Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 18h

I have been watching the devastating videos from friends and colleagues. Some folks are still missing in cold waters. The few news and info sources for locals are also the same ones being cut by federal funding. People should know this is happening

KTOO Public Media @ktoopublicmedia.bsky.social · 19h

The U.S. Coast Guard commander for Western Alaska compared the devastation in Southwest Alaska villages over the weekend to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

(From @alaskapublic.org)

Officials say storm 'completely devastated' Western Alaska communities

A Coast Guard commander recounts scenes of Alaskans swimming in floodwaters in the middle of the night, in search of debris to hold onto.

www.ktoo.org

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 1d

Barbara Kingsolver has been a fave author for years and understands community on such a visceral level. kentuckylantern.com/2025/10/13/d...

‘Demon Copperhead’ author lays foundation for women in Appalachia to beat addiction • Kentucky Lantern

Author Barbara Kingsolver puts royalties from "Demon Copperhead" into recovery residence for women in Appalachia.

kentuckylantern.com

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 1d

1000%

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 4d

Mad abt Qatari air base being built in US? Even madder it’s in our backyard? I’m mad too, but also think a lot about our privilege of geography. Welcome to how the rest of the world feels. We have bases everywhere. Doesn’t make it better, but maybe this’ll give us empathy for the rest of the world.

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Jack Tripper @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 5d

They’re doing everything they can to increase the penalty children pay for being poor.

statescoop.com/fcc-e-rate-f...

FCC ends E-Rate funding for Wi-Fi hotspots, school bus connectivity | StateScoop

The FCC voted to end rules that allowed schools and libraries to use E-Rate funds on school bus Wi-Fi and internet hotspots.

statescoop.com

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 5d

Well done Oldham Co! (For my non KY friends, Oldham is the more conservative/wealthier county right next to Jefferson/Louisville). kentuckylantern.com/2025/10/08/o...

Oldham County board unanimously rejects off-campus Bible classes during school day • Kentucky Lantern

Oldham County school board unanimously rejects an Ohio-based nonprofit’s proposal to offer off-campus Bible-based character education during the school day.

kentuckylantern.com

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Emily Drabinski @edrabinski.bsky.social · 5d

The Republican party is united around making children go hungry. Not a single murmur of meaningful dissent from this agenda from anyone in power in that party. What kind of hole do you have to have in your soul to support such savagery?

New York Focus @nysfocus.bsky.social · 5d

NEW: A surprise move by the Trump administration could result in hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers losing their food assistance benefits as soon as November — disrupting one of the country’s oldest safety net programs months earlier than expected. nysfocus.com/2025/10/09/t...

Surprise Trump Move Will Upend New York Food Stamps

New York counties thought they had months to prepare to implement SNAP work requirements. Now, they have weeks.

nysfocus.com

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 5d

Looking for pro bono legal help in Idaho? Clinics planned week of Oct. 19-25...
idahocapitalsun.com/briefs/looki...

Looking for pro bono legal help in Idaho? Clinics planned week of Oct. 19. • Idaho Capital Sun

The Idaho Volunteer Lawyers Program is hosting legal clinics the week of Oct. 19 to 25 to celebrate pro bono week.

idahocapitalsun.com

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 7d

Been thinking abt this A LOT, & I think about Brazil how they tried to rebuild after dictatorship -- which became a complex, very strategic, approach w/Participatory Budgeting, community organizers, goal of building govt trust. They'd say: elections do not equal democracy which I think about a LOT

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 9d

Hey Treasure Valley, the Fall 2025 Ridge to Rivers Survey is open
www.surveymonkey.com/r/6DP775L

Fall 2025 Ridge to Rivers Survey

Take this survey powered by surveymonkey.com. Create your own surveys for free.

www.surveymonkey.com

audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 11d

Good for them for citing sources but also good for you for looking at them!

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 11d

Way to dive deeper to verify sources

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ACLU @aclu.org · 11d

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador.

Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

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Boze the Library Owl @sketchesbyboze.bsky.social · 12d

Saw someone say, “Stop hoarding books, we don’t need paper books anyway” and I can’t express how misguided this is. Online libraries disappear, digital books can be altered, and with Big Tech seeking to destroy history and literacy, print media has never been more essential.

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 12d

Tried to help a student find federal data. Data is gone and was forced to see this. PS: use (and donate to if you can) the Internet Archive! They got us what we needed today. There is zero reason that websites should be scraped during a shutdown.

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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 13d

People think they’re taking down a rich intellectual sinecure but they’re mostly terrorizing committed public servants who make $58,000 a year after 15 years of experience at a school that has to budget creatively so students can access textbooks.

