This week, a jury in North Dakota found Greenpeace liable for more than $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. It was a monumental verdict that many civil society groups and First Amendment lawyers have warned could chill free speech.

The case stems from the protests that erupted near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in 2016, when Indigenous activists and environmentalists gathered to oppose construction of the pipeline, which crossed the Missouri River close to the reservation. Standing Rock leaders warned that a spill could contaminate their water supply and that construction would disturb sacred lands, and said they had not been properly consulted.

Some of the protests included acts of vandalism and clashes with pipeline company employees and law enforcement, and Energy Transfer accused Greenpeace of providing financial and other support to the people involved. Greenpeace said it played only a minor role in the protests.

The jury ruled against Greenpeace on numerous counts, however, finding it liable for trespass, conspiracy, defamation and other offenses. The case named three Greenpeace entities as defendants, two in the United States and its international umbrella organization.

KUSNETZ: So $660 million is a lot of money, of course, and I’m wondering if you can put that figure in context for readers and tell us what the verdict means for Greenpeace USA and its operations?

RAMAN: It is a very large amount of money for most organizations and individuals, as you can imagine. It’s a fairly small amount of money for Energy Transfer. And the reality is that this case is not really about the money, even though it’s a very large amount. It’s really about the desire to send a message that a powerful company can silence a large environmental organization, and send a message to other organizations, not just environmental groups, other types of groups that are trying to hold power to account, that we will use these tools, strategic litigation against public participation, or SLAPPs, to intimidate you, or silence you, or perhaps even bankrupt you.

KUSNETZ: To press on this again, is this the kind of figure that could bankrupt Greenpeace if it does have to pay?

RAMAN: Well, we are definitely going to appeal. So we’re not at the stage of having to pay. We are going to appeal this, and we are confident in our case and in the facts. So this is the next chapter in this journey, if you will. Yes, but this is a number that far exceeds our annual budget by many times.

In recent weeks [California lawmakers] introduced five bills to address the issue, making predictive pricing based on a customer’s personal information one of the most popular tech policy concerns in the Legislature this session.

Ride-sharing apps, travel companies, and retail giants such as Staples, Target, and reportedly Amazon have engaged in the practice, which can set different prices for customers based on factors including internet browsing data or where they live. In one recent example published by SFGATE, a person in the Bay Area was offered a hotel room for $500 more than people in less affluent areas.

The pricing isn’t based on supply or demand. It’s based on predictions made about your eagerness and desires, said researcher Justin Kloczko. In one recent instance he found that Lyft charged his wife $5 more than him for the same ride. Kloczko works at Consumer Watchdog, an advocacy group that cosponsored one of the bills.

The package of bills proposed by California lawmakers to regulate AI responds to a call by Speaker Robert Rivas following elections last fall to focus on measures to address the cost of living.

• Mexico aims to manufacture its first electric vehicles with almost entirely local components.
• Mexico’s EV market is expected to grow 25%–30% annually over the next five years.
• Budget cuts, limited charging infrastructure, and difficulty sourcing lithium could delay Olinia’s rollout.

Named Olinia, or “to move” in the Nahuatl Indigenous language, they will be the first EVs to be fully engineered and assembled in Mexico. They will be “safe, efficient, sustainable, and within reach for millions of Mexicans,” Roberto Capuano, the director of the project, said during the presentation. The first model will be ready by the time the 2026 World Cup kicks off in Mexico City, and be available to the general public by 2030, he said.

Slated to make EVs with almost entirely Mexican components, the Olinia project is touted as the answer both to the government’s ambitious goal of generating 45% clean electricity by 2030, and the influx of imported Chinese EVs, including BYD and Chery, which now account for nearly a tenth of new cars sold in Mexico.

But Olinia faces a number of challenges, including an inadequate budget, an undeveloped lithium industry that is essential for battery manufacture, and an unreasonable timeline, experts said.

The last thing a metal worker from Liège is expected to do is found a new religion. Yet that is just what Louis-Joseph Antoine did, in Jameppe-sur-Meuse, Belgium, in 1910. Antoinism, his namesake religion, is not nearly as popular today as it was in its early years — but to its latest followers, it remains as current as ever.

Bernard (not his real name) is an Antoinist healer, a sort of parish priest for the movement. He is elegant, slightly balding and quick to smile. His pseudonym is not intended to protect his identity, but to preserve the discretion about Antoinism required by his Council. Other Antoinists declined interviews, citing an unwillingness to proselytize. “Recruitment is not part of our statutes, writings, or belief system,” Bernard explained to me. “We do not wish to conquer the world or to tell people how to do better than they already are.” Antoine himself is said to have destroyed 8,000 booklets he had created to spread his word.

