When Ma Yi, 36, a senior manager from Shanghai, landed at Los Angeles International Airport on June 5, she had her own version of the American dream. She was entering her eighth month of pregnancy and intended to give birth to an American baby. http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/closer-scrutiny-as-chinese-seek-to-give-birth-in-the-united-states/?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur She told an immigration officer of her plan, she recalled […]

New site Eter9 promises digital immortality using a kind of artificial intelligence to scan your posts. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/articles/34015307 It will then continue posting online for you after death. Yes, it’s the creepiest thing we’ve learned today too. If your social activity consists of posts about Taylor Swift and complaints to train companies, it means you can […]

Hungary called on Tuesday for more money from the European Union to handle a rising tide of migrants crossing the Balkans, as a new wave hit its southern border and further exposed the cracks in EU policy toward the worst refugee crisis since World War Two. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/25/us-europe-migrants-idUSKCN0QU1BC20150825?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter More than 100,000 migrants, many of them refugees […]

Kenneth Rogoff has long warned of a potential financial crisis in China. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/business/dealbook/a-warning-on-china-seems-prescient.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur Mr. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University, accurately predicted the eurozone debt crisis and for years has been telling anyone who would listen that China posed the next big threat to the global economy. He is starting to look right, […]

Documents obtained by The Intercept confirm that undercover police officers attended numerous Black Lives Matter protests in New York City between December 2014 and February 2015. https://firstlook.org/theintercept/ The documents also show that police in New York have monitored activists, tracking their movements and keeping individual photos of them on file. The nearly 300 documents, released […]

Who received more cash from Yale’s endowment last year: Yale students, or the private equity fund managers hired to invest the university’s money? http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/19/opinion/stop-universities-from-hoarding-money.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0 It’s not even close. Last year, Yale paid about $480 million to private equity fund managers as compensation — about $137 million in annual management fees, and another $343 million in […]

Democracy Now! video transcript: As documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden expose how AT&T aided the NSA’s vast spying operations, we speak to former AT&T technician Mark Klein, who worked at the company for 22 years. In 2006, he blew the whistle on AT&T’s cooperation with the National Security Agency by leaking internal documents that […]

At Amazon, workers are encouraged to tear apart one another’s ideas in meetings, toil long and late (emails arrive past midnight, followed by text messages asking why they were not answered), and held to standards that the company boasts are “unreasonably high.” The internal phone directory instructs colleagues on how to send secret feedback to […]

The National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic passing through the United States has relied on its extraordinary, decades-long partnership with a single company: the telecom giant AT&T. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/us/politics/att-helped-nsa-spy-on-an-array-of-internet-traffic.html?ref=us&_r=0 While it has been long known that American telecommunications companies worked closely with the spy agency, newly disclosed N.S.A. documents show […]

“There are promises of air cover and support for the fighters on the ground, but we have grown tired of these promises,” said Mustafa Birru, the head of a prominent rebel group in Aleppo Province. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/middleeast/us-and-turkey-face-questions-in-anti-isis-effort.html?ref=world&_r=0 Internationally, the decision by Turkey and the United States to work together to clear the Islamic State from a […]

Engineers have developed a robotic system that can evolve and improve its performance. http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33867941 A robot arm builds “babies” that get progressively better at moving without any human intervention. The ultimate aim of the research project is to develop robots that adapt to their surroundings. The work by teams in Cambridge and Zurich has been […]

Facial recognition software, which American military and intelligence agencies used for years in Iraq and Afghanistan to identify potential terrorists, is being eagerly adopted by dozens of police departments around the country to target criminal suspects.  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/13/us/facial-recognition-software-moves-from-overseas-wars-to-local-police.html?emc=edit_th_20150813&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=24074060&_r=0  But because it is being used with few guidelines and with little oversight or public disclosure, it is […]

The Animas River in southwestern Colorado has been grievously polluted with toxic water spilled from one of the many abandoned mines that pockmark the region and the Environmental Protection Agency has claimed responsibility, saying it accidentally breached a store of chemical-laced water. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/us/durango-colorado-mine-spill-environmental-protection-agency.html?ref=us&_r=0 On Sunday, anger over the spill boiled over after the agency announced […]

Two reporters who were arrested while covering the protests in Ferguson, Mo., last August, were charged with trespassing and interfering with a police officer, their outlets said on Monday.  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/us/arrested-in-ferguson-2014-washington-post-reporter-wesley-lowery-is-charged.html?_r=0 The reporters, Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post and Ryan J. Reilly of the Huffington Post, were arrested at a McDonald’s restaurant while covering nightly […]

A revamped Diet Pepsi without aspartame is now showing up on store shelves. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/08/10/us/ap-us-diet-pepsi-aspartame.html PepsiCo says its new Diet Pepsi should be available nationally this week. In response to customer feedback, the company said earlier this year that it would replace the aspartame in the drink with another artificial sweetener that has less baggage. The […]

Coca-Cola, the world’s largest producer of sugary beverages, is backing a new “science-based” solution to the obesity crisis: To maintain a healthy weight, get more exercise and worry less about cutting calories. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/coca-cola-funds-scientists-who-shift-blame-for-obesity-away-from-bad-diets/?_r=0 The beverage giant has teamed up with influential scientists who are advancing this message in medical journals, at conferences and through social […]

Accusations of child sexual abuse against some prominent figures of Britain’s recent past have proved true. Allegations of similar wrongdoing by others, dating back decades, surface regularly now in the hothouse British press, as does talk of cover-ups by some of the nation’s most powerful institutions. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/world/europe/in-britain-edward-heath-case-intensifies-debate-over-validity-of-sex-abuse-claims.html?_r=0 Yet, none of those disclosures, disturbing as they […]