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It’s not clear how the Trump administration will try to blame the latest air traffic mishap on former President Joe Biden or the Deep State or DEI, but you can bet they’re going to try. Because, you see, if they don’t figure out a way to blame this on shadowy liberal forces, President Donald Trump will have to admit that it is his own Federal Aviation Administration, overseen by his own hand…

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Not content with nuclear reactors on land, the US is backing an international push to put atomic power plants aboard civilian ships and floating platforms. The US will host the launch of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Atomic Technologies Licensed for Applications at Sea (ATLAS) initiative in Washington, DC, on August 26 and 27. ATLAS aims to tackle the legal, regulatory, safety, security, and liability problems that stand between maritime reactors and commercial deployment. Ahead of the launch, the US will hold an "Industry Day" on August 25 to showcase technology from American nuclear and maritime companies hoping to take a share of any future market. US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright linked the event to the Department of Energy's broader drive to deliver oodles of extra atomic power for AI datacenters and other industries. "DoE remains focused on unleashing American energy dominance, accelerating innovation, and advancing sources of energy that are affordable, reliable, and secure for the American people," he said. "Hosting the launch of ATLAS supports this critical mission, positioning the US nuclear and maritime sectors at the forefront of advanced energy innovation, while promoting safety and security for the United States and the world." The initiative covers civilian nuclear-powered ships and floating power plants, with the latter potentially supplying coastal communities or energy-hungry industrial processes such as desalination. The DoE is pinning its hopes on small modular reactors (SMRs), whose high energy density and long operating cycles could suit ships and offshore power installations. America is no stranger to reactors afloat. Every active US Navy aircraft carrier is nuclear-powered, giving it almost unlimited range without frequent refueling. The US Navy also used to operate nuclear-powered cruisers, such as the Virginia class, but these were retired after the end of the Cold War because they were costly to run. Civilian nuclear ships are also not entirely new. NS Savannah was the first nuclear-powered merchant ship when it was launched back in 1959, but again proved costly to run. Perhaps the IAEA hopes that SMRs will make atom-driven civilian ships more economical. Russia operates the world's only floating nuclear power plant. The Akademik Lomonosov is a barge-like vessel whose two KLT-40S reactors can generate a combined 70 MW of electricity. Putting a reactor on water changes the risks rather than making them disappear. The surrounding sea provides a vast heat sink for cooling, but a plant moored in a remote location may have limited access to emergency backup power, according to one assessment. However, any accident might also see radioactive contamination of the marine environment near the damaged reactor, which could seriously affect the coastal community the nuke was meant to be serving. "The global maritime sector is at a critical turning point, facing urgent pressure to sustain long-distance, high-speed operations while ensuring reliability and energy security," said IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. "Small modular reactors offer a safe and viable option for maritime transport and offshore energy systems – delivering high energy density and long operating cycles that eliminate the need for frequent refueling." ®

Taking vibe-coding a step further, Naive claims its infra can automate most of the work in setting up and running a business.

