at the department routinely use USBs to take work home and work.
The department has hired and collaborated with foreign nationals in the past, including from China. They say Lu had been working on publications with the Chinese on the department's behalf, and that before he left, he told Natural Resources Canada that he intended to finish them.

Lu is scheduled to stand trial at the Ottawa Courthouse in January. (Guy Quenneville/CBC)

Arguments and allegations made by assistant Crown attorney Tim Radcliffe include:The federal government is highly regulated and "increasingly security-sensitive given the risks posed by aggressive threat actors" including China, and that a reasonable person wouldn't agree that Lu should have expected privacy at work.
The Communication Security Establishment's National Cyber Threat Assessment for 2025-26 says China's "expansive and aggressive cyber program has global cyber surveillance, espionage, and attack capabilities and is the most comprehensive cyber security threat facing Canada today … and have compromised and maintained access to multiple government networks over the past five years, collecting communications and other valuable information."
A 2023 CSIS report says China "has repeatedly shown that it is willing to use clandestine and deceptive means to acquire intellectual property and advanced technologies from Canada and its allies … and is actively attempting to recruit Canadians with desirable expertise through social media platforms and talent recruitment firms."
Lu did not tell Natural Resources Canada before he left that he intended to complete publications with Chinese academics, and that dealings with Chinese academics and universities were approached with caution at the department.

Lu's jury trial in Ottawa's Superior Court is scheduled for January.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Kristy Nease

Senior writer, justice

CBC Ottawa senior writer Kristy Nease has covered news in the capital for 17 years, and previously worked at the Ottawa Citizen. She has handled topics including intimate partner violence and climate, and is currently focused on the courts and judicial affairs for all platforms. Get in touch: kristy.nease@cbc.ca, or 613-288-6435. Worried about your security? Find me on Signal — kristyneasecbc.613 — and send me a message.

The Fire of Stupidity Cannot Be Contained

The Fire of Stupidity Cannot Be Contained


Opinion


David French

The Fire of Stupidity Cannot Be Contained
May 31, 2026

Credit...Aleksey Kondratyev for The New York Times

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By David French


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It’s the year 2026, and sometimes it feels as if we’re taking a nice leisurely walk through a Museum of Wretched Ideas.

Consider what’s happening at home. Tariffs raise prices and restrain economic growth, while the federal government embraces both Gilded Age corruption and a version of the spoils system.

A disturbing number of young people on the right are fascinated with fascism. An extraordinary 34 percent of young people overall express a favourable view of communism, and young Americans are far more likely than their parents or grandparents to say that political violence is “sometimes OK.”

And hovering over American culture like a dark cloud is the rise of antisemitism on both the left and the right. Once again, ancient slanders are circulating through the culture.

Or consider what is happening abroad. Germany rearms to confront the Russian threat. Japan rearms to deter China. War rages in Europe and in the Middle East. Threats of territorial expansion haunt the world. Russia is trying to grab Ukraine. China continues to covet Taiwan. And the Trump administration, incredibly enough, has cast its expansionist eyes on Greenland.

When you step back and actually think about it, these trends are confounding. I mean, I can understand the temptation to return to some of the discredited ideas of the recent past, I guess, but to revive so many, all at once? And to do it so soon after those wretched ideas ravaged the world?

What is going on?

The answer lies in part in the interplay between two political sayings that are so oft-repeated that they have become clichés. When they should be top of mind, though, they seem to have lost their impact.

Here’s the first (and you can probably say it along with me), from George Santayana in 1905: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We can argue about the precise historical parallels, but the echoes of the past are everywhere.

Here’s the second, from Winston Churchill in 1947: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried.”

It is no coincidence that authoritarianism is once again appealing to people at a time when two things are happening at once. Liberal democracies are struggling to meet the needs of a substantial portion of their citizens, and entire generations have come of age with no living memory of the totalitarian horrors of the 20th century.

In other words, millions upon millions of people are enduring democracy as “the worst form of government” without the necessary balanced understanding (that citizens in the mid-20th century had gained through firsthand observation) of “except all those other forms that have been tried.”

So even fascism and communism — for some people, at least — are no longer avatars of atrocity, but dynamic alternatives to a sclerotic present. In their frustration, all too many people are attracted to the theoretical benefits of authoritarianism, and they don’t have the experience or the education to understand its actual and inevitable defects.

They do not understand the link between their fashionable and transgressive ideologies and the oceans of blood that fascism and communism spilled across the globe.

In this ahistorical context, even political violence can seem justified — perhaps even a bit daring and romantic — unless you’ve lived through, say, the riots that swept American cities in the 1960s, a cataclysm that was far more violent, deadly and prolonged than anything that happened in the United States in 2020.

The compromises and restraints of diplomacy, which can often mean granting painful concessions to terrible regimes, can seem like a fool’s errand, unless you’ve witnessed the indescribable horrors of world wars.

I’m reluctant to draw exact matches between current and past events. Should we compare Vladimir Putin’s ambitions in Ukraine with Hitler’s partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938? Or with Stalin’s Winter War against Finland at the outset of World War II? Or maybe it’s more reminiscent of the instability of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913.

As for the rise of antisemitism, are we approaching a dangerous spectrum that ranges from the Dreyfus Affair to Kristallnacht?

But debating the precise analogues can obscure the underlying truth — we are heading backward, toward the great crimes and mistakes of the past. We know what happens when militarily aggressive great powers seek more territory. We know what happens when a culture indulges — and promotes — conspiracy theories about Jews. We know that even the most utopian forms of authoritarianism devolve into regimes of grinding oppression and profound corruption. Some are always more equal than others.

In 2024, I taught an undergraduate class with a catchy title, “Why American Politics Went Insane.” At the risk of shortening a semester to a sentence, the devolution proceeded in three stages, from victory to separation to radicalization.

When the Cold War ended, the United States, for the first time since the wars against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, faced no external challenges to its prosperity and power. We were, in the words of the former French foreign minister Hubert Védrine, the “hyperpower.”

I began with “The End of History,” to borrow a term from Francis Fukuyama’s misunderstood book, but I began with his prescient warning near the end:


If men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier gen­eration, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and pros­perity, and against democracy.

That is exactly what we are doing. We are struggling against one another. Some of us are struggling against democracy itself. America is the only nation out of 25 comparable countries in which a majority of people believe that their fellow citizens are morally bad. It should be no surprise, then, that negative partisanship (when you support your party primarily because of your disdain for its opponents) is a central factor in American politics.

This drives us apart. Ever-increasing numbers of American citizens live in one-party states or so-called blowout counties, where one side or the other wins presidential elections by 50 points or more.

And what happens when people of like mind gather together? The law of group polarization, first applied to political decision-making by the law professor and author Cass Sunstein in 1999, teaches us that when like-minded people deliberate, they become more extreme.

Create a monoculture, and red becomes deep red. Blue becomes deep blue. And as the two sides move farther apart, both geographically and ideologically, we lose even the capacity to understand each other’s lives and thoughts.

If I taught the class over again, though, I’d add a fourth stage: amnesia. The problem isn’t just that we’re at each other’s throats; it’s that we’re turning to the worst of recent history’s alternative ideas in response.

It’s no coincidence that this is happening at a time when a generation of world leaders has no experience with world wars and rising millions of young people have no experience with real fascism and actual communism.

When experience ends, education has to begin. You can’t just know what the Holocaust was; you also have to understand the Holodomor. The phrase “the guns of August” should mean something to you, and when you see every great power press on the military gas — with no one pumping the brakes — that should trigger the most urgent concern.

Few things are demonstrating that what’s old is new again more than the rising tide of antisemitism. How many times must ancient lies be debunked? Must it happen every generation, for thousands of years?

So now we face a test. Can we educate ourselves away from disaster? Is there enough knowledge left to penetrate not just the minds, but also the hearts, of people who are deeply discontented?



A few weeks ago, a clip from the remarkable HBO series “Band of Brothers” went viral online. It was from the episode in which the boys of Easy Company discover a concentration camp. The impact is visceral. It’s impossible for a decent person to watch it without vowing to himself or herself, “Never again.”

I’m also reminded of a horrific scene at the opening of Netflix’s science fiction drama “3 Body Problem,” featuring a struggle session during China’s Cultural Revolution. Once again, the impact is visceral. The brutality is hard to watch.

