Prime Minister Mark Carney agreed to allow 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles into its market at a tariff rate of about 6 percent.

The investment firm's fund has already deployed around €300 million across 13 companies. It focuses solely on environmental sustainability, rather than social- and governance-based deals.

Lawmakers in Washington are once again focusing on kids, screens, and mental health. But according to Congress, Big Tech is somehow both the problem and the solution. We're diving into the latest attempt to control how kids access the internet and more with our latest EFFector newsletter.

Since 1990, EFFector has been your guide to understanding the intersection of technology, civil liberties, and the law. This latest issue tracks what to do when you hit an age gate online, explains why rent-only copyright culture makes us all worse off, and covers the dangers of law enforcement purchasing straight-up military drones.

Prefer to listen in? In our audio companion, EFF Senior Policy Analyst Joe Mullin explains what lawmakers should do if they really want to help families. Find the conversation on YouTube or the Internet Archive.

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EFFECTOR 38.2 - ✍️ THE BILL TO HAND PARENTING TO BIG TECH

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Keeril Makan has been appointed vice provost for the arts at MIT, effective Feb. 1. In this role, Makan, who is the Michael (1949) and Sonja Koerner Music Composition Professor at MIT, will provide leadership and strategic direction for the arts across the Institute.

Provost Anantha Chandrakasan announced Makan’s appointment in an email to the MIT community today.

“Keeril’s record of accomplishment both as an artist and an administrative leader makes him exceedingly qualified to take on this important role,” Chandrakasan wrote, noting that Makan “has repeatedly taken on new leadership assignments with skill and enthusiasm.”

Makan’s appointment follows the publication last September of the final report of the Future of the Arts at MIT Committee. At MIT, the report noted, “the arts thrive as a constellation of recognized disciplines while penetrating and illuminating countless aspects of the Institute’s scientific and technological enterprise.” Makan will build on this foundation as MIT continues to strengthen the role of the arts in research, education, and community life.

As vice provost for the arts, Makan will provide Institute-wide leadership and strategic direction for the arts, working in close partnership with academic leaders, arts units, and administrative colleagues across MIT, including the Office of the Arts; the MIT Center for Art, Science and Technology; the MIT Museum; the List Visual Arts Center; and the Council for the Arts at MIT. His role will focus on strengthening connections between artistic practice, research, education, and community life, and on supporting public engagement and interdisciplinary collaboration.

“At MIT, the arts are a vital way of thinking, making, and convening,” Makan says. “As vice provost, my priority is to support and strengthen the extraordinary artistic work already happening across the Institute, while listening carefully to faculty, students, and staff as we shape what comes next. I’m excited to build on MIT’s distinctive, only-at-MIT approach to the arts and to help ensure that artistic practice remains central to MIT’s intellectual and community life.”

Makan says he will begin his new role with a period of listening and learning across MIT’s arts ecosystem, informed by the Future of the Arts at MIT report. His initial focus will be on understanding how artistic practice intersects with research, education, and community life, and on identifying opportunities to strengthen connections, visibility, and coordination across MIT’s many arts activities.

Over time, Makan says he will work with the arts community to advance MIT’s long-standing commitment to artistic excellence and experimentation, while supporting student participation and public engagement in the arts. He said his approach will “emphasize collaboration, clarity, and sustainability, reflecting MIT’s distinctive integration of the arts with science and technology.”

Makan came to MIT in 2006 as an assistant professor of music. From 2018 to 2024, he served as head of the Music and Theater Arts (MTA) Section in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS). In 2023, he was appointed associate dean for strategic initiatives in SHASS, where he helped guide the school’s response to recent fiscal pressures and led Institute-wide strategic initiatives.

With colleagues from MTA and the School of Engineering, Makan helped launch a new, multidisciplinary graduate program in music technology and computation. He was intimately involved in the project to develop the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building (Building 18), a state-of-the-art facility that opened in 2025. 

Makan was a member of the Future of the Arts at MIT Committee and chaired a working group on the creation of a center for the humanities, which ultimately became the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC), one of the Institute’s strategic initiatives. Since last year, he has served as MITHIC’s faculty lead. Under his leadership, MITHIC has awarded $4.7 million in funding to 56 projects across 28 units at MIT, supporting interdisciplinary, human-centered research and teaching.