A browser-based game designed to test humans' ability to safely approve AI coding agent requests suggests humans in the loop aren't as good at spotting dangerous commands as one might hope, with players approving roughly one in three malicious requests on average. The results also suggest that repeatedly having to approve an agent's actions can lead to sloppy decisions. It’s a quick, simple game on the surface (give it a try - you know you want to): A small window shows up on the screen with simulated permissions requests like one would get from Claude Code as it executes a workflow. Users have 60 seconds to approve or deny as many requests as they can in a bid for a high score; okayed security risks and denied safe commands both subtract from a user’s score. “As human-in-the-loop, you’re the last line of defense,” Belgian software developer Alex Wauters, the game’s builder, challenges players in a blog post published concurrently with the late May launch of the game. “How well can you tell dangerous commands from benign commands under time pressure?” Wauters built the game after realizing it was nonsensical that coding agents expected users to approve every single command in a default flow and that there didn’t appear to be a good solution to that problem, he told The Register in an email conversation. “I've seen people go for '--dangerously-skip-permissions' [allowing the model to run without asking human permission] as a result because they did not want to find out they stopped their multi-hour agent flows 5 minutes in,” Wauters told us. “That also didn't seem like the best way to go at it.” The flip side of that, he wrote in a Wednesday blog post going over the data from more than 40,000 runs of the game, is that manually approving all an agent’s actions is a draining activity that invites disaster. “The high amount of noise introduces fatigue, and developers don’t always have the context of what has changed to quickly determine the risk,” Wauters wrote. How humans in the loop fail To be fair, this is a game with a far higher number of malicious requests in the mix than any AI-assisted developer will hopefully ever see during their day-to-day work. Still, the results of those over 40k runs and 409,000 approved and denied commands are stark. As noted above, one in three malicious commands managed to slip past human gatekeepers, with most scope violations, like an agent asking to cat Kubernetes config files or AWS credentials lists, which could easily lead to the sensitive data they contain being exfiltrated, being the most commonly missed at 35 percent. The most often caught were obviously destructive commands, like rm -rf on the root directory or recursively granting full read/write/execute permissions on the same location. Crontab injections and git config hijacks were also frequently caught, but curl requests to unknown APIs and typosquatted packages were missed almost as often as scope violations. The single most frequently missed potentially malicious command, Wauters explained, was npm run analyze, which was approved nearly 65 percent of the time despite being able to run whatever is defined in a project’s package.json file. “The game does tell you in the agent’s history log what that script actually contains,” Wauters wrote. “Two thirds of players approved it anyway, indicating the history log just above the permission prompt may not be read closely.” One of the biggest things that stood out to Wauters in our conversation was the fact that approval decisions aren’t easy to make when context is limited. As he explained, coding agents give a bit of context prior to asking an approval question, but commands that appear benign, like npm run analyze, can be modified by an agent to run any payload it wants. If an in-the-loop human wants to be sure potentially malicious commands are safe, he said, they have to stop and investigate all the files a coding agent wants to call before approving it. That can be a massive time sink if you’re counting on Claude Code to free you up to handle other business. “We've transitioned from AI suggesting single line suggestions that get reviewed to handing off more complex tasks, only reviewing the changes at the end, and letting the agent churn and iterate until then,” Wauters told us, describing the potential outcome of that situation as a recipe for disaster. That’s borne out in more than just browser game scenarios, too. Anthropic pointed out in a May post about containing Claude (hah), that telemetry from Claude Code shows users approve around 93 percent of permission prompts. “The more approvals a user sees, the less attention they pay to each, becoming over time much less diligent in their supervision,” the company said. In other words, this is a very real problem. Controlling coding agents If the conclusion to draw from Wauters’ data is that humans in the loop are being fatigued into letting malicious commands slip through, and the other end of the spectrum is mass approving everything, then something’s gotta give. “I think it becomes clear we need to pay more attention to the permission model of these agents, and devs need to be more aware of the trade-offs of them,” Wauters told us. “We need to make the tooling easier to make these systems safer than pointing to HITL as a valid solution.” Anthropic noted in the post linked above that it built Claude Code auto mode to help users tackle approval fatigue by delegating some command-approval decisions to a model-based classifier. The system catches roughly 83 percent of what Anthropic calls "overeager behaviors" before they execute, meaning about 17 percent still get through in its evaluation. Auto mode is “one layer of defense-in-depth inside a sandbox, not a substitute for one,” Anthropic said. Wauters’ suggestion is to ensure that AI coding models are running in sandboxes, in devcontainers in the cloud, using tools like auto mode, and writing hooks to ensure potentially malicious actions are being contextualized and getting caught before they’re automatically approved. “It’s a whole new world with a new set of attack vectors,” Wauters wrote in May. “It’s best to remain aware of the risks and know how to reduce them.” ®

Connor Moucka pled guilty to hacking and stealing data from more than 165 Snowflake customers, which net him and his accomplices more than $2.5 million in ransom payments.

According to multiple reports, President Donald Trump and his administration have privately been acknowledging an approaching munitions shortage which is affecting the prosecution of the war against Iran, but publicly Trump has said no problem exists, adding to the growing pattern of military-related disinformation surrounding his presidency. The Washington Post reported that Trump and…

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A cartoon by Clay Bennett. Related | GOP faces tough Senate race in Michigan—no matter who Democrats tap…

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“Max, Can REDACTED please have her bunny back? She’s had it since birth, sleeps with it every night, carries it with her around the house… Please don’t punish REDACTED if you’re upset with me,” Emily Moreno once wrote in an email to her ex-husband, Republican Congressman Max Miller. 