This attitude has helped to maintain an aura of mystery around Antoinism. But it may also have stymied its future. The insistence that the secrets and benefits of Antoinism can’t be explained, but must be experienced, does not have the same appeal today as it did at the religion’s inception. At the height of its popularity, Antoinism had 31 temples; today, only 10 are still functioning. For Bernard, the question has become: How to keep alive a faith that speaks to only a few?

Alamogordo is a working-class town. Because of its proximity to three military bases, lots of veterans live here. Like many places in New Mexico, housing costs have skyrocketed and rent is taking up a bigger portion of locals’ paychecks, making family’s food purchases—and particularly the quality of food—dwindle. As a result, 16.5% of Otero County’s population is food insecure, higher than both the state and national averages. In the county, 19% of residents live below the poverty line, including 28% of those under age 18 and 13% of those 65 or older.

Food is often the first thing a family skimps on when facing tough budgets; you can’t pay half the light bill, but you can cut back on groceries.

Courtney also saw that Alamogordo neighborhoods had a lot of empty lots. “I think a lot of people bought here when things were less expensive, and just left the houses when they moved away. Or maybe they left houses to family members who didn’t end up utilizing them,” she says, pointing out that houses frequently catch fire or fall into disrepair, leaving the city to bulldoze them.

Seeing the blight and witnessing the food insecurity around her, Courtney thought: Is there anything more our local government could do to address these needs?

Courtney set out to get the Alamogordo city government to respond. In late 2022, she created a petition asking the city to dedicate empty land for fresh food production and help foot the bill. She started with her friends, asking them to sign on, and then asked her growing Facebook following to do so as well. She tackled the petition drive systematically, the way you might lay out a garden bed.

The first garden is now growing on Maryland Avenue in the Chihuahuita neighborhood—an under-resourced, historically Black and Brown neighborhood just south of downtown Alamogordo. In January 2024, With Many Hands celebrated a ribbon cutting ceremony at the site, and a few weeks later hosted their first community planting day.

Importantly, the group secured a Memorandum of Understanding with the city, allowing them to share expenses like the water bill and other infrastructure needs. They host regular community workdays and open meetings to organize and plan. “We are not a budget line in the parks and recreation budget yet, but hopefully soon,” says Courtney. (Full disclosure: the author is employed by Addition Collective Action Fund, which supports community organizing efforts across the country, including With Many Hands.)

Demographically, Queens has a “majority-minority” population of which nearly half are immigrants. Of all the boroughs in New York City, it also has the largest recent increase in older adult residents. These outcomes reflect both broader historical and recent national trends of increased conservatism among older voters. However, New York City’s progressive and grassroots organizations are seeking to challenge this trend through intergenerational organizing, focusing specifically on labor, housing, and community activism. Many of these efforts began at the start of the pandemic; at their foundation is an earnest commitment by organizers to build meaningful relationships and intentional strategies to make community engagement more accessible and relevant to the lives of their neighbors.

Many politically left-leaning organizations focus their energies and resources on courting Gen Z and millennial stakeholders, rather than integrating an older voting base. Prism spoke to several groups in New York City about engaging older residents by providing tailored services, political education, and opportunities for reciprocal education between youth and elders, among other critical organizing efforts.

CAAAV consists of two primary organizing projects: one working with youth and elders in Manhattan’s Chinatown and another focused on working-class Bengalis in western Queens. Akhtar told Prism that organizing around issues related to housing has proven to be a powerful pathway to engage entire families, with grandparents, in-laws, parents, and children often participating in the same meetings. The goal of this intergenerational organizing is for communities to arrive at a deep investment in solidarity and class alignment.

“We love community as a beautiful thing,” Akhtar said. “But we have clarity that we need more power. We’re trying to win material changes in our society and increase power and decision-making.”

Akhtar underscored the importance of reciprocity and education in building an age-inclusive, culturally inclusive space. This is why CAAAV’s organizing combines theory with practice, emphasizing political education around capitalism to help workers of all ages understand how class shapes their lives. Akhtar told Prism that when discussing strategy, the organization’s older resident organizers often reference history and tactics used by unions they were a part of in their home countries. Meanwhile, youth who are more comfortable strategizing in English tend to thrive in smaller breakout groups and often discuss their experience growing up in multiracial spaces. This dynamic has shaped anti-racist practices within the organization, while also allowing youth to share their experiences with elders who hold real pain regarding their treatment as immigrants in the U.S.

The unique needs of the organization’s member-leaders shape many of CAAAV’s structural investments. The organization provides child care, interpreters, and meals at meetings, and organizers consider the timing, place, and local conditions to maximize attendance.

