Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 2h

UPDATE The baby looks like Tim Walz again.

It’s my five month old son and he looks like Tim Walz and he’s holding a bag of Tim Hortons coffee because we’re visiting my parents in NJ and for some reason that’s the coffee they have.

Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin

Maxine Joselow @maxinejoselow.bsky.social · 5h

Before catastrophic floods swept through the Alaska Native village of Kipnuk on Sunday, the EPA canceled a $20 million grant intended to protect the community from extreme flooding. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/c...

Before Alaska Flooding, E.P.A. Canceled $20 Million Flood Protection Grant

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin

Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 4h

time once again to ponder the missing second part of the “bad apples” adage

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5h

Q: Politico reported on a group chat of young Republicans. Does this just reflect some bad apples?

HOCHUL: Some bad apples? These are the future of the GOP. This is so vile it's hard to find the words to put into context ... there's gotta be consequences ... this bullshit has to stop.

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Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin

The Xylom @thexylom.com · 1d

Attending a "No Kings" protest Saturday? The Xylom's @alexip718.com and Strength in Numbers' @gelliottmorris.com are joining forces to conduct a nationwide, unofficial, crowdsourced attendance estimate.

We need your help to be our eyes and ears across 2,100+ locations and on the Internet.

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 9h

“It’s about a beach that gives Gena Rowlands dementia.”

*publishing executive slams fist down on mahogany table*

“SOLD”

It’s the cover of “Remain,” a “supernatural love story” co-written by Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shaymalan

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 10h

Three albums, three era-defining classics. The man batted 1.000 his whole life.

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 11h

Oh my god

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/a...

D’Angelo, Acclaimed and Reclusive R&B Innovator, Dies at 51

www.nytimes.com

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 15h

ACAB means Colonel Sanders

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 15h

“Everyone knows the one thing that antifa fears is delicious gravy. That’s why we’re excited to announce our $7.8 billion contract with ICE to put a battalion of gravy cannons in every major American city.”

Stephen Lurie @luriethereal.bsky.social · 1d

Time to tune in to some analysis from Antifa expert…Chef Andrew…Gruel?…founder of…American Gravy Concepts?

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Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin

🎃 public HELLth guy 🎃 @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 1d

that last line

Under Dr. Mermin’s leadership, new H.I.V. infections in the nation dropped by 36 percent, and resurgent sexually transmitted infections showed the first signs of a plateau nationwide.

He also directed health departments to spend the bulk of their money on prevention. It was “a very precise and scientific and logical approach” to make the biggest impact for the least money, said Greg Millett, who worked as a deputy for the Office of National AIDS Policy in the Obama White House.

Now, however, Dr. Mermin is spending his days at home with his chickens and his misbehaving cat. The fate of the H.I.V. division hangs in the balance, and he worries that lawmakers may not realize its importance. “What if no one cares?” he said.

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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 1d

destroying U.S. political and economic hegemony so you get a couple more hearts on your metal and glass brick

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stacy-marie ishmael @smi.bsky.social · 1d

NPR/Alaska Public Media: alaskapublic.org/news/public-...

AP: apnews.com/article/alas...

CNN: www.cnn.com/2025/10/13/w...

Fox Weather: www.foxweather.com/weather-news...

ABC: abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory...

CBS: www.cbsnews.com/news/alaska-...

The Weather Channel: weather.com/news/weather...

News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 1d

NEW: There’s a disaster unfolding in Alaska right now. And no major network is covering it.

The remnants of Typhoon Halong battered western Alaska overnight. Homes, with people in them, have literally been swept into the Bering Strait.

At least 20 are missing. No comment from any federal agency.

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 1d

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 1d

I guess “doing the fucking news” is just an edgy way of saying “Let’s put typos in the headline.”

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Daniel Gilmore @gilmored85.bsky.social · 1d

Bari Weiss's CBS cant even spell Mamdanis name right in the headline jfc

@NewsJennifer (Jennifer Schulze) @newsjennifer.bsky.social · 1d

CBS News would never put a thinly sourced 'story' by a rookie blogger like this on it's air. Until now. The Free Press isn't a journalism outlet, it's bloggers aren't reporters. This piece is more NYPost than Tiffany Network but I guess that's the goal.

www.cbsnews.com/video/some-n...

Some NYPD officers worry about Mandani becoming the NYC mayor, The Free Press reports

The Free Press spoke to several New York City Police Department officers who are worried about Zohran Mamdani becoming mayor. Olivia Reingold joins CBS News with more.

www.cbsnews.com

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 2d

Some of y’all are not married to a farmer and it shows.

Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 2d

i'm sorry WHAT

Wikipedia screenshot

Brassica oleracea, also known as wild cabbage in its uncultivated form, is a plant of the family Brassicaceae. The species originated from feral populations of related plants in the Eastern Mediterranean, where it was most likely first cultivated. It has many common cultivars used as vegetables, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, romanesco, kale, Brussels sprout, collard, Savoy cabbage, kohlrabi, and gai lan.

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 2d

One well-timed visit from the Pope could have a major impact on this administration’s agenda right now.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Trump: "I don't think there's anything that's gonna get me in heaven. I think I'm not maybe heaven bound. I may be in heaven right now as we fly on Air Force One. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to make heaven."

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Sandhya Dirks @audiosand.bsky.social · 2d

This is not isolated. I'm going to start a thread of other desecrations of Black and non white history and civil rights here:

Will Bunch @willbunch.bsky.social · 3d

Extinguishing MLK's Eternal Flame is both outrageous and a hell of a metaphor for right now www.wsbtv.com/news/local/a...

Eternal flame at Martin Luther King Jr.’s Atlanta burial site destroyed

Police say the man also urinated in the reflective pool.

www.wsbtv.com

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Reposted by Brian PJ Cronin

Justin Elliott @justinelliott.bsky.social · 2d

Here is our full story that Vance is dismissing, with primary source documents showing Trump cabinet members with multiple primary-residence mortgages

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 2d

1) I once again take this opportunity to remind you: to keep its basic functioning, society has to discourage baldfaced lying, especially by authorities

2) is...is it happening?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn't insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time.

VANCE: No, George, I sai--

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 2d

To be clear, when I say “we,” I mean journalists. At this point you should be able to write “deranged billionaire Peter Thiel” or “deranged blogger Curtis Yarvin” for the New York Times or The Economist and have it sail through the editorial process untouched.

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 2d

“Weird” had a good run but now we can safely, and without controversy or pearl-clutching, move onto using “deranged,” to describe these people instead.

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 2d

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 2d

My local bookstore posted this and it feels, uh, indicative of our current moment in time.

Unfortunately the feel good book club

has been

DISCONTINUED

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Brian PJ Cronin @brianpjcronin.bsky.social · 3d

I think a lot about that billy woods verse where he says that eventually there’s going to be two unrelated mass shootings in the same place at the same time.

Steve Herman @w7voa.journa.host.ap.brid.gy · 3d

Separate campus shootings here in Mississippi this evening: Authorities say one person is dead and two others wounded at Alcorn State University. Meanwhile, about 70 miles northeast of that incident, a child has been hit by gunfire in the tailgate section of Jackson State University stadium.

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Apoorva Mandavilli @apoorvanyt.bsky.social · 3d

The Trump administration on Saturday scrambled to rescind layoffs of hundreds of CDC scientists who were mistakenly fired on Friday night in what appeared to be a substantial procedural lapse.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h...

Trump Administration Is Bringing Back Scores of C.D.C. Experts Fired in Error

www.nytimes.com

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