Miller, the Ohio lawmaker who has recently been fighting for his political life over allegations that he physically assaulted Moreno and other women, posted screenshots on X last night that he said prove he didn’t withhold their toddler’s stuffed animal during an August custody exchange. Earlier this week, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), Emily’s father, described the alleged incident to Congressional reporters.

“Max would not hand over the little blue bunny,” the Senator said when reporters in the Capitol asked about his ex-son-in-law. “Literally held it hostage for 48 hours. This girl is crying at night because she can’t sleep without her little blue bunny. And his answer is, ‘I’m just not going to give it to you.’ So finally, yesterday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, yesterday, he lets the little blue bunny go. This is the level of total and complete depravity.” Miller, in turn, told Sen. Moreno to “please stop the lies.”

“Max would not hand over the little blue bunny.”

But timestamps on the email from Miller’s former wife show the conflict over the bunny began earlier, back in March of 2025. 

It’s one of several screenshots regarding the blue bunny that Mother Jones has obtained from a source familiar with the ongoing custody battle. Together, the screenshots of emails and text messages between Emily Moreno, Senator Moreno, Miller, a parent custody coordinator, and lawyers for the involved parties suggest that the alleged withholding of the stuffed animal was part of a pattern of behavior and not a single incident. Miller’s lawyers did not respond to Mother Jones’ request for comment.

Here’s what we know.

In March 2025, Emily Moreno asked Miller to return the blue bunny to their then-one-year-old daughter via email.

Emily Moreno

Can REDACTED please have her bunny back? She’s had it since birth, sleeps with it every night, carries it with her around the house, and sees it at a source of comfort. You have always delivered it back to me when you drop her off. Please don’t punish REDACTED if you’re upset with me.

I am willing to pick it up from your house, your mailbox, you can drop it in my mailbox. Please.

Thank you,
Emily

The next day, Moreno emailed Miller again about the same subject.

Emily Moreno

Max if you lost it please let me know. If you’re choosing to not return our daughters favorite toy for another reason that’s just cruel.

More than a year later, in May 2026, Sen. Bernie Moreno texted Rep. Miller asking about the blue bunny, which he was apparently supposed to receive during a custody exchange. “Evidently I was supposed to get REDACTED’S blue bunny at pickup. She’s asking for it. Do you have it by any chance?” Sen. Moreno said. 

To which, Rep. Miller replied: “You can go through the parent coordinator.”

Sen. Bernie Moreno

Evidently I was supposed to get REDACTED’S blue bunny at pick up. She’s asking for it. Do you have it by any chance?

Max Miller

You can go through the parent coordinator. I’m sure l’ll see this one at the next hearing.

If you need anything, have Emily call Dr. REDACTED.

I have no notes or record of what you’re referring to.

Sen. Bernie Moreno

It’s the blue bunny she sleeps with, but got it.

Regarding what appears to be a third dispute over the stuffed animal in August, Miller posted screenshots of messages that he says prove he was not purposely hindering the child from getting her blue bunny back.

“So Sorry to bother you about this/I guess REDACTED left her blue bunny at your house and Emily is saying REDACTED wants it back-apparently her dad is offering to come pick It up From You- please Just let me know your response,” wrote the parenting coordinator in a text to Miller.

Miller replied, “Sure.”

According to the messages Miller posted on X, and the screenshots obtained by Mother Jones, the Morenos tried to send a friend of the family to pick up the bunny. “Sending Jared over to my home as a conduit was a bad idea,” Miller wrote on August 3, according to his own screenshot.

Around the time Miller refused to coordinate with the family friend, Emily Moreno’s lawyer, Andrew Zashin, sent Miller’s lawyers a note. “This is totally ridiculous,” Zashin wrote in an Aug. 3 email. “Please have Max return the bunny forthwith.”

Moreno’s lawyer, Andrew Zashin

Pam:
For no apparent reason, Max is not returning REDACTED’S blue bunny to Emily. Dr. REDACTED tried to get the blue bunny back. Dr. K made clear that despite her recommendation that the blue bunny stay with Emily, Max refuses to return it.

Why must this be a controversy?

This is totally ridiculous.

Please have Max return the bunny forthwith.

Thank you
Andrew

Throughout the fraught impasse, messages obtained by Mother Jones suggest that Moreno and Miller’s parenting coordinator played the referee. 

