PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
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Bankrupt 23andMe’s DNA Data Gets Nod for Sale (Maria)
The author writes, “Bankrupt genetic testing firm 23andMe Holding Co. won permission from a judge to try to sell information about customers’ medical and ancestry-related data, a trove that is considered the most valuable asset in the insolvency case — and has become a source of privacy and safety concerns amid the company’s collapse.”
The US Postal Service Has Been Struggling for Years. Now Trump’s Talking About Privatizing It (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “The U.S. Postal Service is facing an uncertain future after the resignation this week of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and the suggestion by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency, that the mail service could be privatized. Unions representing postal workers have balked at the idea of privatization, staging protests across the country. While they support modernization efforts, including those initiated by DeJoy, union leaders warned that allowing private corporations to run the U.S. mail will ultimately harm everyday citizens, especially the estimated 51 million people living in rural areas who depend on the Postal Service.”
Must the Palestinian Have an Oscar for the World to Care When He’s Attacked? (Dana)
From +972 Magazine: “When news broke of the settler ambush, the headlines focused almost exclusively on one thing: Ballal’s Oscar win. Across mainstream Western media — from the Associated Press and Reuters, to the Washington Post and the BBC — publications used surprisingly direct language to describe the attack on this ‘Palestinian Oscar winner.’ Unlike some of their coverage of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, for instance, these outlets clearly named the perpetrators of the assault — Israeli settlers — with one traditionally liberal publication going so far as to describe his brutal arrest by the Israeli army as a ‘kidnapping.’ But still, the emphasis was clear: the assault and detention of a Palestinian is notable because he holds international acclaim.”
Hazel Johnson Launched an Environmental Movement in Chicago That Trump Is Trying to End (Laura)
From Inside Climate News: “[Hazel Johnson’s] public health and environmental activism persuaded President Bill Clinton to recognize ‘environmental justice’ in an executive order. A proposed city ordinance, promised by Mayor Brandon Johnson in September 2023, is expected to be named after the legendary Chicago activist. … With a stroke of a pen in January, President Donald Trump ended that 1994 order signed by Clinton. Trump declared that the document, recognizing poor communities that often bear the brunt of pollution, amounts to ‘illegal discrimination’ and is ‘radical.’ Environmental advocates say Trump is creating a new narrative to demonize programs and policies aimed at helping vulnerable communities.”
Open Source Devs Say AI Crawlers Dominate Traffic, Forcing Blocks on Entire Countries (Sean)
From Ars Technica: “Software developer Xe Iaso reached a breaking point earlier this year when aggressive AI crawler traffic from Amazon overwhelmed their Git repository service, repeatedly causing instability and downtime. Despite configuring standard defensive measures — adjusting robots.txt, blocking known crawler user-agents, and filtering suspicious traffic — Iaso found that AI crawlers continued evading all attempts to stop them, spoofing user-agents and cycling through residential IP addresses as proxies. … Iaso’s story highlights a broader crisis rapidly spreading across the open source community, as what appear to be aggressive AI crawlers increasingly overload community-maintained infrastructure, causing what amounts to persistent distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on vital public resources.”
This Michigan Democrat Cruised to Victory in a Trump District. Here’s How (Russ)
The author writes, “Kristen McDonald Rivet is probably not a name you’ve heard, given that she has been a member of Congress for fewer than 12 weeks. But Democrats desperate for a way out of the wilderness, and bickering about how to get there, would do well to acquaint themselves with what McDonald Rivet did last year — and how she did it — in this House district about 100 miles north of Detroit. Once bright-blue, Michigan’s 8th stands at the absolute median of the Cook Political Report’s partisan voting index, which means that 217 districts across the country lean more Republican than it does, and an equal number tilt more Democratic. With redistricting and a general shift rightward by working-class voters, Donald Trump won here by a couple of percentage points, which was slightly better than he did statewide in this critical swing state.”
‘Just Plain Old Larry’: A Wisconsin Man’s Testimony About Gender-Affirming Care Went Viral. Here’s His Story (Al)
From Wisconsin Watch: “When Larry Jones arrived at the Wisconsin State Capitol on March 12, he didn’t know what he was getting into — let alone that he would be a viral internet sensation the next day. The 85-year-old self-described conservative had been invited by his grandson to a public hearing on a Republican-authored bill that would ban gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth in the state. … Jones was there in support of the bill, but wasn’t intending to get up and speak. But after listening to nearly seven hours of testimony, he put his name down. ‘I have very little knowledge of gay people and things like that there, so when I came here, my eyes were opened,’ he told the state Assembly’s Health, Aging and Long-Term Care Committee just after 9 pm. ‘I was one of the critics that sat on the side and made the decision there was only two genders, so I got an education that was unbelievable. And I don’t know just exactly how to say this, but my perspective for people has changed. … I’d like to apologize for being here, and I learned a very lot about this group of people.’”
