The Washington Post

A haunting story about a mother desperate to raise her son the right way — despite a past she cannot put behind her and living in the heart of cowboy country, where toxic masculinity is a way of life.

He might be able to change the world, Sarah often says, if she can figure out how to raise him the right way. But she is also overwhelmed by the fear that her sweet boy could one day become a bad guy, like so many of the ones who have hurt her. Like the one they just escaped.

Has Google’s artificial intelligent chatbot LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) achieved sentience? While Google says no, engineer Blake Lemoine says yes.

Lemoine said that people have a right to shape technology that might significantly affect their lives. “I think this technology is going to be amazing. I think it’s going to benefit everyone. But maybe other people disagree and maybe us at Google shouldn’t be the ones making all the choices.”

Lemoine is not the only engineer who claims to have seen a ghost in the machine recently. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.

Vaughn Smith lives in Maryland. He’s 46 years old. He also learns languages with the seeming ease of a run around the block — including endangered indigenous tongues like Salish. In this fascinating profile that’s part ridealong and part science dive, Jessica Contrera takes you inside the life (and brain) of a man with a very particular set of skills.

In this heartbreaking portrait of one American family, Eli Saslow offers a look at “backwards mobility” and the country’s collapsing middle class.

It had been almost a month since Dave, 39, found his father lying unresponsive in bed next to his cellphone and a bill from a collections agency, having died of a heart attack at age 70, and ever since then Dave had been trying to make sense of what his father had left behind. He’d read through his father’s credit card statements and then talked to a banker, who concluded that the final estate of David Ramsey Sr. was of “inconsequential value.”

“For the former detainees of America’s war on terror, stigma, poverty and continuing persecution present formidable obstacles to resettlement.”

Inside the struggles and heartaches of FEMA’s massive COVID funeral assistance program.

“An Internet mob wanted to rescue a 13-year-old girl. Instead, they terrified her, derailed real trafficking investigations, and incited ‘save the children’ violence.”

“Laurel Haught moved out of her own home to escape her unvaccinated daughter. Now they are facing a funeral, the coming holidays and the divide splitting many American families.”

In short: Pretty much.