Urine separation is alive and well along with other ways to recover useful compounds from sewageRosanna U/Connect Images/AlamyMany years ago, I wrote a feature for New Scientist about an innovation in waste-water treatment called urine-separation toilets, which, at the time, looked like becoming a desirable accessory for the eco-conscious. To cut a long story short, the Western habit of flushing urine away using clean water then separating it out again in sewage plants is extremely wasteful. Toilets that collect undiluted urine separately and send it off for processing into fertiliser save large amounts of energy and water.

MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand whats coming next. You can read more from the series here. With the recent news that the Atlantics editor in chief was accidentally added to a group Signal chat for American leaders planning a bombing in Yemen, many people are wondering: What is Signal? Is it secure? If government officials arent supposed to use it for military planning, does that mean I shouldnt use it either? The answer is: Yes, you should use Signal, but government officials having top-secret conversations shouldnt use Signal. Read on to find out why. What is Signal? Signal is an app you can install on your iPhone or Android phone, or on your computer. It lets you send secure texts, images, and phone or video chats with other people or groups of people, just like iMessage, Google Messages, WhatsApp, and other chat apps. Installing Signal is a two-minute processagain, its designed to work just like other popular texting apps. Why is it a problem for government officials to use Signal? Signal is very secureas well see below, its the best option out there for having private conversations with your friends on your cell phone. But you shouldnt use it if you have a legal obligation to preserve your messages, such as while doing government business, because Signal prioritizes privacy over ability to preserve data. Its designed to securely delete data when youre done with it, not to keep it. This makes it uniquely unsuited for following public record laws. You also shouldnt use it if your phone might be a target of sophisticated hackers, because Signal can only do its job if the phone it is running on is secure. If your phone has been hacked, then the hacker can read your messages regardless of what software you are running. This is why you shouldnt use Signal to discuss classified material or military plans. For military communication your civilian phone is always considered hacked by adversaries, so you should instead use communication equipment that is saferequipment that is physically guarded and designed to do only one job, making it harder to hack. What about everyone else? Signal is designed from bottom to top as a very private space for conversation. Cryptographers are very sure that as long as your phone is otherwise secure, no one can read your messages. Why should you want that? Because private spaces for conversation are very important. In the US, the First Amendment recognizes, in the right to freedom of assembly, that we all need private conversations among our own selected groups in order to function. And you dont need the First Amendment to tell you that. You know, just like everyone else, that you can have important conversations in your living room, bedroom, church coffee hour, or meeting hall that you could never have on a public stage. Signal gives us the digital equivalent of thatits a space where we can talk, among groups of our choice, about the private things that matter to us, free of corporate or government surveillance. Our mental health and social functioning require that. So if youre not legally required to record your conversations, and not planning secret military operations, go ahead and use Signalyou deserve the privacy. How do we know Signal is secure? People often give up on finding digital privacy and end up censoring themselves out of caution. So are there really private ways to talk on our phones, or should we just assume that everything is being read anyway? The good news is: For most of us who arent individually targeted by hackers, we really can still have private conversations. Signal is designed to ensure that if you know your phone and the phones of other people in your group havent been hacked (more on that later), you dont have to trust anything else. It uses many techniques from the cryptography community to make that possible. Most important and well-known is end-to-end encryption, which means that messages can be read only on the devices involved in the conversation and not by servers passing the messages back and forth. But Signal uses other techniques to keep your messages private and safe as well. For example, it goes to great lengths to make it hard for the Signal server itself to know who else you are talking to (a feature known as sealed sender), or for an attacker who records traffic between phones to later decrypt the traffic by seizing one of the phones (perfect forward secrecy). These are only a few of many security properties built into the protocol, which is well enough designed and vetted for other messaging apps, such as WhatsApp and Google Messages, to use the same one. Signal is also designed so we dont have to trust the people who make it. The source code for the app is available online and, because of its popularity as a security tool, is frequently audited by experts. And even though its security does not rely on our trust in the publisher,it does come from a respected source: the Signal Technology Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to protect free expression and enable secure global communication through open-source privacy technology. The app itself, and the foundation, grew out of a community of prominent privacy advocates. The foundation was started by Moxie Marlinspike, a cryptographer and longtime advocate of secure private communication, and Brian Acton, a cofounder of WhatsApp. Why do people use Signal over other text apps? Are other ones secure? Many apps offer end-to-end encryption, and its not a bad idea to use them for a measure of privacy. But Signal is a gold standard for private communication because it is secure by default: Unless you add someone you didnt mean to, its very hard for a chat to accidentally become less secure than you intended. Thats not necessarily the case for other apps. For example, iMessage conversations are sometimes end-to-end encrypted, but only if your chat has blue bubbles, and they arent encrypted in iCloud backups by default. Google Messages are sometimes end-to-end encrypted, but only if the chat shows a lock icon. WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted but logs your activity, including how you interact with others using our Services. Signal is careful not to record who you are talking with, to offer ways to reliably delete messages, and to keep messages secure even in online phone backups. This focus demonstrates the benefits of an app coming from a nonprofit focused on privacy rather than a company that sees security as a nice to have feature alongside other goals. (Conversely, and as a warning, using Signal makes it rather easier to accidentally lose messages! Again, it is not a good choice if you are legally required to record your communication.) Applications like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Google Messages do offer end-to-end encryption and can offer much better security than nothing. The worst option of all is regular SMS text messages (green bubbles on iOS)those are sent unencrypted and are likely collected by mass government surveillance. Wait, how do I know that my phone is secure? Signal is an excellent choice for privacy if you know that the phones of everyone youre talking with are secure. But how do you know that? Its easy to give up on a feeling of privacy if you never feel good about trusting your phone anyway. One good place to start for most of us is simply to make sure your phone is up to date. Governments often do have ways of hacking phones, but hacking up-to-date phones is expensive and risky and reserved for high-value targets. For most people, simply having your software up to date will remove you from a category that hackers target. If youre a potential target of sophisticated hacking, then dont stop there. Youll need extra security measures, andguides from the Freedom of the Press Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are a good place to start. But you dont have to be a high-value target to value privacy. The rest of us can do our part to re-create that private living room, bedroom, church, or meeting hall simply by using an up-to-date phone with an app that respects our privacy. Jack Cushman is a fellow of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and directs the Library Innovation Lab at Harvard Law School Library. He is an appellate lawyer, computer programmer, and former board member of the ACLU of Massachusetts.