Columbia's interim President Katrina Armstrong announced she will ban masks on campus, with exemptions for health or religious reasons, train three-dozen campus police officers with authority to arrest people, and appoint a new senior vice provost who will conduct a “thorough review” of the Middle East studies department.

The moves came amid unprecedented pressure on the Ivy League university from the White House. Earlier this month, the federal education department moved to terminate $400 million in federal funding for Columbia, citing what it called "relentless violence, intimidation and antisemitic harassment" on campus.

Federal education officials then sent Columbia a detailed list of demands for the funding to be restored.

In the first month of congestion pricing, the MTA reported over 1 million fewer vehicle entries into the toll zone than would be expected without the program​, driving the significant traffic reduction seen above. It’s also worth noting that the above chart shows reduction in travel times rather than congestion—in many cases, congestion has completely disappeared, and the new travel times represent a congestion-free trip. This reduction reverses a years-long trend of rising traffic into Manhattan​ - congestion pricing took a worsening gridlock problem and solved a significant portion of it overnight. Additionally, while there were fears that congestion pricing would just re-route traffic to other boroughs, the data from the first months of congestion pricing suggests that traffic has not increased elsewhere in the city.

Transit ridership has seen a notable spike since the implementation of congestion pricing as travelers into Manhattan are switching from driving to transit.

The MTA as a whole is averaging 448K more public transit riders per day this year. To put this into perspective, the second-highest ridership subway in the US is the DC Metro, which averaged 304K riders per day in January this year. The MTA ridership growth since congestion pricing went into effect is almost 50% larger than the total ridership of America’s next-largest subway system.

Unsurprisingly, bus ridership has seen the greatest relative growth, likely due to the fact that it most immediately benefits from congestion pricing thanks to faster travel times.

By now, it should be pretty clear that this is no coincidence. AI scrapers are getting more and more aggressive, and - since FOSS software relies on public collaboration, whereas private companies don't have that requirement - this is putting some extra burden on Open Source communities.

So let's try to get more details – going back to Drew's blogpost. According to Drew, LLM crawlers don't respect robots.txt requirements and include expensive endpoints like git blame, every page of every git log, and every commit in your repository. They do so using random User-Agents from tens of thousands of IP addresses, each one making no more than one HTTP request, trying to blend in with user traffic.

Due to this, it's hard to come off with a good set of mitigations. Drew says that several high-priority tasks have been delayed for weeks or months due to these interruptions, users have been occasionally affected (because it's hard to distinguish bots and humans), and - of course - this causes occasional outages of SourceHut.

Drew here does not distinguish between which AI companies are more or less respectful of robots.txt files, or more accurate in their user agent reporting; we'll be able to look more into that later.

Finally, Drew points out that this is not some isolated issue. He says,

All of my sysadmin friends are dealing with the same problems, [and] every time I sit down for beers or dinner to socialize with sysadmin friends it's not long before we're complaining about the bots. [...] The desperation in these conversations is palpable.

If you’ve been anywhere on the Internet — Twitter, Instagram, TikTok — over the past five months, chances are high you’ve seen Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist lawmaker from Queens running to be the next Mayor of New York City.

His viral videos — “man-on-the-street” style interviews with Trump voters, halal cart workers, and first-time donors to his campaign — are the envy of the local political ecosystem (inspiring several, less successful, like-minded efforts). The charismatic millennial, caught eating a burrito on the subway (with a knife and fork no less), cannot even break fast during Ramadan without millions of people taking notice. After confronting border czar Tom Homan, Mamdani’s campaign raised nearly a quarter-of-a-million dollars in the ensuing twenty-four hours. Zohran Mamdani remains everywhere, or so it feels – all without missing a single day in Albany.

When Zohran launched his campaign last October, I wrote that, “Mamdani’s energy: his drive, willingness to experiment, and capacity to inspire, seared into the memories of those who saw him operate in Bay Ridge, could turn what has thus far been a relatively sleepy affair — given the stakes — upside down, delivering a political crusade New York City has not seen in the modern-era. In a race where viability boils down to exposure and press coverage, it is not far-fetched to foresee a scenario where Mamdani vacuums a lionshare of that oxygen — starving rivals looking to climb the polling ladder.”

A bullish prediction at the time, that has nevertheless been exceeded.