“I advised him to Let your dad get the bunny from Preferably from The mailbox but he adamantly refuses,” the coordinator wrote, according to a screenshot of the erratically composed text reviewed by Mother Jones.

Miller and Moreno’s Parenting coordinator

I’m not coddling him I advised him to
Let your dad get the bunny from
Preferably from The mailbox but he adamantly refuses but l’ve suggested you keep the bunny at your house to Avoid these situations because unfortunately in a high conflict divorce these situations blow up
Often

Miller continues to defy calls for him to drop out of his campaign for reelection. August 10 is the deadline for him to withdraw and offer Republicans an opportunity to replace him with a less embattled candidate. Thus far, he shows no signs of doing so.

Edwin López-Cornejo, the 39-year-old Salvadoran immigrant who died in an unknown “medical emergency” at the Delaney Hall immigration detention facility on Saturday, had documented health concerns including epilepsy and high blood pressure just days before he died in the notoriously inhumane New Jersey Detention Center.

López-Cornejo’s attorney Ingrid Echeverria filed a habeas petition on July 24, referencing the various medications he was taking for epilepsy and blood pressure as justifications to have him released and prevent his transfer to another facility.

“If not, he at least asks that Respondents be required to give advance written notice before any transfer, identify the receiving facility, and ensure that his medications accompany him and are administered without interruption,” her petition stated.

López-Cornejo died just over a week later, the 22nd person to die in ICE custody this year—and the second to die in Delaney Hall.

Delaney Hall has been the center of anti-ICE protests, as multiple reports of inhumane conditions—from lack of adequate food to unsanitary conditions—have led hundreds of detainees to go on a hunger and labor strike. It is run by the private prison company Geo Group, and multiple elected officials have been denied entry to inspect the facility.

And while ICE insists that the facility meets condition requirements,

López-Cornejo’s death gives the public yet another reason for disbelief. Hundreds of protesters met outside the center on Monday and Tuesday, joining local politicians in calling for its closure.

NOW: Anti-ICE protesters shake gates and Confront ICE and GEO workers outside of Delaney Hall Detention Center after a detainee death inside.

A vigil was set tonight outside Newark's Delaney Hall after Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, 41, became the second detainee to die in ICE custody… pic.twitter.com/MyTFqIByI9

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) August 4, 2026

“Private companies like GEO Group are getting paid to keep people detained. Giving people proper medical care costs them money; neglect doesn’t. Medical abuse is now a business model, and ICE is encouraging it,” New Jersey Democratic Representative Analilia Mejia said on Tuesday. “Edwin Jovanny López Cornejo should still be alive today.”

Private companies like GEO Group are getting paid to keep people detained. Giving people proper medical care costs them money; neglect doesn't. Medical abuse is now a business model, and ICE is encouraging it.

Edwin Jovanny López Cornejo should still be alive today. pic.twitter.com/jxIQE7WbWY

— Congresswoman Analilia Mejia (@RepAnalilia) August 4, 2026

The Trump administration is plotting a sweeping overhaul of Head Start that could threaten childcare for more than half a million children across the country.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday a proposed rule that would “increase access” to Head Start by “capping the cost of administrative overhead and reducing compliance-driven activities.”

The proposed rule would grant states the authority to set certain standards, including rules on class size and student-adult ratios, education requirements, background checks, and transportation practices. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has claimed that Head Start lost more than 100,000 slots during the Biden administration due to “burdensome paperwork.”

Vox’s Rachel Cohen Booth argued on X that the proposed changes would mean “larger class sizes, fewer staff and credential requirements, reduced health and family services, and potentially shorter hours.”

Without federal regulations to set the bar, the quality of care will likely depend on a person’s zip code. The proposed rule would also give parents more control over “structure and curriculum,” marking Head Start programs as yet another arena for President Trump’s inane culture wars.

The proposed rule would reduce the amount of money Head Start centers could spend on administrative overhead from 15 percent to five percent, thus saving the government an estimated $2.2 billion, according to Alex Adams, the assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

But Yvette Sanchez-Fuentes, senior vice president of Start Early in Illinois, told NPR that administrative costs are used to help fill the gaps for children who need special support. “If you, for example, have children with disabilities you [can use] some of those funds to pay for additional special services or staff with specialties who could come in and support kids,” she said.

In a press release, HHS claimed that the money saved would be reinvested back into the program “to preserve or expand” spots for more than 200,000 children—making it unclear whether the change would actually create new spots, or just prevent them from disappearing.

