“Wow: United Federation of Teachers chief Mike Mulgrew says the feds should have nothing to do with local schools — the same position as the most hidebound conservatives. At least, that’s what he says: ‘Giving up local control of public education to the federal government through the Trump administration’s private school-voucher scheme is a failure of leadership’, Mulgrew huffed after Gov. Kathy Hochul officially allowed New York families to benefit from federal Education Freedom scholarships. In fact, it’s the ‘education freedom’ part that Mike really hates, but telling the truth rarely serves his interests. The scholarships are not a ‘private school’ scheme; they can support a public education, too — if the family that receives one so chooses. But any parent power is a problem for the UFT, since the union depends on kids having no choice but to attend the schools that employ its members, no matter how rotten.” (10/14/26)
“When it comes to investment and growth in artificial intelligence, American firms are undisputed world leaders. But in overall innovation across the global economy, the United States is edged out by two much smaller nations. In the recently published Global Innovation Index 2026, the 1-2-3 ranking of Switzerland, Sweden, and the U.S. remains unchanged from that of the preceding three years. (Switzerland has occupied the No. 1 spot since 2011, with Sweden and the U.S. occasionally trading places, and with South Korea and Singapore completing the top five in recent years.) Counter to recent pessimistic assessments of the continent’s innovation and growth potential, European nations occupy 14 of the top 25 spots in this index. This positioning points to perhaps unheralded strengths in Europe’s slower but steadier path, when compared with the high-valuation, high-competition, AI-fueled trajectories of the U.S. and China.” (10/13/26)
“Alfred Nobel intended the peace prize for those who had done the most to advance peace among nations. Instead, it is increasingly handed out to the international activist class: people who say the right things, back the right causes and appeal to the political instincts of a handful of parliamentarians in a rarefied progressive bubble. This year’s award to Navi Pillay is a case in point. Pillay is best known for chairing the U.N. commission of inquiry that accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. Her selection will inevitably be read as an endorsement of a U.N. culture in which hostility to Israel is not a liability but a badge of moral seriousness. But there is more to Pillay’s record than the commission’s fixation on Israel.” (10/14/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Today I saw a post from a popular Twitter account saying, ‘As soon as AI is good enough to write blog posts in my voice as good as I would have written them, i intend to use AI to do so. I know what I want to say, and I could say so much more if I didn’t need to manual labor the words out one by one.’ ‘I kinda hate writing,’ she said further down in the thread. This sucks. I don’t like what we’re becoming. I don’t like how AI is making us so dumb so quickly that the simple act of writing is already being described as ‘manual laboring the words out one by one’, like it’s some superhuman feat of exertion that nobody should be expected to be capable of.” (10/14/26)
“Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a major case pitting privacy advocates against media companies. By any measure, Salazar v. Paramount Global is a blockbuster case in the making. At issue is the use of viewing habits by companies offering free subscriptions and material to the public. These companies make money by then using that history for tailored marketing programs. Michael Salazar is arguing that a Blockbuster-era law should prevent such sharing of his viewing history, a ruling that would have a massive impact on media and entertainment companies. Salazar involves a law passed 40 years ago after a controversy during the confirmation hearings of Robert Bork, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan.” (10/14/26)
“U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace’s former fiancé and two of his business associates were charged with sex crimes and voyeurism on Wednesday over an episode the South Carolina congresswoman described in detail during a speech last year on the House floor about how crimes against women are not investigated thoroughly. John Douglas Osborne committed sex acts on a 23-year-old incapacitated and intoxicated woman while Mace’s ex-fiancé Patrick Bryant and Eric Bernard Bowman watched, according to sworn statements by agents from the State Law Enforcement Division, which brought the charges. The men talked about who would assault the woman beforehand, took photos and recorded the assault, which was also seen on a security system feed at the home in Sullivan’s Island, an affluent suburb of Charleston, state agents said.” (10/14/26)
“Netflix has said it will cut 1,000 jobs globally as the streaming giant faces competition from rivals. The cuts – the steepest since 2022 – will mainly affect its human resources, legal, product and technology teams and equates to around 6% of its total workforce. Last month, Netflix ‘s co-chief executive, Ted Sarandos, told the Bloomberg Screentime summit that the company was ‘not growing as fast as I want us to’. The streaming industry is going through a period of consolidation following Paramount’s $110bn (£83.6bn) merger with Warner Bros, the owner of HBO, while free platforms such as YouTube and TikTok continue to attract viewers. In an email to staff, Sarandos and co-chief executive Greg Peters said Netflix would ‘continue to invest aggressively in high-impact areas to improve our service and further drive growth and innovation’.” (10/14/26)
“A new species of dinosaur (a long-clawed predator the size of a large tiger) has been identified from a fossil found on the Isle of Wight more than 100 years ago. The dinosaur, named Invictibellatrix amberina, is described in a new paper in the journal Royal Society Open Science and belongs to a group of agile, two-legged carnivores called megaraptorans. Megaraptorans were closely related to tyrannosaurs including Tyrannosaurus rex but had slender heads and attacked prey with their large arms and giant curved claws instead of their jaws. Dr Cassius Morrison of University College London (UCL) said it was ‘a real mystery’ why the fossil – a chunk of the back of a skull – had been overlooked in the Natural History Museum.” (10/14/26)
“On October 11, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop using taxpayer funds for television ads featuring the president. Yet two commercials continued airing past the court’s deadline. By the following evening, Justice Department lawyers had apologized, explaining that agency counsel had not seen the order in time. What had been a political accusation had now become a judicial intervention. And now even the government’s response to the order was under scrutiny. For President Donald Trump, the larger danger is electoral. His presidency has turned expansive executive authority into a political calling card. But when that authority appears to serve the president’s campaign interests rather than the public as a whole, it can become a liability. What began as a dispute over advertisements could help turn the November 3 midterms into a contest over where government ends and Trump’s political operation begins.” (10/14/26)
“Protesters repeatedly interrupted War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s headline appearance at the Army’s biggest annual conference on Wednesday, calling him ‘a war criminal’ and ‘a coward’ in protest of the Iran war. At least five times in the first half hour of a panel, foul-mouthed anti-war protesters shouted at Hegseth, calling him a ‘fucking Nazi’ among other insults. Hegseth responded with chuckles and sarcastic comments, at first — but his reactions became increasingly short and irritated as he slammed the ‘semi-coordinated’ attack as one-by-one protesters emerged among the crowd in Washington, DC. ‘You’re not a warrior you’re a coward!’ one demonstrator shouted at Hegseth. ‘Children in Gaza are starving! He is a war criminal!’ ‘She thinks highly of me,’ the Pentagon chief quipped after one outburst, which led to brief applause from the crowd.” (10/14/26)
