Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

AWS is spending $50B to build AI infrastructure for the US government
TechCrunch.com | Rebecca Szkutak | 11/24/25

Amazon Web Services is making a sizable new investment in infrastructure designed to boost AI capabilities for U.S. government organizations.

AWS announced Monday it is investing $50 billion to build AI "high-performance computing infrastructure" purposefully built for the U.S. government. The buildout is meant to expand federal government agencies' access to AWS AI services.

The project will add 1.3 gigawatts of compute and will expand government access to AWS products, including Amazon SageMaker AI, model customization, Amazon Bedrock, model deployment, and Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, among others, according to the company. ... Read more

Trump's Crypto Corruption, Explained | Robert Reich | 09/21/25 | 7:17

What is Cryptocurrency and How Does it Work? | Explains 101 | 2024 | 16:38

Russia Says U.S. Planning $37 Trillion Crypto Reset | Andrei Jikh | 09/26/25 | 18:21

Japan Just Pulled the Pin as Global Debt Bomb is About to Explode | ITM TRADING, INC. | 11/25/25 | 11:50

Zelensky ready to meet Trump over Thanksgiving to finalize deal, top aide tells Axios
Axios | Barak Ravid,Dave Lawler | 11/25/25

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to meet President Trump "as soon as possible" - possibly over Thanksgiving — to finalize a joint U.S.-Ukrainian agreement on the terms for ending the war, Zelensky's chief of staff Andriy Yermak told Axios.

Why it matters: U.S. and Ukrainian officials have agreed in principle on most aspects of the plan, which has been modified heavily from the initial 28-point U.S. proposal. But Zelensky wants to negotiate on the matter of territorial concessions with Trump himself, Yermak said.

A U.S. official confirmed there were discussions with the Ukrainians about a meeting this week or next, but said no date had been set.

Trump will leave Washington for Thanksgiving on Tuesday evening and plans to stay at Mar-a-Lago through Sunday. Yermak said it could be symbolically significant to hold the meeting around the holiday. ... ... ... Read more

Tech Billionaires' Shocking Plan For West Virginia | More Perfect Union | 11/20/25 | 15:38

OpenAI faces its toughest challenger yet
Axios | Megan Morrone | 11/25/25

The world's most popular chatbot, ChatGPT, faces new threats from its biggest competitor: Google's Gemini.

Why it matters: Google was caught on the back foot when OpenAI released ChatGPT three years ago. With the release of, and rave reviews for, Gemini 3 Pro, the script has flipped.

The big picture: Google's new Gemini 3 model is forcing a reckoning at OpenAI.

CEO Sam Altman told staffers to brace for "rough vibes" and "temporary economic headwinds" as the company works to catch up, per The Information.

Tech history is full of toppled incumbents - Betamax, AltaVista, MySpace, Friendster - but the AI race moves at a far faster clip. Today's leader could be tomorrow's laggard.

Even before Gemini 3, OpenAI was already confronting declining engagement, Sources.news reported, as content restrictions designed for user safety squeezed consumption.

State of play: On Nov. 18, Google released Gemini 3 Pro, the latest version of its AI model that will power the company's core search engine and the Gemini app. ... Read more

America Is Finally Starting to See Trump for the Bullsh*t Artist He Is
newrepublic.com | Michael Tomasky | 11/24/25

He came to power through a relentless assault of lies. But the debt owed to the truth is coming due.

From time to time, one of my old high school friends who is MAGA posts something like the following on Facebook: "Hey, libtards, you keep saying Donald Trump is dumb, but if he's so dumb, how come he got elected president twice, overcoming your relentlessly corrupt attempts to steal the 2016 and 2024 elections, and escaped your nefarious deep-state schemes to put him behind bars?" This is supposed to be some kind of killer put-down that leaves people like me stammering.

The answer to how Trump has succeeded is really simple: He lies nonstop, and lying works. Sure, there are other factors in play-he tapped into and intensified a certain strain of profound proletarian resentment of liberal elites, and... well, that's about it. But mostly, it’s the lies.

Before I dig into this, let me define the word lie as I mean it here, since lies can take many different forms. The standard Trump lie is a simple blanket assertion of non-fact as fact. He does this many times a day. A notable if all-too-common example emerged last Saturday morning, when he "Truthed" ... Read more

How Trump's 28-point plan for Ukraine shocked the world
Axios | Barak Ravid | 11/24/25

President Volodymyr Zelensky listened on speakerphone one week ago as President Trump's advisers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner read, line by line, from a 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine.

