Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Alex TD

Brandon Bishop @brandontbishop.bsky.social · 1d

Wyoming is by an order of magnitude the US's largest coal producer (and produces more than the whole of the northern Appalachia and Midwest states *combined*).

Nearly all of that comes out of the Powder River Basin.

Coal is a dead industry.

J. Mijin Cha @jmijin.bsky.social · 1d

New coal leases in the Powder River Basin have been paused after the first one had only a bid for 1/10th of a penny. They are trying to blame previous administrations, but the writing is on the wall. We should be supporting coal workers and communities not doing wtf this clown show is doing.

US postpones Wyoming coal lease sale after disappointing Montana auction

The Trump administration has postponed a scheduled sale of coal leases on federal lands in Wyoming two days after a disappointing auction in Montana, an Interior Department spokesperson said on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com

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Alex TD @alextd.bsky.social · 23h

SB79 is a big (wonky) win 🎉 Every one of those should come with explainers like this - clear, illustrated, and with important nuances, caveats, and motivations called out.

Everything You Need To Know About SB 79

…but were too afraid to read about in the actual bill.

mnolangray.substack.com

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Dr. Kat Napaaqtuk❄️ @napaaqtuk.bsky.social · 2d

Western Alaska was hit hard by the recent storms. Houses floated away in Kipnuk, houses flipped over, people lost everything from the flooding that came with the storms. Please donate if you can. This group has a long history of supporting AK communities.

alaskacf.fcsuite.com/erp/donate/c...

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SwiftOnSecurity @swiftonsecurity.com · 1d

I've been following Aaron since before the latest ICE immigration stuff and he is one of the most valuable ones you can have. True professional context and experience of the headlines. He's not just bloviating he actually understands the full legal case history.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 1d

Wow, wow, wow. This has always been legally possible but the law has virtually never been enforced — and now this is the SECOND case I've heard of in the last month (first involving a person with a green card) of a noncitizen being charged for failure to carry their papers.

Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 1d

NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...

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Reposted by Alex TD

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 5d

Picture how big the Hoover Dam is. An absolute unit. The Hoover Dam has a power capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW).

The solar farm that the Admin just cancelled could have produces 6.2 GW of power. That's more than 3 Hoover Dams.

jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · 5d

SCOOP: The Bureau of Land Management says the largest solar project in Nevada — the Esmeralda 7 mega-farm — has been canceled

The news was quietly dropped via a sudden website update with no public word from any of the companies involved or a statement from the agency

@heatmap.news

Esmeralda 7 Solar Project Has Been Canceled, BLM Says

It would have delivered a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power.

heatmap.news

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Alex TD @alextd.bsky.social · 27d

Thank you for the write up! (Might get offered to my class as additional example reading)

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Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 29d

Political violence is evil, killing people is evil, a country with more guns in it than people is broken, and what the government is saying about political violence right now being a primarily leftwing phenomenon is factually, statistically untrue. They are using this moment to rewrite history.

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Senator Ed Markey @markey.senate.gov · Sep 12

ICE must stop using a facial recognition app to identify people on our streets. These technologies are inaccurate, dangerous, and threaten our right to privacy and free speech. I’m leading my colleagues in demanding answers.

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/11/m...

Senator Markey calls for ICE to halt use of facial recognition, other biometric technology - The Boston Globe

The letter, addressed to acting director of ICE, called on the agency to cease its reported use of “Mobile Fortify,” a smartphone application that allows agents to identify people.

www.bostonglobe.com

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · Sep 11

This is so crucial. When people think about these land comparisons, they don't think about the entire sprawling infrastructure behind FF.

Yellow Dot Studios @weareyellowdot.bsky.social · Sep 10

"0.3 per cent of the world’s land area – yes, just the land – would be needed to meet the current energy demand from solar alone, which is LESS THAN THE CURRENT LAND FOOTPRINT OF FOSSIL FUEL INFRASTRUCTURE."

Why solar power is the only viable power source in the long run

Not only is solar more than capable of supplying all the world’s energy, in the long term it is the only power source that won’t fry the planet

www.newscientist.com

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Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · Sep 10

Charlie Kirk called me a ‘lunatic’ and a ‘prostitute’ and demanded I be deported.

Nothing, *nothing*, justifies killing him, or robbing his kids of their dad.

We don’t know the identity or motive of the shooter but murder can *never* be the response to political disagreements.

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Alex TD @alextd.bsky.social · Sep 10

I’m on my local Zoning Board, which is relatively quiet most of the time, but really appreciate the members of the public who show up for each even semi substantial project. Separate board, but we’ve gotten 4 net zero schools out of that work!

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Alex TD @alextd.bsky.social · Sep 10

The slow boring of hard boards at a local level (and a lot of double meanings not quite intended!). Congrats!

Jeff Seidman (he/him) @jeffsseidman.bsky.social · Sep 4

1/x 🧵 🔌💡 #Greensky. Hey climate peeps! Here’s a local victory to celebrate, and some lessons from it. Last night, the Town of Poughkeepsie, NY, voted to overturn its 18-month moratorium (6 months, renewed twice) on grid-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS).

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Casey Parks @caseyparks.bsky.social · Sep 9

A judge in Massachusetts today issued what I think is the first judgment against the DOJ's attempt to subpoena doctors who treat trans patients. The judge quashed the subpoena the DOJ issued against Boston Children's Hospital, home to the country's first gender clinic for adolescents.