Trained initially as a violinist, Makan earned undergraduate degrees in music composition and religion from Oberlin and a PhD in music composition from the University of California at Berkeley.

A critically-acclaimed composer, Makan is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Luciano Berio Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. His music has been recorded by the Kronos Quartet, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, and performed at Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and Tanglewood. His opera, “Persona,” premiered at National Sawdust and was performed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and by the Los Angeles Opera. The Los Angeles Times described the music from “Persona” as “brilliant.”

Makan succeeds Philip Khoury, the Ford International Professor of History, who served as vice provost for the arts from 2006 before stepping down in 2025. Khoury will return to the MIT faculty following a sabbatical.

The FEMA Review Council recommends replacing the decades-old system for distributing money to states with a plan triggered by weather conditions, not monetary damage.

The offshore wind project, which cranked out electricity during this week's storm, is on the cusp of completion after a federal judge overturned Trump's stop-work order.

House Judiciary Republicans are asking two lawyers to detail their interactions with a group that teaches judges about climate science.

A growing number of states are eyeing restrictions on weather and climate modification as startups move into the field.

The National Weather Service can fill some — but not all — of the staff positions it lost during last year’s purge of federal workers.

The Justice Climate Fund received two non-federal grants to help Native American communities finance clean energy projects.

NYSERDA didn't make any changes to its draft proposal for revenues from a regional carbon market.

After hosting the last climate summit, the South American country raised doubts about the 30-year-old paradigm based on consensus.

Critics warn such a move would undermine CBAM and the competitiveness of domestic producers.

The recent weakening of the ban on gasoline and diesel cars is fueling calls for a similar reversal in the aviation sector.

The heat wave follows another earlier this month amid one of Australia's hottest-ever summers.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) Human Rights Alliance has, since its founding by EFF and Access Now in 2021, works to ensure that the European Union follows a human rights-based approach to platform governance by integrating a wide range of voices and perspectives to contextualise DSA enforcement and examining the DSA’s effect on tech regulations around the world.

As the DSA moves from legislation to enforcement, it has become increasingly clear that its impact depends not only on the text of the Act but also how it’s interpreted and enforced in practice. This is why the Alliance has created a set of recommendations to include civil society organizations and rights-defending stakeholders in the enforcement process. 

 The Principles for a Human Rights-Centred Application of the DSA: A Global Perspective, a report published this week by the Alliance, outlines steps the European Commission, as the main DSA enforcer, as well as national policymakers and regulators, should take to bring diverse groups to the table as a means of ensuring that the implementation of the DSA is grounded in human rights standards.

 The Principles also offer guidance for regulators outside the EU who look to the DSA as a reference framework and international bodies and global actors concerned with digital governance and the wider implications of the DSA. The Principles promote meaningful stakeholder engagement and emphasize the role of civil society organisations in providing expertise and acting as human rights watchdogs.

“Regulators and enforcers need input from civil society, researchers, and affected communities to understand the global dynamics of platform governance,” said EFF International Policy Director Christoph Schmon. “Non-EU-based civil society groups should be enabled to engage on equal footing with EU stakeholders on rights-focused elements of the DSA. This kind of robust engagement will help ensure that DSA enforcement serves the public interest and strengthens fundamental rights for everyone, especially marginalized and vulnerable groups.”

“As activists are increasingly intimidated, journalists silenced, and science and academic freedom attacked by those who claim to defend free speech, it is of utmost importance that the Digital Services Act's enforcement is centered around the protection of fundamental rights, including the right to the freedom of expression,” said Marcel Kolaja, Policy & Advocacy Director—Europe at Access Now. “To do so effectively, the global perspective needs to be taken into account. The DSA Human Rights Principles provide this perspective and offer valuable guidance for the European Commission, policymakers, and regulators for implementation and enforcement of policies aiming at the protection of fundamental rights.”

“The Principles come at the crucial moment for the EU candidate countries, such as Serbia, that have been aligning their legislation with the EU acquis but still struggle with some of the basic rule of law and human rights standards,” said Ana Toskic Cvetinovic, Executive Director for Partners Serbia. “The DSA HR Alliance offers the opportunity for non-EU civil society to learn about the existing challenges of DSA implementation and design strategies for impacting national policy development in order to minimize any negative impact on human rights.”