Why it matters: The existence of the plan would emerge two days later on Axios. By Friday, Zelensky was warning the Ukrainian people that Trump's plan - and the pressure he faced to sign it - had plunged Ukraine into one of the most difficult moments of its existence.

Zelensky's participation by phone in the meeting last weekend between his national security adviser, Rustem Umerov, and Trump's team has not previously been reported, and offers more clarity on when he was brought into the talks.

The process that led to that dramatic meeting, and to the 28-point plan, began around a month earlier on a flight back to Miami from the Middle East. ... ... ... Read more

Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, Nov. 21, 2025 | Washington Week PBS | 11/21/25 | 26:46

Cold snap tied to polar vortex set to threaten Thanksgiving travel
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Axios | Rebecca Falconer | 11/24/25

Thanksgiving is forecast to be colder and with more snow than usual across large swathes of the U.S., threatening to snarl what the AAA is projecting to be record holiday traffic.

The big picture: The National Weather Service warns the "polar vortex," an area of cold air around the Arctic, could expand southwards and combine with two other factors to bring "cooler than normal temperatures" from Seattle to Dallas and across to Chicago this Thanksgiving week.

"Below normal temperatures are favored for the Central and Northern U.S., including northern parts of the Pacific Northwest, the Great Plains, parts of Texas, and the interior Mid-Atlantic," the NWS said in posts to its social media accounts. ... Read more

We Went to Arkansas. The Farm Crisis Will Shock You | More Perfect Union | 11/20/25 | 13:35

Trump has AWFUL SUNDAY as ALL his PLANS BLOW UP | MeidasTouch | 11/23/25 | 21:05

Party of one: Trump chews up and spits out his inner circle
Axios | Neal Rothschild | 11/21/25

President Trump's blowup with Marjorie Taylor Greene is just the latest spectacular split with a one-time confidante who held prized status in his inner sanctum.

Why it matters: Since he entered politics more than a decade ago, the one constant of Trump's political orbit has been Trump himself.

Those who have secured a spot as a trusted Trump lieutenant have often found that it doesn't last for long.

Taylor Greene in recent days joined Elon Musk as this year's biggest victims of Trump's wrath.

In his last administration, Trump severed ties with a string of one-time right-hand men: VP Mike Pence, personal fixer Michael Cohen and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

There's an entire graveyard of Trump appointees who became bitter enemies, from former White House chief of staff John Kelly to former national security adviser John Bolton to former Attorney General Bill Barr. ... ... ... Read more

IRS deploys AI agents
Axios | Ashley Gold | 11/21/25

The Internal Revenue Service is rolling out Salesforce's AI agent program, Agentforce, in multiple divisions across the agency, per an announcement shared exclusively with Axios.

Why it matters: At a time when the IRS has seen a massive reduction in its workforce due to Trump administration layoffs, it's also using AI agents for the first time.

The IRS workforce has gone down 25% this year, from 100,000 to about 75,000 employees. ... Read more

House Dem leaders contact Capitol Police after Trump "death threats"
Axios | Andrew Solender | 11/21/25

House Democratic leadership said Thursday they've been in touch with the U.S. Capitol Police and the House sergeant-at-arms to protect a group of lawmakers after President Trump appeared to suggest that their comments were "punishable by DEATH!""

Why it matters: Trump considerably ramped up the severity of his rhetoric against Democrats on Thursday after a group of military veterans serving in Congress released a video encouraging service members to resist unlawful orders.

"This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. Their words cannot be allowed to stand," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???"

In a follow-up post, he added: "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" ... Read more

AI love, actually
Axios | Megan Morrone | 11/18/25

From making up to breaking up, there's probably a robot involved.

Why it matters: We're outsourcing our hearts to AI and feeding our most intimate data to a handful of tech giants.

Driving the news: Tinder is testing a new AI-powered feature called Chemistry that uses "deep learning" to analyze a user's photos in their camera roll, in order to understand their vibe and make better matches, the company said recently.

Instead of the decades-old method of answering a long list of static queries to make better matches, Tinder says the new feature "gets to know users through interactive questions." ... Read more

Agentio raises $40M for creator ads
Axios | Kerry Flynn | 11/18/25

Agentio has raised $40 million in Series B funding as it expands its ad buying tech from YouTube to other creator platforms.

