Lending a Helping Paw: Dogs Will Aid Their Crying Human

Julia Meyers-Manor and Emily Sanford The Conversation
People have long believed that their dogs will come to their aid when they're in distress. Dog researchers put that belief to the test, and this is what they found.

Thank You, Koch Brothers!

Bernie Sanders thanks the Koch brothers for sponsoring a study that shows that Medicare for all would save the American people $2 trillion dollars over a ten year period. Probably not what they intended to do, but that is what a study of the Mercatus Center - significantly funded by the Kochs - shows.

Prophets of Rage | Who Owns Who

From the debut album of Prophets of Rage (Tim Commerford, Tom Morello and Brad Wilk from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, DJ Lord and Chuck D from Public Enemy, and B-Real of Cypress Hill).

Fact Check: Collusion Is A Crime

President Trump's and lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s new argument is that collusion is not a crime. Ari Melber gives a special legal break down of why colluding with foreigners to impact a U.S. election is a crime, including the four key felonies that it involves.

Movie: BLACKkKLANSMAN

A new movie by Spike Lee tells the true story of Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), the first African-American detective to serve in the Colorado Springs Police Department, who sets out to infiltrate and expose the KKK, along with body double colleague, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver). Interview with Spike Lee.

Learning Dexterity

OpenAI's robot Dactyl learns how to do new tasks from experience rather than by custom programming. Here is a demonstration of Dactyl manipulating a block into a desired orientation.

Paper Crowns

Joanne Diaz American Poetry Review
“All blindness and much worse,” writes Illinois poet Joanne Diaz of the invisibility of Black life to oblivious white people.

Heroes of Their Own Story: Notes on the Mexican Election

Margaret Cerullo and JoAnn Wypijewski The Nation
July 1 was not the ultimate victory, only the animating first step. Now president-elect 13 years later, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) is touring the country, listening. In the tension between celebration and wariness, hope is an active verb.

South Africa: Undeclared Crisis of the “New Dawn”

Raymond Suttner Polity (South Africa)
There are a range of developments happening simultaneously now that throw a disquieting light on any democratic and potentially broader emancipatory project in South Africa. These do not receive much attention in media coverage or political discourse