Source: Engadget
“California has enacted new legislation to protect workers from AI-powered layoffs and surveillance, governor Gavin Newsom announced. The new laws are mostly aimed at companies using AI to initiate job cuts or monitor employees, not about harnessing the tech to replace workers. However, it’s some of the first legislation in the nation that gives employees rights [sic] about how AI can be deployed in the workplace. … Divided into multiple bills, the new law prohibits employers from only relying on AI when making a disciplinary action or termination decision, and forces companies to provide transparency if any mass layoff, relocation or termination is caused by an AI system. It also protects against the use of surveillance tools in workplace bathrooms and prohibits lawyers from ‘fully handing over core legal work’ like drafting briefs, to AI.” (10/01/26)
https://www.engadget.com/2274224/california-law-bans-companies-from-relying-on-ai-to-fire-workers/
Source: Law & Liberty
by Michael C Munger
“Afriend of mine was once mayor of a small city, about forty thousand souls. A local landowner petitioned to develop single-family homes on a parcel he owned, about 20 acres. It was ‘ranch land,’ given over to meadows with a few copses of trees. Lovely place. When the hearing was held over this development, there was a surprise waiting: all six neighbors showed up to insist, vociferously, that the rancher must not be allowed to develop the land. They said they preferred the meadows and trees. I don’t doubt they were telling the truth. Now, it might seem there is a striking disconnect here, a tension between American attitudes toward private property and a ‘right’ to use public shouting to dictate how other people can use their property. If those six people really valued the land as scenery, they could have bought it.” (09/30/26)
https://lawliberty.org/forum/zoning-and-the-american-way/
Source: Yahoo! News
“Pakistan has launched fresh airstrikes in Afghanistan, targeting the alleged hideouts of Islamist militants blamed for deadly cross-border attacks, officials said on Thursday. At least two hideouts were targeted in the provinces of Helmand and Kunar in early morning airstrikes, Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said. At least 22 militants were killed and their arms and ammunition were destroyed, Tarar said in a statement. Afghanistan’s Taliban government, however, said homes were hit in the strikes, killing nine civilians, including women and children.” (10/01/26)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/pakistan-launches-fresh-airstrikes-afghanistan-063333391.html
Source: The American Conservative
by Luke Nicastro
“In 1626, England’s Parliament sought to impeach the Duke of Buckingham, a widely despised advisor to King Charles I. The king moved quickly to shield his favorite; on hearing the news, he said curtly that Parliament would sit ‘not a minute’ more and gave orders for its immediate dissolution. Exactly four centuries later, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) has taken a page from the Stuart playbook, dismissing our own legislature (or at least, its lower chamber) to protect an unpopular official. … even an unsuccessful impeachment measure would be politically embarrassing, both for Johnson and the White House. But there may be another reason the GOP establishment went to such lengths to scuttle the vote. Already Democrats are salivating over the prospect of wielding state power against their political enemies, should they regain power.” (09/30/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/why-a-hegseth-impeachment-terrifies-the-gop/
Source: The Hill
“Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked a bill sponsored by vulnerable GOP incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts (Neb.) to restrict members of Congress from buying new stocks of publicly traded companies, arguing the legislation didn’t go far enough to crack down on possible corruption. The Stop Insider Trading Act failed by a vote of 53-47. No Democrat voted in support of the measure. It needed 60 votes to advance on the Senate floor. Ricketts, who is facing a competitive race in Nebraska, argued before the vote that his bill would ‘ban congressional insider trading’ and touted it as a ‘commonsense’ reform that ‘we need to pass.’ It passed the House in July by a vote of 232-198 with the support of 13 Democrats.” (09/30/26)
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/6120528-senate-blocks-gop-stock-bill
Source: Semafor
by David Weigel
“As they prepared for Republicans to drop another billion dollars of ads on their heads this summer, Democrats passed around fresh advice on gender politics. A memo from the Transgender Freedom Alliance, based on focus groups and polling in battleground states, warned that Democrats lost ground if they ignored anti-trans attacks — ubiquitous GOP ads about ‘boys in girls’ sports’ and ‘child sex changes.’ The group advised Democrats to respond, then accuse Republicans of being ‘focused on transgender people instead of helping you.’ Right now, as they compete for states that Trump won by double digits, Democrats are feeling great about that guidance.” (09/30/26)
https://www.semafor.com/article/09/30/2026/how-democrats-learned-to-stop-worrying-about-gender-politics
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“On Monday, the largest rocket ever built reached low earth orbit (about 170 miles above Earth’s surface) for the first time. That same day, back on terra firma, a massive, custom-built machine that can bore 280 feet below the surface was ceremonially switched on to launch an ambitious tunneling project. Despite an engine failure and a shortened mission time frame, SpaceX’s Starship successfully launched 26 satellites. The company’s next challenge will be returning the rocket back to its launch area in Texas. On the East Coast, meanwhile, the $16 billion Hudson Gateway project to build two new rail tunnels linking New Jersey and Manhattan has faced its share of technical and funding challenges. When completed, it will supplement the under-river railway links that were a technological marvel in their time – more than a century ago.” (09/29/26)
https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0929/Innovation-s-secret-sauce-Less-fear-more-forgiveness
Source: Yahoo! News
“Before Stonehenge was raised, before Egypt’s first pyramid broke ground, before the Nazca people drew their famous lines across the Peruvian desert, someone in what is now southern Arizona shaped a 272-foot fish into the earth. On April 23, 2026, a border-wall contractor drove heavy equipment across it. Conservation advocates describe the damage as irreparable. … The Las Playas Intaglio sits inside the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, west of Ajo, Arizona. A geoglyph is an image made by scraping or arranging the desert surface; this one, shaped like a fish, stretches roughly 272 feet in length. … Earlier estimates placed the carving at roughly 1,000 years old. Archaeologists David S. Whitley and geologist Ronald I. Dorn …. revised that estimate dramatically. Their findings, published in The SAA Archaeological Record in September 2026, date the intaglio conservatively at 6,500 to 7,300 years old, with the possibility it is closer to 7,500 years old.” (09/30/26)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/trump-border-wall-construction-destroys-151232210.html
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders getting slammed for her recent anti-welfare ad.” (09/30/26)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/6101141-rising-september-30-2026/
Source: Expression
by Jacob Mchangama
“He called free speech ‘the dread of tyrants’ and a ‘sacred right.’ The Civil War tested that principle. Did it extend even to supporters of the Confederacy?” (09/30/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/was-frederick-douglass-a-free-speech