The AI firm Anthropic has developed a way to peer inside a large language model and watch what it does as it comes up with a response, revealing key new insights into how the technology works. The takeaway: LLMs are even stranger than we thought. The Anthropic team was surprised by some of the counterintuitive workarounds that large language models appear to use to complete sentences, solve simple math problems, suppress hallucinations, and more, says Joshua Batson, a research scientist at the company. Its no secret that large language models work in mysterious ways. Fewif anymass-market technologies have ever been so little understood. That makes figuring out what makes them tick one of the biggest open challenges in science. But its not just about curiosity. Shedding some light on how these models work would expose their weaknesses, revealing why they make stuff up and can be tricked into going off the rails. It would help resolve deep disputes about exactly what these models can and cant do. And it would show how trustworthy (or not) they really are. Batson and his colleagues describe their new work in two reports published today. The first presents Anthropics use of a technique called circuit tracing, which lets researchers track the decision-making processes inside a large language model step by step. Anthropic used circuit tracing to watch its LLM Claude 3.5 Haiku carry out various tasks. The second (titled On the Biology of a Large Language Model) details what the team discovered when it looked at 10 tasks in particular. I think this is really cool work, says Jack Merullo, who studies large language models at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and was not involved in the research. Its a really nice step forward in terms of methods. Circuit tracing is not itself new. Last year Merullo and his colleagues analyzed a specific circuit in a version of OpenAIs GPT-2, an older large language model that OpenAI released in 2019. But Anthropic has now analyzed a number of different circuits as a far larger and far more complex model carries out multiple tasks. Anthropic is very capable at applying scale to a problem, says Merullo. Eden Biran, who studies large language models at Tel Aviv University, agrees. Finding circuits in a large state-of-the-art model such as Claude is a nontrivial engineering feat, he says. And it shows that circuits scale up and might be a good way forward for interpreting language models. Circuits chain together different partsor componentsof a model. Last year, Anthropic identified certain components inside Claude that correspond to real-world concepts. Some were specific, such as Michael Jordan or greenness; others were more vague, such as conflict between individuals. One component appeared to represent the Golden Gate Bridge. Anthropic researchers found that if they turned up the dial on this component, Claude could be made to self-identify not as a large language model but as the physical bridge itself. The latest work builds on that research and the work of others, including Google DeepMind, to reveal some of the connections between individual components. Chains of components are the pathways between the words put into Claude and the words that come out. Its tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. Maybe were looking at a few percent of whats going on, says Batson. But thats already enough to see incredible structure. Growing LLMs Researchers at Anthropic and elsewhere are studying large language models as if they were natural phenomena rather than human-built software. Thats because the models are trained, not programmed. They almost grow organically, says Batson. They start out totally random. Then you train them on all this data and they go from producing gibberish to being able to speak different languages and write software and fold proteins. There are insane things that these models learn to do, but we dont know how that happened because we didnt go in there and set the knobs. Sure, its all math. But its not math that we can follow. Open up a large language model and all you will see is billions of numbersthe parameters, says Batson. Its not illuminating. Anthropic says it was inspired by brain-scan techniques used in neuroscience to build what the firm describes as a kind of microscope that can be pointed at different parts of a model while it runs. The technique highlights components that are active at different times. Researchers can then zoom in on different components and record when they are and are not active. Take the component that corresponds to the Golden Gate Bridge. It turns on when Claude is shown text that names or describes the bridge or even text related to the bridge, such as San Francisco or Alcatraz. Its off otherwise. Yet another component might correspond to the idea of smallness: We look through tens of millions of texts and see its on for the word small, its on for the word tiny, its on for the word petite, its on for words related to smallness, things that are itty-bitty, like thimblesyou know, just small stuff, says Batson. Having identified individual components, Anthropic then follows the trail inside the model as different components get chained together. The researchers start at the end, with the component or components that led to the final response Claude gives to a query. Batson and his team then trace that chain backwards. Odd behavior So: What did they find? Anthropic looked at 10 different behaviors in Claude. One involved the use of different languages. Does Claude have a part that speaks French and another part that speaks Chinese, and so on? The team found that Claude used components independent of any language to answer a question or solve a problem and then picked a specific language when it replied. Ask it What is the opposite of small? in English, French, and Chinese and Claude will first use the language-neutral components