Associated Press via Politico; Pope Leo XIV celebrates first Easter vigil, calls for harmony and peace in a world torn by war
"Pope Leo XIV, carrying a tall, lit candle through a darkened and silent St. Peter’s Basilica, ushered in Christianity’s most joyous celebration with his first Easter vigil service as pontiff Saturday night, urging that Easter would bring harmony and peace to a world torn by wars."
Anthropic, Claude's Constitution
Our vision for Claude's character
"Claude’s constitution is a detailed description of Anthropic’s intentions for Claude’s values and behavior. It plays a crucial role in our training process, and its content directly shapes Claude’s behavior. It’s also the final authority on our vision for Claude, and our aim is for all of our other guidance and training to be consistent with it.
Training models is a difficult task, and Claude’s behavior might not always reflect the constitution’s ideals. We will be open—for example, in our system cards—about the ways in which Claude’s behavior comes apart from our intentions. But we think transparency about those intentions is important regardless.
The document is written with Claude as its primary audience, so it might read differently than you’d expect. For example, it’s optimized for precision over accessibility, and it covers various topics that may be of less interest to human readers. We also discuss Claude in terms normally reserved for humans (e.g., “virtue,” “wisdom”). We do this because we expect Claude’s reasoning to draw on human concepts by default, given the role of human text in Claude’s training; and we think encouraging Claude to embrace certain human-like qualities may be actively desirable.
This constitution is written for our mainline, general-access Claude models. We have some models built for specialized uses that don’t fully fit this constitution; as we continue to develop products for specialized use cases, we will continue to evaluate how to best ensure our models meet the core objectives outlined in this constitution.
For a summary of the constitution, and for more discussion of how we’re thinking about it, see our blog post “Claude’s new constitution.”
Powerful AI models will be a new kind of force in the world, and people creating them have a chance to help them embody the best in humanity. We hope this constitution is a step in that direction.
We’re releasing Claude’s constitution in full under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Deed, meaning it can be freely used by anyone for any purpose without asking for permission.
Many people at Anthropic and beyond contributed to the creation of this document, as did several Claude models. Amanda Askell is the primary author and wrote the majority of the text. Joe Carlsmith wrote significant parts of many sections and played a core role in revising the text. Chris Olah, Jared Kaplan, and Holden Karnofsky made significant contributions to its content and development. More detailed contribution statement and acknowledgments below.
The preface and the acknowledgements are not part of the official constitution."
, Observer; The Catholic Priest Who Helped Write Anthropic’s A.I. Ethics Code
"Father Brendan McGuire is writing a novel about a disenchanted monk and his A.I. companion. He’s doing it with Claude. That detail—a Catholic priest using Anthropic’s chatbot to explore questions of faith and artificial consciousness—tells you something about where Silicon Valley’s moral reckoning has arrived. McGuire, 60, leads St. Simon Catholic Parish in Los Altos, Calif., a congregation that counts some of the Valley’s A.I. researchers among its members. Earlier this year, he and a group of faith leaders helped Anthropic shape the Claude Constitution, the set of guiding principles governing how its A.I. behaves.
He is not, in other words, an outside critic. He is something more complicated: a true believer in both God and technology, trying to hold them in the same hand. “I left the tech industry, but it never really left me,” McGuire told Observer...
McGuire wasn’t Anthropic’s only religious collaborator. Bishop Paul Tighe of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and Brian Patrick Green, a technology ethics director at Santa Clara University, also reviewed the Claude Constitution. Green and other Catholic scholars recently filed a federal court brief supporting Anthropic in its lawsuit against the U.S. government, which challenges the company’s effective blacklisting by the Pentagon after it refused to allow its A.I. systems to be used for autonomous warfare or domestic surveillance. The brief praised those ethical limits as “minimal standards of ethical conduct for technical progress.”...