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Adam Rogers @jetjocko.bsky.social · Sep 7

Some people maybe want to see automation, more powerful weapons, scientific agriculture, or computers as hallmarks of modernity. That’s all rich people stuff. The bright line for everyone not-rich is public health. That’s why these guys in power hate it.

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Adam Rogers @jetjocko.bsky.social · Sep 7

Until the 20th century the United States had repeated epidemics of *cholera.* in the mid 1960s nearly half of Americans smoked. Now it’s just over 10%. Until the last couple years, measles was basically eliminated in the US. In 1952 more than 3000 people in the US died of polio; there 58k cases.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Sep 7

FOX: What would say is the last great success that our govt public health agencies have had?

RFK Jr: I don't think there have been successes

(Kennedy said days ago that Trump should get a Nobel for Operation Warp Speed)

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · Sep 3

The biggest scandal in US public life *ought* to be that we are the richest country in history & yet our infrastructure sucks, our transportation choices suck, our cities suck, our healthcare sucks, our public administration sucks, & in dozens of little ways, our daily lives suck.

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emily moonlight @threnody.bsky.social · Aug 30

hi, cis folks!

this is present day reality for UK trans folks. it’s outrageous someone should have to have taken this journey to live as themselves, participate in society, & be with who they love.

hi, cis americans!

this is a future trans americans see that starts with “we need to compromise.”

Sarah has a suggestion @goatsarah.org · Aug 29

I want to explain a few things and then it might be clearer why UK trans people are upset.
In 2001 I married my wife, Sylvia.
In 2005 I started medical transition. (1/13)

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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · Aug 30

On one hand, reducing car use reduces urban pollution.
But on the other, everyone likes it and cities become more livable

Average nitrogen dioxide concentration in Paris has fallen significantly

Her proposals have faced pushback — from right-leaning politicians, a car owners’ association and suburban commuters, who say that targeting cars makes their lives more difficult.

But last month, Parisians voted in a referendum to turn an additional 500 streets over to pedestrians. A year earlier, Paris had moved to sharply increase parking fees for SUVs, forcing drivers to pay three times more than they would for smaller cars. The city has also turned a bank of the Seine from a busy artery into a pedestrian zone and banned most car traffic from the shopping boulevard of Rue de Rivoli.

Carlos Moreno, a professor at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and a former adviser to the city, said the French capital has developed “an urban policy based on well-being.”

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Aug 12

1. "'Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy," Kennedy said."

It's literally a vital feature of both science and of representative democracy.

I've written a fair bit about trust in expertise as a vital mechanism in the collective epistemology of science.

RFK Jr. in interview with Scripps News: ‘Trusting the experts is not science’

HHS Secretary RFK Jr. sat down with Scripps News for a wide-ranging interview, discussing mRNA vaccine funding policy changes and a recent shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

www.scrippsnews.com

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · Aug 12

the thing everyone is going to have to accept is that the post-trump period, whenever it comes, will not and cannot be a project of national unity, it must be a project of partisan project of renewal, in the same way that reconstruction and the new deal were partisan projects of renewal.

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Alex TD @alextd.bsky.social · Aug 11

Two by Scott Campbell:
Hug Machine (board book which all of us adore, given by a friend who had a similar experience)
Skulls! (Picture book, delightful and only slightly spooky)

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · Aug 5

Every reputable expert I know considers mRNA vaccine technology to be one of the most revolutionary advances in medicine in our lifetimes. Its inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023. Shutting it down now is pointless self-harm to humanity.

Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · Aug 5

Release from HHS: HHS will wind down its development of the mRNA vaccine development activities under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

HHS Winds Down mRNA Vaccine Development Under BARDA

WASHINGTON, DC—AUGUST 5, 2025—The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today announced the beginning of a coordinated wind-down of its mRNA vaccine development activities under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), including the cancellation and de-scoping of various contracts and solicitations. The decision follows a comprehensive review of mRNA-related investments initiated during the COVID-19 public health emergency.

“We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “BARDA is terminating 22 mRNA vaccine development investments because the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu. We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.”

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Alex TD @alextd.bsky.social · Aug 1

Genuinely. Don’t understand why people find being kind and decent to other people (women and everyone else) so hard. Even as someone reasonably familiar with the Internet.

jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · Aug 1

i wanna try something. quote this post if you’re a man who hates the manosphere

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Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · Aug 1

This is what actual cancel culture looks like

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · Aug 1

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down operations after loss of federal funding:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations following the passage of a federal rescissions package and the release of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-H) appropriations bill, which excludes funding for CPB for the first time in more than five decades.

For nearly 60 years, CPB has carried out its Congressional mission to build and sustain a trusted public media system that informs, educates, and serves communities across the country. Through partnerships with local stations and producers, CPB has supported educational content, locally relevant journalism, emergency communications, cultural programming, and essential services for Americans in every community.

“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison. “CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care.”

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Soraya Nadia McDonald @sorayanadiamcdonald.com · Aug 1

Public media is really special. Shame, shame, shame on this regime and its campaign to make everyone scared, obedient, and stupid. They are stealing from all of us and from our futures. Despicable.

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · Aug 1

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down operations after loss of federal funding:

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