Television isn’t enough. Books aren’t enough. The stories of fathers and mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, aren’t enough. It will take everything — watching, reading, listening — to make us remember.

We have to know that the world as it is, with all its inefficiencies and injustices, is better than the world that was. I pray that we can learn that lesson before bitter experience teaches us once again that this imperfect democracy and this frustrating liberal world order are infinitely better than the violence and oppression — the deliberate starvation and slaughter of millions of men, women and children — of the none-too-distant past.
More on democracy and political extremism

Opinion | M. Gessen and Máté Bartha
This Is the Formula That Defeated Orban. It Would Defeat Trump, Too.
May 29, 2026

Video
Why the Liberal Narrative Is ‘Collapsing’
May 27, 2026

Is It Fascism? A Leading Historian Changes His Mind.
Oct. 23, 2024


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David French is an Opinion columnist, writing about law, culture, religion and armed conflict. He is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former constitutional litigator. His most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.” You can follow him on Threads (@davidfrenchjag).
A version of this article appears in print on June 2, 2026, Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: The Fire Of Stupidity Cannot Be Contained. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Apple sues OpenAI over alleged theft of hardware trade secrets

 

Apple sues OpenAI over alleged theft of hardware trade secrets

Apple has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI alleging the systematic theft of hardware trade secrets, naming OpenAI's chief hardware officer, Tang Tan, a 24-year Apple veteran, as a defendant. According to the filing, Tan directed job candidates still employed by Apple to bring physical parts from the company to their interviews for what the suit describes as "show and tell" sessions designed to extract confidential information. A separate defendant, former Apple employee Chang Liu, is alleged to have stolen an Apple laptop upon departing for OpenAI. Apple stated in a representative's comment to CNBC that significant evidence recently emerged suggesting that individuals at OpenAI wrongfully took secret information about unreleased technologies, processes, and products, with specifics in the filing reaching down to proprietary metal-finishing techniques.

The timing is striking given that the two companies remain active partners, with ChatGPT baked into Apple's iPhone software. The lawsuit lands less than a month after OpenAI was reported to have threatened Apple with its own legal action over the terms of that partnership, a move that, in retrospect, looks like an extraordinary miscalculation. Apple also has reason to be sensitive about OpenAI's broader hardware ambitions, particularly following OpenAI's acquisition of the Jony Ive-founded design firm io, an effort widely seen as aimed at building a device to compete with the iPhone and staffed in no small part with Apple recruits.

If the allegations hold up, the consequences for OpenAI could extend well beyond legal fees, potentially derailing the company's hardware ambitions for years at the precise moment it has assembled the software foundation to support them.

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What’s up with home insurance nonpayment rates?

 What’s up with home insurance nonpayment rates?

If the arrival of the Summer House reunion special didn’t already tip you off, the US is entering disaster season. But, according to the Wall Street Journal, “many Americans face a near flip-of-the-coin chance” that they’ll get relief from home insurance carriers when weather damages their house. Insurance, not assurance In the outlet’s analysis, the five biggest home insurance groups—Allstate, Farmers Insurance, Liberty Mutual, State Farm, and United Services Automobile Association (USAA)—didn’t pay out on more than 44% of claims resolved last year. That’s up from 36% in 2015. Some of the reasons why include: New risk-assessment methods. Traditionally, insurers based underwriting on historical data—what has happened—but are increasingly using predictive models—what they believe will happen—to set premiums. The use of drone footage to calculate a home’s “risk score” is also driving up costs for some customers. Reinsurance costs. The term essentially refers to insurance for insurance companies, and those prices have increased, too. The rise of extreme weather. A report produced by the Treasury Department last year found that the number of weather and climate disasters causing more than $1 billion in damage increased 5x from 2018 through 2022. Covid-19. Yes, really. Experts say that pandemic-era supply chain snarls and insurance companies’ losses from them continue to be a hidden driver of price hikes. But insurance companies want you to know…that people aren’t super good at filling out claim submissions. Several insurers said that the rise in claims filed by text or through an app has led to more submittals that aren’t up to snuff. A USAA spokesperson said that the WSJ’s number-crunching did not account for “losses below a deductible, claims not pursued by customers, or claims later reopened and paid.” With those accounted for, he said, fewer than 6% of USAA claims were denied. Zoom out: In a Pew Research Center survey of homeowners conducted in March, 42% of respondents said that home insurance premiums have increased by “a lot” over the past few years. Since homeowners insurance is required to secure a mortgage, the ramifications impact consumer spending, the housing market, and more

B.C. government approves higher Mount Polley tailings dam, 12 years after disaster - irresponsible?