related to smallness and opposites Anthropic also looked at how Claude solved simple math problems. The team found that the model seems to have developed its own internal strategies that are unlike those it will have seen in its training data. Ask Claude to add 36 and 59 and the model will go through a series of odd steps, including first adding a selection of approximate values (add 40ish and 60ish, add 57ish and 36ish). Towards the end of its process, it comes up with the value 92ish. Meanwhile, another sequence of steps focuses on the last digits, 6 and 9, and determines that the answer must end in a 5. Putting that together with 92ish gives the correct answer of 95. And yet if you then ask Claude how it worked that out, it will say something like: I added the ones (6+9=15), carried the 1, then added the 10s (3+5+1=9), resulting in 95. In other words, it gives you a common approach found everywhere online rather than what it actually did. Yep! LLMs are weird. (And not to be trusted.) The steps that Claude 3.5 Haiku used to solve a simple math problem were not what Anthropic expectedthey're not the steps Claude claimed it took either. ANTHROPIC This is clear evidence that large language models will give reasons for what they do that do not necessarily reflect what they actually did. But this is true for people too, says Batson: You ask somebody, Why did you do that? And theyre like, Um, I guess its because I was . You know, maybe not. Maybe they were just hungry and thats why they did it. Biran thinks this finding is especially interesting. Many researchers study the behavior of large language models by asking them to explain their actions. But that might be a risky approach, he says: As models continue getting stronger, they must be equipped with better guardrails. I believeand this work also showsthat relying only on model outputs is not enough. A third task that Anthropic studied was writing poems. The researchers wanted to know if the model really did just wing it, predicting one word at a time. Instead they found that Claude somehow looked ahead, picking the word at the end of the next line several words in advance. For example, when Claude was given the prompt A rhyming couplet: He saw a carrot and had to grab it, the model responded, His hunger was like a starving rabbit. But using their microscope, they saw that Claude had already hit upon the word rabbit when it was processing grab it. It then seemed to write the next line with that ending already in place. This might sound like a tiny detail. But it goes against the common assumption that large language models always work by picking one word at a time in sequence. The planning thing in poems blew me away, says Batson. Instead of at the very last minute trying to make the rhyme make sense, it knows where its going. I thought that was cool, says Merullo. One of the joys of working in the field is moments like that. Theres been maybe small bits of evidence pointing toward the ability of models to plan ahead, but its been a big open question to what extent they do. Anthropic then confirmed its observation by turning off the placeholder component for rabbitness. Claude responded with His hunger was a powerful habit. And when the team replaced rabbitness with greenness, Anthropic also explored why Claude sometimes made stuff up, a phenomenon known as hallucination. Hallucination is the most natural thing in the world for these models, given how theyre just trained to give possible completions, says Batson. The real question is, How in Gods name could you ever make it not do that? The latest generation of large language models, like Claude 3.5 and Gemini and GPT-4o, hallucinate far less than previous versions, thanks to extensive post-training (the steps that take an LLM trained on the internet and turn it into a usable chatbot). But Batsons team was surprised to find that this post-training seems to have made Claude refuse to speculate as a default behavior. When it did respond with false information, it was because some other component had overridden the dont speculate component. This seemed to happen most often when the speculation involved a celebrity or other well-known entity. Its as if the amount of information available pushed the speculation through, despite the default setting. When Anthropic overrode the dont speculate component to test this, Claude produced lots of false statements about individuals, including claiming that Batson was famous for inventing the Batson principle (he isnt). Still unclear Because we know so little about large language models, any new insight is a big step forward. A deep understanding of how these models work under the hood would allow us to design and train models that are much better and stronger, says Biran. But Batson notes there are still serious limitations. Its a misconception that weve found all the components of the model or, like, a Gods-eye view, he says. Some things are in focus, but other things are still uncleara distortion of the microscope. And it takes several hours for a human researcher to trace the responses to even very short prompts. Whats more, these models can do a remarkable number of different things, and Anthropic has so far looked at only 10 of them. Batson also says there are big questions that this approach wont answer. Circuit tracing can be used to peer at the structures inside a large language model, but it wont tell you how or why those structures formed during training. Thats a profound question that we dont address at all in this work, he says. But Batson sees this as the start of a new era in which it is possible, at last, to find real evidence for how these models work: We dont have to be, like: Are they thinking? Are they reasoning? Are they dreaming? Are they memorizing? Those are all analogies. But if we can literally see step by step what a model is doing, maybe now we dont need analogies.

