Microsoft launches the Publisher Content Marketplace in partnership with Condé Nast, Hearst, AP, and others, to let publishers license content to AI companies (Anu Adegbola/Search Engine Land)
https://searchengineland.com/microsoft-launch…
IBM security executive emerges as possible contender to lead CISA
https://www.nextgov.com/people/2026/05/ibm-security-executive-emerges-possible-contender-lead-cisa/413291/
Pope Leo XIV condemned the “imperialist occupation of the world”
in a mass on Thursday, just days before Easter,
in a continuation of his anti-war preachings as the Catholic leader continues to advocate against the U.S. and Israel’s war on Iran.
“The cross is part of the mission.
The imperialist occupation of the world is disrupted from within;
the violence that until now has been the law is unmasked,”
the pope’s official X account posted on Thursday.
…
Seeing Iran appoint new leaders and continue to fight is seeing the more literal kind of necropolitics in action, as a hierarchical system continues to function while replacing the expendable human parts that it lost. The system is of course changed and influenced (and ultimately was built) by humans, but it has become something undying, or at least almost as hard to kill as an idea, and it maintains a terrible inertia in it's destructive tendencies (e.g., "Morality Police" continue to patrol the streets).
Lest anyone think this somehow expresses approval of US actions, the same logic applies here too: what once had a (thin) verneer of democracy, a system which loudly proclaimed to be controlled by "the people" (but which never was nor was ever intended to be) has lost its paint job, exposing the inhuman machinations beneath. Trump is a symptom, not cause, of an institution built on blood and spoils, whose alignment with the Epstein class (and moreover, their institutions) is ever more apparent with each disregarded law and principle.
Stepping back for a moment, this systems/necropolitics perspective is just a perspective, with its own distortions and blind spots. To paraphrase LeGuin, any institution built by humans can also be changed or destroyed by them. But I think it's very useful to put on the systems goggles in this moment, especially when some are fond of preaching about the dangers of "overwhelmingly powerful systems unaccountable to humans which pursue destructive ends" without actually examining the plethora of existing systems that do just that.
P.S. yes, United Healthcare is another good example of this.
P.P.S. yes I bending the meaning of necropolitics here, but the two are related: these systems would not be so free to profit from human death and suffering if they were more vulnerable to the deaths of their constituent parts. Necropolitics of the standard variety is of course present as companies like Raytheon and Lockeed Martin profit from the carnage. The F-15 caught by friendly fire? Just as profitable for Beoing to replace as one downed by the enemy.
One of your biggest risk when travelling abroad as a Canadian tourist isn’t what people assume.
Roads and transport is often much more dangerous abroad than it is locally
#tourism
https://www.
Sources: US Commerce Dept. has finished review of Nvidia's license to sell China H200s, but the State Dept. seeks tighter restrictions, delaying final approval (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/d963c6c9-3618-4d83-8efe-eccf74cd637f
Sources: in the EU, US criticism over censorship has been met with disbelief and anger, and some Big Tech lobbyists acknowledge US accusations are overstated (Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/37d47387-7e31-484a-8c8a-f01efbeb4151
Sources: banks are marketing at least $56B in investment-grade data center construction loans tied to Oracle's leases, as they seek out new buyers for the loans (Michelle Chan/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/90aa74a5-b39d-4131-a138-367726cb18fb
The UK government commits an initial £40M to an AI research lab, modeled on its DARPA-inspired ARIA, seeking breakthroughs in science, healthcare, and transport (Madhumita Murgia/Financial Times)
https://www.ft.com/content/41f522fc-10f5-4e5e-b64a-eb515799c265
…