Why it matters: The startup supports the accelerating shift of ad dollars to creators and influencer marketing.

The big picture: Top global advertisers have committed to spending more in the creator economy.

Unilever's CEO said earlier this year its ad spend on social media will grow from 30% to 50% of its total - which was $10.2 billion in 2024 - and it will work with 20 times more influencers. ... Read more

Mike Johnson to back Epstein files discharge petition
Axios | Kate Santaliz | 11/18/25/span>

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is reversing course and throwing his support behind a petition to compel the Justice Department to release all its files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The move is a remarkable pivot for Johnson, who had urged Republicans to reject the effort. President Trump's last-minute public endorsement made resistance untenable.

Johnson announced his support during a GOP conference meeting Tuesday morning, a source in the room told Axios, although the speaker is still urging the Senate to make changes to the measure to address concerns he has raised. ... Read more

Top U.S. & World Headlines - November 21, 2025 | 11/21/25 | 12:14

Crypto plunge wipes out nearly $400 billion in a week
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Axios | Ben Berkowitz | 11/21/25

A plunge in cryptocurrency assets accelerated Friday morning, led by bitcoin, which has lost more than a third of its value since setting an all-time high in October.

Why it matters: The bloodbath has left no corner of the market untouched, and is reviving the debate about crypto as a long-term asset.

By the numbers: Bitcoin fell as low as $81,919 early Friday, per CoinGecko data, off more than 10% in 24 hours to the lowest levels since April.

In early October the original cryptocurrency set a record when it broke $126,000 for the first time.

Bloomberg reported the coin is on track for its worst month since June 2022, which was a catastrophic period for the industry. ... Read more

Did Trump Really Sign Epstein Files Bill? | Pam Bondi's Flip Flop | Sean Duffy's Travel Advice | Stephen Colbert | 11/21/25 | 12:22

Trump Calls for Jimmy Kimmel to Be Fired AGAIN, Threatens Members of Congress & Signs Epstein Bill | Jimmy Kimmel | 11/21/25 | 12:35

AI's next act: World models that move beyond language
Axios | Ina Fried | 11/17/25

Move over large language models — the new frontier in AI is world models that can understand and simulate reality.

Why it matters: Such models are key to creating useful AI for everything from robotics to video games.

For all the book smarts of LLMs, they currently have little sense for how the real world works.

Driving the news: Some of the biggest names in AI are working on world models, including Fei-Fei Li whose World Labs announced Marble, its first commercial release. ... Read more

Anthropic CEO warns that without guardrails, AI could be on dangerous path | 60 Minutes | 11/16/25 | 13:51

Why Anthropic's AI Claude tried to contact the FBI | 60 Minutes | 11/16/25 | 5:59

Trump pardon of billionaire sparks concerns | 60 Minutes | 11/16/25 | 13:50

Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, Nov. 14, 2025 | Washington Week PBS | 11/15/25 | 26:45

Thousands of Epstein Files Released as Shutdown Ends | Explainer | Heather Cox Richardson | 11/15/25 | 38:36

Assembly of Trump's 'clown car Cabinet' was even more ridiculous than you thought: book | MSNBC | 11/01/25 | 11:07

AI is reinventing crime and cops aren't ready
Axios |Russell Contreras | 11/14/25

Artificial intelligence is rewriting the playbook for crime, from cheap deepfake scams and AI-written ransomware to mass identity hijacks and critical-infrastructure hacks.

Why it matters: This new class of AI-supercharged crime is putting lives and financial systems at risk. But police training, laws and cross-border tools aren't keeping up, futurists tell Axios.

Off-the-shelf AI lowers the skill level and cost of carrying out attacks, enabling small crews to execute schemes that previously required nation-state resources.

Crimes can now hit millions at once with voice clones and account takeovers, while local agencies are trained and funded to chase one case at a time. ... ... ... Read more

I Let AI Read the New Epstein Emails. And the Verdict is INSANE | I Ask AI | 11/13/25 | 14:00

America's most-downloaded country artist? AI
Axios | Nate Rau | 11/14/25

The most-downloaded country song in America is written and sung not by a human, but by AI alone.

Why it matters: This is twilight-zone stuff, folks. For the No. 1 and No. 3 paid downloads, the artists, the music, the lyrics - the songs - aren't by real people. But real people love them.

