Closing out the week with some interesting reporting from Washington as the Trump Administration rewrites nuclear safety standards. Next, you can add Carpenter Media Group to your running list of concerning media conglomeration that is shaping our media consumption…probably for the worst.

We continue to look at the ways AI and technology are replacing the way we learn and grow as we are faced with challenges. And lastly, a look back at the 1973 Walpole State Prison strike.

Happy reading and have a great weekend!

Brett

The Trump administration quietly rewrote nuclear safety regulations over fall and winter, sharing revised orders with reactor companies but withholding them from public view. Documents obtained by NPR show the Department of Energy slashed over 750 pages from safety directives governing experimental reactors, removing the "As Low As Reasonably Achievable" radiation standard, eliminating required cognizant system engineers for critical safety systems, and consolidating 500 pages of security requirements into 23 pages.

The changes stemmed from a May 2025 executive order mandating construction of three experimental reactors by July 4, 2026. Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Christopher Hanson warns the secrecy undermines public trust essential for nuclear expansion. The revisions loosen environmental protections, raise radiation thresholds triggering accident investigations, and remove detailed firearms training and emergency drill requirements for security forces. Safety personnel at Idaho National Laboratory conducted the rewrites to accelerate regulatory approval for small modular reactors backed by Amazon, Google, and Meta seeking AI power sources.

Read here.

Carpenter Media Group has become America's fourth-largest newspaper operator in just three years, acquiring over 250 outlets across the United States and Canada through distressed-debt purchases and family-owned paper buyouts. The Tuscaloosa-based company's expansion follows a consistent pattern: purchase struggling publications, implement mass layoffs cutting roughly half the staff, then demand reporters produce two to three stories daily under productivity quotas.

When Alaska's Homer News reporter Chloe Pleznac covered a memorial for Charlie Kirk, labeling him a "far-right political activist," state representative Sarah Vance condemned the article. Carpenter removed it without consulting editors, stripped objectionable terms, republished the altered version, then deleted it entirely. Similar editorial interference occurred at Washington's Everett Herald when Carpenter deleted coverage of its own layoffs. The company financed its Black Press Media acquisition through loans from Canso Investment Counsel and Deans Knight Capital Management, which retained majority control and contractually require 10 percent annual returns. Journalists describe vanishing institutional knowledge, uncovered stories, and plummeting quality as Carpenter prioritizes financial metrics over community journalism.

Read here.

When corrections officers walked off Walpole State Prison in March 1973, prisoners Bobby Dellelo and Ralph Hamm seized the opportunity to prove incarcerated men could govern themselves. The National Prisoners Reform Association, which they led, took control of what had been called America's most violent prison, where men wore makeshift armor and administrators stopped tracking assaults. For weeks under NPRA management, violence ceased. Prisoners distributed medications, operated the kitchen, built playground equipment for visiting children, and resolved conflicts through mediation rather than brutality.

Civilian observers reported striking improvements in conditions and atmosphere. Commissioner John O. Boone, Massachusetts' first Black corrections chief, had deputized the NPRA months earlier as part of sweeping reforms threatening the guards' union. State police retook the facility in May after administrators announced a punitive shakedown. Officers dragged men from cells, forced them down corridors covered in broken glass, and restored the old order. Within weeks, fatal stabbings resumed. The episode occurred amid nationwide prison rebellions following Attica, when calls for abolition came from federal judges and religious leaders alike.

Read here.

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Silicon Valley preaches convenience and efficiency while systematically dismantling embodied human experience. Ordering screens replace cashiers, chatbots substitute for friends, and AI coaches tell wearers what to say on dates. The ideology positions doing as wasteful and having as paramount, erasing the value in processes that forge identity and connection. Students use ChatGPT for homework, cheating themselves of intellectual development. People consult AI about ripe fruit and parenting decisions, atrophying judgment through outsourcing. The promise of frictionless relationships with sycophantic chatbots ignores that friction, rupture, and repair strengthen human bonds.

Neuroscientist Molly Crockett describes how spiritual teachings from the Dalai Lama "reverberated through my whole body" in ways chatbot wisdom cannot replicate. Psychologist James Coan's research shows hand-holding during stress produces measurable calm, evidence that physical presence matters beyond words. The push for digital substitutes ignores abundance: eight billion people inhabit this planet. Distribution, not scarcity, creates isolation. Resistance requires cherishing alternatives, valuing what cannot be measured, and rebuilding spaces where people connect through embodied, unmediated presence.

Read here.

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