 

B.C. government approves higher Mount Polley tailings dam, 12 years after disaster

VICTORIA — Ministers in British Columbia have approved plans to increase the height of the tailings storage facility at the Mount Polley copper and gold mine, the site of a catastrophic dam collapse more than a decade ago.

Canadian Pressabout 16 hours agoabout 15 hours ago

An aerial view shows the debris going into Quesnel Lake caused by a tailings pond breach near the town of Likely, B.C., on August, 5, 2014. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

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VICTORIA — Ministers in British Columbia have approved plans to increase the height of the tailings storage facility at the Mount Polley copper and gold mine, the site of a catastrophic dam collapse more than a decade ago.

The government says the height increase, which had been subject to a court challenge, is part of an expansion of the mine that will allow production to continue until 2033, protecting 430 jobs.

The plan, approved by Environment Minister Tamara Davidson and Mining Minister Jagrup Brar, will allow the mine to raise the height of the tailings storage facility by 13 metres, bringing the dam height to 77 metres.

A statement from the Environmental Assessment Office says the ministers agreed that the proposed changes are not likely to result in significant new impacts compared with the existing approved operations.

A similar storage site at the mine in B.C.'s Cariboo region collapsed in August 2014, spilling about 25 million cubic metres of water and tailings into nearby waterways in one of the worst environmental disasters in the province's history.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge dismissed efforts last year by the Xat'sull First Nation to put a stop to plans to increase the level of the dam by four metres after the nation unsuccessfully argued that it had not been properly consulted.

The plans still need the appropriate permit amendments to be approved under the Mines Act.

The government statement says the overall mine area for Mount Polley remains unchanged, but raising the dam will increase the footprint of the tailings storage facility by approximately 28 hectares.

In their reasons for the decision, the ministers acknowledge that the Xat'sull First Nation has appealed the court decision and "remains concerned about the use of this process while the appeal is ongoing."

They say the First Nation views the process as "inadequate and inconsistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples."

Davidson and Brar write that they are satisfied that regulatory mechanisms provide appropriate oversight to respond to issues raised by the nation around potential effects on water quality, aquatic health, fish and fish habitat, and closure and reclamation.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 9, 2026.

Finance Interactive Dictionary

  Finance Interactive Dictionary

Author: R.G.Richardson
Finance Interactive Dictionary - multi-language search updated 2026. Balancing the definitions between the old and the new! A biannual updated series of economics, Markets, Finance, money, and Banking. Available on Amazon and Kobo/Rakuten.

This search is in English, Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Indian, Portuguese and Japanese!
Economic Interactive Notes, Financial Market, Money and Banking terms and definitions with over 9900 quick links! Great for students or anyone who wants to keep up with all the terminology. This is a live interactive series that helps guide you and keeps you up to date on all the economic terminology past and present, including access to charts, graphs and video presentations on the subject. An educational learning tool that keeps businesses and students on the same page! This is all about pick and click, no more typing, with over 9900 preset searches for 8 search engines, including Qwant! These guides never go out of date due to the power of the internet! You can now avoid spelling mistakes and language difficulties, making the guide simple enough even for those with learning disabilities to use. Pick and click on the icon, never goes out of date! Interactive internet pages!

RG Richardson Interactive Money and Banking is a must-have for ever-changing financial definitions between the old and the new!
Since 2003

DuckDuckGo's Doing Numbers After Pitching Itself as the Home of AI-Free Web Searches

 DuckDuckGo's Doing Numbers After Pitching Itself as the Home of AI-Free Web Searches

DuckDuckGo’s Doing Numbers After Pitching Itself as the Home of AI-Free Web Searches
AI haters are leaving Google in droves.
BY JUSTIN CAFFIERPUBLISHED JUNE 1, 2026, 6:35 PM ET

READING TIME 3 MINUTES

© sdx15 (Shutterstock)
READ LATER COMMENTS (28)



As AI is increasingly injected into every facet of our lives whether we like it or not, it seems we can only watch in a mixture of horror and frustration as so many of our once-reliable institutions become unusable husks of their former selves. Take, for instance, Google. The search engine’s PageRank algorithm was such a massive hit when it launched that it wasn’t long before contemporary competitors like WebCrawler, Lycos, and AskJeeves were swept into the dustbin of history and Google experienced brand verbification, its name now synonymous with online queries.