The big picture: Artists of all types should be rattled that early, deeply flawed, work-in-progress AI is already cranking out country hits ... and knocking humans down the music charts.

The success of "artists" Breaking Rust and Cain Walker pits AI technology against humans who earn their living as songwriters, artists and music business professionals

Breaking Rust, a computer-generated outlaw blues-country singer, has the No. 1 song on Billboard's Country Digital Song Sales chart with the single "Walk My Walk." ... Read more

Country Song Hit 'Walk My Walk' Entirely Generated by AI | Inside Edition | 11/13/25 | 2:32

Trump pardons Giuliani, 76 others accused of bid to overturn 2020 election
Axios | Rebecca Falconer | 11/11/25

President Trump pardoned Rudy Giuliani and 76 other allies accused of attempting to interfere in the 2020 presidential election results, U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin said late Sunday.

The big picture: An undated document that Martin posted to his X account shows "full, complete and unconditional" pardons for Giuliani, John Eastman, ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Sidney Powell. But Politico notes that none of those named were facing federal charges and presidents have no power to pardon state crimes. ... Read more

Trump officially asks Israeli president to pardon Netanyahu
Axios | Barak Ravid | 11/12/25

President Trump sent an official letter to Israeli President Isaac Herzog calling on him to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and claimed the corruption charges against him are "political lawfare."

Why it matters: Trump has repeatedly intervened in Israel's judicial system and domestic politics over Netanyahu's ongoing trial. His letter, released on Wednesday morning by the Israeli President's office, is the first official step he has taken on this matter.

Driving the news: Trump wrote to Herzog that after ending the war in Gaza, he now wants to work with key Middle East leaders on expanding the Abraham Accords.

He stressed that Netanyahu's "attention cannot be unnecessarily diverted" by his trial. ... Read more

Trump Lies Again
Axios | Emily Peck | 11/11/25

Trump says "we can reform" SNAP

SNAP, a decades old anti-poverty program, is in the spotlight as the White House fights in court to avoid paying full benefits during the government shutdown.

There are fairly strict requirements to get food benefits, contrary to Trump's claim. ...

1. SNAP is for people with very low incomes - with a household's gross monthly income at or below 130% of the poverty line (about $34,000 a year) - and almost no financial assets.
2. Adults who don't live with children are limited to just three months of benefits every three years or subject to other strict work requirements.
3. Nearly 80% of those on SNAP are in households with children, an elderly adult or someone who is disabled, notes the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
4. A White House spokesperson referred Axios to the OMB for comment on Trump's claims and whether a reform plan was in the works.
... Read more

Trump claims tariff "unwind" would cost $3 trillion
Axios | Ben Berkowitz | 11/11/25

President Trump on Tuesday claimed the U.S. would be on the hook for $3 trillion in refunds and lost investments if the administration loses the pending tariffs case at the Supreme Court.

Why it matters: Trump is trying to ramp up the pressure on the court to preserve the centerpiece of his economic policy.

In addition to the refund warning, in recent days he doubled down on promising a $2,000 dividend to most Americans from the tariff revenue collected so far.

He's repeatedly said losing the case could "literally destroy" the country. ... Read more

Jeffrey Epstein BALL room
Inside the NEW $300M White House Ballroom | Beyond Facts | 11/10/25 | 18:04

Trump asks Supreme Court to toss $5 million E. Jean verdict
Axios | Julianna Bragg | 11/11/25

President Trump on Monday petitioned the Supreme Court to review the $5 million civil verdict that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.

The big picture: Trump has repeatedly fought the ruling, claiming that multiple lawsuits against him are politically motivated - but this marks the first time the case has made its way to the Supreme Court.

A federal appeals court last year upheld the jury's verdict, confirming the president must pay Carroll in compensatory and punitive damages for defaming her in his statements.

Her attorney told Axios in September that the court affirmed that "E. Jean Carroll was telling the truth, and that President Donald Trump was not." ... Read more

DOJ Admits to Republicans That Epstein Files Are Even Worse for Trump
The New Republic | Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling | 11/06/25

Details in the files are reportedly even more damning for Donald Trump than previously indicated-and it was already bad.

Rumors about Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein have gripped the Republican Party.

A few conservative representatives with ties to the FBI and the Justice Department have spilled that the true details of the Epstein files are "worse" for Trump than previously reported, according to journalist David Schuster.

