10 Sunday Reads
Avert your eyes! My Sunday morning look at incompetency, corruption and policy failures: • The SEC Just Opened the Floodgates to Fraud: The Trump administration has transformed the Securities and Exchange Commission into an instrument of financial sector chicanery. (TNR) • Trump Is Gutting America’s Core Geopolitical Advantage: Robert B. Zoellick, former US Trade Representative, deputy secretary……
1. The SEC has opened the floodgates to fraud, transforming the Securities and Exchange Commission into an instrument of financial sector chicanery, as per The New Republic.
2. Robert B. Zoellick, former US Trade Representative and World Bank president, warns that antagonizing Canada and Mexico could be detrimental to America's core geopolitical advantage.
3. Iran's security apparatus, judiciary, and state broadcaster are allegedly coordinating a campaign to track down anti-government dissidents at home and abroad, according to a Reuters analysis.
4. Postwar British adults were limited to about 40 grams of sugar a day, while children were restricted to less than a tablespoon, according to The Guardian. Research suggests that the first 1,000 days of sugar exposure could have a long-lasting impact on health.
5. Five women have accused influential players of spearheading malicious public relations campaigns that led to accusations being made against them, which they claim are outright lies, as reported by The New York Times.
6. An Oklahoma officer ran a California plate through Flock's license-plate reader network without a warrant, leading to a ruling that the search was an "indiscriminate mass surveillance" and unconstitutional, according to 404.
7. MIT has installed hundreds of surveillance cameras over the summer, some aimed at faculty offices and bathroom doors, with the administration admitting to testing AI tracking without consent. Faculty members responded with Swiftian satire, as per MIT Faculty Newsletter.
8. Cancer patients are being persuaded to spend tens of thousands on unproven treatments by alternative-medicine clinics, leading them to discontinue chemotherapy, as reported by The New York Times Magazine.
9. A Munich man, known as Otto Z under German privacy law, became convinced he'd been wronged by forensic investigators after his mother's death in 2020, leading to a bizarre saga, according to The Guardian.
10. Lucas Bean examines Richard Hofstadter's 1963 definition of anti-intellectualism, resentment of the life of the mind, and applies it to MAGA in the article "Why Conservative Men Can't Spell."
Written by urgent.news from The Big Picture's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
