Politics
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Parmy Olson: Some Anthropic engineers think AI might end us. Why race ahead?
It’s becoming harder for Anthropic PBC to justify some of the most unfalsifiable circular logic to ever come out of Silicon Valley: the pursuit of artificial superintelligence, which by its own admission could kill a lot of humans.
Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon recently resigned, saying that his previous employer and its rival OpenAI were ...Read more
Editorial: R-E-S-P-E-C-T is the only way for AI advocates to deal with data center haters
The rapid backlash to data centers and artificial intelligence has taken many in the tech and finance worlds by surprise.
Understandable. Only a few short years ago, states and municipalities were competing with each other to lure data center developers, dangling tax incentives for projects they thought would create jobs and generate tax ...Read more
Editorial: There was a deadly crash, but Miami-Dade's top officials worried about camera time
The shock of a cargo airplane crash at Miami International Airport was still fresh, five people were dead, flights were delayed — and Miami-Dade’s most powerful politicians were at odds over who got to speak first at a news conference.
The confrontation caught by a hot mic Sunday between Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz and a staffer for Mayor ...Read more
Rochelle Olson: Trump should end the rudderless Hegseth era at the Pentagon
In his November 2024 victory speech, President Donald Trump said, “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.”
He promised “peace through strength,” then put Fox News weekend host Pete Hegseth of Forest Lake at the helm of the Department of Defense.
Hegseth is the only Minnesotan in Trump’s Cabinet. I wish he were ...Read more
Commentary: The case against cutting Social Security benefits
Are Social Security benefits too generous? Some fiscal hawks and classic conservatives say the answer is yes, and see the upcoming depletion of the trust fund as an opportunity to rein them in. Social Security was meant to be insurance against poverty, they say, not the sole source of income for a middle-class retirement. The program needs to ...Read more
Catherine Thorbecke: You don't have to trust Chinese AI
When DeepSeek’s reasoning model burst onto the scene last year and put Chinese artificial intelligence on the global map, the internet responded by probing its views on Taiwan or Tiananmen Square.
Unsurprisingly, the AI tool demurred or straight-up lied. But the gotcha moment obscured an important question. Would it matter to businesses ...Read more
Editorial: Welcome back to college -- Start thinking about a job
The Labor Department’s release of its August jobs report landed just as college students swarmed into Boston. The two events are coincidental, but shouldn’t be.
College students, new or returning, should pay attention to such reports. The U.S. labor market bounced back in August as employers added 162,000 jobs, according to the Associated ...Read more
Editorial: Fetterman's shiftlessness is an insult to his office and all Pennsylvanians
News flash: U.S. Sen. John Fetterman is still an embarrassment.
The Pennsylvania Democrat enjoys one of the cushiest jobs in America, but he can’t perform basic duties like voting, attending committee hearings, or meeting with constituents.
Fetterman’s disdain for the job — which comes with a $174,000 annual salary, free healthcare, and ...Read more
Aaron Brown: Imagining data centers for people who hate data centers
Most people are at least skeptical of data centers, if not outright opposed. And yet, if you follow tech news, data centers are presented as inevitable. If we allow them, we risk consequences. We’re told the same goes if we don’t allow them. This coming collision between public opinion and economic drive threatens to shake our society in a ...Read more
Commentary: A year after Midway Blitz, Illinois must decide whether the law applies to federal agents
One year ago, the federal government launched Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago. Four days later, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Silverio Villegas González in Franklin Park after he dropped his children off at school.
What followed is now well documented on real-time video and victim outcries. Victims and ...Read more
Editorial: Trump's unpopular technology agenda could become a liability
President Donald Trump returned to office after campaigning on inflation, immigration, crime, trade, energy independence and foreign wars. Yet several prominent features of his second-term agenda — prediction markets, cryptocurrency derivatives and massive artificial-intelligence data centers — were scarcely discussed during the campaign and...Read more
Anita Chabria: Will 'Coxon Day' save us from AI destruction?
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — If artificial intelligence doesn’t destroy humanity and there are actually future generations that look back, Sept. 8, 2026, may come to be known as “Coxon Day.”
That would be a reference to 27-year-old Jacob Coxon, an AI researcher and whistleblower at Anthropic (and previously OpenAI) who resigned in protest of ...Read more
Mark Gongloff: Trump's $5,000 payout promise is soaked in flop sweat
During the 2016 election, 8 million years ago, there was a big debate about whether we should take the many outrageous things President Donald Trump said seriously or literally, or both, or neither. Somehow, even as Trump’s rhetoric regularly attains new heights of ridiculousness, that debate is still relevant. And too many of us are still ...Read more
Scott Maxwell: 9/11 lesson 25 years later: 'Don't forget the 'I love you's''
ORLANDO, Fla. — Neil Peraza was working at his office in Orlando when he first heard the news and hurried to find a TV.
Like most Americans, he saw the same images playing on an endless, horrific loop — two planes crashing into the World Trade Center.
The disaster was nightmarish in scale. Yet Peraza had only one person on his mind: His ...Read more
Commentary: Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem left us with the same lesson
For many of us, the summer is ending in a paroxysm of grief. Perennials we believed would last forever have perished.
Over mere weeks, we lost a legendary performer, a feminist trailblazer and a living memorial.
I never met Dolly Parton, but I feel as if I knew her. Don’t we all? And while I heard her perform many times, it was her acting ...Read more
Commentary: How I learned civic engagement is real -- it's how democracy works
Twenty-eight years ago, I was a high school student in Sunnyside, Washington, when I first learned how directly politics could shape the course of a life.
On November 3rd, 1998, the passage of I-200, which eliminated affirmative action in college admissions, made me wonder whether students like me — First Gen, Rural, Low Income, Chicano — ...Read more
Ronald Brownstein: This Alaska race is a window into the battle for the Senate
Democrat Mary Peltola has many things breaking her way in her bid to unseat Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan in Alaska. But Sullivan has one big thing working for him. Whether that’s enough will likely determine whether he wins reelection — while also offering clues about the fate of other red-state Republican senators this year.
Alaska ...Read more
Commentary: If we oppose puppy mills, why do they still exist?
A Massachusetts couple chose a breeder recommended by a friend. They received photos and videos of the puppy they wanted and paid a substantial amount for her, believing they had found a breeder they could trust. Then the puppy arrived.
In Time magazine, veterinarian Dr. Karen Fine recalled examining the tiny dog just days after the family ...Read more
Commentary: Is AI worth the cost to communities?
Picture a family living on a quiet street in an idyllic small town. Then a data center moves in next door. Trees are knocked down for a sprawling industrial campus, an enormous windowless building rises, and a maddening hum continues day and night. The family closes its windows, abandons the backyard, and struggles to sleep. Open space ...Read more
Editorial: The lessons we must take from 9/11 today
Friday marks the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. While much of the focus rightly goes to the catastrophic attacks on the World Trade Center, Americans must remember that the attacks were strategically coordinated to target the Pentagon, as well as a planned attempt on a target in Washington, D.C., possibly the U.S....Read more

















