Michael Wolff, a longtime chronicler of Trump's White House who conducted extensive interviews with Epstein prior to his death, told The Daily Beast last month that Epstein had shown him photos of Trump with half-naked "young girls" in his lap.

These rumors have galvanized into a legitimate movement among Republicans, who are now, Schuster wrote on X Wednesday night, clamoring for the files' full release. ... Read more

Trump Shutdown Hits 40 Major Airports-Just in Time for Thanksgiving
The New Republic | Hafiz Rashid |11/06/25

Here's the full list of airports that will see reduced flights during the government shutdown.

Donald Trump's Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced Wednesday that flights would be cut 10 percent at 40 U.S. airports due to the government shutdown beginning this week, complicating Thanksgiving travel later this month.

"We had a gut check of what is our job," Duffy said, adding that a confidential document showed that the impact of the shutdown was hurting air traffic controllers' ability to perform safely. "Our job is to make sure we make the hard decisions to continue to keep the airspace safe."

The FAA told major carriers that cuts would start at 4 percent on Friday and go up to 5 percent Saturday and 6 percent Sunday before reaching 10 percent next week, sources in the air industry told Reuters. International flights are exempted from the cuts. ... Read more

Trump's Economy Breaks New Record With Surge in Layoffs
The New Republic | Malcolm Ferguson | 11/06/25

It's month 10 of President Trump's second term, and layoffs are the highest they've been in more than 20 years.

A Thursday report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas shows job cuts last month increased by more than 153,000, up 175 percent from October of last year. In total, companies have announced more than one million job cuts in 2025, up 65 percent from the same time period last year. This was the worst October since 2003.

"This is the highest total for October in over 20 years, and the highest total for a single month in the fourth quarter since 2008. Like in 2003, a disruptive technology is changing the landscape," the report said. "Technology continues to lead in private-sector job cuts as companies restructure amid AI integration, slower demand, and efficiency pressures." Retail, warehousing, media, and nonprofits have also been impacted sectors. ... Read more

Alex Karp unplugged: Palantir CEO on "The Axios Show"
Axios | Mike Allen | 11/07/25

Alex Karp, co-founder and CEO of Palantir, tells me on a new episode of "The Axios Show" that AI could lead to dysfunction and even violence if benefits aren't spread broadly to workers at all levels.

"Does the person on the factory floor in America — vocationally trained, with specific knowledge of their domain - do they participate [in the prosperity]?" asked Karp, an outspoken mogul who's at the forefront of how AI is reshaping government, business and the workplace.

Karp - whose AI-driven software company has won big government contracts and soared in value since President Trump took office - gestured around the room in Manhattan where we taped the hour-long interview this week and added: "How well does your camera person do?"

Why it matters: I invited Karp to "go dark with me" about AI and he complied, warning about the consequences of the U.S. losing to China. But he said AI is already increasing American prosperity and productivity, and will raise the standard of living for many in the working class. ... Read more

What a Google-powered Apple Siri might deliver
Axios | Ina Fried | 11/07/25

Apple has yet to deliver a smarter Siri, but a potential partnership with Google could yield an AI assistant beyond what Apple could produce on its own.

The big picture: Using Google's Gemini under the hood could create a stronger pocket assistant, but much will come down to how well Apple can stitch together its voice assistant with Google's technology.

Driving the news: Bloomberg reports Apple is nearing a $1 billion-a-year agreement to run a custom version of Gemini on Apple servers.

Between the lines: Apple laid out a compelling vision for Apple Intelligence and an improved Siri last year, but failed to deliver.

Siri still relies on Apple's in-house tech, but can hand off some questions to ChatGPT with user permission. ... Read more

OpenAI faces seven more suits over safety, mental health
Axios | Megan Morrone | 11/07/25

OpenAI is facing seven new lawsuits in California, alleging ChatGPT contributed to multiple suicides and psychological injuries.

Why it matters: Regulators and child-safety advocates have been warning against repeating social media's mistakes, releasing products fast and without proper guardrails.

Driving the news: The complaints allege that OpenAI rushed the release of its GPT-4o, limiting safety testing, the Wall Street Journal reports.

This is the latest in a series of high-profile allegations of chatbots pushing people to suicide or not intervening when they could have. ... Read more

Trump breaks his own record for the longest government shutdown in history
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Axios | April Rubin | 11/05/25

52% of voters blame Trump and congressional Republicans for the continued stalemate, according to an NBC News poll released on Sunday.

