A study led by Oxford researcher Noam Angrist tested a low-cost intervention combining text-message nudges and a weekly 20-minute phone call from a teacher to support children's learning when schools shut down. The randomized trials, involving more than 16,000 households across India, Kenya, Nepal, the Philippines and Uganda during COVID-19 closures, followed an earlier pilot in Botswana and were published in Nature.
A new Nature study by Angrist and colleagues examined how remote phone-based tutoring affected children's learning during periods when schools were shut, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research found strong evidence that this low-tech approach helped students keep learning despite the disruption, offering a rare data-backed solution to an otherwise poorly understood problem.
An investigation by education writer Benjamin Riley exposed practices at Alpha School, a private AI-driven K-12 chain, where students must pass an eight-week bootcamp before enrollment. The regimen reportedly includes building X (formerly Twitter) accounts with paid premium status and organic followers, plus a stress test where students are hooked to heart rate monitors while watching recorded criticism from their parents, failing if their pulse rises more than 10 percent above baseline.
A randomized controlled trial across 243 French high schools and 9,628 students tested giving teenagers a free one-year digital subscription to a major national newspaper and running media-literacy classes taught by teachers. Researchers tracked actual online reading behavior and found subscriptions sharply increased news consumption and even led some students to pay for subscriptions on their own nearly a year later. Students in poorer schools showed the biggest knowledge gains, and combining free access with media education produced the strongest literacy improvements, especially with experienced teachers.
Andrew Lakeman, a former Old School RuneScape developer at Jagex, was sentenced after a years-long investigation found he abused his internal access to steal players' virtual gold and items starting around 2018. He converted roughly £300,000 of stolen in-game currency, along with other funds, into about £364,829 in cryptocurrency before Cambridgeshire police caught him following an internal trap set by Jagex.
A researcher describes developing an economic theory over several months with help from Anthropic's Opus and Fable AI models, which surfaced counterarguments and relevant papers during the process. The work has evolved into a formal paper co-authored with a researcher from the Stockholm School of Economics, building on the task-based automation framework of Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo. The paper claims to combine classical economic scarcity models with technology-driven wage effects to explain how aggregate wages are set, a question the author says mainstream economics has not fully resolved.
A Bitcoin mining data center in El Reno, Oklahoma, owned by Athlon Blockchain LLC, has been condemned after leaking roughly 3 million gallons of water, prompting closures of schools, businesses, and city and county offices. The facility had reportedly continued construction and operations despite a 2023 city Stop Work Order tied to fire and safety code violations and expired permits.
Andrew Lakeman, a former Jagex employee known as Mod Jed who worked on Old School RuneScape since 2015, received a three-year suspended prison sentence after being convicted of stealing over $400,000 worth of in-game gold and selling it on black market sites. Jagex uncovered the scheme after noticing suspicious account recovery patterns starting in 2018, then secretly altered its firewall setup to trace the thefts back to him.
New York City Public Schools banned student-facing AI tools for all K-8 classrooms this week, allowing only a limited set of approved programs for high schoolers, while Los Angeles Unified is enacting a similarly tighter policy for the 2026-27 school year. The move reverses the more permissive stance both districts adopted starting in 2023, after they initially banned ChatGPT outright when it launched in late 2022.
Investor Brad Feld shares a personal reflection on Labor Day weekend, noting that at 60 he's increasingly focused on what truly matters. He shares a list his partner Amy texted him identifying life's real luxuries, including time, health, rest, and meaningful relationships, rather than material wealth.
A Brooklyn father of two used AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude to research and compare back-to-school products instead of manually checking retailer sites and online reviews. The AI consolidated his shopping list across multiple stores and even advised him on optimal timing to buy items at the lowest prices. Retail surveys indicate this behavior is becoming widespread among shoppers this school season.
New York City has enacted a one-year moratorium barring student-facing generative AI tools for public school students from preschool through eighth grade starting the 2026-2027 school year. High schoolers may only use approved AI in supervised pilot programs and must receive AI-literacy lessons twice a year, while companion chatbots are banned at every grade level. The policy also caps daily screen time and restricts teachers from using AI for grading or disciplinary decisions.
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