At 88, she has won a Munch award for artistic freedom – despite her pioneering work being cancelled by the US university she studied at. She talks protest, polarisation and propaganda

It’s a miracle I get out of my interview with Palestinian artist Samia Halaby alive. Not just because the creaky wooden stairs to her second-floor Tribeca, New York live-work space are alarmingly steep, but because certain people view the 88-year-old acclaimed abstract artist, a pioneer of digital art, as a dangerous security threat.

In December 2023, Indiana University, Halaby’s alma mater, cancelled what was due to be the first American retrospective exhibition of Halaby’s work at the university’s Eskenazi Museum of Art. The exhibition had been three years in the making but Halaby was informed she was no longer welcome in a terse two-sentence letter from the museum’s director, citing vague security concerns. The real reason, she suspects, was the museum’s wish to distance itself from anything supportive of Palestine in the wake of 7 October. Almost a year later, says Halaby, Michigan State University abruptly cancelled the opening party for her solo retrospective and removed a painting whose title, Six Golden Heroes, referred to the escape of Palestinian political prisoners.

The cuddly chatbot Grem is designed to ‘learn’ your child’s personality, while every conversation they have is recorded, then transcribed by a third party. It wasn’t long before I wanted this experiment to be over ...

‘I’m going to throw that thing into a river!” my wife says as she comes down the stairs looking frazzled after putting our four-year-old daughter to bed.

To be clear, “that thing” is not our daughter, Emma*. It’s Grem, an AI-powered stuffed alien toy that the musician Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, helped develop with toy company Curio. Designed for kids aged three and over and built with OpenAI’s technology, the toy is supposed to “learn” your child’s personality and have fun, educational conversations with them. It’s advertised as a healthier alternative to screen time and is part of a growing market of AI-powered toys.

The country’s finest male intellectuals – including some in positions of power – are weighing in on the matter

Should women in the US have the right to vote? You’d be forgiven for assuming this particular issue was sorted out quite a long time ago. But, because we live in hell, it seems the question is once again up for debate.

Not by women, though; the fairer sex is obviously too emotional for such muscular discussion. So please sit this one out, ladies, and listen to what America’s finest male intellectuals have to say.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist