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Former finance minister Chrystia Freeland laid out her case Sunday to replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and take on U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, positioning herself as "a battle-tested leader with the scars to prove it."

But her message was repeatedly drowned out by pro-Palestinian protesters in the crowd who shouted down Freeland with calls of "genocide supporter" and loud banging.

At least a dozen hecklers were escorted out, according to reporters in the room, delaying her speech.

Once she got back on track, Freeland pitched herself as a veteran negotiator and leader with eyes on the Canadian economy.

Freeland's official campaign launch comes nearly a month after she resigned from Trudeau's cabinet and one day before Trump takes office, two factors she leaned on in her campaign launch speech.

A new common sense has emerged regarding the perils of predictive algorithms. As the groundbreaking work of scholars like Safiya Noble, Cathy O’Neil, Virginia Eubanks, and Ruha Benjamin has shown, big data tools—from crime predictors in policing to risk predictors in finance—increasingly govern our lives in ways unaccountable and often unknown to the public. They replicate bias, entrench inequalities, and distort institutional aims. They devalue much of what makes us human: our capacities to exercise discretion, act spontaneously, and reason in ways that can’t be quantified. And far from being objective or neutral, technical decisions made in system design embed the values, aims, and interests of mostly white, mostly male technologists working in mostly profit-driven enterprises. Simply put, these tools are dangerous; in O’Neil’s words, they are “weapons of math destruction.”

These arguments offer an essential corrective to the algorithmic solutionism peddled by Big Tech—the breathless enthusiasm that promises, in the words of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, to “make everything we care about better.” But they have also helped to reinforce a profound skepticism of this technology as such. Are the political implications of algorithmic tools really so different from those of our decision-making systems of yore? If human systems already entrench inequality, replicate bias, and lack democratic legitimacy, might data-based algorithms offer some promise in addition to peril? If so, how should we approach the collective challenge of building better institutions, both human and machine?

In Fall 2024, Boston University’s Resident Assistants (RAs) pulled off a rare, week-long strike in this new corner of the labor movement. Over seven days, Residence Life (ResLife) workers held their weight amid frazzled union staffers, hostile supervisors, and internal fracturing to strike during Fall move-in – a high-leverage period during which tens of thousands of students rely on RAs to move and settle into campus housing, with parents in tow. This was our second strike to win higher stipends, better protections against harassment, and paid health insurance for those not on family plans, in the context of negotiations for our first contract. On September 5, BU threatened to withhold RAs’ compensation, which comes in the form of housing and meals. Workers voted to end the strike shortly after this threat. To the surprise of some of us, BU increased their semesterly stipend offer from $1,000 to $1,700 a few days after the strike ended.

In recent time, the “upsurge” of labor organizing in higher education has drawn much attention, along with the university’s exploitation of student debt through tuition and rent.1 Yet the organizing potential for many thousands of residential assistants around the country, who stand uniquely at the nexus of these trends, has been comparatively overlooked. We hope our experience can be instructive for RAs elsewhere.

Finally, Mark Zuckerberg can do whatever he wants, as opposed to the past 20 years, where it's hard to argue that he's faced an unrelenting series of punishments. Zuckerberg's net worth recently hit $213 billion, he's running a company with a market capitalization of over $1.5 trillion that he can never be fired from, he owns a 1400-acre compound in Hawaii, and while dealing with all this abject suffering, he was forced to half-heartedly apologize during a senate hearing where he was tortured (translation: made to feel slightly uncomfortable) after only having six years to recover from the last time when nothing happened to him in a senate hearing.

Sarcasm aside, few living people have had it easier than Mark Zuckerberg, a man who has been insulated from consequence, risk, and responsibility for nearly twenty years. The sudden (and warranted) hysteria around these monstrous changes has an air of surprise, framing Meta (and Zuckerberg's) moves as a "MAGA-tilt" to "please Donald Trump," which I believe is a comfortable way to frame a situation that is neither sudden nor surprising.

Mere months ago, the media was fawning over Mark Zuckerberg's new look, desperate to hear about why he's wearing gold chains, declaring that he had "the swagger of a Roman emperor" and that he had (and I quote the Washington Post) transformed himself from "a dorky, democracy-destroying CEO into a dripped-out, jacked AI accelerationist in the eyes of potential Meta recruits." Zuckerberg was, until this last week, being celebrated for the very thing people are upset about right now — flimsy, self-conscious and performative macho bullshit that only signifies strength to weak men and those credulous enough to accept it, which in this case means "almost every major media outlet." The only thing he did differently this time was come out and say it. After all, there was no punishment or judgment for his last macho media cycle, and if anything he proved that many will accept whatever he says in whatever way he does it.

