Mastodawn

Struggling families like mine don’t talk about the cost of living any more – now it’s the cost of survival https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/06/struggling-families-like-mine-cost-of-living-survival
Trying to make ends meet is an impossible effort, and things are rapidly getting worse. It’s time the government listened to people like us

Struggling families like mine don’t talk about the cost of living any more – now it’s the cost of survival

Trying to make ends meet is an impossible effort, and things are rapidly getting worse. It’s time the government listened to people like us, says Ella Michalski of Changing Realities, a project working with low-income families

The Guardian

Wietze Brandsma 🏴‍☠️9h ago

Student Debt Burdened Them, So They Moved Abroad and Stopped Paying https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/business/student-loans-abroad-default.html
A record number of student loan borrowers are in delinquency and default. Some are making the drastic decision to leave the country and abandon their loans.

Some Borrowers Are Moving Abroad and Abandoning Their Student Loans

A record number of student loan borrowers are in delinquency and default. Some are making the drastic decision to leave the country and abandon their loans.

The New York Times

Wietze Brandsma 🏴‍☠️13h ago

ProPublica 16h ago

Remember the cyberattacks on the U.S. government in the early 2020s? The Biden admin asked tech companies to help and got some “free” upgrades.

The Trump admin is doing similarly with AI. But our reporting shows there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-government-ai-cautionary-tales?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

#News #Cybersecurity #Government #Trump #Microsoft #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Tech #Technology

The Federal Government Is Rushing Toward AI. Our Reporting Offers Three Cautionary Tales.

We’ve been reporting on cybersecurity for years. As President Donald Trump and his Cabinet say artificial intelligence will transform the nation, the messaging isn’t new. It follows a familiar pattern.

ProPublica

Wietze Brandsma 🏴‍☠️15h ago

MAKS 25 👀🇺🇦18h ago

🇮🇷 Senior Iranian official to Al Jazeera:

Iran will allow ships from some friendly countries to pass through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for paying security fees.

Iran intends to obtain war reparations from security fees on the Strait of Hormuz.

Wietze Brandsma 🏴‍☠️20h ago

Cory Doctorow 21h ago

What industry calls "personalized pricing" is really *surveillance* pricing: using digital tools' flexibility to change the price for each user, and using surveillance data to guess the worst price you'll accept:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/06/24/price-discrimination/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2026/04/06/empiricism-washing/#veena-dubal

Wietze Brandsma 🏴‍☠️21h ago

Glyn Moody 21h ago

Rice’s whales existed before humans. Now Trump could make them extinct - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/05/rice-whales-extinction-trump-gulf-mexico no hell deep enough for trump

Rice’s whales existed before humans. Now Trump could make them extinct

The US has invoked national security to remove protections for the endangered cetacean, of which only about 50 are left

The Guardian

Wietze Brandsma 🏴‍☠️1d ago

Emeritus Prof Christopher May 5d ago

As Frances Ryan points out, the cuts to disability payments (about to get under way) may seem like they are of only sectoral interest, but as they key reduction (as part of the 'deal' to get them through Parliament) only impacts future applicants, the real victims of this political attrition are not those already disabled, but those of us/you who suddenly find themselves unable to work (or live unaided) after next week, and that could be any of us!

#disability #politics
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/02/labour-disability-cuts-universal-credit

Next week’s disability cuts will make people destitute – and you might not understand how bad they are until it’s too late

If new claimants don’t meet strict criteria, they’ll lose half of the health element of universal credit. Don’t ignore that: in life’s lottery, that could easily be you, says Guardian columnist Frances Ryan

The Guardian

Wietze Brandsma 🏴‍☠️1d ago

DoeiDag 1d ago

Frans installeerde vandaag LibreOffice. Heb jij LibreOffice al geïnstalleerd op je computer? Nog niet? Dan is vandaag een perfecte dag daarvoor!

https://nl.libreoffice.org

#DoeiDag #LibreOffice https://mstdn.social/@apenkop/116351956424736344

Home | LibreOffice - Een aantrekkelijk, leuk project

LibreOffice Homepage, office suite, download, open standards, open source, free software, LibreOffice

Wietze Brandsma 🏴‍☠️1d ago

Robert Reich 1d ago

Sunday thought: Humor? https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-thought-humor?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Wietze Brandsma 🏴‍☠️2d ago

Ministers vijf EU-landen: voer winstbelasting in voor energiebedrijven die profiteren van stijgende olieprijzen https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/04/04/ministers-vijf-eu-landen-voer-winstbelasting-in-voor-energiebedrijven-die-profiteren-van-stijgende-olieprijzen-a4924778
„Wie profiteert van de gevolgen van de oorlog, moet ook zijn bijdrage leveren aan het verlagen van de last van de hele bevolking.”

Ministers vijf EU-landen: voer winstbelasting in voor energiebedrijven die profiteren van stijgende olieprijzen

De Europese Commissie zou een tijdelijke belasting moeten invoeren op de winsten die energiebedrijven maken nu de energieprijzen vanwege de Iran-oorlog omhoogschieten. Dat opperen de ministers van Financiën van Spanje, Duitsland, Italië, Portugal en Oostenrijk. Zaterdag deelde de Spaanse minister Carlos Cuerpo op X een brief die de vijf ministers aan Eurocommissaris Wopke Hoekstra (Klimaat) hebben…

NRC