The Light Phone 3 began shipping pre-orders on March 27. Jordan Hart/BI 2025-03-27T18:34:32Z SaveSaved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? Light Phone 3, a simplified phone, is available for pre-order at a discounted price of $599.The phone doesn't have social media apps and is focused on basic functions like calling and texting.It does feature cameras and a nostalgic design, but its price rivals the newest iPhone.Less is more when it comes to the Light Phone 3.However, even with a newly integrated camera, you'll also be paying more for less.The handset belongs to a group of devices known as "dumb" phones online. Instead of all the bells and whistles that smartphones come with, like a web browser and social media apps, these are simplified so they only perform basic phone functions.The world may be on the verge of a tech revolution led by artificial intelligence, but many people are seeking a break from bright screens and doomscrolling. In January, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels predicted that 2025 will be the year people lean into more intentional tech use as AI takes hold.While you could ditch Instagram by buying a flip phone for less than $100, the Light Phone 3 is available for preorder at a discounted price of $599. Eventually, it'll retail for $799. For comparison, the newest iPhone starts at $599.The biggest difference from its fellow Light Phone 2, other than a leap in price, is the addition of cameras to the front and rear of the 3. Both Apple and Samsung have recently launched new models and talked up their cameras, showing that's still a big deal for phone users.When I spoke to Joe Hollier, the cofounder of Light, in January, he told me the Light Phone 3 camera wasn't made to compete with that of an iPhone. Instead, it was inspired by his interest in film photography with an intended "nostalgia feel," he said.So I decided to give the phone and new camera a try with some selfies and pet photography. Disclaimer: I took photos and texted them to my iPhone to upload for this story. I took a photo on my Light Phone 3, but it didn't look the same on my iPhone 14. Jordan Hart/BI That nostalgia vibe was evident in the pictures I captured of myself and my dogs. Images had that film camera aesthetic when I viewed them on my Light Phone, but the quality appeared to decrease once I sent them to my iPhone 14 Pro Max especially those that were taken with the front-facing selfie camera.It's important to note that the ability to send photos via text was introduced in a LightOS update on Monday, so the feature is only days old. The rear-facing camera gave me less noticeable changes in quality, and it maintained more of that nostalgia element captured in Light's press photos.Other hardware changes to the handset include more buttons than the Light 2 it felt like a lot of buttons to me and an NFC chip that makes digital wallet support possible in the future. The Light Phone 3 comes with 6 buttons total. Courtesy of Light The Light Phone 3's six buttons include a dial for adjusting the brightness that doubles as the flashlight switch. Similar to the latest iPhones, it has a button dedicated to opening the camera and taking photos.The other buttons are the classic controls of a smartphone: volume, a home button, and a power button that includes its fingerprint ID sensor.Downloadable features include a directory, where you can search businesses to find their location, hours, and contact info, and a music tool that allows you to upload songs.Light Phones aren't currently compatible with music streamers like Spotify and Apple Music. However, podcast listeners can access their favorite titles via the Podcasts tool, which also doesn't come installed on the Light Phone 3 out of the box. Hollier previously told BI that Light has no current plans to bring AI to its phones.It might be an anti-social media phone, but it's picked up some steam online as TikTokers marveled at a phone that has Amazon Kindle vibes, as they put it. In 2024, the Light Phone 2 made a cameo in rapper Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us" music video.However, TikTok users weren't particularly fond of the price tag being the same as a brand-new iPhone 16e."I'll keep my iPhone. $800 for that is actually criminal," one comment said, while others praised its simplicity. @hanelaine imagine if we all had these phones instead #lightphone original sound - hannah king Recommended video

After a brutal few weeks for Tesla, used model listings are up 33%, according to Cox Automotive. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images 2025-03-27T17:49:10Z SaveSaved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? Used Tesla listings increased 33% this year so far, according to Cox Automotive.One industry expert attributed the rise in part to Elon Musk's actions.Tesla also faces other challenges in the EV market including increased competition and an aging lineup.Used Tesla listings jumped by 33% so far this year with at least one industry expert saying CEO Elon Musk's antics continue to have an "undeniable" impact on the brand.Citing Autotrader data, analysts for Cox Automotive said Wednesday that Tesla listings jumped from around 8,500 at the beginning of 2025 to 11,515 on March 16. Still, the company saw increases in all other EV listings during the same period at 27% year-to-date, said Stephanie Valdez Streaty, Cox Automotive's director of industry insights, in an industry forecast.Tesla's share of used EV listings only moved by one point to 40% this year, suggesting that the rise of Tesla listings could be due to greater product availability, she said."It's undeniable that Elon Musk is an influential factor whose actions are impacting the brand's image and sales, and only time will tell if Tesla can successfully navigate this critical juncture and find a new engine for growth," Streaty said.Teslas and showrooms across the US have been the subjects of attacks and vandalism in recent months following Musk's association with the White House DOGE office. This week, the FBI created a task force to investigate and crack down on what it called "acts of violence, vandalism, and domestic terrorism."Still, Tesla owners looking to offload their EVs might not get as much back for the car as they paid for it. Used Tesla prices have been in a freefall for the past few years, with the average price of a used Tesla now $10,000 less than that of a non-Tesla electric car, according to data from the dealership website CarGurus.Streaty said Tesla has faced "significant challenges" since propelling the EV market into the mainstream in 2020. Several factors, including increased competition, an aging product lineup, economic factors affecting consumers, and controversies surrounding Elon Musk, have caused the company to experience declining sales in the US."We believe, without a significant change in strategy to develop new products with widespread appeal, Tesla's high watermark as an automaker may be in the past," she said.One former Tesla owner, Scott Oran, a real estate developer who lives near Boston, previously told BI he decided to sell his Model 3 after Musk's political moves left him "embarrassed" to be seen driving it."I think, unfortunately, through Elon Musk's actions, he's probably irrevocably damaged the Tesla brand," Oran said.Tesla did not immediately return a request for comment from Business Insider on Thursday.Recommended video