Meta hasn't "made a right-wing turn." It’s been an active arm of the right wing media for nearly a decade, actively empowering noxious demagogues like Alex Jones, allowing him to evade bans and build massive private online groups on the platform to disseminate content. A report from November 2021 by Media Matters found that Facebook had tweaked its news algorithm in 2021, helping right-leaning news and politics pages to outperform other pages using "sensational and divisive content." Another Media Matters report from 2023 found that conservatives were continually earning more total interactions than left or non-aligned pages between January 1 2020 and December 31 2022, even as the company was actively deprioritizing political content.

A 2024 report from non-profit GLAAD found that Meta had continually allowed widespread anti-trans hate content across Instagram, Facebook, and Threads, with the company either claiming that the content didn't violate its community standards or ignoring reports entirely. While we can — and should — actively decry Meta's disgusting new standards, it's ahistorical to pretend that this was a company that gave a shit about any of this stuff, or took it seriously, or sought to protect marginalized people.

Ultimately, the amount of money available to advance the green economy may be too much for any state to resist. “Those are jobs and those are investments that are going on in communities, whether they’re red or blue or purple,” said Matt Petersen, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator. “That’s something that for a governor, a legislature, when push comes to shove, are they really going to want that to go away?”

Beyond his efforts to roll back the IRA, Trump is expected to take aim at electric vehicle mandates and state efforts to restrict tailpipe emissions. California — which would have the world’s fifth largest economy if it were a country — wields particular influence over the automobile market. The state has long regulated tailpipe emissions, but the first Trump administration barred the state from doing so, a move the Biden administration subsequently overturned. Even while Trump was still in office in 2019, BMW, Ford, Honda, and Volkswagen signed a voluntary agreement recognizing the state’s legal authority to set its own standard. In March, Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep, formally committed to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission vehicles even if the state “is unable to enforce its standards as a result of judicial or federal action.”

Other robust state-level climate policies have advanced in the last year. In Massachusetts, for example, lawmakers approved a climate bill in November that puts guardrails on gas pipelines, streamlines renewables, and allows gas utilities to use geothermal energy — which enjoys bipartisan support, unlike wind and solar. Voters in Washington rejected a challenge to a landmark law that’s raised money to fight climate change. And California voters signed off on $10 billion to fund climate projects.

And despite the incoming Trump administration’s promises to ramp up fossil fuel production, states could spur still more climate action, Jay Inslee, who was governor of Washington until today, said during a press conference at COP29 in November. “I can say this unequivocally,” said Inslee, who leads America Is All In, a coalition of private and governmental leaders fighting climate change. “We know that despite the election of Donald Trump, the incredible momentum, the incredible dynamic growth, the incredible political support that preexisted his previous administration will continue, and will continue unabated.”

Now independently run, the MnSeed Project continues to create a free, locally adapted native seed economy through collecting, saving and preserving seeds. The group are so passionate about this that all the seeds they collect are given away for free at workshops they host and events they attend, such as seed swaps.

For Tchida, seed saving is a natural outcropping of her lifelong exploration of finding ways to support the environment. “This is such an obvious and easy way,” she says. “The connection you make intrinsically with the plants throughout their whole growth process is so much fun.”

After a decade-long campaign, Baltimore is one step closer to true accountability for its police force. Residents say the Baltimore Police Department has long used the shield of state control to act with impunity in the communities it’s sworn to serve and protect.

For the second time in two years, voters decisively approved a measure to return the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) to city control. With 77% of the vote, Question E marked the end of 160 years of BPD operating as a state agency. Voters passed a similar measure in 2022, but it was later deemed insufficient to transfer control, prompting advocates to bring the issue back to voters on the November ballot.

Now Baltimore’s elected leaders face the challenge of transforming a police force some residents view as a source of harm rather than protection.

For answers about what local control means in the fight for justice and police accountability, Baltimore Beat spoke with Ray Kelly, a key leader in the fight to return control of the Baltimore Police Department to city residents.

One of the most meaningful impacts of local control could be oversight of the Baltimore Police Department’s massive $593 million dollar budget. The Vera Institute ranked it among the highest per-capita police budgets in the country, outpacing city spending on social services like housing, healthcare, and education combined.

“In the past, the department could justify expenses with little scrutiny. Now, the city can decide how resources are allocated in ways that better serve the community,” Kelly said.