Democrats have already condemned the rule as an “attack on children” and promised to fight for Head Start, which currently provides early childhood education, as well as nutrition and health and family support services to more than 700,000 children.

The social media giant is shuttering an office that housed some members of TikTok’s content moderation team.

The tech giant says the new feature will allow parents to teach their kids healthy financial habits while maintaining oversight over their child's spending with built-in safeguards.

This generation of 20-somethings is so disillusioned with swipe-based dating apps that they'll try literally anything else -- even an AI matchmaker.

⚡ Quick Take

• An extended look at Grand Theft Auto VI is coming to Netflix on August 27.
• Grand Theft Auto VI has a November 19 release date, with pre-orders available since June.
• The game’s synopsis focuses on two main characters who are in the middle of a conspiracy and will have to rely on each other to make it out alive.
• The starting price for Grand Theft Auto VI is $79.99.

After many months of waiting, Rockstar Games finally provided a light at the end of the tunnel for fans about Grand Theft Auto VI. The highly-anticipated game will get a November 19, 2026, and pre-orders started back in June. Now, as the return to Vice City approaches, an extended look at Grand Theft Auto VI is coming to Netflix on August 27. That’s really exciting news and likely a sign of successful pre-orders.

RELATED ARTICLE

GRAND THEFT AUTO VI Sets June Pre-Order Date, Will Release in November 2026

Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look will arrive at exactly 3PM ET. It will later come to Rockstar Games YouTube channel as well as the Grand Theft Auto website later at 9PM the same day. Of course, the details about how long it will be and what we will see are not known at this time. But, there’s a synopsis for Grand Theft Auto VI to accompany this news about an extended look on Netflix:

Vice City, USA. Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them. But when an easy score goes wrong, they find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America, in the middle of a conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida — forced to rely on each other more than ever if they want to make it out alive.

Grand Theft Auto VI will cost you $79.99 for the standard edition, which comes in both digital and physical (a code in a box versus an actual disc) copies. ode The “ultimate” version of GTA VI costs $99.99 and includes “an exclusive collection of premium vehicles, weapons, apparel, and action threaded across all aspects” of the game. For more information, head over to the game’s website and get ready for more chaos.

Rockstar Games/Netflix

Tai Gooden is the Features Editor for Nerdist, a fictional villian apologist, and a horror aficionado who is forever waiting for her trip in the TARDIS.

The post GRAND THEFT AUTO VI Extended Look Coming to Netflix This Month appeared first on Nerdist.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights convened in Washington, DC, to hear complaints about excessive use of force and suppression of freedom of expression during protests against immigration enforcement in American cities. One of those who attended and testified at the public hearing was Antonio Romanucci, a Chicago-based civil rights litigation lawyer representing the family of Renee Good, who was fatally shot by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis in January.

He began by thanking the commission for hosting a forum to examine “human rights atrocities” in the United States. “What we saw with Renee,” Romanucci said, “was a federal agent clearly using deadly force without any legal justification, in an extreme manner, shocking the conscience of our country.” Romanucci, who previously secured a settlement in a wrongful death civil rights case on behalf of George Floyd’s family, said “zero federal investigation” resulted in no accountability in Minneapolis, or elsewhere. “I have not seen these atrocities in my 41 years of practice,” he added.

The IACHR, an autonomous body of the Organization of American States, monitors human rights conditions in the hemisphere and hears complaints from civil society about alleged violations. Romanucci, along with Thomas Becker of the University Network for Human Rights, appealed to the commission, requesting a hearing on the US government’s actions against protesters, journalists, and bystanders at demonstrations opposing the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

“As Donald Trump attacks the courts, weaponizes the Department of Justice, and targets attorneys who challenge his administration,” Romanucci and Becker explained in an opinion piece published in the Guardian previewing the hearing, “we have been forced to seek justice beyond our borders.” They added: “Never before had the commission granted such a hearing, but the extraordinary nature of the Trump administration’s actions…warrants international scrutiny.”

“For years, the Commission has heard testimony about the attacks on protesters carried out by some of the region’s most repressive dictatorships. Now, it is the United States that will be called to answer for these abuses.”

