New international student enrollment in U.S. universities dropped 17% in Fall 2025 amid stricter visa rules and immigration policy changes.

A heart-wrenching one, if you dare to read. “This posthumous translation of Rosales, a Cuban-American writer who committed suicide in 1993, delivers a raw, powerful story set in a Miami home for the m...

A heart-wrenching one, if you dare to read. “This posthumous translation of Rosales, a Cuban-American writer who committed suicide in 1993, delivers a raw, powerful story set in a Miami home for the mentally ill… It’s a frightening, nihilistic cousin of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest .”― Publishers Weekly Never before available in English, The Halfway House is a trip to the darkest corners of the human condition.

Key Insights for From Bankruptcy To Billions: The Rebirth Of Nokia by Merlin AI Nokia's Rise and Fall in the Mobile Market In 2008, Nokia's revenue peaked at over $76 billion, dominating the mobile industry. The launch of the iPhone in 2007 marked a significant shift, introducing a sleek design and touchscreen technology that rendered Nokia's traditional brick phones outdated.

Over 1,000 players, referees, and officials suspended in Turkey’s biggest football betting scandal, shaking clubs like Beşiktaş and Galatasaray.

I want to resume my active Beşiktaş fandom, but it is so hard to focus on the game itself amid these scandals.  Türkiye is currently facing a major football betting scandal, with over 1,000 professional players under investigation and suspended by the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) for alleged involvement in illegal sports betting activities. The scandal, which has rocked the nation's football, implicates not only footballers but also referees, club officials, and executives, shaking the credibility of Turkish football at all levels.

Turkey indicts Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on sweeping corruption and organized crime charges, sparking outrage and fears of political persecution.

Here is an overview by Perplexity. Overview: The İmamoğlu Indictment On November 11, 2025, Turkish authorities announced a sweeping indictment against Ekrem İmamoğlu, the jailed Mayor of Istanbul and a leading opposition figure. The nearly 4,000-page indictment accuses İmamoğlu and 401 others of forming and leading a criminal organization, bribery, embezzlement, money laundering, tender rigging, and various forms of corruption. Prosecutors are seeking between 828 and 2,352 years in prison for İmamoğlu, with some reports mentioning up to 2,430 years.

This becomes a routine: Staying and resting at home on Saturdays and socializing on Sundays. The last three days of the week were so hectic; now it is hard to do anything today besides reading, blogging, etc. However, a state of satisfaction is here as we have one of the most productive STS conferences thanks to our host, HECAS.

Key Insights for Where People Go When They Want to Hack You by Merlin AI Understanding the Zero Day Market The zero day market revolves around the sale of undisclosed vulnerabilities in software, which can be exploited before the developers are aware and can issue patches. These vulnerabilities are often termed "zero days" because they are sold or used before the software vendor has had any time to address them, making them extremely valuable.

YouTube deleted 700+ videos from Palestinian rights groups, erasing war crimes evidence and exposing a global risk to digital human rights archives.

As I always state, I am lucky to be one of the convenors of STS Turkiye, a platform for social scientists focused on Science and Technology Studies. While the political agenda is always hectic and chaotic, we work to coordinate STS-related studies that are distracted by it. Call for Papers The STS Turkey 2025 Conference invites participants to explore how the relationship between science, technology, and society has been imagined in the past, present, and future; and how these imaginings have shaped everyday life, social order, and regimes of knowledge.

Zohran Mamdani’s historic mayoral victory in New York City is notable not only as a milestone for representation but for how he challenged both the Democratic establishment and Donald Trump’s threats, signaling a pivotal moment in American urban politics.bbc+3​ Challenging the Democratic Establishment Mamdani’s win was a major upset for the city’s entrenched political elites. Initially an obscure state assemblymember, he secured the Democratic nomination over the widespread support for former Governor Andrew Cuomo from establishment figures.

As I had mentioned before, Google's best generative AI tool is NotebookLM. In addition to personal use, you can also create public notebooks. Here I uploaded 20 of my selected writings for public use. Here is the link for that.

The new Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS3) Report, "Journalism under duress", is now available - Drawing on responses from over 32,000 journalists in 75 countries, this report examines how journalists across the globe navigate risk, uncertainty, and transformation in today’s rapidly changing media landscape. Supported by UNESCO, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), WJS3 provides comprehensive insights yet into the state of journalism worldwide.

Key Insights for How Canva Quietly Took Adobe’s Crown by Merlin AI Background of Canva's Disruption - Melanie Perkins, a college dropout, founded Canva in 2012 after facing over 100 rejections from venture capitalists for her vision of simplifying design software. - Her initial project, Fusion Books, demonstrated demand for user-friendly design tools, proving that there was a market for simpler alternatives to Adobe's complex software.

I recently saw a news On the rare earth element reserves in western Turkish town of Beylikova: What is known and what remains unknown and decided to make a deep research about the reserves thanks to ChatGPT. Rare Earth Element Reserves in Turkey: Current State and Historical Development Turkey has recently emerged in the spotlight of rare earth elements (REEs) due to a major discovery that positions it among the countries with the largest reserves.

I believe this is really shameful. Tele1 TV seized by state, broadcast interrupted mid-air The authorities appointed a trustee to pro-opposition broadcaster Tele1 TV on the evening of Oct 24, taking the channel off air during its main news bulletin. But this was not the first time: Since 2016, Turkey has systematically seized, shut down, or blocked pro-opposition media outlets, with IMC TV being one of the most prominent examples.

Thanks to the new peace process. Koma Amed is a pioneering Kurdish music band formed in 1988 in Ankara by medical students from Ankara and Hacettepe universities. Their distinctive style mixes Kurdish folk music with contemporary influences, and they became emblematic of cultural resistance during a period when the Kurdish language and music were heavily suppressed in Turkey. The band's early albums, like…

Here’s a summary of the video "The Streaming War Is Over. Piracy Won.": Streaming once seemed perfect, offering affordable, convenient, and comprehensive access to media. Netflix, for example, was $8.99/month, and all content was in one place. But between 2020 and 2024, streaming services began raising prices dramatically (Netflix and Disney+ doubled, HBO Max exceeded $20/month), and content became fragmented across multiple expensive subscriptions.

Saw it through Open Culture. It’s important for us to see the myriad ways our common language fails to capture the complexity of reality, ordinary and otherwise. Ask any poet, writer, or language teac...

I have to admit, I cannot always take fiction written by feminist authors personally, but this got me. Different protagonists, different modes and perspectives in the stories, but there is something very humane common to all that captured me. So I wanted to share it with you. Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo In case what I am up to in readings, check out my Goodreads profile 

Key Insights for The Rise And Fall Of Vibe Coding: The Reality Of AI Slop by Merlin AI Understanding Vibe Coding - Vibe Coding, coined by Andrej Karpathy, refers to a new programming approach where users rely heavily on AI to generate code without a strong understanding of coding principles. - It involves providing AI with broad prompts, allowing it to create entire applications or web pages with minimal input from the user.

I haven't visited this site yet, though I have been to Göbeklitepe. I should go there soon! The discovery of a human face depiction on the surface of one of the T-shaped pillars at the Karahantepe excavation site in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa reinforces the theory that these stones symbolize human figures. Saying that the human face depiction stood out among the findings, Karul said: “From the reliefs on the side surfaces — the arm and hand reliefs, the best examples of which are in Göbeklitepe — we had suggested that they symbolize humans, that beyond carrying the roof they had a symbolic meaning, with the upper horizontal part representing the head and the vertical part the body.

Good luck losing less than an hour to this: a huge archive of logos for government, non-profit, private, military, and even fi