Astoria, once a predominantly Greek and Mediterranean enclave in Northwest Queens, is emblematic of this shift. Mamdani, elected to represent the neighborhood in the state legislature five years ago, defeated incumbent Aravella Simotas, an ally of the once-powerful Queens County Democratic Party, long the de-facto broker that hand-picked winners, and buried losers. Voters took kindly to his disavowal of donations from real estate developers and police unions (his opponent, did not); while embracing Mamdani, not as another run-of-the-mill “progressive,” but an unabashed democratic socialist. Symbolically, Zohran launched his campaign the same day Bernie Sanders hosted a rally with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Queensbridge Park. Mamdani’s victory was aided by both the micro: a steady increase in left-leaning residents, some of whom successfully organized (for multiple years) while the local, nascent political machine crumbled; and macro: the near-term apex of both progressive popularity and civic engagement, social forces catalyzed by George Floyd’s murder, the upcoming Presidential Election, and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

While the political landscape shifted under President Joe Biden, the micro-conditions that underwrote the left’s burgeoning political power showed few signs of abating. Already, in a Democratic Primary, there were more votes to be had in places like Astoria than several of the outer borough, working-class neighborhoods that once forecasted victory in a citywide election. Indeed, the political evolution of these left-leaning, lively neighborhoods into a political bloc — spanning Alphabet City, Greenpoint, Williamsburg, South Slope, Prospect Heights, Bushwick, Ridgewood, Long Island City, Sunnyside — capable of not only seizing political power in individual neighborhoods, but serving as the coalition bedrock for a top-tier Mayoral candidate, would have been inconceivable even ten years ago.

Here, where greater than half of the Democratic electorate is under the age of forty-five, the “generational aspect” of Mamdani’s campaign shines through. Indeed, to exit the subway during rush-hour on Jefferson Street in Bushwick or Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, is to be surrounded by hundreds of people of every race and religion — all of whom appear to be younger than 40.

While Mamdani has thus far trained his fire on Andrew Cuomo, not to mention the disgraced (but increasingly irrelevant) incumbent, Eric Adams, the majority of the insurgent’s energy is spent relentlessly championing an economic message, a thesis that New York City’s greatest crisis is not one of runaway crime or managerial incompetence — but of crippling costs-of-living, from housing to childcare. The broad scope of his platform — including freezing the rent for every rent-stabilized tenant, making buses “fast and free,” municipality-owned grocery stores (one in each borough, targeted towards food deserts) — stretches beyond the confines of traditional left-liberal policy pillars, and explicitly targets working-class communities. In an age of hedging and double-speak, Mamdani’s platform is well-defined and unique, while representing the unabashed economic populism and class-based agenda many have been clamoring for since Bernie Sanders ran for President.

The TSA workers who just had their collective bargaining agreement voided should strike. It is obnoxious for me, someone outside of the union, to say that they should strike. It’s real easy to say “strike,” but saying it does not take into account the massive logistical efforts usually necessary to pull off a large scale strike; nor does it take into account the very real existential risk that workers put themselves in by going on strike. They can lose their jobs, they can lose their livelihoods, they can lose their homes. It is illegal for federal workers to strike. AFGE, the union, will therefore never call a strike from the top down. A union spokesman today told me “We do not believe they have done this in an appropriate and legal manner. We are evaluating our legal options and will aggressively pursue every possible avenue to defend our members and the safety of the traveling public against this un-American union busting and retaliation.” The union means to take this to court and fight it out there, for whatever that is worth.

Knowing everything in the preceding paragraph to be true, I say again: The TSA workers should strike. Furthermore, the entirety of the labor movement should use whatever financial and logistical and political resources it has to help them strike. I say this not because I think a strike would be easy, but because the alternative to striking when your employer just announces that they are throwing your contract in the trash is to effectively accept that your employer can throw your contract in the trash, and still receive your labor. A union contract is an agreement that says “I will work for you under the conditions agreed to here.” Now, the Trump administration is saying: Work for us under whatever conditions we say. If you continue to work for them, your contract never meant anything.

CONSPICUOUS IN PRESIDENT Trump’s declaration that the U.S. will resume bombing Yemen was the lack of anything like a strategy to produce the end of Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping. "We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective," is the closest he came, but that's just a description of means and aims, with the hope that enough bombs will compel a Houthi surrender. The Houthis' ability to withstand a decade of Saudi, American and occasionally Israeli bombs and cruise missiles shows they won't. Now not only is Israel back to its U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, the regional war in the Middle East spilling out from it is back on.

There is a surefire way to stop attacks on Red Sea shipping and U.S. Naval vessels. The Trump administration secured it in January, to great regional fanfare and the humiliation of Democrats: Force a ceasefire on Israel. But the administration is actively undermining the ceasefire while attempting to cast Hamas as the intransigent party, a move that clears the decks for as much ethnic cleansing as Israel can get away with.