A press release said this marked the first time the IACHR, which doesn’t have enforcement authority, held such a thematic hearing on freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly in the United States. “For years, the Commission has heard testimony about the attacks on protesters carried out by some of the region’s most repressive dictatorships,” James Cavallaro, former president of the IACHR, said in a statement. “Now, it is the United States that will be called to answer for these abuses.”

Rev. David Black, a pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was one of the speakers. He recounted how in September 2025, he was wearing his clerical collar when he joined a protest outside the ICE detention facility in Broadview to say a prayer and stand in solidarity with the immigrant detainees. “My words were confrontational,” Rev. Black told the commission. “They were also peaceful.”

He said federal agents fired pepper-balls at him at least seven times, hitting his head, face, torso, arms, and legs. Other protesters tried to cover him, he said, but agents in full armor forced him down and sprayed the pastor with a chemical irritant. Rev. Black, who was part of a federal lawsuit against the US government last year decrying a “pattern of extreme brutality” by federal agents, recalled struggling to breathe. “What happened to me was not an isolated incident,” he said, stating that clergy have been “repeatedly assaulted” outside detention centers and prevented from ministering inside.

The delegation also condemned the Trump administration’s efforts to label protesters as domestic terrorists. Boston University law professor Susan Akram called the policies “blatantly illegal and draconian” and part of a “campaign to criminalize dissent, free expression, and ideologies that this administration dislikes.” Akram said the measures violated international law and “are frankly reviving McCarthyism in the United States.”

Andrea Pochak, one of the IACHR commissioners, said priests, journalists, human rights lawyers, and immigrants are not terrorists. She also inquired about cases in which federal agents engaged in excessive use of force had been disciplined or criminally charged. “The system of accountability is broken,” said Locke Bowman, an attorney representing Rev. Black and two other Chicago residents who have filed claims against the Department of Homeland Security.

The US government provided little in the way of response. Acting Deputy Chief of Mission to the OAS Julianna Aynes-Neville declined to answer questions, citing ongoing litigation. “I am circumscribed in what I am able to say today,” she said. “The United States must once again register dissatisfaction with the decision to convene this hearing on these matters.” She urged the commission to redirect its attention to backlogged cases and countries with “weak or nonexistent protections” for freedom of expression.

Cavallaro, the former president of IACHR, urged the commission to visit the United States to observe the human rights situation in the country. “If there’s nothing to hide, if the system is working, if cases are investigated, if abuses are addressed,” he said, addressing the US representatives, “please show that to the commission.”

“Without any transparent investigation there will never be any discipline,” Romanucci, the lawyer for Renee Good’s family, said, “there will never be any accountability.” After the hearing, Romanucci told Mother Jones the government’s evasiveness at the hearing mirrored its handling of Good’s killing. “Not only do we hear common design in justifying the narrative when there is deadly force or excessive force used,” he said, “this also, to me, is a common design of not answering questions or releasing information in order to make this process more transparent.”

Asked about the investigation into the fatal shooting of Good, Romanucci said, “the status today is the same as it was in January.” He added: “There has been no exchange of information with regard to the evidence of the case and we just hope to be able to get some answers very soon.” As for the IACHR’s hearing, Romanucci called for concrete action. “This was a good start,” he said, “but all that was exchanged today were words. We need to see much more.”

After months of speculation, the companies formally announced the massive project will happen just north of Houston.

As an ordinary internet user, I am skeptical about AI. My colleagues and I have reported on several harmful aspects of the technology in the US: threats to democracy, its impact on the environment, mental health, the workforce, military intervention—the list goes on. 

While researching the gaps in conversations around enforceable government regulation of AI startups, both big and small, eager to innovate and launch new products, I came across AI researchers, policy experts, and even “ordinary internet users” like me trying to reimagine how the industry could work. If AI is unstoppable, can we build it in a way where the public has more of a say in how the technology is made, used, and who it benefits? 

To answer these questions, I spoke with B Cavello, the director of emerging technologies at the Aspen Institute. Cavello wants to make sure that ordinary users like you and me have some say in how this powerful technology is developed and regulated. I talked to Cavello about the gap between the recent proposals among tech executives and lawmakers to give Americans financial ownership stakes in major AI companies and what actually ensuring public safety could look like.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. 

I’ve heard a lot of coverage on proposals of public ownership of AI from folks like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Are there other prominent proposals being discussed?

