After an eight-year freedom of information battle, France's highest administrative court ruled against activist Cosimo Monico (writing as the requester) and co-plaintiffs Communia, Wikimédia France and La Quadrature du Net, who sought public release of 3D scans of Auguste Rodin's public domain sculptures. The ruling came despite an earlier opinion from France's own Commission on Access to Administrative Documents (CADA) finding the scans were administrative documents that should be disclosed, and despite the museum director's own written admission that she intended to ignore FOI law and force the matter to court.
cosmowenman.substack.com
· 2026-10-03
Researchers critiquing a series of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health studies say they replicated and expanded the same statistical methodology used to link nuclear power plants to elevated cancer rates. Applying that methodology to other landmarks, they found it also attributes huge numbers of cancer deaths to Costco warehouses, private colleges, Harvard itself, and even Major League Baseball stadiums. The critics argue this shows the method produces spurious correlations regardless of the landmark chosen, undermining the original nuclear-cancer papers published in Environmental Health, Nature Communications, and other journals between December and this year.
breakthroughjournal.org
· 2026-10-03
A PR professional with nearly 15 years of experience writes that entrepreneurs often expect media coverage to directly translate into sales, but argues this is a misconception. The piece lists lessons for founders, including that PR encompasses more than press placements—covering conferences, trade shows and awards—and that success depends on consistently offering journalists real news and milestones.
entrepreneur.com
· 2026-10-02
A new Quinnipiac University national poll finds that more than 70% of Americans say they are concerned AI technology could threaten humanity's existence. The survey indicates public anxiety has expanded beyond job displacement and rising energy costs linked to data centers to encompass broader fears about AI's long-term dangers.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-01
An analysis of taxpayer-subsidized stadium projects found that the economic benefits touted by teams and leagues were consistently outweighed by the public costs involved. The pattern held across multiple projects examined, raising questions about the justification typically used to secure public funding for new sports facilities.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-10-01
Reddit announced it will shut down RSS feed support on November 13, citing abuse from large-scale scraping. The company also said its public API will be fully discontinued by March 2027, and it is restricting access to Old Reddit for logged-in users who haven't visited in the past 90 days. Developers with approved third-party apps or bots must register them by January 12, 2027 to keep API access.
tech.slashdot.org
· 2026-09-30
Reddit announced it will end support for RSS feeds on November 13 and shut down its public API access by March 2027, citing large-scale scraping and automated abuse. The company is directing moderators who relied on RSS-based alerts to migrate to the Discord Relay Devvit app, though it admits there's no direct replacement for feeds used outside moderator communities.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-09-30
Consumer advocacy group Public Citizen has asked the FCC and FTC to force broadcasters to stop airing government-funded ads featuring President Trump, arguing they violate anti-propaganda laws and restrictions on political activity by federal employees. The complaint cites 'The Final Battle,' a Department of Homeland Security-funded ad that reuses footage and audio from a 2024 Trump campaign ad, now labeled 'Paid for by the US government.' The ad aired during Saturday Night Live, Fox News Sunday, and football broadcasts, according to Public Citizen's letter and a Wall Street Journal report saying Trump personally pushed for its creation.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-29
California has enacted a law prohibiting public officials in the state from creating or promoting their own memecoins. The measure targets the kind of speculative crypto tokens tied to political figures that gained attention after incidents like Donald Trump's memecoin launch.
slashdot.org
· 2026-09-29
Researchers tested Maui residents six to eighteen months after the 2023 wildfires and detected notably high concentrations of toxic metals in their bodies. The findings indicate that health risks from the fires did not end when the flames were extinguished, but continued well into the following year.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-09-28
Pew Research Center published a statement outlining how it does and does not use artificial intelligence in its research. The organization says real people, not AI-generated or modeled synthetic opinion, answer its surveys, and that its roughly 10,000-person U.S. panel is selected at random. It also states that humans choose research topics, write and review reports, and retain ultimate responsibility for accuracy.
pewresearch.org
· 2026-09-28
A survey of residents in Northern Virginia, home to the world's largest concentration of data centers, found broad support for measures that would make data center development more transparent and accountable to the public. However, support was weaker for rules addressing more complicated aspects of data center operations, such as those researchers describe as complex regulatory issues.
fastcompany.com
· 2026-09-28
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