On Wednesday, masked plainclothes immigration officers arrested Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen on a student visa, outside Tufts University, where shes studying for a PhD. Video of her arrest, showing her being taken while walking down a street, has gone viral. Ozturk is now being held in a Louisiana detention center. This comes after a series of similar actions by the federal government. Just two days earlier, Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia student and green card holder who has lived in the US since she was 7, sued the Trump administration for trying to arrest and deport her. The administration has targeted Chung and Ozturk for the same reason they detained Mahmoud Khalil earlier this month: pro-Palestinian views and activism.The governments actions are a serious threat to free speech. A Trump administration official explicitly told the Free Press that the cause for Khalils arrest was not that he committed a crime. The allegation here is not that he was breaking the law, the anonymous official said. He was mobilizing support for Hamas and spreading antisemitism in a way that is contrary to the foreign policy of the US. (Khalil was part of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University when he was a graduate student last year.) Ozturk, Chung, and Khalil are in effect being targeted for their speech and activism activity that, in all three cases, the administration has deemed to be aligned with Hamas.These cases might be some of the more extreme examples of the US governments disregard for free speech. But unfortunately, theyre not unique. There have been many other instances when law enforcement trampled on peoples rights to protest and free speech. In one particular case, permanent residents of Palestinian descent were also arrested and threatened to be deported, all for daring to take the First Amendment at its word. That case ended with a blistering rebuke by a judge. But the incident and developments since then shows that the Trump administrations crackdown on the First Amendment, and pro-Palestinian speech in particular, has a long and shameful history.Before Khalil, there was the LA EightWhen I heard about Mahmoud [Khalil]s case, my mind went immediately to the LA Eight, said Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute.In 1987, eight young immigrants seven of whom were Palestinian were arrested in Los Angeles, accused of supporting the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the US had deemed a terrorist organization. They became known as the LA Eight. Two of those arrested, like Khalil, were permanent residents.The FBI had surveilled the group for a while, monitoring their protests, literature, and the people who attended their events. An informant sent to a dinner the group helped organize reported that it was clear the dinner was put on to raise money for terrorism, despite the fact that he did not speak Arabic. Instead, the informant came to that conclusion merely because of the tone of the music and speeches at the dinner. Eventually, the FBI deemed the group to be anti-Israel and anti-Reagan and recommended that they be deported. This was not because they had committed a crime; it was because the government was specifically targeting them for their speech and support for Palestinian rights, much like the Trump administration is today targeting students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.The LA Eights case to remain in the US dragged on for two decades. None were ever deported, and during that time, some members went on to become US citizens. It went all the way up to the Supreme Court, which sent the case back down to immigration court. And in 2007, the case was finally dismissed, when a judge called the whole saga an embarrassment to the rule of law.How the war on terror became a war on civil libertiesThe story of the LA Eight reflects that anti-Palestinian racism has been deeply entrenched in US policy for a long time. But in the almost four decades since the US government began trying to deport them, the First Amendment has only been more eroded, especially for Arab and Muslim Americans, as well as those who support the Palestinian cause. In his 2021 book Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, journalist Spencer Ackerman documents how Americas war on terror resulted in neither peace nor victory, and instead laid the groundwork for an emboldened surveillance state that curtailed peoples civil liberties. The 2001 Patriot Act, which greatly expanded law enforcement surveillance, exacerbated racial profiling in the name of national security. Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians were detained by the FBI and viewed as security threats. The no-fly list disproportionately targeted Muslims. And law enforcement agencies started surveilling and infiltrating Muslim communities across the United States.The 9/11 moment was itself a product of longstanding trends, but what were seeing today is really the fruits of all of those really rotten seeds that the government planted in the early years after 9/11, said Mohammad Tajsar, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. It wasnt just peoples views or speech that were targeted. The laws that passed after 9/11 also undermined the First Amendment by encroaching on Americans religious liberty. In 2009, the ACLU released a comprehensive report that documented how the post-9/11 reforms, among other things, infringed on Muslim Americans right to practice their religion through charitable giving because of terrorism financing laws. In 2001, for example, the US government announced that it was investigating over 30 Muslim charities. By the end of that year, the government had frozen the assets of the three largest Muslim charitable organizations in the United States, forcing them to shut down. The contrast with the balance between civil liberties and anti-terrorism measures a few years prior was stark. In 1995, when Timothy McVeigh, an anti-government white supremacist, bombed a federal building and killed 168 people, politicians and media reports initially blamed the bombing on Muslims until it became clear that McVeigh was responsible. McVeigh was ultimately sentenced to death, but it was after legal due process. Congress didnt rush to pass legislation to crack down on white supremacy or domestic terrorism. Instead, it passed a law in 1996 that made it easier to prosecute people suspected of having ties to foreign terrorist organizations