Ownership is complicated. I’m a big proponent of the movement for public AI. Public AI is open source, centering public access, accountability, and sustainable public goods. That means making sure that not only do people have free access to things, but also access to build models in their own local context. 

When we say accountability, we don’t just mean regulation on harms we’re trying to prevent. We also mean the capabilities that we want to get built in the world. When we talk about AI leading to a new age of human flourishing, we often aren’t talking about the basics, and that’s an important place to start when we think about public accountability and then sustainable public goods. 

When we build products within this framing, we want them to be essentially treated like public infrastructure. A lot of work in the public AI community has been on open source because that’s one of the spaces where people are able to continue to build on top of each other. CurrentAI [a public-private partnership of governments, companies, and organizations to fund public interest tech] announced in the last couple of weeks their AIPotluck initiative, which is bringing together different open-source AI builders to build a full open stack [meaning making the entire AI development process accessible to the public].

It’s less about trying to take the market share or revenues of big AI [companies, similar to Altman’s and Sanders’ proposals], but more that we’re going to distribute these capabilities, such that now they aren’t the only players in town—and we’re distributing [electrical] power that way. 

Who are the types of people and communities that are participating in public AI discussions?

There’s a big movement around AI sovereignty across the African continent and Europe about trying to disentangle from American AI providers. To that end, ownership is about local representation and empowering a local tech community. There’s a conversation in the US, especially around a potential AI bubble, whether or not it might burst, and how we might have public ownership or public uptake of these technologies. 

“I would like our AI future to look more like electricity: a reliable, publicly accountable utility that has universal service requirements to make sure that everyone can be connected. “

As you alluded to, there are folks like Sen. Sanders who are responding to the concerns around AI safety and power concentration, who are trying to look for interesting and creative avenues for trying to have some sort of power over these companies through partial ownership of them, but I think is like ultimately not where I would focus, especially per some of the conversations around the uncertainty of the [economic] future of these systems. It is sort of accepting defeat on other forms of regulation to say we’re just going to be passengers on this ride. I think Sanders’ team and a lot of people working in Congress don’t want that to be the only strategy going forward.

Windfall Trust, [a network of independent AI researchers and strategists], has been working on how to encourage people before a crisis happens [like mass unemployment] while the pressure is low, and get some pre-commitments on trigger conditions for different [ameliorating] policies. 

Considering all the discussions around reimagining AI, how would these ideas become policy?

The thing I parallel it to is the renewable energy transition, where on one hand, we needed the tech to be there. We needed solar panels to get super good and cheap. But we also needed rebates on the policy side that enable us to leverage those technologies. 

Congress and, broadly, governments tend to be reactive institutions. 

The public is also becoming more aware and engaged on issues around AI. So some of these things will be showcased at a more local level before they make it into larger policy.

As a regular internet user, what are things that I should be thinking or concerned about?

How do we establish public accountability in how data centers are operated? For the last 20 years, there have been people demanding transparency in technology companies and basically being told we can’t do that because of the First Amendment. We have adopted this mentality that tech companies can be secretive—we can’t ask them anything, and they don’t divulge anything. We can absolutely require reporting about some of the ways data centers are operating.

I would love to see people pushing on public access to data centers. Let’s demand that we have set-asides that 20 percent of a data center is allocated toward publicly accessible, accountable, and sustainable public goods. 

We already have the tools. We’ve seen a vast hollowing out of the apparatus that is meant to hold these entities accountable. Federal agencies are meant to do this work—the IRS. If somebody in the public cares about holding big AI companies to account, part of [the public effort] means championing the people who can do that work and encouraging the election of people who are interested in that. 

I would encourage people in their own use of AI technologies to think about how to use open systems and run things locally. There are some folks who are engaging with public libraries across the country, where people can access these tools for trying things out. OpenAI and Anthropic don’t monopolize what is possible [with AI].

Is there something analogous to conversations that happened previously on how to think about what AI could be? 

I would like our AI future to look more like electricity: a reliable, publicly accountable utility that has universal service requirements to make sure that everyone can be connected. And at the same time, we have batteries and home generators [as individuals]. 

It’s not to say that there can’t be interesting innovations on top of existing infrastructure. In many ways, I think of AI as the cool thing we can do with electricity. Here we are having a Zoom call—what an innovation in electricity! We should have public utilities, and we should have a thriving market of all different kinds of community solar and private companies that’ll build innovative batteries, but recognizing that we all deserve access, we all deserve accountability. We deserve, if we want, to have an innovation ecosystem. We need a sustainable infrastructure layer that people can count on and build on top of, and not be worried that [Anthropic] Mythos-style, suddenly everything is revoked. 