 The Principles call for:

◼ Empowering EU and non-EU Civil Society and Users to Pursue DSA Enforcement Actions

◼ Considering Extraterritorial and Cross-Border Effects of DSA Enforcement

◼ Promoting Cross-Regional Collaboration Among CSOs on Global Regulatory Issues

◼ Establishing Institutionalised Dialogue Between EU and Non-EU Stakeholders

◼ Upholding the Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights in DSA Enforcement, Free from Political Influence

◼ Considering Global Experiences with Trusted Flaggers and Avoid Enforcement Abuse

◼ Recognising the International Relevance of DSA Data Access and Transparency Provisions for Human Rights Monitoring

The Principles have been signed by 30 civil society organizations,researchers, and independent experts.

The DSA Human Right Alliance represents diverse communities across the globe to ensure that the DSA embraces a human rights-centered approach to platform governance and that EU lawmakers consider the global impacts of European legislation.

 

In its first moments, the infant universe was a trillion-degree-hot soup of quarks and gluons. These elementary particles zinged around at light speed, creating a “quark-gluon plasma” that lasted for only a few millionths of a second. The primordial goo then quickly cooled, and its individual quarks and gluons fused to form the protons, neutrons, and other fundamental particles that exist today.

Physicists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland are recreating quark-gluon plasma (QGP) to better understand the universe’s starting ingredients. By smashing together heavy ions at close to light speeds, scientists can briefly dislodge quarks and gluons to create and study the same material that existed during the first microseconds of the early universe.

Now, a team at CERN led by MIT physicists has observed clear signs that quarks create wakes as they speed through the plasma, similar to a duck trailing ripples through water. The findings are the first direct evidence that quark-gluon plasma reacts to speeding particles as a single fluid, sloshing and splashing in response, rather than scattering randomly like individual particles.

“It has been a long debate in our field, on whether the plasma should respond to a quark,” says Yen-Jie Lee, professor of physics at MIT. “Now we see the plasma is incredibly dense, such that it is able to slow down a quark, and produces splashes and swirls like a liquid. So quark-gluon plasma really is a primordial soup.”

To see a quark’s wake effects, Lee and his colleagues developed a new technique that they report in the study. They plan to apply the approach to more particle-collision data to zero in on other quark wakes. Measuring the size, speed, and extent of these wakes, and how long it takes for them to ebb and dissipate, can give scientists an idea of the properties of the plasma itself, and how quark-gluon plasma might have behaved in the universe’s first microseconds.

“Studying how quark wakes bounce back and forth will give us new insights on the quark-gluon plasma’s properties,” Lee says. “With this experiment, we are taking a snapshot of this primordial quark soup.”

The study’s co-authors are members of the CMS Collaboration — a team of particle physicists from around the world who work together to carry out and analyze data from the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, which is one of the general-purpose particle detectors at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The CMS experiment was used to detect signs of quark wake effects for this study. The open-access study appears in the journal Physics Letters B.

Quark shadows

Quark-gluon plasma is the first liquid to have ever existed in the universe. It is also the hottest liquid ever, as scientists estimate that during its brief existence, the QGP was around a few trillion degrees Celsius. This boiling stew is also thought to have been a near-“perfect” liquid, meaning that the individual quarks and gluons in the plasma flowed together as a smooth, frictionless fluid.

This picture of the QGP is based on many independent experiments and theoretical models. One such model, derived by Krishna Rajagopal, the William A. M. Burden Professor of Physics at MIT, and his collaborators, predicts that the quark-gluon plasma should respond like a fluid to any particles speeding through it. His theory, known as the hybrid model, suggests that when a jet of quarks is zinging through the QGP, it should produce a wake behind it, inducing the plasma to ripple and splash in response.

Physicists have looked for such wake effects in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider and other high-energy particle accelerators. These experiments whip up heavy ions such as lead, to close to the speed of light, at which point they can collide and produce a short-lived droplet of primordial soup, typically lasting for less than a quadrillionth of a second. Scientists essentially take a snapshot of the moment to try and identify characteristics of the QGP.

