Author: Errica Jensen

Chuck Kane received a flyer in the mail in 2018. It promoted an Equity Sharing Agreement, which allows you to take money out of your house without having to pay interest or make monthly payments. After examining it and finding it appealing, he dialed the number. In the end, he struck up a conversation with a Michigan salesman who was passionate about football. They became so close over the course of three or four phone conversations that Kane thanked him with a Barry Sanders practice jersey. Everything felt friendly and under control. After that, he signed the agreement. Eight years…

Although he is a Costco member, Russell George rarely uses his membership. That’s not out of the ordinary; many people enroll, go through a phase of purchasing 48 rolls of paper towels all at once, and then progressively stop making the trips to the warehouse while the yearly renewal process continues in silence. The distinction is that George claims that if he had been given a fair chance, he would have canceled his membership when it came time to renew it. Rather, his credit card was charged $65, the notice was sent sixty days prior to the charge, and the…

Innovation is not suggested by the road into rural Appalachian hills. When you travel far enough into the area, the scenery becomes more constrained, with small towns where the main employer closed ten years ago and the storefronts have been empty ever since, and steep ridges clogging the highway. The conventional narrative about education in these areas is one of scarcity: there are too few skilled educators, there is insufficient broadband, there is excessive poverty, and the most talented young people leave as soon as they have the opportunity. That is a true story. It simply isn’t the complete picture.…

Judges at the Los Angeles Superior Court, a vast system that handles everything from minor civil disputes to class-action settlements involving millions of people, have their desks buried under court documents that would take days to thoroughly review. Not in hours. Days. Cases are seated. Motions build up. In just one year, the caseload increased by 49%. A small number of those judges have now quietly begun using a piece of software to help them navigate it all. This software does more than just summarize the filings; it reads the judge’s prior written orders, takes in their style, and drafts…

Because it closely resembles the real thing, there is a specific kind of fraud that is challenging to identify. A car crash on a street in New York. A shaken driver went to get help. A personal injury lawyer submitting a claim. On its own, each component appears precisely as it should. Some of those collisions were never accidents at all, according to a 92-page lawsuit FedEx filed in Manhattan federal court on April 7. FedEx is suing the Ikhilov Law Group and its founder, lawyer Zorik “Erik” Ikhilov, on the grounds that they operated a multi-year scheme centered on…

A professor is currently instructing two audiences simultaneously somewhere in a university building. In a real classroom, some of the students are seated in front of her with backpacks on the floor, laptops open, and a few coffees on the desk. With their tiny, rectangular faces arranged in a grid on the wall-mounted screen, another group observes via a video conference window. In addition to managing the technical feed, keeping eye contact with both groups at the same time, and keeping an eye out for audio drops from distant students, the professor must also deliver a cohesive lecture throughout. For…

Students gathered at Kisii University to celebrate World Kiswahili Day on a July morning in the verdant highlands of western Kenya, on the outskirts of Kisii town. It was the kind of occasion that might have seemed ceremonial in earlier decades—a formal tribute to a language that was praised in speeches before being subtly ignored when the real academic work started. The occasion had a different significance this time. In front of his faculty and students, the vice chancellor made an announcement that was more of a statement of fact than a declaration: Out of all the language courses offered…

The AI industry would really like writers to take $3,000. For the approximately 500,000 books whose copyrights were allegedly violated when the company downloaded millions of files from pirate libraries to train its Claude AI model, the proposed $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement amounts to that amount per book. For some writers and publishers, $3,000 was a significant milestone because it was the first real recognition that using pirated books to create a multibillion-dollar AI company was not, in fact, free. Others perceived it as precisely the kind of arrangement that favors the business over the individuals it harmed. The second…

A specific type of document that would not have existed three years ago is now appearing on judges’ desks. At first glance, it appears to be competent legal work. The formatting is neat. The arguments are structured. The citations, which include case names, reporters, and page numbers, are present and precisely where they should be, lending the entire document credibility. A clerk then makes an attempt to remove one of the cases. There is no such thing. The citation is a self-assured, properly formatted creation. The AI that created it was unaware that it was creating something. That’s the issue,…

Convenience stores close to construction sites are already crowded at six in the morning, before the majority of office workers have opened their laptops. At the beginning of their shift, young people in their twenties are getting coffee before going out to frame houses, run electrical, and install HVAC systems. Their work boots are still clean. They don’t look like the college recruitment posters advertised. In many instances, they appear to have made a more prudent financial choice than those who currently pay $36,000 a year to sit in lecture halls. Key Information: Gen Z Trade School Trend FieldDetailsGenerationGen Z…