Cut to the sorry state of affairs a quarter century later. Google Search is still the top website in the world in terms of page visits, but the bloom is clearly off the rose, and AI seems to be the source of customer dissatisfaction. After Alphabet began injecting artificial intelligence summaries at the top of its search results, users started noticing some weird answers that ranged from innocuously funny to downright dangerous. Google AI claimed that not a single country in Africa begins with the letter K. It also suggested one could improve a pizza recipe by adding glue to the cheese, and cited the health benefits of eating rocks. While many of these hallucinations have been reined in by Google devs, the AI just keeps coming. Last month, Google announced that even more AI was coming Google Search:




Users have started leaving the search giant in droves.

The exodus from Google Search can also be attributed to frustration with an apparent dip in search result quality, but it comes at a time when the masses are turning on AI writ large. It turns out that the brave new world being forced, top down, from the Silicon Valley bubble has little appeal to the average person. The prospect of eliminated jobs, endless slop made from stolen art, and a planet-destroying data center in every town somehow just isn’t appealing to the masses. It’s no wonder that one of Google’s competitors, DuckDuckGo, is leaning heavily into anti-AI rhetoric, hoping to establish itself as an AI-less promised land for those who yearn to be free.

As reported in TechCrunch, DuckDuckGo’s newly launched browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox allow users to set the site’s AI-free experience at noai.duckduckgo.com as their default. On this page, users won’t be bothered by AI-assisted answers or prompts to chat and their image search results will contain fewer images generated by AI, according to the company. And unlike with Google, those who opt for DuckDuckGo’s AI-free experience won’t find it mysteriously keeps reverting back to the AI-filled option.

Since Google announced it were essentially pot-committed to AI-first search results at their developer conference in early May, DuckDuckGo has reportedly experienced an explosion in traffic, with week-over-week installs of their app up 18.1% between May 20 and 25 and visits to their AI-less search page up 22.7% in that same timeframe.

Though it is primarily positioned as a privacy-focused company and not outright against AI, by courting the AI weary, DuckDuckGo’s seems to be savvily reading the writing on the wall, making itself a welcome sanctuary to at least a few of those posting about it online.
“Genuinely one of the only ad[s] i actually liked and upvoted,” commented Reddit user Ass_Lover136 in a glowing r/antiai post of one of DuckDuckGo’s ads on the platform. At time of publication, the comment had received 454 upvotes of agreement.

While seeking refuge from AI and the entities coercing us to use them is all well and good, let’s not go overboard or forget that none of these companies, DuckDuckGo, Google, or whoever comes next, regards its users as anything beyond a vehicle to make money.

Study reports inconsistencies in the Canadian Youth employment process

Study reports inconsistencies in the Canadian Youth employment process



Sherbrooke Record · 16 hours ago
by Matthew Mccully · Demographics

Young people job-searching and business owners not on the same page

Record Staff (HB)

A new report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) reveals fundamental discrepancies at every stage of the hiring process in Canada. These include how employers recruit and how young people look for work; their respective expectations of employment; the positions young people are willing to take; and the skills employers seek. This report is based on a survey of small business owners (SBO) and a public opinion poll of young Canadians, according to the press release.

The survey reported that 62 per cent of small business owners rely primarily on their personal contacts to recruit employees, as candidates benefit from the credibility of the person who recommends them. Meanwhile, 73 per cent of young people primarily use job search websites, and only half turn to their personal networks. This disconnect means that employers are recruiting from networks where young people are not actively seeking employment. Work-study programs and internships, which lead to permanent employment in 73 per cent of cases, are used by 25 per cent of young people, and by only 1 in 5 small businesses, indicating a missed opportunity to recruit young people ready to work.