To identify quark wakes, physicists have looked for pairs of quarks and “antiquarks” — particles that are identical to their quark counterparts, except that certain properties are equal in magnitude but opposite in sign. For instance, when a quark is speeding through plasma, there is likely an antiquark that is traveling at exactly the same speed, but in the opposite direction.

For this reason, physicists have looked for quark/antiquark pairs in the QGP produced in heavy-ion collisions, assuming that the particles might produce identical, detectable wakes through the plasma.

“When you have two quarks produced, the problem is that, when the two quarks go in opposite directions, the one quark overshadows the wake of the second quark,” Lee says.

He and his colleagues realized that looking for the wake of the first quark would be easier if there were no second quark obscuring its effects.

“We have figured out a new technique that allows us to see the effects of a single quark in the QGP, through a different pair of particles,” Lee says.

A wake tag

Rather than search for pairs of quarks and antiquarks in the aftermath of lead ion collisions, Lee’s team instead looked for events with only one quark moving through the plasma, essentially back-to-back with a “Z boson.” A Z boson is a neutral, electrically weak elementary particle that has virtually no effect on the surrounding environment. However, because they exist at a very specific energy, Z bosons are relatively straightforward to detect.

“In this soup of quark-gluon plasma, there are numerous quarks and gluons passing by and colliding with each other,” Lee explains. “Sometimes when we are lucky, one of these collisions creates a Z boson and a quark, with high momentum.”

In such a collision, the two particles should hit each other and fly off in exact opposite directions. While the quark could leave a wake, the Z boson should have no effect on the surrounding plasma. Whatever ripples are observed in the droplet of primordial soup would have been made entirely by the single quark zipping through it.

The team, in collaboration with Professor Yi Chen’s group at Vanderbilt University, reasoned that they could use Z bosons as a “tag” to locate and trace the wake effects of single quarks. For their new study, the researchers looked through data from the Large Hadron Collider’s heavy-ion collision experiments. From 13 billion collisions, they identified about 2,000 events that produced a Z boson. For each of these events, they mapped the energies throughout the short-lived quark-gluon plasma, and consistently observed a fluid-like pattern of splashes in swirls — a wake effect — in the opposite direction of the Z bosons, which the team could directly attribute to the effect of single quarks zooming through the plasma.

What’s more, the physicists found that the wake effects they observed in the data were consistent with what Rajagopal’s hybrid model predicts. In other words, quark-gluon plasma does in fact flow and ripple like a fluid when particles speed through it.

“This is something that many of us have argued must be there for a good many years, and that many experiments have looked for,” says Rajagopal, who was not directly involved with the new study.

“What Yen-Jie and CMS have done is to devise and execute a measurement that has brought them and us the first clean, clear, unambiguous, evidence for this foundational phenomenon,” says Daniel Pablos, professor of physics at Oviedo University in Spain and a collaborator of Rajagopal’s who was not involved in the current study.

“We’ve gained the first direct evidence that the quark indeed drags more plasma with it as it travels,” Lee adds. “This will enable us to study the properties and behavior of this exotic fluid in unprecedented detail.”

This work was supported, in part, by the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Pappalardo Apprentice program pushes the boundaries of the traditional lab experience, inviting a selected group of juniors and seniors to advance their fabrication skills while also providing mentor training and peer-to-peer mentoring opportunities in an environment fueled by creativity, safety, and fun.

“This apprenticeship was largely born of my need for additional lab help during our larger sophomore-level design course, and the desire of third- and fourth-year students to advance their fabrication knowledge and skills,” says Daniel Braunstein, senior lecturer in mechanical engineering (MechE) and director of the Pappalardo Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories. “Though these needs and wants were nothing particularly new, it had not occurred to me that we could combine these interests into a manageable and meaningful program.”

Apprentices serve as undergraduate lab assistants for class 2.007 (Design and Manufacturing I), joining lab sessions and assisting 2.007 students with various aspects of the learning experience including machining, hand-tool use, brainstorming, and peer support. Apprentices also participate in a series of seminars and clinics designed to further their fabrication knowledge and hands-on skills, including advancing understanding of mill and lathe use, computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) and pattern-making.