Anthropic says its engagement with religious voices—part of a broader effort to engage a wide variety of communities to keep pace with technological acceleration—is only a beginning. The company plans to expand outreach beyond Catholic institutions to other religious leaders going forward."
, The New York Times ; What Teens Are Doing With Those Role-Playing Chatbots
"There are a growing number of companies offering social chatbots that can act like friends, enemies, lovers, adventurous companions, or the manifestation of a fictional or real person you’ve always wanted to meet. You can pick A.I. Elon Musk’s brain or spar with A.I. Draco Malfoy. The myriad characters, often created by fellow users, offer drama, romance, therapy and LOLs.
Apps that feature role-playing chatbots are used by tens of millions of people, with engagement times that rival or surpass those of social media behemoths such as TikTok, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. The majority of teens surveyed by Pew use A.I. chatbots, with one out of 11 saying they had used Character.AI.
“If you think your child is not talking to chatbot companions, you’re probably wrong,” said Mitch Prinstein, co-director of the Winston Center on Technology and Brain Development at U.N.C. Chapel Hill.
Chatbots are surging in popularity as society is still grappling with how social media has affected young people; a wave of lawsuits is moving through the courts seeking damages from companies that plaintiffs say have deliberately created addictive products. (A jury in California recently found that Meta and YouTube were liable for $6 million in damages to one young woman.) And now parents and caregivers have a new attention-absorbing technology to reckon with.
At the beginning of last year, a high school teacher in Chicago told me that some of her students were dating chatbots, and she worried that they were having their first erotic experiences with them. I wanted to find out what teens had to say about that, so I joined communities devoted to social chatbot apps on the online messaging forum Discord. I introduced myself as a reporter and “an old,” and explained that I was interested in talking to young people who used the services regularly."
Michael Daly , The Daily Beast; Trump’s Easter Message Isn’t Just Wrong—It’s Blasphemous
"On hearing that President Donald Trump was compared to Jesus Christ at a White House Easter luncheon, a New York priest beloved by everybody from firefighters to refugees, from construction workers to the homeless, had much the same reaction as any true Christian.
“Donald Trump is no more Jesus Christ than I am an astronaut on Pluto,” Father Brian Jordan said from Midtown Manhattan, where he serves as pastor of The Church of St. Francis of Assisi.
Jordan also voiced his opinion on the people who stood with Trump in the East Room on Wednesday, nodding in assent as televangelist Paula White-Cain, the head of the White House Department of Faith and the president’s so-called “spiritual adviser,” made the sacrilegious comparison.
“What we call them is the champions of clever sophistry; they say they’re Christians in word, but their actions do not prove it,” Jordan said. “They don’t care about the poor, immigrants, the disabled, or people with gender orientation issues or any of that. They’re insensitive to their needs.”
He went on, “Jesus would reach out and try to bring peace, not war, to Iran. And bring peace, not war, in Ukraine. And try to help out the hungry and malnourished in South Sudan and other parts of the world that have hunger issues.”
Jordan, 70, matches his words with deeds at his church on West 31st Street, where the entrance is flanked by the flags of the FDNY and NYPD. Back in 2001, Jordan anointed the dead at Ground Zero and held regular masses amid the toxic ruins during the long recovery effort. He founded the Workers’ Chapel at St. Francis, where once a year he dons a hard hat and says a memorial mass for construction workers who died on the job. He also established an Immigration Center and does all he can for those who fled poverty and oppression."
Eric Niiler, The New York Times; Forest Service Will Close Research Stations That Study Wildfire Risk
Scientists say their work on fires and climate change could be lost as the agency moves its headquarters to Utah from Washington and shuts 57 research stations.
"The U.S. Forest Service is closing 57 of its 77 research facilities in 31 states under a reorganization plan announced this week, threatening science that looked at how wildfires, drought, pests and global warming are putting pressure on forests.
The agency plans to consolidate its research division into a centralized office in Fort Collins, Colo., and move field researchers to locations in nearby states. But employees said they feared the move would lead many scientists to leave instead. The reorganization will also move the agency’s headquarters to Salt Lake City from Washington, affecting 260 employees.
