Up Through the Cracks

High-schoolers now take the SATs on tablets, like iPads or Chromebooks. No more of that old problem of trying to fill in those little bubbles with a pen or pencil. Kids still use pens and pencils at school, although perhaps for not much longer.

Every generation before us dealt with technological change. It must have been disorienting to older members of tribes when fire was first harnessed, stones became tools and agriculture sprang out of dung heaps.

So it’s probably pointless to complain about screen time, self-driving cars, or even AI. Humans seem doomed to experiment with new technologies that act as extensions of our physical bodies.

They incorporate the useful ones and move on.

It just would be nice if we learned to apply these powerful new technologies in ways that reduced inequalities and disparities rather than increasing them.

Speaking of that, I recently worked with a young journalist who, as part of an after school project, gave cheap, disposable cameras to immigrant kids in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

When the kids turned in their photos, they were not about poverty, sadness or deprivation.

They were about beauty, smiling and hope.

It is that most stubbornly positive human emotion — hope — that is worth remembering at times like these. Somehow, like a flower pushing up through a crack in a sidewalk, it always breaks through.

HEADLINES:

• Kilmar Abrego Garcia detained at ICE office in Maryland (ABC)

• Richmond rallies around Rosie the Riveter as Trump cracks down on ‘inappropriate’ memorials (SFC)

• Five journalists among 20 killed in Israeli strike on hospital, Gaza officials say (BBC)

• In Trump’s Second Term, Far-Right Agenda Enters the Mainstream (NYT)

• Trump's redistricting push could bring decades of Republican rule to the US House (Reuters)

• The gerrymandering wars is a flashing warning light for US democracy (The Hill)

• Red vs. Blue: Who’s Next in the Redistricting Fight (WSJ)

• Pentagon plans military deployment in Chicago as Trump eyes crackdown (WP)

• Trump ‘manufactured crisis’ to justify plan to send national guard to Chicago, leading Democrat says (Guardian)

• Chicago leaders denounce Pentagon plans for military deployment in city as unlawful, unnecessary (WP)

• "No authority": Dems flame Trump's proposed Chicago crackdown (Axios)

• New GOP bill is latest push to extend federal control of D.C. police (WP)

• ‘It’s like one day everyone left’: How immigration crackdowns are reshaping America (CNN)

• As Trump Targets the Smithsonian, Museums Across the U.S. Feel a Chill (NYT)

• How to save the American university (Guardian)

• Ukraine and Russia trade drone strikes on Kyiv’s independence day (Politico)

• 8 Women, 4 Bedrooms and 1 Cause: Breaking A.I.’s Glass Ceiling (NYT)

• Salt Lake City Hoping To Boost Tourism By Reminding Visitors They’re Free To Leave At Any Time (The Onion)