One of the dilemmas facing anyone in a new and unfamiliar city is where to dine out. You might consult guides, speak to locals, check reviews, and ultimately, try your luck. But if you're there for a while, at some point you're going to be asking yourself whether to visit new eateries or stick to the ones you've already tried and liked.

Feynman's napkin notes

This is known as a classic explore-exploit dilemma and was something the late physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman pondered during a restaurant meal with a friend in the 1970s. His companion was debating whether to order his favorite dish or try something new. Feynman turned the question into a math problem and solved it there and then, scribbling his workings on pieces of paper.

Feynman, who died in 1988, never published his solution, but researchers came across his handwritten notes and not only deciphered them, but also put the solution to the test.

Details of their research are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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On Friday, Popular Information reported that Real Change PAC, a purportedly "progressive" super PAC spending millions attacking Democrats from the left, was linked to House Republicans. The linkage to the House Republican super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), was established indirectly -- through Real Change PAC's connections to another sham PAC, California Blue.

Now, in a digital blunder, Real Change PAC directly revealed its real goals and political affiliation. In a post on X, journalist Andrew Solender noted that when someone subscribes to Real Change PAC's email list, the confirmation email comes from a cavalryllc.com email address. Cavalry LLC is one of DC's premier Republican communications shops, founded by Josh Holmes, Senator Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) former Chief of Staff.

In Maine's 2nd Congressional District, for example, Real Change PAC is running a TV ad attacking Democratic candidate Joe Baldacci. "The truth? Joe Baldacci is the only Democrat running for Congress who stands with Trump and opposes implementation of Medicare for all Mainers now," the ad asserts.

In New Jersey's 7th Congressional District, Real Change PAC is attacking Democratic candidate Rebecca Bennett with mailers accusing her of "STANDING WITH ICE" and "CASHING IN ON TRUMP'S TERROR."

Cavalry does not work with Democrats and supports President Trump's agenda. The firm does work extensively, however, with the CLF.

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Manhattan immigration courts on Monday saw the first instances of so-called mega master hearings, a tactic the Trump administration is using across the country to accelerate deportations. One judge was scheduled to hear 121 cases in a single day. Another had a docket of 88. The vast majority of individuals were listed as having no legal representation.

"It's pretty horrifying," New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams told the Prospect in the waiting area outside the courtroom of Judge Kalenna Lee, who was rapidly moving through the list of 88 cases, many of them unaccompanied children with legal representation, spending in some instances no more than three minutes per person. "For clarity, this has nothing to do with public safety," Williams added. "This is about rounding up people the government doesn't like."

Stuffing the docket is the Trump administration's latest tactic to deport one million people annually, a practice NPR was the first to report last week. Lawyers who spoke with NPR said mega master hearings were under way in Boston, Chicago, and Massachusetts, and would soon begin in Dallas. Court-watchers alerted the Prospect last Friday that they'd start in New York City on June 1; staff of some elected officials said they were not aware of the plan until this past weekend.

Master hearings are typically the first time someone attends immigration court to begin the process of staying in the country legally; the hearings were already quick and crowded, typically including 20 or 30 people all heard by the same judge at the same time.

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On June 1, 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine, stood up against Republican Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin and his supporters, who were undermining American democracy in a crusade against "communism."

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When she was elected to Congress, the U.S. was still getting used to the New Deal government that Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt had ushered in first to combat the Great Depression and then to fight for victory in World War II. Smith's party was divided between those who thought the new system was a proper adjustment to the modern world and those determined to destroy that new government.

Those who wanted to slash the government back to the form it had taken in the 1920s, when businessmen ran it, had a problem. American voters liked the business regulation, basic social safety net, and infrastructure construction of the new system. To combat that popularity, the anti-New Deal Republicans insisted that the U.S. government was sliding toward communism. With the success of the People's Liberation Army and the declaration of the People's Republic of China in October 1949, Americans were willing to entertain the idea that communism was spreading across the globe and would soon take over the U.S.

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She began: "I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear.... I speak as a Republican, I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States senator. I speak as an American."

Referring to Senator McCarthy, who was sitting two rows behind her, Senator Smith condemned the leaders in her party who were destroying lives with wild accusations. "Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism," she pointed out. Americans have the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, to protest, and to think for themselves. But attacks that cost people their reputations and jobs were stifling these basic American principles. "Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America," Senator Smith said. "It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others."

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"I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny--Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear."

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In the last few years, rents across the United States have skyrocketed. According to a Congressional Research Service analysis of data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, more than 22.7 million renter households, or nearly half, were considered "cost burdened" in 2024, meaning they spent more than 30% of their income on housing costs.

According to a March 2026 report by Zillow, "rents have increased by 36.2%" since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, the typical asking rent was $1,910, according to Zillow, meaning that a household would have to earn at least $76,400 a year to be able to comfortably afford it.

Rising rents in the U.S. are a complex problem. But one factor contributing to higher costs for renters is the concentration in ownership. According to a new report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, private equity firms now own "at least 11,800 apartment buildings with almost 3 million units," or approximately 13% of apartment units in the U.S.

The number of apartments owned by private equity firms has increased dramatically in recent years. Over 1.3 million apartment units have been acquired by private equity firms since just 2021.

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The old "monkey see, monkey do" adage may rest on some neuroscientific evidence, finds a new Yale study. To examine how the primate brain facilitates cooperative behavior among individuals during social interaction, a team of researchers trained pairs of marmoset monkeys to cooperate in a task.

The challenge: If the monkeys pulled separate levers within one second of each other, they'd receive treat rewards. Success required astute mutual observation between both monkeys and the ability to read body language cues so they could gauge each other's readiness to act.

The result: They pulled it off.

How? By employing what the researchers have dubbed "the social gaze." Specifically, the monkeys cooperated by continuously gathering and interpreting social information. The animals especially focused on eye gaze and body movements to predict what each other was about to do.

The findings are published in the journal Neuron.

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Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey recently proposed expanding the use of automated enforcement technologies (AET), which use cameras and sensors to identify traffic violations. State lawmakers are working on legislation that would authorize cities and towns to use AET to ticket people for speeding and running red lights and stop signs.

Given the ACLU's years-long campaign to warn about the dangers of unregulated license plate readers (LPR), we're often asked about the potential risks of AET.

Our take: When properly regulated, AET does not pose the same threats to privacy as license-plate-reader surveillance. We're also encouraged by the smart guardrails state lawmakers are considering in legislation that would authorize Massachusetts cities and towns to expand AET.

Read on to learn more about how AET works, how it differs from the LPRs already in widespread use throughout Massachusetts, and how lawmakers ought to regulate both technologies to ensure they support community safety without violating privacy.

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