Kids who don’t (can’t) read risk their mental health?
https://www.bespacific.com/all-the-ways-reading-for-pleasure-is-good-for-your-mental-health/
All the Ways Reading for Pleasure is Good for Your Mental Health
Nautilus: “Even though it might be a dying pastime. With our attention splintered into a million pieces by digital distractions, it’s no surprise that reading for pleasure has fallen off in recent years. Social media, video, and other forms of “content” are eating reading’s lunch, and it’s not particularly close. And so, it’s easy to forget that reading for fun is… fun. Now a new review published in Psychological Medicine is offering a reminder of all the ways reading for pleasure can benefit your mental health, too. According to data from the National Literacy Trust, reading for pleasure may be at its lowest level ever recorded with the deepest plunges among children and adolescents. It’s a shame because, according to the researchers, young people reap some of the greatest rewards from reading. For example, a longitudinal study of more than 10,000 young adolescents found that reading for pleasure was associated with improved attention, memory, and executive functioning, not to mention better mental health, more sleep, and less screen time. Many of these benefits seem to be independent of the kids’ socioeconomic backgrounds (an important factor because reading for fun can also be free). “Reading is a great way to support our brain health, develop important cognitive skills, and boost our wellbeing,” study author Barbara Sahakian of the University of Cambridge explained in a statement. “It’s something we ought to be encouraging from an early age, given the increasing evidence of its benefits, particularly to children.” Per the team, developing reading habits during this critical developmental period may also lead to changes in the brain. Children between the ages of 8 and 13 with strong reading skills showed greater integrity in their white matter, the neural connective tissue of the brain that facilitates communication between different regions. In a small study of dyslexic children, an eight-week program that yielded better reading skills also resulted in increases of grey matter volume in areas associated with language skills and working memory. Of course, reading doesn’t just benefit kids. A survey of over 4,000 adults found that those who read for pleasure showed more empathy, less stress, and a deeper interest in their own personal development. For example, books inspired 27 percent of readers to find a new job, motivated 36 percent of readers to travel, and spurred 20 percent of readers to take better care of their health…”
The ultimate legal tool?
https://www.bespacific.com/courtlistener-plugin-is-now-available-in-chatgpt-enterprise/
CourtListener plugin is now available in ChatGPT Enterprise
CourtListener Joins ChatGPT Enterprise Free Law Project’s CourtListener plugin in ChatGPT is now available, giving lawyers grounded, verifiable access to case law and PACER data inside the AI tools they already use. The plugin connects ChatGPT to CourtListener’s full legal research platform: case law records, federal court filings from the RECAP Archive, citation networks, oral argument transcripts, case and query alerts, and more. It already works with any client that speaks the Model Context Protocol, and is now available as a ChatGPT plugin. Giving an AI assistant access to these resources unlocks research that used to be done by hand:
A litigation team can ask an assistant to surface and summarize every circuit split on a doctrine.
An attorney can verify every citation in an incoming brief against primary sources before it goes out the door.
A team tracking dozens of cases can set alerts for when any of them cite specific case law.
Every result links back to the underlying documents, grounding answers in primary-source legal data that lawyers can review and verify. Setup instructions and full documentation are on Free Law Project’s wiki.
We can’t make parts of the Internet safe, so we’ll forbid minors from using any of it.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/eu-kids-act-wont-keep-internet-accountable-and-trustworthy
EU Kids Act Won't Keep the Internet Accountable and Trustworthy
The EU Commission draft law to restrict young people’s access to the internet that it presented last week will come at a high cost: it will put online services behind age gates, expand the use of intrusive age verification, and undermine the privacy of all users.
The EU Kids Act aims to protect children from risks associated with social media, video games, and AI systems by introducing age-based access rules, safety requirements, and stronger enforcement and oversight measures. It presents itself as building on the Digital Services Act (DSA) and puts into “hard law” some of the safety-by-design measures specified in the non-binding DSA guidelines on minors’ protection.
The proposal is built around the following elements: social media age “delay”, safety by design, age assurance and parental responsibility, and strong enforcement. Each of these measures are concerning.
Undue reliance, AI style.
Pentagon Investigators Say Overreliance on Palantir AI Tech Contributed to U.S. Strike That Killed 123 Iranian Children
… Earlier reporting already pointed to outdated targeting data and raised questions about whether artificial intelligence had a role in the mix-up. And now, a Bloomberg investigation published Friday fills in more of the story, citing officials involved in an unreleased internal Pentagon review. Those officials said some Pentagon personnel knew within hours that the United States had hit the school, and they described a cascade of preventable failures that included an overreliance on an AI tool built by Palantir.
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