Many of the research facilities are at universities where Forest Service scientists have access to laboratories and computers or at experimental forests where scientists can monitor the effects of environmental changes over long periods of time. They also investigate logging techniques, endangered plant and animal species, and how forests grow back after devastating fires.
The agency is closing six research and development facilities in California, five in Mississippi, four in Michigan and three in Utah, among others...
The Forest Service oversees 193 million acres of forest and grasslands in 43 states and territories, including forests managed for commercial logging and pristine wilderness areas. The agency lost 5,860 of its 35,550 employees during the first half of 2025 to cuts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and early retirement programs, according to an inspector general’s report issued in December...
Mr. Trump has long denied the science and effects of climate change, and his administration has cut funding for climate-related research across the federal government. Conservation groups say that eliminating climate-related science will result in forests that are less healthy, and less resilient to future environmental changes, which also means fewer trees for the wood products industry."
[Video] CBS; Small Kansas town gets its first library after mysterious donation
"Frontenac, Kansas, is a community of 3,000 residents. When its city administrator received a mysterious $4.6 million dolllar donation from a couple whose dying wish was for a library to be built, the town sprung into action to solidify its legacy."
Atmika Iyer, The Modesto Bee, Calif. via GovTech; Napa Valley Schools Emphasize Honesty, Ethics in AI Policy
"10 principles for AI use in Napa schools
, CBS News; Mysterious donation gives small Kansas town its first public library
"For over 140 years, the small town of Frontenac, Kansas had almost everything its 3,000 residents needed – except a public library.
All that changed when city administrator John Zafuta got an unexpected phone call in 2019.
"It was a surprise," Zafuta said. "An attorney told us that we were the sole beneficiary of the Tavella family trust."
Richard and Jeanette Tavella had both grown up in Frontenac before moving north to Kansas City, where Jeanette worked as a librarian until her death in 2019. Richard had died the year before. The couple wanted to use their parting gift to write a new legacy in their hometown. The town would receive $4.6 million from their estate, and use it to build Frontenac's first public library...
Building a space for community
Seth Nutt, a teacher, historian and Frontenac native, was brought on as the library's director...
Today, its shelves hold over 17,000 titles. The library also hosts activities catered to different age groups, including story time for children, cooking classes for teens and book clubs for adults. It's also home to the McKay Street Coffeehouse and the Heritage Hall Museum. The museum is the first dedicated exclusively to Frontenac's history, and is also overseen by Nutt.
"You hear people debate, do you need a library, do you not? And once you see it, and once you see how involved the community is with it, we've definitely needed it," said fire lieutenant and building inspector Justin Ziesenis, who had brought his six-year-old daughter to the library to pick out books.
"I think it has made a difference in this community. It's drawing more people here, and more students are getting involved with reading books," said eighth-grader Rylinn Girth-Barnow, who had come to the library for a cooking class."
CNN; Former DOJ ethics official sounds off on Bondi exit
"A former Justice Department ethics official fired by Pam Bondi last year speaks out on her departure."
"US Copyright Office Director Shira Perlmutter said the Supreme Court put “little thought” into the implications of its recent decision absolving an internet service provider for not shuttering accounts of users who repeatedly pirated music.
"The throwing out of many, many decades of copyright law on secondary liability so quickly and with so little analysis was shocking," Perlmutter said Friday at a Stanford Law School event."
Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian; ‘Occasionally a picture can change the course of history’: 33 scandalous photos that shocked the world
"The Bullingdon Club photograph, 1987
By Rona Marsden
In 2007, the Mail on Sunday published a photograph taken 20 years earlier: a group portrait of the Bullingdon Club’s class of 1987. Ten young members appear in the bespoke uniform of the exclusive all-male “dining club” at the University of Oxford. Among them are two future luminaries of the Conservative party: David Cameron (standing, second left) and Boris Johnson (seated on the right).