When hiring young people, SBOs place more importance on “soft” skills, such as a positive attitude (91 per cent), motivation (84 per cent), and professionalism (76 per cent), than on degrees, experience, or formal training. These qualities are primarily found in the service sector, skilled trades, and physically demanding jobs, which are precisely the positions that many young Canadians reject. Nearly 50 per cent refuse to consider jobs requiring significant physical effort or night shifts, while almost two out of five do not consider working outdoors.

“The reality is that there are jobs that young Canadians don’t want, can’t, or aren’t willing to take. Whether it’s a resort in northern British Columbia or a restaurant in rural New Brunswick, businesses need workers to maintain their operations and support their local economy. Many young people cannot or do not want to relocate or work the required hours, especially if they are students. If businesses cannot fill these positions, they may have to close,” explained Bérengère Fouqueray, CFIB research analyst, in the release.

Tight margins and persistent economic uncertainty make it more difficult for SBOs to hire new, inexperienced workers. Although most SBOs offer wages above the provincial minimums, which ranges from $15 to $18 per hour, more than a third of young people say they are not interested in minimum-wage jobs.

Additionally, more than two-thirds of SBOs are unaware of government hiring assistance programs. Those familiar with these programs describe them as poorly adapted to the operational realities of SBOs, whose application processes are complicated and deadlines inconvenient. Fouqueray elaborated: “Young workers often need additional training and mentoring, which reduces the time they can dedicate to running the business. This time represents a real cost that should be factored into any public policy aimed at combating youth unemployment.”

The CFIB is calling on governments to reduce payroll taxes, introduce permanent refundable tax credits for hiring young people through work-study programs and internships, and streamline programs like Canada Summer Jobs to reduce red tape.

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College Professors Say Incoming Students No Longer Understand Middle School Math and Science

College Professors Say Incoming Students No Longer Understand Middle School Math and Science
"We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics."


By Frank Landymore


Published Jun 3, 2026 3:01 PM EDT
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Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Shutterstock




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As rampant AI use accelerates a crisis in education, University of California professors are pleading with leadership to reinstate college-entrance exams, The Wall Street Journal reports, claiming that incoming students barely have a middle-school level understanding of math and other subjects.

Their request, made in a letter last week, will be a controversial one. Entrance exams like the SAT and ACT have long been criticized for exacerbating racial inequality. Taking them isn’t free, and nor is participating in rigorous preparation courses, with wealthier and usually white children thirteen times likelier to get a high score on either test than kids from low-income families, one study led by Harvard researchers found.

Nonetheless, UC math and science professors find the situation on the ground to be untenable, with the letter claiming that nearly a third of students taking their first semester calculus course at UC Berkeley are now displaying “severe preparation deficits.”

“We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics while simultaneously teaching the material students need for sciences, engineering, economics, and other quantitatively demanding fields,” the faculty wrote, as quoted by the WSJ. “UC has finite resources and can help only so many students.”

As the COVID pandemic gripped the US in 2020, many schools, UC included, began making SAT and ACT exams optional. Today, more than 90 percent of schools don’t require them, Harry Feder, executive director of educational policy group FairTest, which advocates against the exams, told the WSJ.

But elite colleges have been reversing course. MIT reinstated its SAT requirement in 2022, as did Harvard and Dartmouth College in 2024, and Yale University last month. UC has stood its ground, encouraging prospective students to study, write essays, and take up extracurricular activities instead, according to the reporting.

One thing that’s undeniable: the education landscape is drastically different to what it looked like just a few years ago. AI chatbots and other AI tools have ushered in rampant cheating. Where its use is considered within ethical academic bounds, many educators are skeptical that AI facilitates actual learning, with numerous studies linking heavy AI use to impaired critical thinking skills and memory loss. One found that students who used ChatGPT to help write essays had lower brain activity in areas corresponding to creativity compared to students who only used a traditional Google search or didn’t look up information at all.

All the while, grade inflation has skyrocketed across the country since the mainstream adoption of ChatGPT and other AI tools, with recent research showing that the share of A grades in courses more vulnerable to AI cheating — typically in the humanities and engineering — surged by about 30 percent since 2023.

But is the answer to these deeply-rooted issues reinstating mandatory testing? It’s debatable, and you could argue that it’d be the equivalent of slapping on a band-aid to treat a disease. It’s clear that the education system is failing young students, and unless serious conversations are had about myriad systemic issues, plus the incursion of AI — which is fueled by institutions happy to take Big Tech money — the situation isn’t going to improve.

