Avi Asher-Schapiro

Last month, I flew to Colorado to have a neurologist attach a bunch of electrodes to my head and download my brain waves.

I am a privacy-conscious person. I browse the internet with a VPN, I use DuckDuckGo instead of Google, and I tend to use fake names and burner emails when I log into websites.

For nurse practitioner Perla Puebla and her street medic team in Phoenix, Arizona, the day starts at 5:30am as they stock their van with water, intravenous drips (IVs), personal hygiene products and other supplies. 

Their organisation, Circle the City, provides lifesaving care to people living on the city’s streets.

When Asher first attended a Gamblers Anonymous meeting in 2022, only a dozen or so people were there, but now as many as 60 turn up with most newcomers dealing with addictions to online sports betting.

Asher, who asked that Context use a pseudonym to protect the privacy of his recovery group, was drawn into gambling by online poker.

As Venezuelan campaigners take to the streets demanding that President Nicolás Maduro concede defeat after a disputed election, digital rights campaigners say the government is using tech to target and intimidate its critics.

Officials have urged citizens to make online reports of "threats" from protesters, with rights expert Raisa Urribarri saying pro-government social channels widely sharing footage of arrests are also fuelling a "climate of terror".

President Joe Biden's administration is advancing a first-of-its-kind proposal to safeguard indoor and outdoor workers from the perils of extreme heat as the United States swelters under record-breaking temperatures this summer.

But it will still likely take years to enact a federal rule that could be undone with the stroke of a pen should Donald Trump win the White House – or by a U.S. Supreme Court that just dealt a major blow to the federal government's regulatory authorities.

Maru Mora-Villalpando had been living in the United States for 21 years when a letter arrived at her door with a deportation notice.

It was 11 months into Donald Trump's presidency, and Mora-Villalpando thought she had taken all the necessary steps to keep her address hidden from authorities.

After a particularly gruelling day delivering packages in 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) outside of Philadelphia, Amazon delivery driver Randy woke up feeling off, checked the weather, and decided he didn't feel safe going into work.

Worried that his boss might punish him by taking away future shifts, Randy, who asked to use only his first name for fear of retaliation, lied when he called in sick and said he was seriously ill.

After a particularly gruelling shift lifting heavy boxes in an Amazon warehouse in New York State, Keith Williams' hands and wrist stopped working - when he woke up the next day, he could barely grasp a milk jug.

Williams blames the injury in February last year on the breakneck pace of work at the Amazon facility, which he said the company enforced by precisely measuring his productivity and pushing him to work faster. 

With bitcoin prices breaking new records in recent months, fights over the cryptocurrency's energy usage and environmental impact are escalating across the United States. 

President Joe Biden's administration is demanding the industry disclose how much electricity mining operations use, while cryptocurrency groups are pushing for legislation to shield mines from local regulations that limit their expansion. 

"In the good old days," mused DreamWorks co-founder and former Disney CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg late last year, "it took 500 artists five years to make a world-class animated movie. I don't think it will take 10% of that three years out from now."

With Hollywood already replacing staff with generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, people working the industry want rules to govern the new technology and to make sure it does not use images they have created without compensating them.