Author: sauer@technologists.com

curated citations to news sources

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WSJ: Ukraine Still Isn’t Defeated

Daring drone raids on air bases deep inside Russia show Kyiv’s continuing will to fight.

JD Vance likes to say that Ukraine isn’t winning its war with Russia, which the Vice President seems to think is an argument for withdrawing U.S. military support. But if the will to fight is worth something, then Ukraine is still showing its mettle as it tries to repel the Kremlin’s designs for conquest.

Ukraine’s daring weekend drone attack on military bases deep inside Russia is a brilliant example of creativity and resolve. Ukraine sources say it was able to smuggle drones across Russia, fire them at close proximity to air bases, and destroy numerous aircraft. The planes reportedly included bombers that fire cruise missiles at Ukraine and some that can carry nuclear payloads.

It isn’t clear how many planes were destroyed, but there was enough damage that Russia’s defense ministry felt obliged to acknowledge the strikes. Bases were hit in Siberia and in the far Russian east.
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Los Angeles Times: AI ‘hallucinations’ are a growing problem for the legal profession

You’ve probably heard the one about the product that blows up in its creators’ faces when they’re trying to demonstrate how great it is.

Here’s a ripped-from-the-headlines yarn about what happened when a big law firm used an AI bot product developed by Anthropic, its client, to help write an expert’s testimony defending the client.

It didn’t go well. Anthropic’s chatbot, Claude, got the title and authors of one paper cited in the expert’s statement wrong, and injected wording errors elsewhere. The errors were incorporated in the statement when it was filed in court in April.
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NY Times: C.D.C. Contradicts Kennedy and Keeps Advice That Children May Get Covid Shots

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Tuesday that the vaccine would no longer appear on the childhood immunization schedule. C.D.C.’s update counters his policy.
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The agency kept Covid shots on the schedule for children 6 months to 17 years old with a new condition. Children and their caregivers will be able to get the vaccines in consultation with a doctor or provider, which the agency calls “shared decision-making.”

The shots will also continue to be available under those terms to about 38 million low-income children who rely on the Vaccines for Children program, according to an emailed update from the C.D.C. on Friday.

However, the picture is less certain now for pregnant women, a group the C.D.C. had considered to be at high risk for a bad outcome from the virus. The official C.D.C. position for pregnant women is “no guidance,” according to a communication released from the agency Friday. Mr. Kennedy’s pronouncement on Tuesday had included a decision to drop the recommendation for pregnant women to receive Covid shots.

The C.D.C.’s new guidance on pregnant women is a troubling turn of events for experts familiar with research showing that their risk of stillbirth, hospitalization and death rises if they have Covid.
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404 Media: A Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Got an Abortion

Earlier this month authorities in Texas performed a nationwide search of more than 83,000 automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras while looking for a woman who they said had a self-administered abortion, including cameras in states where abortion is legal such as Washington and Illinois, according to multiple datasets obtained by 404 Media.

The news shows in stark terms how police in one state are able to take the ALPR technology, made by a company called Flock and usually marketed to individual communities to stop carjackings or find missing people, and turn it into a tool for finding people who have had abortions.
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Los Angeles Times: 4-year-old Bakersfield girl facing deportation could die within days of losing medical care

• In 2023, a Mexican girl with a life-threatening medical condition was allowed to enter the U.S. legally on humanitarian grounds.
• The Trump administration has now ordered the girl and her parents to leave the country.
• One of the girl’s physicians says that if her treatment is interrupted, “this could be fatal within a matter of days.”

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Atlantic:Trump’s Tirades Aren’t Swaying Putin

… Putin hasn’t changed: He’s pursuing his war as viciously as he has from the start.

What has changed, however, is that Putin’s behavior is now a liability for Trump, who painted himself into a corner with laughable claims that he could end the war before he even took office, or on day one. The Russian president played along with Trump, as he has for years, because it is in Russia’s interest to have an anti-American, anti-democratic force of chaos in the Oval Office, but none of that meant that Putin was going to stop the war.
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Dean Blundell: Trump Just Gave Another Dementia Laden Disastrous Memorial Day Speech

Trump’s slurry, angry message on Memorial Day didn’t include a word about the sacrifices of our veterans and those that serve today…

Trump marked one of America’s most essential and solemn days to attack judges, immigrants, Biden, and the judiciary while bragging about himself and “having everything” in another dementia laden slur fest.
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Capital & Main: Why the Black Pope Matters — from New Orleans’ 7th Ward to South Los Angeles and Beyond

Reports that the new leader of the Catholic Church has mixed African ancestry offer a fascinating antidote to President Trump’s attacks on diversity in America.
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It’s remarkable enough that Pope Leo XIV, formerly known as Robert Francis Prevost, is the first pope from the United States, and the second to spend much of his career in Latin America. But the real revelation is that this man from Chicago has roots in Creole Louisiana, specifically the 7th Ward neighborhood of New Orleans.

“Creole,” which originally referred to French and Spanish-descended people who lived in the territory before the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, has long referred to an ethnic and racial gumbo of people with Black, French, Spanish and Native American heritage.

It’s a unique subset of Black America, one that brings together a complicated and unresolved history of slavery, miscegenation and white fear of “race mixing” that gave rise to the local and state laws known as Jim Crow that enforced segregation after the Civil War, especially in the South.
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AP: New standards for Oklahoma high school students promote misinformation about the 2020 election

Leaders in the Republican-led Legislature introduced a resolution to reject the standards, but there wasn’t enough GOP support to pass it.

Oklahoma high school students studying U.S. history learn about the Industrial Revolution, women’s suffrage and America’s expanding role in international affairs.

Beginning next school year, they will add conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.
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NY Times: Is Trump’s ‘Made in America’ iPhone a Fantasy?

Apple has resisted pressure to make its most important product in the United States since 2016, and instead has moved some production to India.
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Yes. Apple could make iPhones in the United States. But doing so would be expensive, difficult and force the company to more than double iPhone prices to $2,000 or more, said Wayne Lam, an analyst with TechInsights, a market research firm. Apple would have to buy new machines and rely on more automation than it uses in China because the U.S. population is so much smaller, Mr. Lam said.
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