42% blame Democrats in Congress and 4% blame all of the players.

Threat level: Each week of the shutdown could cause a $7 billion hit to the U.S. economy, according to an EY-Parthenon estimate.

Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought foreshadowed firing between 4,100 and 10,000 employees across several agencies, and while the Trump administration followed through on threats to slash the workforce, a federal judge temporarily blocked the layoffs. ... Read more

Documents reveal chaos and confusion behind government shutdown layoffs
Axios | Emily Peck | 11/04/25

Layoffs are never a painless exercise, but the Trump administration's effort to fire federal workers while the government is shut down is driving confusion and chaos beyond a typical termination, court filings show.

Why it matters: Documents from a federal court case challenging shutdown firings detail an unusual mess in the latest setback for federal workers this year.

Catch up quick: In early October, while agencies were shuttered, and many on furlough - not working, not getting paid - firing notices went out to about 4,000 people. ... ... ... Read more

New gig alert: Training our robot replacements
Axios | Megan Morrone | 11/04/25

As layoffs mount, training AI is becoming a lucrative new side hustle - even if it means helping build the model that could one day replace you.

The big picture: The AI giants desperately need money, energy and data. They also need people. At least for now.

When CEOs promise humans will stay "in the loop", it's unclear if that means to make big consequential decisions, simply review AI's work, or take the wheel in case of emergency.

Right now humans are still a key part of that loop, acting as the mechanical turks of generative AI's magic.

Like the 18th-century chess automaton secretly steered by a hidden master, today's "AI trainers" perform unseen labor to make machines appear smarter than they are.

Humans select, clean and label data to fine-tune AI models, teaching them how to answer questions or understand images. ... Read more

"Most important case ever": Supreme Court to decide fate of Trump's tariffs
Axios | Courtenay Brown | 11/03/25

The Supreme Court will hear a case on Wednesday that will decide the fate of President Trump's signature economic policy, the tariffs he has leveraged to reshape the global order.

Why it matters: It is the latest instance of the high court deciding the fate of Trump's agenda, but this time with consequences that transcend the containers full of toys and electronics at the nation's ports.

"The stakes of this case reach far beyond trade policy," Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director at the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan policy institute, wrote in a blog post.

The "decision could shape whether the use of emergency powers to bypass Congress becomes a tool of routine governance."

A loss could hugely curb his powers in imposing tariffs.

It could set off a potentially chaotic tariff refund process, result in a loss of revenue that has somewhat brightened the nation's fiscal outlook, and possibly undermine key trade deals. ... Read more

President Donald Trump: The 2025 60 Minutes Interview | 60 Minutes | 11/01/25 | 28:25

President Donald Trump's extended 60 Minutes interview | 60 Minutes | 11/01/25 | 1:13:49

Anthropic says its Claude models show signs of introspection
Axios | Megan Morrone | 11/03/25

Anthropic, a leading AI company, tells Axios that its most advanced systems are learning not just to reason like humans - but also to reflect on, and express, how they actually think.

They're starting to be introspective, like humans, Anthropic researcher Jack Lindsey, who studies models' "brains," tells us.

Why it matters: These introspective capabilities could make the models safer - or, possibly, just better at pretending to be safe

The big picture: The models are able to answer questions about their internal states with surprising accuracy.

"We're starting to see increasing signatures or instances of models exhibiting sort of cognitive functions that, historically, we think of as things that are very human," Lindsey told us. "Or at least involve some kind of sophisticated intelligence." ... Read more

Trump administration will provide half of usual funds to Snap recipients in November
TheGuardian | Robert Tait | 11/03/25

The Trump administration said it would provide partial relief to recipients of food stamps on Monday as the federal government shutdown approached a record-breaking length.

Amid mounting uncertainty among the nearly 42 million people on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), the Department of Agriculture said it would use contingency funds to keep benefits going, albeit just 50% of the usual funds recipients receive on their cards.

The announcement, in a court filing by the government at the US district court in Rhode Island, came after Donald Trump said the administration would comply with a court order to provide emergency funding after previous refusals to do so on purported legal grounds. Before Monday's announcement, Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, had suggested that emergency funding might not be available immediately and called for more court guidance on how to fund Snap legally. ... Read more