something that still expanded surveillance of Muslims, not white supremacists. When terrorism was white when its identity and its purpose claimed the same heritage as a substantial amount of the dominant American racial caste America sympathized with principled objections against unleashing the coercive, punitive, and violent powers of the state, Ackerman wrote. When terrorism was white, the prospect of criminalizing a large swath of Americans was unthinkable.After 9/11, it became normalized.Expanding the security state has come at the cost of weakening the Bill of Rights. In 2010, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the Supreme Court ruled against the Humanitarian Law Project, a nonprofit seeking to help the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey both deemed terrorist organizations by the US government learn nonviolent conflict resolution tactics. The US government claimed that even peaceful assistance like conflict resolution is not protected by the First Amendment because it amounted to materially supporting terrorist organizations. The Court agreed.[It] basically shut down First Amendment challenges to these material support statutes and basically suggested, in some ways, that core constitutional rights can give way to these national security exigencies, Tajsar said. That particular case happened to be about nonprofits. But the big picture was that the constitution wont stand in the way of a lot of these government trends.That legal philosophy that national security interests take precedence over individual liberties is likely what the Trump administration is banking on to deport students for participating in pro-Palestinian protests. After all, thats what the Supreme Court argued in 1954, when it decided that permanent residents could be deported for their ties to the Communist Party.Ultimately, the LA Eight, Khalil, Chung, and Ozturk are clear victims of anti-Palestinian racism that runs so deep that it pushes the government to infringe on peoples constitutionally protected speech just as the government did to communists during the Red Scare. But theyre also free speech cases that have broader implications for every Americans rights. This is a matter of: are we a free country or not? Berry said. Will we honor liberty or not?See More:

Last week, the US Department of Agriculture announced sweeping plans to increase slaughter line speeds at pork and poultry plants a move that could further endanger workers who already process animals at a breakneck pace and suffer high levels of injury. Workers in poultry plants dont actually kill the chickens that task is automated on whats called the evisceration line, a conveyor belt that kills the chickens and removes their organs, which facilities can currently operate at a speed of up to 140 birds per minute. The chicken carcasses are then moved to another part of the plant where workers in cramped and cold conditions cut them up, handling dozens of birds per minute, to be packed for supermarkets and restaurants. Pork plants can currently operate at up to 1,106 pigs per hour.For decades, the meat industry has been pushing to both speed up slaughter lines and replace federal inspectors with company employees, wishes that the USDA under both Republican and Democratic administrations have granted to varying degrees. Now, the Trump administration plans to give the industry perhaps its biggest win on the issue yet, which worker safety advocates say will make one of the most dangerous jobs in America even worse. In the short term, the USDA will allow a few dozen chicken and pork processing plants that already have temporary waivers to operate slaughter lines faster to continue to do so. But the agencys longer-term plan is much more consequential: enacting a rule that will allow all pig and chicken slaughterhouses to increase slaughter line speeds. This comes at the same time as the Trump administration promises mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, who make up a significant share of the slaughterhouse workforce.The meat industry has celebrated the move: The National Pork Producers extended deep appreciation to the USDA for its plan and the National Chicken Council and the Meat Institute expressed similar sentiments. Worker safety advocates, on the other hand, are alarmed.Increased line speeds will hurt workers its not a maybe, its a definite, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents over 15,000 poultry workers, wrote in a statement.The debate over slaughter line speedsAccording to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, workers in slaughterhouses who make fast, repetitive motions with sharp knives during long shifts suffer from injuries at far higher rates than those in all of private industry.But Debbie Berkowitz, who served as a chief of staff and senior policy adviser at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under President Obama, told me the reality is far worse than even these numbers suggest. Numerous government agencies, including the USDA, she said, have found the BLSs estimates to be undercounts, and Berkowitz noted that the injury rates are self-reported by meat companies, not tallied up by government inspectors.Slaughterhouse workers have also complained of wage theft, racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and denial of bathroom breaks. Exactly how fast the Trump administration will allow meat companies to operate their slaughter lines is unclear the agency has begun work on a draft rule but didnt provide details. During President Trumps first term, the USDA granted or renewed waivers to over 50 chicken slaughter plants, allowing them to increase line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175. It also sought to eliminate line speed limits at pork facilities altogether, which a federal judge blocked in 2021, arguing the agency failed to consider how it would impact worker safety.In response, the USDA commissioned studies comparing chicken plants that operated their slaughter lines at 140 birds per minute to those operating up to 175 birds per minute, and pork plants that operated at the standard 1,106 hogs per hour and then sped up. They found that 81 percent of workers at poultry plants and 46 percent at pork plants are at high risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders, like carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis. That risk didnt stem directly from the speed of the automated evisceration lines the studies found no correlation between the two. But they did find a correlation between risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders and each employees workload, or piece rate the number of animals or pieces of meat they cut up per minute. If an individual employees workload goes above a certain pace, the researchers found, theyre more likely to get injured. There is no doubt from this study that the speed at which workers have to process chickens or swine is directly tied to risk of musculoskeletal disorders, said Berkowitz.In the study, some slaughter plants operating at faster slaughter line speeds added enough staff or automation to make up for the higher workload, but most did not which increased injury risk. An employee removes internal organs from a pig at a Smithfield Foods Inc. pork processing facility in Milan, Missouri. Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesA chicken slaughter plant in the 1960s. H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock /Getty ImagesTrumps USDA and meat industry groups have conveniently ignored that critical finding about employee workload their press releases about the benefits of speeding up slaughter lines fail to say anything about increasing staffing to prevent injury. The temporary waivers that allow slaughter plants to speed up slaughter lines dont require increased staffing, and the USDA didnt respond to a question as to whether its proposed rule would mandate it.The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union has already called for additional staffing, in addition to improved reporting of workplace injuries, expanded access to early and adequate medical treatment, and job modifications that minimize ergonomic stressors. Ultimately, Berkowitz said, the meat industry runs the USDA its a very captive agency. And she balked at the USDA and meat industry celebrating a study that found 81 percent of poultry workers and 46 percent of pork workers experiencing such high rates of injury risk: Are you saying thats acceptable?Youve read 1 article in the last monthHere at Vox, we're unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.We rely on readers like you join us.Swati SharmaVox Editor-in-ChiefSee More: Future Perfect

Best Buy are not in Nintendos best books (Nintendo)A leak that seemed to reveal when pre-orders for the Nintendo Switch 2 will start may not be as reliable as it first seemed.When a new game or console is announced theres only one thing publishers are interested in: pre-orders. The lack of them, in the immediate aftermath of the Xbox Ones reveal, put Microsoft into a tailspin they still havent got out of, and similar problems have rushed many other companies to panic stations, if a game doesnt seem to be immediately attracting customers.Thats very unlikely to be a problem for the Nintendo Switch 2 but the question of when pre-orders will start is a very important question, and it certainly wasnt addressed in Thursdays Nintendo Direct. Although it may be announced at the Switch 2 focused one next week.Its very likely the new consoles release date will be announced at the Switch 2 Direct, reasonably likely the price will be, but its probably no more than 50/50 when it comes to pre-orders. And the situation hasnt really been clarified by a leak from Best Buy in Canada.When it comes to consoles, sometimes it takes a few days, or even weeks, for a company to start offering pre-orders but Best Buy accidentally put up a detailed blog stating that pre-orders will open on April 2, i.e. the day of the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct.How to pre-order the Nintendo Switch 2That all seemed perfectly believable and the fact that Best Buy quickly took the blog page down, when they realised theyd jumped the gun/got an angry call from Nintendo, seemed to seal the deal.More TrendingHowever, respected insider Wario64 says that one of his retail sources claims the April 2 is an error. Although they dont indicate when the real date is.Pre-orders are likely to go up at the same time around the world, at least in major markets such as Canada and the UK, but despite this leak its still uncertain when exactly that will be.The most common rumour for the Nintendo Switchs release date is sometime in or around June, so if thats correct then even if pre-orders dont start on April 2, it wont be too much after that. Did Best Buy get the date wrong? (Best Buy)Emailgamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below,follow us on Twitter, andsign-up to our newsletter.To submit Inbox letters and Readers Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use ourSubmit Stuff page here.For more stories like this,check our Gaming page.GameCentralSign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Every trailer and everything you need to know from Nintendo Direct March 2025Michael BeckwithPublished March 27, 2025 5:58pmUpdated March 27, 2025 5:58pm An awful lot happened with Nintendo today (YouTube)GameCentral runs through all the key reveals from the Switch 1 focused Nintendo Direct, from the next Dragon Quest remake to a brand new Gradius game.With all of Nintendos big name reveals being saved for next weeks Nintendo Switch 2 showcase, it was peculiar to learn the company also had a Nintendo Direct for the Switch 1 scheduled for Thursday.Once it was announced, speculation ran rampant for what could be featured. Metroid Prime 4 was a given, as one of the only first party Switch titles left for 2025, but other popular rumours included a Kirby: Planet Robobot remaster, something Super Smash Bros. related, and a new trailer for Silksong.Those rumours didnt prove correct but others, such as the return of a beloved niche franchise, did. In case you missed it and need catching up, heres every announcement Nintendo made during the showcase.Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D RemakeThis had already been announced ahead of the release of the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, but the first two Dragon Quest games will be getting the same treatment. The trailer appears to tease a brand new party member, with the game slated only for a 2025 release.No Sleep For Kaname Date From AI The Somnium FilesThe third entry in the AI The Somnium Files series, this sees the first games protagonist, Date, return to the spotlight, to rescue a kidnapped internet idol. While it retains the series investigation mechanics and dream world puzzle sections, itll also feature traditional escape rooms when it launches on July 25.RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery Of The Soulless ArmyIts not Persona 6, but Shin Megami Tensei fans are being treated to another Atlus remaster. Unlike Shin Megami Tensei 5, this is an action role-playing game, but youll still be summoning demons to aid you in battle when this game launches on June 19.Shadow LabyrinthAnnounced during The Game Awards 2024, this 2D Metroidvania is essentially a grittier, almost horror themed take on Pac-Man. Launching on July 18, youll be fighting and munching on all manner of bizarre monsters with the aid of a yellow orb called Puck.Patapon 1+2 ReplayOne of two PlayStation properties to appear during the Direct, Patapon 1+2 Replay is a collection of the first two entries in Sonys quirky rhythm game series for the PlayStation Portable. It launches on July 11 for Switch, as well as PlayStation 5 and PC.Story Of Seasons: Grand BazaarThere was only one farming game announced