Terri Friedline

Chris Smalls Released from Israeli Custody Early Thursday morning, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition announced that Amazon Labor Union founder Chris Smalls had been released from Israeli prison.

BREAKING: Chris Smalls has been released from Israeli detention & is returning to the United States

paydayreport.com/chris-smalls...

A photo of labor activist Chris Smalls, talking into a mic

A spokesperson for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition tells me:

“Chris Smalls is still in Givon Prison and despite repeated requests to meet with the U.S. Embassy has been ignored by his country after being abducted by the IOF in international waters.”

Capital One delivers few details on $265B community plan A year after touting a community investment proposal as part of an effort to acquire Discover Financial, the card issuer has yet to lay out program specifics.

Sounds like they’re doing something extra, still an activity that benefits banks’ bottom line

www.paymentsdive.com/news/capital...

I think it was @prisonculture.bsky.social who said something to the effect of "all the deportation captivity horror stories are what we've been saying is happening in normal prisons for years" and it continues to be largely correct.

Gaza Freedom Flotilla has released statement that Black labour leader Chris Smalls (Amazon Labour Union) faced violence that no one else on Handala did. He has been severely beaten in Israeli custody.

Smalls follows in legacy of Black radical tradition for Palestine. Labour must stand for Smalls.

Epstein's sex trafficking was aided by JPMorgan, a U.S. Virgin Islands lawsuit says The U.S.V.I. says JPMorgan Chase didn't report Jeffrey Epstein's suspicious financial activities and provided him banking services after his 2008 conviction for soliciting a minor.

This report is from 2022 but I missed it when it came out
www.npr.org/2022/12/30/1...

North Gaza: Food, Water & Other Distributions Translating Falasteen (Palestine), in collaboration with The Sameer Project, launched a fundraising campaign to support families in Gaza facing severe hardships. Our mission is to provide essential ai...

Sameer Project x Translating Falasteen was able to purchase flour and distribute it in the North. Their work saves lives by preventing at least some people from having to risk their lives for distributions from the genocidal “humanitarian foundation.” Give here: chuffed.org/project/help...

I discussed my concerns about AI sandboxes with Politico:

www.politico.com/newsletters/...

My comments are based on my new paper on sandboxes, which uses the lessons from fintech sandboxes to argue against AI sandboxes:

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Screenshot from Reddit. User is zensnapple, posting 6 months ago. Thread says "How to turn off Google AI Overview in Chrome SOLVED Open Chrome and put chrome://settings/searchEngines in the search box. A tab will open which brings you to Search Engine > Manage Search Engines and Site Search. Click on the Add button by the Site Search update. A box will open. Fill in the form with the following: Name: AI Free Web Shortcut: @web URL: {google:baseURL}search?q=%s&udm=14 You’ll now see AI Free Web in the list of search engines. Click on the three stacked dots on the right side of AI Free Web on the list. Select Make Default. From now on, google functions pretty much like it did back when it was good. Good luck out there."

A while ago, we started a #FixItFriday tradition. We keep a running list - large & small, digital & analog, anything broken or annoying - and work on it together.

Today's 30-second fix: to remove AI "preview" from search results, here's the setting for Chrome users: www.reddit.com/r/techsuppor...

🎉 Happy to announce the 2nd Yale Municipal Research Conference!

📅 November 1, 2025

📝 Submission deadline: September 12, 2025

🔗 Submit: forms.gle/sRWkEt4EbosR...

Seeking research on:

· Municipal reporting & debt
· Tax policy

(More details in the screenshot)

Please share widely! 🔄

not that I'm bitter...but taking a minute to enjoy the feeling of vindication with the whole payphone news thing, before getting back to writing

Read this story just yesterday:

abcnews.go.com/amp/Business...

Columbia's failure empowers the trustees at other universities who'd like to cave to Trump.

More than 100 NGOs warn Israel’s forced ‘mass starvation’ stalks all Gaza Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says 111 people have now died from famine and malnutrition in recent weeks.

