At the Tipping Point, People Are Choosing Each Other

There’s a lot of noise right now telling us things are only getting worse in USA. Robert Reich’s latest post cuts through that with something rarer and more useful: grounded optimism. Writing from Minnesota, Reich describes what he sees as America’s tipping point. He doesn’t flinch from the dangers. Democratic norms are under pressure and state power is being tested in ways that should alarm anyone paying attention. But alongside that, he notices something else taking shape on the ground.

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Some geeks now sleep while their AI agent codes. I on the other hand can’t sleep as my mind spins at the possibilities … including Claude embedded in Excel!

Where did southern Australia’s record-breaking heatwave come from? Millions of people in southeastern Australia are sweating through a record-breaking heatwave. Temperatures have topped 49°C in northwest Victoria and South Australia for the first time on record. (The Conversation)

An exclusive look inside the largest effort ever mounted to keep the Great Barrier Reef alive A large team of scientists is working hard to save the Great Barrier Reef by helping corals reproduce both in the ocean and in labs. They collect coral spawn and grow baby corals to plant back on the reef, aiming to make corals more heat-resistant. However, the reef’s survival depends mostly on cutting carbon emissions to stop climate change. (vox.com)

Apple Expands Apple Watch Hypertension Notifications to Australia Apple Watch now adds hypertension notifications in Australia, alerting users to possible signs of chronic high blood pressure, or hypertension. This matters because hypertension affects around 1.4 billion adults worldwide, is often symptom-free and undiagnosed, and is a leading preventable cause of heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease. You will need to update iOS and WatchOS to the latest. (apple.com/au)

Repeat after me - "very unfortunate"

President Trump called the killing of Alex Pretti a “very unfortunate incident.”

Very unfortunate: ten shots, point blank, less than five seconds. Masked federal agents on the US government payroll executing an ICU nurse on the streets of Minneapolis. Below-zero empathy.

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Signal in the noise: Professor Ethan Mollick's One Useful Thing

If you spend any time reading about artificial intelligence, you know the feeling: another breathless prediction about AGI* arriving next Tuesday, another tech executive promising that their chatbot will cure loneliness and reinvent education, another think piece declaring that everything you know about work is about to become obsolete. The signal-to-noise ratio is brutal.

Which is why I keep returning to Professor Ethan Mollick.

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France gives Zoom and Teams the chop

Auto-generated description: A cartoon features Zoom and Teams characters avoiding a guillotine labeled Sortie, while standing on a Visio platform, with a French man gesturing towards them.

American tech giants just lost a major customer. The French government announced it will phase out Zoom and Microsoft Teams across all public administration by 2027, replacing them with a homegrown alternative called Visio. The move isn’t about features or pricing. It’s about control.

“Dependencies that seem most innocuous in calm times can be brutally exploited against us in times of crisis,” David Amiel, France’s Minister Delegate for Civil Service, told La Tribune Dimanche. The minister framed the shift as part of a broader European sovereignty push that extends from international diplomacy down to everyday government operations.

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Three quarters of Australia’s coal plants will close by 2035

Renew Economy reports that despite government subsidies coal fired power plants are being phased out. Why? They are old, cannot compete with renewables, are being sidelined by rooftop solar, are inflexible and struggle to follow load, will be too expensive to maintain, and face high prices for coal, and in some cases difficulty even sourcing the fossil fuel.

Slur first, spin later

The Trump regime never apologises. It never admits error. It simply scuttles sideways, trailing spin like ink from a startled squid.

On Saturday, federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, on a Minneapolis street. Within hours, the administration’s messaging machine roared to life. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labelled him a “domestic terrorist.” Officials claimed he brandished a gun at agents. The implication was clear: he deserved what he got.

Then the eyewitness video emerged. It told a different story.

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Keynes’s Bancor idea needs revisiting in wake of Trump - Alan Kohler, ABC The US-dollar-centric financial system is weakening under rising US debt and political instability. Keynes’s proposal for a shared global currency, Bancor, is resurfacing as countries such as China and the BRICS seek alternatives to US financial dominance and a fairer trade system.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the “Stupidity” That Led to Hitler’s Third Reich From prison (1943-45) Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned that rising power can make people lose their independent thinking. He saw this “stupidity” as a danger that helped Hitler gain control and commit evil. Today, his warning reminds us to be careful when political power grows too strong.

French lawmakers vote to ban social media use by under-15s Legislation, which also bans mobile phones in high schools, would make France the second country after Australia to take such a step (The Guardian)

Government directed protection?

From verified account of California Governor. Note: TikTok USA now owned and controlled by US investors. TikTok in the rest of the world not affected.