Bessma Momani

Meta Director of AI Safety Allows AI Agent to Accidentally Delete Her Inbox Meta Superintelligence Labs’ director of alignment called it a “rookie mistake.”

NEW: Meta’s director of AI safety, supposedly the person at the company who is working to make sure that powerful AI tools don’t go rogue and act against human interests, had to scramble to stop an AI agent from deleting her inbox against her wishes...

The boys’ club: How Epstein’s influence shaped the exclusion of women in STEM In one email, an AI researcher suggested it’s “hard to be brilliant if you are worrying if you look fat or why another woman hates you.”

The trove of files released by the Department of Justice, illuminates Epstein’s deep interest and entrenchment in the scientific community.

But the files also underscore how he used his power and money in ways that kept women out of places where they might succeed. https://bit.ly/4qWgPLz

Pentagon Flags Risks of a Major Operation Against Iran The warnings have been led by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, within the Defense Department and during meetings of the National Security Council.

The Pentagon is raising concerns to President Trump about an extended military campaign against Iran, advising that war plans being considered carry risks including U.S. and allied casualties, depleted air defenses and an overtaxed force. on.wsj.com/40vkhly

OpenAI has a lot of explaining to do, and might want to start by revealing to authorities what responses ChatGPT gave during interactions with Van Rootselaar.

Side effect of the U.S.'s tariffs and annexation rhetoric around Greenland: Iceland, which withdrew its EU membership application a decade ago, is now discussing fast-tracking a referendum on membership.

If Icelanders say yes (still a big if), it could join before any existing EU candidate state.

Scoop: DNC officials working on secret report found Gaza stance cost Harris votes The DNC's research on what went wrong in 2024 has been under lock and key since party leaders decided to hide it from the public.

Top Democratic officials who worked on the party's still-secret autopsy of the 2024 election concluded that Kamala Harris lost significant support because of the Biden administration's approach to the war in Gaza, Axios has learned.

Mexico hit by wave of violence after security forces kill cartel leader Death of Jalisco New Generation Cartel boss ‘El Mencho’ follows US calls for action against traffickers

"Residents in Guadalajara, Jalisco’s state capital and a host city for the 2026 World Cup, reported at least 30 incidents of shoot-outs and roadblocks on Sunday" www.ft.com/content/55fa...

Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’

"Professors Are Being Watched: ‘We’ve Never Seen This Much Surveillance’"
"Scrutiny of university classrooms is being formalized, with new laws requiring professors to post syllabuses and tip lines for students to complain."
Gift link 🎁
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/u...

Countries are: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Somalia, and Zimbabwe

"This time, [USAID] programs that survived the initial purge precisely because they were judged to be lifesaving are slated for cancellation...the administration will soon end all of the humanitarian funding it is currently providing [to] seven African nations...

X Really Is Pulling Users to the Right Elites may not be as immune to this kind of algorithmic radicalization as they think.

This isn't just snobbishness, we are at the point where we're starting to get evidence for Musk's Twitter being a radicalisation engine, and if a lot of epistemic elite users stick around there, I worry about the effects on our media.

According to the New Yorker, Donald Trump and his family profited off the presidency by an estimated $4 billion in 2025 — mostly through shady crypto deals.

That amounts to $456,621 per hour.

But how are you doing?

This is what many, including me, have been arguing for a couple of years, based on polls and other indicators. In fact the evidence was there already in young Democrats' reaction to Biden's handling of the 2021 mini Gaza war as I wrote then here: www.brookings.edu/articles/mos...

Trump Says He Is Sending Hospital Ship to Greenland It couldn’t immediately be determined what prompted the decision or when the ship would reach the island.

“The White House didn’t respond to questions about what specifically prompted the ship’s deployment. Greenland’s government provides free healthcare to the population.”

Gift link:

www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

YouTube video by Direkt36 A CSAPDA (THE TRAP) - Az Orbán-korszak elvesztett lehetőségeinek története

Here's the documentary that 1.1 million Hungarians have watched over the past week, documenting the damage that Viktor Orban's regime has done to health, education and public transportation in Hungary
with English subtitles:
youtu.be/9NQEcLIiOpM?...