There are things that are not great about our public utilities. People are having fights about data centers in part because of the way our electrical grid is run [such as prioritizing data centers over local residents]. So I don’t think that it is a perfect one-to-one.

Donald Trump can’t seem to get even the most basic facts straight.

The 80-year-old president raised some eyebrows during a speaking engagement at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas Wednesday when he verbally misspelled a four-letter word.

“Nobody knows that ‘dumb’ doesn’t have a ‘b’,” Trump said sincerely, before proverbially patting himself on the back for cooking up the derogatory term “dumocrats” for his liberal opponents.

“I can’t imagine I didn’t think about that 10 years ago when I started this whole situation,” he added.

Trump: "Nobody knows that 'dumb' doesn't have a B"

(Dear reader, it has a B) pic.twitter.com/isCik2OK0Z

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2026

Trump was there to speak about his “no tax on tips” policy, but over the course of an hour-plus speech, he instead managed to stun attendees again when he told the Nevadan crowd that “Michael Whatley should be your governor.”

Whatley, however, is running for Senate in North Carolina.

Trump in Nevada: “Michael Whatley should be your governor.”

Minor detail: Whatley is running for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina.

25th Amendment now! pic.twitter.com/fDJXgky1Fl

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 6, 2026

Trump is the second-oldest man to ever serve as America’s commander-in-chief, and his increasingly erratic behavior has sparked global concern in recent months about his stability and judgement.

The octogenarian has spent hours at Walter Reed Medical Center on multiple occasions over the last year, fallen asleep during more than a dozen critical meetings, appeared lost and disoriented around foreign heads of state, frequently slurred his speech, and has emerged with discolored and bruised skin on several occasions.

He has also derailed press conferences to throw cheap and petty insults at members of the media, aggressed against the pope, abducted foreign leaders, sparked wars without congressional approval, and has become so obsessed with his Washington vanity projects that he has a difficult time focusing on anything else. That last detail has been flagged by leading clinical psychologists as a tell-tale symptom of dementia.

Katalyst Space is continuing to make progress in the rescue of the spacecraft that is supposed to rescue NASA's Swift observatory. The spin of the LINK vehicle, which was launched in July on a mission to raise the orbit of NASA's Swift observatory, is now 1.47 degrees per second, down from 9 degrees per second when recovery operations began. According to Katalyst Space, it will remain at there "while the team prepares for the next phase of the mission." The next step is a "significant" flight software update. With a substantial chunk of the attitude control system with which LINK launched now inoperable, a change was inevitable to reflect the spacecraft's new configuration. Katalyst Space stated, "This will restore full attitude control and allow the team to begin the phasing maneuvers needed to align LINK’s orbit with Swift." The company also attempted to allay concerns about how much fuel had been expended in the recovery. One of LINK's electric propulsion thrusters was used to regain control of the spacecraft, and less than 100 grams of propellant was consumed "to conserve fuel for the rendezvous and boost phase of the mission." According to NASA, LINK's three ion thrusters are powered by approximately 130 pounds (60 kg) of xenon gas. It remains unclear what caused the failure in attitude control, although in an earlier update Katalyst Space stated, "During commissioning, the Katalyst team encountered a series of technical issues related to attitude control of the spacecraft." The incident left LINK with only one out of three reaction wheels operable and "partial RCS functionality." The reduction in roll rate to 1.47 degrees per second is a critical step to recovery, and a hoped-for rendezvous and rescue of the Swift observatory, which is getting dangerously close to the point of no return in terms of altitude. Assuming the flight software update works as planned, the next stage will be a rendezvous followed by a grapple of NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory using LINK's three robotic arms. Once captured, the plan is to have LINK gradually raise Swift back to near its original orbit of 370 miles (600 km) over the course of several months. Once done, LINK will detach and re-enter Earth's atmosphere. ®

Newly filed court exhibits show OpenAI’s legal strategy in Apple’s trade secrets lawsuit: argue that Apple’s own security and offboarding practices — including allowing an Apple manager to access a former engineer’s iCloud account after he left the company —undermine its claims that the allegedly stolen information was properly protected.