No words left for this engineered horror.

"More than 100 aid groups have called on governments to take urgent action as Israel's forced 'mass starvation' of Palestinians engulfs Gaza. The groups warned that deepening starvation of the population was spreading across the besieged enclave."

Uneven Expansions - Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Craig Gilmore, Judah Schept, & Lydia Pelot-Hobbs - Inquest In the fight to abolish prisons, it’s vital to attend simultaneously to the scale of U.S. mass incarceration and how it manifests differently in specific regions.

"How do different political blocs emerge in different places to influence carceral developments?" @lydiajean.bsky.social with Ruth WIlson Gilmore, ‪@craiggilmore.bsky.social & Judah Schept in Part 1 of their new carceral geography series. inquest.org/uneven-e...

went to OzzFest when I was 17, it was something else

I agree with those points and appreciate your thinking on this; mostly, I jumped in after recalling my experiences of trying to argue against regulatory sandboxes (which was an aside from your original post). And maybe playground/sandbox uses here pull on some distinct ideas

I spent a lot of time in DC btw 2010-2012 and regulatory sandboxes were how folx talked about letting the fintech industry "innovate." Debate is maybe too strong a word. In the liberal policy circles I was in, everyone was in favor and you were wild if you didn't support sandboxes (...or fintech)

ugh, I hated the sandbox debates

This is THEE story for me. The whole shebang shebang.

Abolitionist Lessons from the Prison Belts - Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Craig Gilmore, Judah Schept, & Lydia Pelot-Hobbs - Inquest In a six-part series that revisits the landmark insights of ‘Golden Gulag,’ we explore what prison abolitionists can learn from the history of carceral expansion in California, Appalachia, and Louisia...

"This model encourages us to carefully train our attention on a set of relations—state agencies, land use, labor, capital, crisis, social reproduction, and more—in order to understand how the things we oppose became possible...and thus identify where we can intervene"

inquest.org/abolitionist...

This framing has been driving me bonkers, for all the implications that are left unstated

The thing about the ‘we rely on these people’s labor’ move is that, while true, its implications are a lot bigger than ‘don’t deport them.’

Research Assistant to Director of Research New York, NY

I am looking for an assistant! D&S is hiring a research assistant to the director of research (ME). This is primarily a administrative position, but includes light research & editing. Fully remote. Perfect for a pre-doc. Please forward! job-boards.greenhouse.io/datasocietyr...

NYPD Bypassed Facial Recognition Ban to ID Pro-Palestinian Student Protester Barred from using Clearview AI, NYC police relied on a marshal in the fire department to run a search that turned up photos of the student at his high school graduation.

A city fire marshal used FDNY’s access to a facial recognition software to help NYPD detectives identify a pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia University, circumventing policies that tightly restrict the Police Department’s use of the technology.

Opinion: Public banks offer an opportunity to reclaim local power and build inclusive economies Unlike private banks, which are required to maximize shareholder profits, public banks are designed to serve the public interest.

"In the face of the Trump administration’s attack on local financial power, states and cities should act now to stand up public banks, building on a groundswell of momentum across the country"

www.cityandstateny.com/opinion/2025...

I’ve been looking forward to this week alllll summer

LOL, bullshit. What we've learned is that the bankers, financiers, and Wall Street will accept anything this guy does eventually.

“The Payback” Highlights the Absurdity and Trauma of Massive Student Debt - Electric Literature Kashana Cauley on the crushing weight of loans, using humor as a way to be heard, and finding community with fellow retail workers

This interview might set the (modern) world record for how much a novelist can talk about money, and how much debt can haunt you, which is cool, I don’t think people talk about money enough. Thanks @electricliterature.com

The official spoke in January at the exclusive Consumers’ Research Summit in Sea Island, Georgia. Rolling Stone has exclusively obtained audio and documents from the event.

More: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...