Maternal mortality in Louisiana is literally 40x Greenland (41.9/100k to 1.0/100k). They should send hospital boat to Louisiana.

Special Saturday Triad: What I Saw at the Battle of Minneapolis The national media has moved on. Minnesota is still under siege.

"You now live in a country where volunteers deliver babies at home, in secret, off the books, because mothers fear that if they go to the hospital, they will be abducted by masked, armed agents of the state while giving birth. This is not a hypothetical."

OpenAI did not mention Tumbler Ridge shooter’s posts in meeting with B.C. officials day after mass shooting: province Company says it suspended the shooter’s account in June after posts were flagged by an automatic screening system

OpenAI had a meeting with the BC govt the day after the Tumbler Ridge killings but didn't reveal that it had suspended the shooter’s account months earlier due to its violent content.

The company waited until the next day to reach out to the RCMP.
www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/c0f8440... gift link

What I Saw at a Maternity Ward in Kenya After the U.S. Cut Off Food and Foreign Aid Photographs tell a story of two mothers determined to help their babies gain enough weight to leave the hospital — only to face little to no food again.

A maternity ward doctor donated his own blood during surgery to keep a pregnant patient alive.

One woman gained fewer than 10 pounds over her entire pregnancy.

Another collapsed and had seizures during labor.

(Published Dec. 2025)

Researchers Embrace Complexity in Social Media and Teen Mental Health A new study finds longer daily use of social media use was associated with negative outcomes for adolescents, but not all platforms are the same.

A new study finds that longer daily social media use was associated with predominantly negative outcomes for 60% of adolescents, but not all platforms are the same. The variances point to the opportunity for more nuanced regulation than blanket bans, writes Tim Bernard.

‘Don’t go to the US – not with Trump in charge’: the UK tourist with a valid visa detained by ICE for six weeks Karen Newton was in America on the trip of a lifetime when she was shackled, transported and held for weeks on end. With tourism to the US under increasing strain, she says, ‘If it can happen to me, i...

Imagine taking a vacation abroad & being disappeared to a jail for 40+ days for no reason.

That’s what this Admin is doing to foreign tourists. It's outrageous & hurting our businesses. 

When will other nations start holding the Admin accountable for mistreating their citizens?

Generative AI is the production of synthetic content based on existing content. It's, almost by definition, a zombie technology, and turning us all into online zombies, neither alive nor dead, endlessly churning out content, is its perfect use case
#PlatformRealism

Saudi Arabia and the Emirates must resolve their own differences America’s neglect is allowing an unwelcome tension to fester between two of its allies

A rift between the two Gulf monarchies is deepening. Both sides should remember it is easier to de-escalate early on. To do so they should, most urgently, stop fuelling others’ wars

The tragic war in Ukraine has become tragically normal Four years after Russia began its full-scale invasion, the rest of the world is distracted by other news – but the conflict is more violent and devastating than ever

“Four years later, the sirens still scream, and the Russian attacks have become even deadlier.

What’s changed is the world has become accustomed to the war raging in Europe. We’ve come to accept that things are never going back to the way they were before.”

My essay on four years of war in Ukraine

Insightful reporting by David Allen Green at the Financial Times on why Palantir data-analytics defence contracts with UK government should raise concern.

Rule 1 of US capitalism: Prices never go back down

Panel listing the key messages of a Review published in eClinicalMedicine entitled "Advancing child health through applied qualitative research". Copyright: 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Qualitative research provides unique insights into the nuanced experiences of children and young people that quantitative studies often miss.

In @eclinicalmed.bsky.social, authors discuss the importance of qualitative research in advancing child health outcomes: tinyurl.com/82hw7mxv

US:
"We are all one Western Civilization sharing a common thread from Athens to Rome to America."

EU:
"We've actually been building institutions to bring Europe closer together, pooling our sovereignty around shared values and..."

US:
"No. Not like that."

Limiting location sharing on your devices is a great first step to protect yourself against prying eyes.

Thousands of CEOs just admitted AI had no impact on employment or productivity—and it has economists resurrecting a paradox from 40 years ago | Fortune In the 1980s, economist Robert Solow made an observation that reminded economists of today’s AI boom: “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.”

"Nearly 90% of firms said AI has had no impact on employment or productivity over the last three years, the research noted."