NEW RESOURCES

PR Newswire: Database of Mass Shooters Compiled by Hamline Students Released for Public Use (PRESS RELEASE). “On November 19, 2019, The Violence Project, a nonpartisan think tank, will publicly release the largest, most comprehensive database of mass shooters in the United States. This new database, funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice, was developed by professors Jillian Peterson and James Densley and a team of students at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. It includes 171 mass shooters from 1966 to 2019, each coded on 100 pieces of life history information.”

Art Forum: Noguchi Museum Launches Digital Archive. “The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum (the Noguchi Museum) in Long Island City, New York, has announced the launch of its Isamu Noguchi Archive. The digitization initiative was part of a multiyear project to make the sculptor’s works more accessible to the public. More than sixty thousand objects including project records, press clippings, correspondence, and other archival materials as well as twenty-eight thousand images of Noguchi’s artworks, exhibitions and studios, and international travels are now available online.”

State of Delaware: Interactive Site Commemorates Women’s Suffrage Centennial. “The website… includes interactive quizzes for kids and adults, reading lists for people of all ages, and lesson plans for teachers and students of all ages. The Women’s Suffrage Centennial Committee created a website that includes a historical summary about the general Women’s Suffrage Movement as well as Delaware’s part in the effort. The site will include perspectives from people of all walks of life, making sure Delaware residents get a complete understanding of the Women’s Suffrage Movement.”

TWEAKS AND UPDATES

CNET: Google updates political ads policy with targeting restrictions. “Google on Wednesday unveiled updates to its political advertising policy, restricting how narrowly an advertiser can target an audience. With the new policy, election ads will only be able to target people based on age, gender and postal code.”

Education Dive: Ed Dept makes student debt, earnings data searchable by program. “The U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday that it upgraded its College Scorecard to let users compare data on median student loan debt and post-graduate earnings by program of study within institutions.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Guardian: Google admits major underreporting of election ad spend. “Like many technology companies, Google voluntarily publishes a weekly transparency report, providing updates on how much money has been spent by political parties and other organisations on adverts. But the reports, which include historical data as well as the latest week’s spending, vary wildly week by week, with no clear reason for the discrepancies.”

University of Rhode Island: Iconic Pittsburgh jazz DJ donates show archives to URI music Department. “Calvin Stemley, a close friend of [Ronald “Butch”] Perkins, coordinated the gift of the archive from Mr. Perkins’ family to the University. On Oct. 25, he played with the URI Jazz Band and accepted a plaque on behalf of Perkins and his work as a DJ and strong supporter of jazz. Stemley is a retired music educator from Pittsburgh Public Schools and continues to perform in the Pittsburgh area where he mentors young people and teaches them about music, especially jazz.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Ars Technica: Researchers see spike in “out of season” IRS-impersonating phishing attacks. “Tax return scammers usually strike early in the year, when they can turn the personal information of victims into fraudulent tax refund claims. But members of Akamai’s threat research team found a recent surge in “off-season” phishing attacks masquerading as notices from the Internal Revenue Service, targeting over 100,000 individuals.”

ABC News (Australia): Google-affiliated drone delivery company clashes with Government over safety and noise concerns. “The Federal Government’s move to dodge responsibility for noise in the emerging drone-delivery sector has been met by opposition from a surprising source — the world’s leading drone-delivery company.”

The Bull: French media launch copyright case against Google. “French media organisations lodged a complaint against Google to the country’s competition authority Wednesday over the US internet giant’s refusal to pay for displaying their content. The move sets up a legal fight with Google over a new EU copyright law that could have huge repercussions for the future of the press.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Mongabay: New assessment method finds close to one-third of tropical Africa’s plants are potentially facing extinction . “New research finds that nearly one-third — 31.7 percent — of tropical Africa’s vascular plant species might be at risk of going extinct. The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species is the go-to resource for conservation status assessments, but while the majority of vertebrate species have been assessed, we know far less about the conservation status of plants, especially in the tropics.”

Fast Company: Better-educated, higher-paid workers will be ‘most affected’ by AI, per new study. “When it comes to automation, many experts believe that the most vulnerable are the most vulnerable. That is, the jobs that are in the greatest danger of being disrupted, if not altogether displaced, by machines are occupied by blue-collar and front-line service workers—those in ‘lower- wage, lower-education roles’ who perform rote tasks, as a report from the Brookings Institution framed it earlier this year. But a new study from Brookings, being released today, challenges this assumption, at least as it pertains to artificial intelligence.” Good morning, Internet…

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