Putting this learning into practice, junior apprentices fabricate Stirling engines (a closed-cycle heat engine that converts thermal energy into mechanical work), while returning senior apprentices take on more ambitious group projects involving casting. Previous years’ projects included an early 20th-century single-cylinder marine engine and a 19th-century torpedo boat steam engine, on permanent exhibit at the MIT Museum. This spring will focus on copper alloys and fabrication of a replica of an 1899 anchor windlass from the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co., used on the famous New York 70 class sloops.

The sloops, designed by MIT Class of 1870 alumnus Nathanael Greene Herreshoff for wealthy New York Yacht Club members, were a short-lived, single-design racing vessels meant for exclusive competition. The historic racing yachts used robust manual windlasses — mechanical devices used to haul large loads — to manage their substantial anchors.

“The more we got into casting, I was modestly surprised that [the students’] exposure to metals was very limited. So that really launched not just a project, but also a more specific curriculum around metallurgy,” says Braunstein.

Metallurgy is not a traditional part of the curriculum. “I think [the project] really opened up my eyes to how much material choice is an important thing for engineering in general,” says apprentice Jade Durham.

In casting the windlasses, students are working from century-old drawings. “[Looking at these old drawings,] we don't know how they made [the parts],” says Braunstein. “So, there is an element of the discovery of what they may or may not have done. It’s like technical archaeology.”

“You’re really just relying on your knowledge of the windlass system, how it’s meant to work, which surfaces are really critical, and kind of just applying your intuition,” says apprentice Saechow Yap. “I learned a lot about applying my art skills and my ability to judge and shape aesthetic.”

Learning by doing is an important hallmark of an MIT MechE education. The Pappalardo Apprentice Program, which celebrated its 10th year last spring, is housed in the Pappalardo Lab. The lab, established through a gift from Neil Pappalardo ’64, is the self-proclaimed “most wicked labs on campus” — “wicked,” for readers outside of Greater Boston, is slang used in a variety of ways, but generally meaning something is pretty awesome.

“Pappalardo is my favorite place on campus, I had never set foot in any sort of like makerspace or lab before I came to MIT,” says apprentice Wilhem Hector. “I did not just learn how to make things. I got empowered ... [to] make anything.”

Braunstein developed the Pappalardo Apprentice program to reinforce the learning of the older students while building community. In a 2023 interview, he said he called the seminar an apprenticeship to emphasize MIT’s relationship with the art — and industrial character — of engineering.

“I did want to borrow from the language of the trades,” Braunstein said. “MIT has a strong heritage in industrial work; that’s why we were founded. It was not a science institution; it was about the mechanical arts. And I think the blend of the industrial, plus the academic, is what makes this lab particularly meaningful.”

Today, he says the most enjoyable part of the program, for him, is watching relationships develop. “They come in, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and then to see them go to people who are capable of pouring iron, tramming mills, teaching other people how to do it and having this tight group of friends … that's fun to watch.”

Collaborators from across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts came together in December for a daylong summit of the Massachusetts Prison Education Consortium (MPEC), hosted by the Educational Justice Institute (TEJI) at MIT. Held at MIT’s Walker Memorial, the summit aimed to expand access to high-quality education for incarcerated learners and featured presentations by leaders alongside strategy sessions designed to turn ideas into concrete plans to improve equitable access to higher education and reduce recidivism in local communities.

In addition to a keynote address by author and resilience expert Shaka Senghor, speakers such as Molly Lasagna, senior strategy officer in the Ascendium Education Group, and Stefan LoBuglio, former director of the National Institute of Corrections, discussed the roles of learning, healing, and community support in building a more just system for justice-impacted individuals.

The MPEC summit, “Building Integrated Systems Together: Massachusetts Community Colleges and County Corrections 2.0,” addressed three key issues surrounding equitable education: the integration of Massachusetts community college education with county corrections to provide incarcerated individuals with access to higher education; the integration of carceral education with industry to expand work and credentialing opportunities; and the goal of better serving women who experience unique challenges within the criminal legal system.

Created by TEJI, MPEC is a statewide network of Massachusetts colleges, organizations and correctional partners working together to expand access to high-quality, credit-bearing education in Massachusetts prisons and jails. The consortium works on all levels of the pipeline, from academic programming, faculty support, research, reentry pathways, and more, drawing from the research and success of the MIT Prison Education Initiative and the recent restoration of Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated learners.

