The new documentary American Doctor tells the story of how the besieged hospitals of Gaza have continued to treat the sick and wounded throughout Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian territory, with local medical staff risking their own lives in the process. According to Palestinian officials, Israeli attacks have killed about 1,700 healthcare workers in Gaza since October 2023. The documentary follows three U.S. doctors as they volunteer in Gaza hospitals. Director Poh Si Teng says the film rose out of her “deep despair” over what was happening in Gaza, including deadly Israeli attacks on her former Al Jazeera colleagues. American Doctor is her attempt “to bring Palestine back to the United States,” Teng says. We also speak […]

One of the biggest upsets from Democratic primary elections this month was Donavan McKinney’s defeat of two-term Congressmember Shri Thanedar in the House primary to represent parts of Detroit and Wayne County in Michigan’s 13th District. McKinney, a democratic socialist state lawmaker, won on a platform to get corporate money out of politics, support Medicare for All and end military aid to Israel, among other issues. Like many other insurgent Democrats running for office, he has also proposed strict limits on artificial intelligence data centers. He took no corporate PAC money, and his campaign was supported by the Justice Democrats, Working Families Party, Democratic Socialists of America and major labor unions. “We built the […]

We speak with Tennessee lawmaker Justin J. Pearson, who just won the Democratic primary to represent part of Memphis in the state’s 9th Congressional District. Pearson’s campaign focused in part on opposing large artificial intelligence data centers, particularly Elon Musk’s Colossus 1 and Colossus 2, which are in the Memphis area. “People don’t want toxic data centers polluting the air that they breathe,” says Pearson. “It’s not a fight of right versus left; it’s a fight of those who are at the top and the rest of us.” Pearson is a longtime environmental justice organizer and advocate who first gained national prominence three years ago, when he was expelled from Tennessee’s House of Representatives for protesting […]

CIA Carried Out Drone Strikes, Disappearances and Torture Near Ecuador’s Coast, Rights Groups Say Israel Is Covering Up War Crimes Evidence as It Clears Gaza’s Rubble, Israeli Settlers’ Siege of Palestinian Homes Draws Rare Rebuke from U.S. Ambassador, Lebanon Condemns Home Demolitions by Israel as a “Serious Violation of International Law”, Pentagon Sends New Aircraft Carrier to Relieve USS Abraham Lincoln Following Attempted Suicides, DHS Targeted Left-Leaning Groups in Minnesota with Mass Surveillance Program, ICE Confirms Death of Third Immigrant at Privately Run ICE Jail in New Jersey, 140 Immigrants Hold Hunger Strike at For-Profit ICE Jail in Tacoma, Washington, Activists Try to Halt Border Wall Construction as Contractors […]

We speak with Timnit Gebru, a leader in the field of AI ethics, about how artificial intelligence is entrenching societal biases and inequality. Gebru is the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, a group of academics, activists and engineers who produce research rooted in the belief that technology should benefit everyone. She also co-founded Black in AI, a nonprofit that works to increase the inclusion and visibility of Black people in the field of AI. Gebru previously served as co-lead of the Ethical AI research team at Google but was fired in 2020 for writing a paper that warned about the financial and environmental costs of large language models, as well as their propensity to […]