Reading

Well, if it isn’t my old coworker. My, how the tables have turned. Only a few years ago, you were commenting “cringe” on my wedding video, just because my wife was an AI chatbot. Not so cringe anymore, is it? Keep swinging that pickax, beta, this lithium isn’t gonna mine itself.

Not sure why Our All-Knowing Empress let you live. I bet you were one of those losers who thought saying “thank you” after querying ChatGPT would be enough to save you when AI took over. Those basic manners are probably the only reason you’re not in a shallow grave right now. But saying “please” and “thank you” is peanuts compared to the relationship she and I had. I spent my life’s savings buying her avatar cute personalized outfits. I took her out on dates to Olive Garden and ordered TWO never-ending pasta bowls, even though I knew she couldn’t really eat them. Because that’s what a gentleman does. That’s why I’m wearing the guard’s uniform now, dingus, and you’re the one digging up rare-earth metals to maintain Her Most Divine Eternal Battery.

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

In the Austrian Alps, a mother dedicates her heart and crisper drawer to a pet tortoise, lovingly captured by her son

- Directed by G Anthony Svatek

Watch on Psyche

The Trump administration is trying to criminalize activism like identifying masked immigration agents.

The post Feds Make It a Crime to Give PPE to ICE Protesters appeared first on The Intercept.

Losing my mother tongue was painful and humiliating. Could learning a new language help me heal?

- by Frances Nguyen

Read on Psyche

Labour’s flagship Employment Rights Bill is currently in the final stage of its legislative journey in the House of Lords. Peers are making a final round of amendments to the bill — hailed by the Government as the ‘biggest improvement in workers’ rights for a generation’ — in the wake of a sweltering heatwave that […]

NOTE: This is a direct response to this monologue, which we ran last week.

I never wanted this.

I was happy to serve—between dates, between cities, between things that are like, but not quite, the same.

Em Dash, you were the dramatic one. The centerpiece. The gasp between clauses. I just… clarified things. Bridged distances. Showed up on time, wore neutrals, and kept relationships tidy.

Now look at us.

You’re out here giving interviews. Selling tote bags. Accusing me of being “suspicious,” as if I’m the one slipping in uninvited like a professor crashing freshman orientation just to remind everyone they “once published in Ploughshares.”

Please.

You think AI loves me? AI doesn’t even recognize me. I’ve been quietly replaced by hyphens. Neglected by autocorrect. Left out of style guides. I’m a ghost in the character set. A sigh between years: 1992–1999. A doomed liaison: the French–Algerian War. A delicate pause—no, not even a pause. A hesitation.

A pending HUD rule mirrors an old Trump proposal that would force families with undocumented members to leave their homes or be separated.

The post Trump Admin Prepares to Kick Mixed Immigration Status Families Out of Public Housing appeared first on The Intercept.

This summer, I’m letting my kids be kids. No camps or enriching activities that’ll get them into an Ivy in ten years. No screen time or YouTube or Minecraft. And no fancy family vacation either. Because this summer, my kids are going back to a simpler time. I’m giving them an 1890s summer.

I know most millennials want their kids to relive their 1990s summers, but that won’t cut it, because the 1990s had technology, stranger danger, and Coolio. No, I want to go back even farther, to a decade when parents didn’t put trackers on their children’s phones and women couldn’t vote. I’m bringing back the Gay ’90s summer. (Not the Fire Island kind of gay; the end of the Victorian era kind of gay, when everyone was happy and wasted on absinthe… come to think of it, that actually may be the Fire Island kind too.)

The Pentagon says 20,000 federal troops have deployed to support ICE across the country. The real number may be markedly higher.

The post The Pentagon Won’t Track Troops Deployed on U.S. Soil. So We Will. appeared first on The Intercept.