TechCrunch: The AI layoff wave is becoming a powder keg
Last month the tech sector cut more jobs than in any month in two years — nearly 40,000 — and for the third month running AI was the most-cited reason. Yet a growing chorus argues AI is merely a convenient excuse, and the real cause is pandemic-era overhiring and weak management: even Jack Dorsey eventually admitted his company Block had been overstaffed, while venture capitalist Marc Andreessen calls AI the “silver bullet excuse” for layoffs. The piece warns of a combustible situation: as tens of thousands lose their jobs, a tiny circle of AI insiders is becoming unimaginably rich — in a single day the Cerebras and SpaceX market debuts minted new billionaires and thousands of millionaires.
Al Jazeera: ‘Looked so real’: How AI is being weaponised against India’s Muslim women
A new form of abuse is spreading in India — AI-generated sexualised imagery and fabricated videos meant to shame and intimidate Muslim women. The article cites model Samreen Ayoub: from her university-years photos, someone assembled a news-segment-style video, complete with a voiceover and on-screen captions, falsely claiming she was “selling her body” to Hindu men and labelling her own brother as her pimp. “It looked so real that even my parents would have believed it,” Ayoub says.
The New York Times: Taking on Neo-Nazis, One Trademark at a Time
In Germany, public display of Nazi symbols and slogans has long been banned, yet online shops skirt the law — for instance by dropping vowels (“HTLR”) or using “88” as code for “Heil Hitler.” To dry up that trade, a campaign called Recht Gegen Rechts (“Rights Against the Right”), founded in 2021 by Simon Knittel, registers EU trademarks for neo-Nazi symbols and coded phrases. By owning those rights, the campaign can lawfully go after shops that profit from pro-Nazi merchandise and choke off a revenue stream that sustains hate groups.
The New York Times: How Does One Brain Speak Two Languages?
A new study (published in JNeurosci) overturns the long-held assumption that a bilingual brain processes each language with a separate mechanism. It turns out that when forming, say, a plural, brain activity is strikingly similar whether the person is speaking their native or their second language. That suggests both languages are powered by one and the same “grammatical engine,” rather than two separate systems as scientists had previously thought.
Le Monde: When Darwin comes to town: How the urban jungle disrupts animals’ natural selection
For ten years biologists have been studying how animals adapt to city life — and whether the changes they observe are genuine genetic evolution or merely flexible behaviour. Urban chickadees grow more aggressive, snails’ shell colour shifts, and pigeons’ plumage better withstands pollution. The researchers conclude that the city has unexpectedly become a vast laboratory of natural selection, where evolution can be watched almost in real time.
Le Monde: The Swiss canton attracting Dubai’s ultra-wealthy
Zug — one of the smallest yet richest cantons in Switzerland — uses low taxes and a sense of security to draw the world’s wealthy, increasingly from Dubai too. In this tiny territory (240 km², 130,000 people) one in eight residents is at least a millionaire, more than 40,000 companies are registered, and the canton’s GDP rivals that of whole countries such as Armenia or Namibia.
Financial Times: Lessons from Ireland’s Revolut revolution
The British fintech Revolut — valued at $75bn with 75 million customers — is heading toward a possible $200bn stock-market listing in 2028. The article takes Ireland as its case study, where Revolut has rapidly poached customers from local banks, and shows how vulnerable old-school banks with their outdated systems are to nimble fintechs. Even JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon has named Revolut as a serious competitor.
Financial Times: Arson targeting Keir Starmer properties originated in Russia
A Financial Times investigation concludes that a Russia-based online sabotage network was behind the arson attacks on Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s family home and other sites linked to him. The attacks were directed by a handler using the alias “El Money,” tied to the pro-Kremlin hacker group NoName057(16) — which the US calls a Russian “state-sanctioned project.” The handler recruited a 22-year-old Ukrainian construction worker in London (already convicted of the arson), and the same handler also arranged anti-Islamic graffiti at mosques — part of Russia’s effort to stoke social tensions in Britain.
SABC News: Without free, decolonised education sacrifices of 1976 remain in vain
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the June 16 Soweto uprising, the family of student-protest leader Tsietsi Mashinini stresses that unless education becomes free and decolonised, that generation’s sacrifice will have been in vain. The uprising was sparked by the apartheid regime’s decision to make Afrikaans the language of instruction in Black schools; it began in Soweto, spread across the country, and became a turning point in the fight against apartheid.
NPR: Is it OK to track your 18-25-year-old kid? Most parents do
A University of Michigan survey finds that 52% of parents of 18-to-25-year-olds track their grown children’s location through phone apps — usually with tracking left on all the time. Most cite peace of mind about their child’s safety, though some admit it causes more anxiety than reassurance. Psychologists warn that when tracking is used to meddle and control, it holds a young person back from becoming independent — precisely the age when it matters that part of life stays their own.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine’s private military companies face push to regulate amid wartime boom
Dozens of private firms across Ukraine train drone operators, clear minefields and maintain military hardware, and some even call themselves private military companies — yet in the eyes of the law no such thing exists in Ukraine, which does not recognise armed formations outside state control. The sector has boomed during the war, and the gap between its activity and the absence of rules can no longer be ignored. President Zelensky has ordered a law drafted by year’s end that would create a transparent mechanism of state control.
PBS NewsHour: Britain is banning children from using social media. Here’s what other countries are doing
Britain has announced it will bar under-16s from a range of social media apps, including Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube, to protect young people from harmful content and excessive screen time. It joins a wider global trend: Australia was the first to introduce a similar ban last December (companies face fines of up to $35 million for failing to comply), while other countries such as Malaysia require age verification. Critics, however, note that such bans are hard to enforce and raise privacy concerns.
NPR: Abdullah Ibrahim, quiet giant of the jazz piano, has died at 91
The South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim has died at 91 at his home in Germany; in his youth he performed under the stage name Dollar Brand. Nelson Mandela called him South Africa’s Mozart, and his composition “Mannenberg” became an unofficial anti-apartheid anthem. Early in his career he played alongside trumpeter Hugh Masekela in the Jazz Epistles, later collaborated with Duke Ellington, and inspired several generations of jazz pianists. Below the write-up — his Tiny Desk home concert from the NPR archive.
This is a daily link digest — links to the articles I read the previous day.
Tip: a paywalled article can often be read by searching for its URL on archive.ph; an article in another language can be translated with hugo.lv.