More on education: Major Teachers Union Pleads With Elementary Schools to Stop Giving Young Kids AI




Frank Landymore
Contributing Writer


I’m a tech and science correspondent for Futurism, where I’m particularly interested in astrophysics, the business and ethics of artificial intelligence and automation, and the environment.

June home sales disappoint as prices reach an all-time high

  June home sales disappoint as prices reach an all-time high

June home sales disappoint as prices reach an all-time high
Published Thu, Jul 9 202610:00 AM EDT

Diana Olick@in/dianaolick@DianaOlickCNBC@DianaOlickWATCH LIVE

Key Points
Sales of previously owned homes in June dropped 2.4% from May.
Inventory at the end of June was 1.56 million units, down 0.6% from May but 1.3% higher than June 2025.
One quarter of all sales were all-cash, down from 29% last year.


A for sale sign is posted in front of a home on April 13, 2026 in Pasadena, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images


High mortgage rates coupled with record-high prices is causing homebuyers to pull back.

Sales of previously owned homes in June dropped 2.4% from May to 4.09 million units on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, according to the National Association of Realtors. Housing analysts were predicting a slight gain month over month.


June sales were, however, were 2.8% higher than the same month a year prior.

“The back-and-forth in monthly home sales activity, driven by mild fluctuations in mortgage rates, shows how sensitive home buyers are to affordability conditions,” said Lawrence Yun, the Realtors’ chief economist, in a release. “However, job gains—more than half a million since the beginning of the year—will continue to provide support for the housing market.”

This count represents closed sales, so contracts that were likely signed in May, when the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage was still moving higher. It began rising sharply at the start of March at the start of the Iran war.

Inventory at the end of June was 1.56 million units, down 0.6% from May but 1.3% higher than June 2025. At the current sales pace, that represents a 4.6-month supply. The market is considered balanced between buyer and seller at a 6-month supply.

With the market still lean, prices continue to rise. The median price of an existing home sold in June was $440,600, an increase of 1.8% from the year before and the highest on record. June is usually the strongest month for both sales and prices.


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“Progress on long-term housing affordability could be hampered if inventory growth continues to stall. Without consistent gains in inventory, home prices can accelerate. It is critical to introduce more supply to the market to widen the opportunity for homeownership,” Yun said.

Sales continue to be strongest on the higher end of the market. Sales of homes priced below $100,000 were down 1.7% from a year ago, and sales of those priced between $100,000 and $250,000 were up less than 1%. Meanwhile sales of homes priced between $750,000 and $1 million were up nearly 14% from the year before, and sales of homes priced above $1 million were up 18%.

Regionally, home sales were down in June month over month everywhere except in the Northeast.

One quarter of all sales were all-cash, down from 29% last year. First-time buyers made up 33% of sales, up from 30% a year ago.

My last dance at Race Week

 My last dance at Race Week

The phrase, "If you build it, he will come", is from the 1989 movie Field of Dreams. Over time, this evolved into the popular idiom "If you build it, they will come", but this is typically naive.

Simply creating something great isn't enough; you still need to build and support the audience. When recreational sailing succeeds, there tends to be someone leading the charge. In this report by Schelleen Rathkopf, she reflects on her journey in the Pacific Northwest, and her hope that someone carries on the effort:

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Twenty-five years is a really long time. A quarter of a century. That's how long I've attended Race Week. My kids grew up with it, and we built our summer vacations around it. On Race Committee, I was the official timer, and I was once compared to a metronome in Sailing World magazine!

I took the helm of Race Week in 2014, and have been producing the event ever since.

I've raced, partied, and played and I've had some of my best weeks of summer with my family at Race Week. But the time is right to pass the Race Week torch on to someone new! This summer will be my last dance at Race Week, and my hope is that someone will step up and carry the torch forward! (PM me if this is you!)

Since its inception on Whidbey Island in 1983, Race Week has been important to so many in the sailboat racing community. To celebrate, I've extended the 2026 registration deadline to June 15, hoping that more of you will join our Race Week family to mark the end of an era!

Thank you to all of you who have supported Race Week over the years!