The summit was hosted by TEJI co-directors Lee Perlman and Carole Cafferty. Perlman founded the MIT Prison Initiative after years of teaching in MIT’s Experimental Study Group (ESG) and in correctional classrooms. He has been recognized for his work in bringing humanities education to prison settings with three Irwin Sizer Awards and MIT’s Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Award.

Cafferty jointly co-founded TEJI after more than 30 years’ experience with corrections, including working as superintendent of the Middlesex Jail and House of Correction. She now guides the institute with the knowledge she gained from building integrative and therapeutic educational programs that have since been replicated nationally.

“TEJI serves two populations, incarcerated learners and the MIT community. All of our classes involve MIT students, either learning alongside the incarcerated students or as TAs [teaching assistants],” emphasizes Perlman. In discussing the unification of TEJI with the roles and experiences MIT students take, Perlman further notes: “Our humanities classes, which we call our philosophical life skills curriculum, give MIT students the opportunity to discuss how we want to live our lives with incarcerated students with very different backgrounds.”

These courses, offered through ESG, are subjects with a unique focus that often differ from the traditional focus of a more academic course, often prioritizing hands-on learning and innovative teaching methods. Perlman’s courses are almost always taught in a carceral setting, and he notes that these courses can be highly impactful on the MIT community: “In courses like Philosophy of Love; Non-violence as a Way of Life; and Authenticity and Emotional Intelligence for Teams, the discussions are rich and personal. Many MIT students have described their experience in these classes as life-changing.”

Throughout morning addresses and afternoon strategy sessions, summit attendees developed concrete plans for scaling classroom capacity, aligning curricula with regional labor markets, and strengthening academic and reentry supports that help students remain on the right path after release. Panels explored practical issues, such as how to coordinate registration and credit transfer when a student moves between facilities and how to staff hybrid classrooms that combine in-person and remote instruction, as well as how to measure program outcomes beyond enrollment.

Co-directors Perlman and Cafferty highlighted that the average length of stay within these programs in county facilities is only six months, and that inspired a particular focus on making sure these programs are high-impact even when community members are only able to participate for a short period of time.

Speakers repeatedly emphasized that these logistical challenges often sit atop deeper, more human challenges. In his keynote, Shaka Senghor traced his own journey from trauma to transformation, stressing the power of reading, mentorship, and completing something of one’s own. “What else can you do with your mind?” he asked, describing the moment he realized that the act of reading and writing could change the trajectory of his life.

The line became a refrain throughout the day, a question that caused all to reflect on how prison education could not only function as a workforce pathway, but as a catalyst for dignity and hope after reentry. Senghor also directly confronted the stigma that returning citizens face. “They said I’d be back in prison in six months,” he recalled, using the remark from a corrections officer from the day he was released on parole as a reminder of the structural and social barriers encountered after release.

The summit also brought together funders and implementers who are shaping the field’s future. Molly Lasagna of Ascendium Education Group described the organization’s strategy of “Expand, Support, Connect,” which funds the creation of new educational programs, strengthens basic needs and advising infrastructure, and ensures that individuals leaving prison can transition into high-quality employment opportunities. “How is this education program putting somebody on a pathway to opportunity?” she asked, noting that true change requires aligning education, reentry, and workforce systems.

Participants also heard from Stefan LoBuglio, former director of the National Institute of Corrections and a national thought leader in corrections and reentry, who lauded Massachusetts as a leader while cautioning that staffing shortages, limited program space, and uneven access to technology continue to constrain progress. “We have a crisis in staffing in corrections that does affect our educational programs,” he noted, calling for attention to staff wellness and institutional support as essential components of sustainability.

Throughout the day, TEJI and MPEC leaders highlighted emerging pilots and partnerships, including a new “Prisons to Pathways” initiative aimed at building stackable, transferable credentials aligned with regional industry needs. Additional collaborations with the American Institutes for Research will support new implementation guides and technical assistance resources designed by practitioners in the field.

The summit concluded with a commitment to sustain collaboration. As Senghor reminded participants, the work is both practical and moral. The question he posed, “What else can you do with your mind?,” serves as a reminder to Massachusetts educators, corrections partners, funders, and community organizations to ensure that learning inside prison becomes a foundation for opportunity outside it.
 