at this months Direct, namely the newest entry in the Story Of Seasons series (formerly known as Harvest Moon). Titled Story Of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, it promises all the usual hallmarks and is slated to launch on August 27.Metroid Prime 4: BeyondNew gameplay for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond shows off its fantastic visuals and fancy new psychic powers for Samus, including the ability to change the trajectory of her shots. Strangely, Nintendo still wont specify when the game launches this year, fuelling the theories that its a Switch 2 launch title.Disney Villains Cursed CafSomeone at Disney must really like indie visual novel Coffee Talk because the company has made its own take on the idea; one that has you making and serving potions for a variety of classic Disney villains. Its slated to drop on Switch later today.WitchbrookHogwarts Legacy 2s not going to be out any time soon, but indie studio Chucklefish is offering the next best thing: Witchbrook. Described as a witch life sim, you can craft potions, run your own business, and play with friends when it launches this winter.The Eternal Life Of GoldmanA new 2D platformer from This Is The Police developer Weappy Studio, The Eternal Life Of Goldman sports some lovely looking animation and some obvious influences from the DuckTales NES game. It launches this winter.Gradius OriginsOne of our personal highlights of the Direct, Gradius Origins brings together multiple versions of six classic arcade shooters from Konami. Most excitingly of all though the compilation includes a brand new game: Salamander 3. The arcade conversions are by M2, who are the best of the best when it comes to this sort of thing, but were not clear whos making the new game. Well hopefully know more before its launch on August 7.Rift Of The NecrodancerA spin-off of Crypt Of The Necrodancer, this game ditches the roguelike elements and is a pure rhythm action game. It already launched for PC last month but is out now for Switch alongside a DLC crossover with Celeste.Tamagotchi PlazaDescribed as a continuation of the Tamagotchi Connection series from the days of the Nintendo DS, Tamagotchi Plaza is a new life sim that sees you run your own store. It will feature over 100 Tamagotchi characters and launches on June 27.Pokmon Legends Z-ANintendos other big Switch game for 2025 saw new gameplay footage, revealing night-time trainer battles and the Z-A Royale tournament. Still no word of an exact release date or a dedicated Switch 2 version.Rhythm Paradise GrooveThere was a rumour Nintendo would announce a new entry in one of its more niche franchises, but instead the company revealed two of them. The first is a new Rhythm Paradise game called Rhythm Paradise Groove, with its collection of rhythm mini-games slated for 2026.Virtual Game CardsNintendo didnt just have new games to share. It also unveiled Virtual Game Cards, which serve as a new method for sharing your games across multiple Switch consoles. You can also lend them to friends, although only for two weeks at a time. It arrives in late April (which also hints at a June launch for the Switch 2).SaGa Frontier 2 RemasteredSquare Enix continues to make older entries in its SaGa series of role-playing games more readily available, with this remaster of 1999s SaGa Frontier 2. Originally made for the PS1, this remaster features updated visuals and new story scenarios and is available as of today.Monument ValleyAll three of the delightful Monument Valley puzzle games are slated for Switch later this year. The first two games will arrive on April 15 while Monument Valley 3, which was initially exclusive to Netflix, will follow in the summer.Everybodys Golf Hot ShotsThe other surprise PlayStation related announcement, Everybodys Golf is getting its first new entry in years and its going multiplatform. Amusingly titled Everybodys Golf Hot Shots (Hot Shots Golf is what the series was called in the US), Bandai Namco is publishing it for Switch (as well as Patapon) while Sony handles bringing it to PlayStation 5 and PC.Marvel Cosmic InvasionOne of the best third party surprises of the Direct was this brand new 2D scrolling beat em-up from DotEmu, makers of the excellent Streets Of Rage 4. To be honest you almost dont need to know any more than that, given that pedigree, but the game features 15 characters, with the ability to tag team between two of them at any time. The main bad guy appears to be Annihilus, who is primarily a Fantastic Four villain. The game will be out this winter on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, as well as Switch.Tomodachi Life: Living the DreamThe final game reveal of the Direct turned out to be a new entry in Nintendos series of life sims starring the Miis. Scheduled for 2026, Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream looks just as wacky as previous games though we hope it offers more interactivity than its predecessors. Will you be using the app? (YouTube)Nintendo Today!The actual final announcement of the Direct was not for a new game but Nintendos own bespoke news app called Nintendo Today! Doubling as a calendar, its a way for Nintendo to deliver updates and announcements directly to its fans. Its available right now on iOS and Android, but only for those with a Nintendo account.Emailgamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below,follow us on Twitter, andsign-up to our newsletter.To submit Inbox letters and Readers Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use ourSubmit Stuff page here.For more stories like this,check our Gaming page.GameCentralSign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Science & technology | Dont stop him nowCan Musk put people on Mars?Whether successful or not, his attempt to do so will reshape Americas space programmePhotograph: Alamy Mar 27th 2025HUMAN LAWS can be changed, waived or broken. Physical laws are less biddable. When it comes to putting humans on Mars, which he sees as the first step towards the planets settlement and humankinds salvation, Elon Musk now has little to worry about from human law. Mr Musk has overseen the gutting of the FAA, Americas aviation authority and a sometime obstacle to his company SpaceX, by his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). What is more, he stands at the side of an American president who, as well as having little regard for legal strictures, explicitly endorses Mr Musks Martian agenda. In his inaugural address President Donald Trump declared that it was time for Americans to pursue our manifest destiny into the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars. This was not a one-off. He repeated the aspiration in his address to Congress six weeks later. Explore moreThis article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline Dont stop him nowFrom the March 29th 2025 editionDiscover stories from this section and more in the list of contentsExplore the editionReuse this content