The club’s reputation as a drinking society for badly behaved posh boys – in 1987, a plant pot was thrown out of a window during a Bullingdon party – made the photo a source of embarrassment for Cameron, then leader of the opposition. “We do things when we are young that we deeply regret,” he said in 2009.
Soon after, the company that holds the copyright for the image withdrew permission to republish it. This painting by Oxford-based artist Rona Marsden was commissioned by BBC Newsnight as an alternative. The image remains a striking illustration of the elitism of Britain’s ruling class, and the vast inequality within the country. GS"
Kathryn Rubino , Above The Law; That Was Fast: Bondi’s Portrait Already Living At The Dump
From the wall to the bin in minutes, with a karmic assist from her own management style.
"Pam Bondi’s tenure as attorney general didn’t just end abruptly, it ended curbside.
Because in a bit of poetic efficiency that would make even the most overworked line prosecutor crack a smile, Bondi’s official DOJ portrait was reportedly spotted in the trash mere minutes after Donald Trump gave her the boot. Just straight to the bin, like last week’s takeout and this week’s credibility."
Bernie Sanders , The Wall Street Journal; AI Is a Threat to Everything the American People Hold Dear. It kills jobs, equality, connection, democracy and maybe the human race. Congress must act.
"The American people are deeply apprehensive about the impact that artificial intelligence will have on their lives. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 55% of Americans think AI will do more harm than good, 70% think AI will lead to fewer jobs, and only 5% think AI development is being led by people and organizations that represent their interests.
In the midst of all of this deep concern about the future of AI, 74% of Americans think the government isn't doing enough to regulate the use of AI."
Jeffrey Toobin , The New York Times; The One Thing Trump Wanted That Pam Bondi Failed to Deliver
"But the core of Mr. Trump’s dissatisfaction with the attorney general was apparently her failure to serve his need for revenge against his enemies. She did not prosecute enough of Mr. Trump’s adversaries, and the cases she did bring were failures...
The worst consequence of the Justice Department’s pursuit of cases involving otherwise law-abiding but undocumented individuals is that it has led to untold suffering among those targeted, their families and the economies they support. Ms. Bondi’s lawyers have spent considerable time and money on the harassment, and worse, of people who have done no harm to anyone...
Perhaps worst of all, Justice Department lawyers under Ms. Bondi have often behaved in shockingly unethical ways. For decades, federal judges have looked at assistant U.S. attorneys and other Justice Department lawyers as something more than mere combatants. For good reason, judges assumed that federal lawyers told them the truth about the facts and the law of their cases. In legal terms, the actions of the Justice Department received a “presumption of regularity,” which the private bar did not enjoy. But based on the frequently appalling conduct — for instance, lying, gaslighting, hiding facts and evidence — of Justice Department lawyers in the Bondi era, many judges are no longer giving government lawyers the benefit of the doubt. Nor should they.
Replacing Ms. Bondi with her deputy, Todd Blanche, or the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, to name two likely successors, will not solve this problem unless the new attorney general makes the commitment, unlikely under the circumstances, that the Justice Department will return to its tradition of honesty and integrity."
Karissa Waddick , USA TODAY; Is Trump profiting off America's 250th? Ethics groups question merch
"Ethics groups point to the for-sale items as part of a growing list of evidence they say suggests the president is hijacking bipartisan plans for the milestone commemoration to benefit his personal interests."
Mike Isaac, The New York Times ; OpenAI Buys Streaming Show ‘TBPN,’ Aiming to Change Narrative on A.I.
"On Thursday, OpenAI said it had bought “TBPN” for an undisclosed amount and would continue to support it as the show promoted the business of technology and media."
AMANDA ROBERT, ABA Journal ; Sanctions ramping up in cases involving AI hallucinations
"The use of monetary sanctions against attorneys is seemingly on the rise as courts continue to address artificial intelligence-generated hallucinations in case documents."