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last week posted a photo of the arrest of Nekima Levy Armstrong, one of three activists who had entered a St. Paul, Minn. church to confront a pastor who also serves as acting field director of the St Paul Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office. 

A short while later, the White House posted the same photo – except that version had been digitally altered to darken Armstrong’s skin and rearrange her facial features to make it appear she was sobbing or distraught. The Guardian one of many media outlets to report on this image manipulation, created a handy slider graphic to help viewers see clearly how the photo had been changed.  

This isn’t about “owning the libs” — this is the highest office in the nation using technology to lie to the entire world. 

The New York Times reported it had run the two images through Resemble.AI, an A.I. detection system, which concluded Noem’s image was real but the White House’s version showed signs of manipulation. "The Times was able to create images nearly identical to the White House’s version by asking Gemini and Grok — generative A.I. tools from Google and Elon Musk’s xAI start-up — to alter Ms. Noem’s original image." 

Most of us can agree that the government shouldn’t lie to its constituents. We can also agree that good government does not involve emphasizing cruelty or furthering racial biases. But this abuse of technology violates both those norms. 

“Accuracy and truthfulness are core to the credibility of visual reporting,” the National Press Photographers Association said in a statement issued about this incident. “The integrity of photographic images is essential to public trust and to the historical record. Altering editorial content for any purpose that misrepresents subjects or events undermines that trust and is incompatible with professional practice.” 

This isn’t about “owning the libs” — this is the highest office in the nation using technology to lie to the entire world.

Reworking an arrest photo to make the arrestee look more distraught not only is a lie, but it’s also a doubling-down on a “the cruelty is the point” manifesto. Using a manipulated image further humiliates the individual and perpetuate harmful biases, and the only reason to darken an arrestee’s skin would be to reinforce colorist stereotypes and stoke the flames of racial prejudice, particularly against dark-skinned people.  

History is replete with cruel and racist images as propaganda: Think of Nazi Germany’s cartoons depicting Jewish people, or contemporaneously, U.S. cartoons depicting Japanese people as we placed Japanese-Americans in internment camps. Time magazine caught hell in 1994 for using an artificially darkened photo of O.J. Simpson on its cover, and several Republican politcal campaigns in recent years have been called out for similar manipulation in recent years. 

But in an age when we can create or alter a photo with a few keyboard strokes, when we can alter what viewers think is reality so easily and convincingly, the danger of abuse by government is greater.   

Had the Trump administration not ham-handedly released the retouched perp-walk photo after Noem had released the original, we might not have known the reality of that arrest at all. This dishonesty is all the more reason why Americans’ right to record law enforcement activities must be protected. Without independent records and documentation of what’s happening, there’s no way to contradict the government’s lies. 

This incident raises the question of whether the Trump Administration feels emboldened to manipulate other photos for other propaganda purposes. Does it rework photos of the President to make him appear healthier, or more awake? Does it rework military or intelligence images to create pretexts for war? Does it rework photos of American citizens protesting or safeguarding their neighbors to justify a military deployment? 

In this instance, like so much of today’s political trolling, there’s a good chance it’ll be counterproductive for the trolls: The New York Times correctly noted that the doctored photograph could hinder the Armstrong’s right to a fair trial. “As the case proceeds, her lawyers could use it to accuse the Trump administration of making what are known as improper extrajudicial statements. Most federal courts bar prosecutors from making any remarks about court filings or a legal proceeding outside of court in a way that could prejudice the pool of jurors who might ultimately hear the case.” They also could claim the doctored photo proves the Justice Department bore some sort of animus against Armstrong and charged her vindictively. 

In the past, we've urged caution when analyzing proposals to regulate technologies that could be used to create false images. In those cases, we argued that any new regulation should rely on the established framework for addressing harms caused by other forms of harmful false information. But in this situation, it is the government itself that is misusing technology and propagating harmful falsehoods. This doesn't require new laws; the government can and should put an end to this practice on its own. 

Any reputable journalism organization would fire an employee for manipulating a photo this way; many have done exactly that. It’s a shame our government can’t adhere to such a basic ethical and moral code too.