Teaching AI agents to ask better questions by playing “Battleship”

Harold Bloom, flatterer. John Ashbery was “THE POET ABSOLUTE,” yet A.R. Ammons’s work was “larger and better” — and then there was Henri Cole

CBP Agents Violently Arrested This Chicago Woman. Now She's Seeking $10 Million in Damages.

The humanities spent decades decentering the human. Now Big Tech is doing it better

Anthropic has been consulting theologians and ethicists on Claude’s behavior, raising questions about who gets to shape a chatbot’s values

‘Debate me!’ doesn’t work. Here are better ways to disagree – and maybe change minds

Open Thread

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

Research from the ground up

Make Britain Great Again

D.C.’s Police Force Shrank. How Did It Get Safer?

Rejected Search Warrant Applications Raise Further Questions About the Federal Case Against Don Lemon

A new sensor could enable earlier detection of bladder cancer

Trump’s Border Win

Alasdair MacIntyre believed that Western morality, having lost its rationale, was replaced by something thinner: mere moral passion  

The Left’s Institutional Capture

Open Thread

Harold Bloom read everything, praised lavishly, and struggled mightily with self-doubt 

Totó La Momposina (1940 – 2026) Singer

Killing Me Softly with His Song

Open Thread