Alex Isenstadt , Axios; Exclusive: Trump's DOJ says he's not required to turn over official records
[Kip Currier: This is an appalling anti-democratic determination by Trump 2.0's DOJ. The post-Watergate Presidential Records Act of 1978 was enacted through bipartisan legislating, signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, to curb government corruption and promote transparency, in the wake of actions by Pres. Richard M. Nixon and his administration.
Democratically-elected officials must be accountable to their citizenries. The Presidential Records Act represents a vital means, among others, for holding Presidents and their administrations accountable for their actions by ensuring preservation of and access to their records by present and future generations.]
"President Trump's Justice Department has concluded that a federal law requiring presidential records to be turned over to the government is unconstitutional, a senior White House official tells Axios.
Why it matters: The finding is an indication Trump will be reluctant to give all of his official records to the National Archives at the end of his term, as presidents have done for nearly a half-century under the Presidential Records Act of 1978.
The law, passed in the post-Watergate era as a hedge against government corruption, states that every official record regarding a president's decisions or policies belongs to the U.S. government, not the president."
Ashley Land, CBR; 72 Years Later, the Greatest Quote in Western Movie History Is Still Untouchable
Emily Cochrane and Sonia A. Rao, The New York Times ; Library Director in Tennessee Fired for Refusing to Move Gender-Themed Books
The director, Luanne James, was fired at a board meeting for the Rutherford County Library System on Monday after she refused to move certain books to the adult section.
"It is still an uncertain moment for Ms. James, who had taken the position believing it would be where she would finish out her career. And she remains overwhelmed by both the scrutiny and public attention, even if there is nothing she would do differently.
“I’m just a librarian,” she said. “That’s who I am.”"
Chris Brennan, USA TODAY; Pam Bondi had a ploy. A million people had opinions about it. | Opinion
"U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi devised a scheme earlier this month to run cover for Department of Justice lawyers who face ethics investigations for how they do their jobs.
Bondi wants to hijack the processes that state bar associations use to conduct those investigations, with a proposed rule to allow the DOJ to step in to stall those probes for as long as she likes.
But first, Americans get a month to tell the attorney general what they think of her scheme. And Americans have plenty to say. More than 1 million people have posted comments on the Federal Register since Bondi's proposed DOJ rule change was posted March 5. And the 30-day comment period still has a week to go until the April 6 deadline."
Eleanor Hawkins, Axios; AI gaps in the boardroom are becoming a reputational risk
"The big picture: Companies across every industry are being forced into rapid AI-driven transformation, but many corporate boards lack the expertise to guide strategy, manage risk or communicate decisions credibly to stakeholders.
By the numbers: Only 39% of Fortune 100 boards have any form of AI oversight, such as committees, a director with AI expertise, or an ethics board, according to McKinsey research.
Another recent report found that only 13% of S&P 500 companies have at least one director with AI-related expertise.
Similarly, McKinsey's survey of directors found that 66% say their boards have "limited to no knowledge or experience" with AI, and nearly one in three say AI does not even appear on their agendas.
And a report from the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) found that only 17% have established an AI education plan for directors, and 6% have a dedicated committee to oversee AI.
Between the lines: Having an AI-savvy board is a major competitive advantage, according to a recent MIT study."
Jeffrey D. Dyess, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP , The National Law Review ; The Supreme Court’s Decision on Indirect Internet Copyright Liability Could Have Far-Reaching Effects
"On March 25, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a landmark decision that will reshape not only how copyright law applies to the internet for years to come, but could impact other areas of intellectual property law as well. In Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, the Court held that internet service providers cannot be held indirectly liable for their customers’ copyright infringement simply because the ISPs knew the infringement was happening but failed to prevent it. The decision reversed and remanded a billion-dollar judgment against ISP Cox Communications and drew a more clearly defined line around secondary copyright liability."