For example, the city could require police brutality settlements — which have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in recent years — to come from the police budget. Officials could also require that the BPD justify excessive overtime spending. A recent state audit revealed that between January 2021 and June 2022, this cost taxpayers $66 million.

While cruising dates all the way back to Ancient Greece, it experienced its greatest boom during the 70s, a time of queer liberation when the gay community was able to experience some semblance of freedom. This was greatly impacted by the HIV crisis in the 80s, which fundamentally altered our relationship and approach to sex.

The same could be argued for Covid. The virus prevented people from going out in public, let alone being physically intimate with another human being. Dating app usage and sex toy purchases surged as a result, offering an alternative to the connection we so desperately craved. But we quickly grew tired of both, and became desperate for physical intimacy.

During the pandemic, many folks deemed cruising a safer option, as sex would be taking place outdoors. With assistance of map-based cruising apps like Sniffies making their mark around this time, cruising not only felt safer, but more accessible. Sniffies really took off following Covid in 2020. The timing was perfect, people were exhausted with endless chatting on apps, preferring n0-strings sex, which Sniffies offered. The app has only continued to grow since. For example, London saw a staggering 475 percent growth in usership from 2022 to 2023.

It would seem that for many, the queer response to an epidemic is going back to basics, and we keep finding ourselves in the same woods, parks and open spaces as the queer generations before us, where we can be free to enjoy ourselves until the next public health crisis comes along.

Since cruising has become commodifiable and as publicly accessible as ever, it’s especially important we stay safe; not only from the law, but from the possible dangers or hazards that may occur in more casual sexual environments.

A Texas anti-pornography law is going before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in a collision of free speech rights, regulation of online content and the protection of children.

Texas is among more than a dozen states with similar laws aimed at blocking young children and teenagers from viewing pornography. The adult-content site Pornhub has stopped operating altogether in several of those states, citing the technical and privacy hurdles in complying with the laws.

Texas says its measure is necessary to protect children from the current near-instantaneous access to porn, including hardcore obscene material, on smartphones. "Texas seeks to protect kids from some of the most prurient sexual content imaginable," state attorneys wrote in court documents.

The Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry trade group, says the Texas law wrongly affects adults by requiring them to submit personal identifying information online, making it vulnerable to hacking or tracking.

Like it or not, horror gaming is often built on jump scares. Deriding a good cheap scare ignores the endorphin rush that draws so many players to the genre, in the same way that the "elevated horror" trend forfeits some of the soul of schlocky slasher flicks and ghost movies. Don’t get me wrong, Silent Hill and Alan Wake deserve their flowers - but even those games would wither on the screen if Pyramid Head didn’t bust through a wall from time to time.

One unsung jump scare game in particular pioneered horror in the internet age, blazing everywhere from nascent social media to major television networks. In fact, if you had an internet connection circa 2005, there’s a good chance you played it. Alas, it was too ahead of its time, too successful at leveraging virality before viral horror was sought after. Next time you see a streamer throw their headphones across the room in fright, beware: the spirit of Scary Maze Game is right behind you.

Like Rick Rolls and chain emails, "screamers" propagated from the ability to share media with little pretext. Screamers existed before The Maze in the form of short animations and videos—even inspiring a series of German energy drink commercials—but Winterrowd’s game set itself apart by dint of being a game. You had to initiate the jump scare yourself, and doing so required sharp focus. It was less like watching a car crash and more like cranking a jack-in-the-box.

Understandably, reactions were big. And if you couldn’t stand by your victim and watch their freakout yourself, you were in luck, because there was this shiny new website called YouTube. Reaction videos are The Maze’s first milestone contribution to online horror, and they were responsible for the game’s mainstream popularity. Internet historian Jake Lee found Maze reaction videos as early 2006, which were shown on Web Junk, The Soup, and America’s Funniest Home Videos (which was the style at the time) and parodied on Saturday Night Live in 2010.

Joe Velaidum can't help but wonder what could have happened if he'd lingered outside his front door for just a couple of minutes longer before taking his dogs for a walk.

The timing of their departure that day last July proved lucky. Just seconds later, a meteorite would plummet onto the front walkway of Velaidum's home in Marshfield, Prince Edward Island, shattering on impact with a reverberating smack.

"The shocking thing for me is that I was standing right there a couple of minutes right before this impact," Velaidum told CBC News.

"If I'd have seen it, I probably would've been standing right there, so it probably would've ripped me in half."