Emily Farris @emayfarris.bsky.social · 13d

This new column by @tressiemcphd.bsky.social makes me think about when I recently had to talk to the police for yet another safety plan, I tried to “lighten” the mood by saying that we all knew this wasn’t my first rodeo. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

For at least the past 15 years, my colleagues in academia have grappled with angry letters to university officials for doing their jobs. They have weathered campaigns for their firing. They have contended with an internet army obsessed with doxxing them, their parents, their kids. I’ve been contacted by the F.B.I. more than once in my career. Not because I hold any important state secrets or know a biker gang but because one of my colleagues has lived with so much sustained harassment from right-wing “activists” that it has become a matter of federal concern. Watch lists (one of which was constructed by Kirk’s organization) do not distinguish between public intellectuals at wealthy enclaves and hoi polloi who teach popular classes at cash-strapped schools. In either case, an army of trained provocateurs stands ready to destroy their lives to prove their bona fides as conservative activists.

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Federal US domain bot @fed-us-domain-bot.bsky.social · 13d

❌ NOTICE Federal US website newly deleted.
https://mymedicare.gov

Action taken by the Department of Health and Human Services (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) at or around 2025-10-01 06:12:03.

mymedicare.gov

Federal US website delisted. URL is not valid.

mymedicare.gov

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Zinn Education Project @zinnedproject.bsky.social · 14d

#tdih 1919 #RedSummer Black sharecroppers met in Elaine, Arkansas to organize for fair pay for cotton.

More than 100 of them were massacred by a white mob.

Twelve Black men were sentenced to death for "riots." #Terrorism #TeachOutsideTextbook 🧵
www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/el...

Sept. 30, 1919: Elaine Massacre

Black farmers were massacred in Elaine, Arkansas for their efforts to fight for better pay and higher cotton prices. A white mob shot at them, and the farmers returned fire in self-defense. Estimates ...

www.zinnedproject.org

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 14d

Wow. Especially in a place where jobs are scarce.
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[fun fact, years ago I was on the cover of the Juneau Empire 😆, but seriously with AK rural PBS and NPR going dark, this is another blow to info, but amazed and proud of what the journalists did]

juneauindependent.bsky.social @juneauindependent.bsky.social · 14d

The editor and nearly all reporters at the Homer News, Peninsula Clarion, and Juneau Empire announced their resignations after corporate management deleted content from a story about Charlie Kirk in response to a complaint from a Republican state lawmaker.
www.juneauindependent.com/post/editor-...

Editor, most news staff of Carpenter Media’s Alaska newspapers resign due to censoring of story

Article about a Charlie Kirk vigil referring to controversies involving him was altered after a GOP Alaska lawmaker complained to company management

www.juneauindependent.com

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audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 14d

Nope. Safeway is owned by Albertsons and Freds is owned by Krogers so...they were almost the same!

audie verde @audieverde.bsky.social · 14d

Got my Covid and flu at Fred’s and apparently Fred’s is giving $20 off next store purchase with flu shot and that’s they type of capitalism in here for if I am forced to live in a capitalist construct

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Matthew Noe @noethematt.bsky.social · 15d

Let me get this straight.

They are going to kill the E-Rate because it is TOO SUCCESSFUL at what it is meant to do, which is provide necessary access to the internet in our forcibly online society to those who would otherwise struggle to get online.

How... evil.

www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

Too much unsupervised internet access?
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a statement that the FCC's authority to fund the Wi-Fi initiatives had ended by the time the Biden FCC voted. He said the E-Rate wasn't meant to provide children with unsupervised access to the internet.

"The FCC also failed to demonstrate that these funding decisions would advance legitimate classroom or library purposes. I dissented from both decisions at the time, and I am now pleased to circulate these two items, which will end the FCC’s illegal funding unsupervised screen time for young kids," Carr said.

Republicans in the Senate and House introduced measures to overturn the Biden rule earlier this year, also calling it partisan overreach because federal law states that the E-Rate program is meant to provide discounts for broadband services only to "school classrooms" and libraries.

In May, the Senate voted 50-38 along party lines to overturn the 2024 expansion. A similar bill introduced in the House in February has not been considered.

Many don't have access for homework, telemedicine, online banking, etc.
The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, the American Library Association (ALA), EdLiNC and the Homework Gap Coalition signed onto the joint letter to the FCC.

"Lack of access to home broadband is a daily problem for students trying to succeed in school, people looking for jobs, rural residents relying on telehealth, and for Americans without digital skills to file their taxes and set up online banking," Helmick said in the statement. "Policymakers should welcome the eagerness of local libraries and schools to be part of the solution."

E-books are on the line as Congress considers future of library funding
The letter provides examples of school districts in rural areas with lengthy bus commutes, such as Farmington Municipal Schools in New Mexico, that have put Wi-Fi on buses so students can complete homework on their up to two-hour ride home.

The letter also stresses that both of programs are already subject to E-Rate’s filtering requirements in accordance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), ensuring that users do not have unfettered access to obscene or harmful material.

It also notes that allowing the program to cover lending hotspots and extending Wi-Fi to school buses fits alongside other modifications made to the E-Rate program that aren't explicitly allowed under the federal law, such as supporting internet access in administrative offices, parking lots and library bookmobiles.

Sarah D. Wire covers how rea

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Kelcie Moseley-Morris @kelciemmorris.bsky.social · 18d

So I know everyone is overloaded right now (present company included), but I wanted to let you know we have a five-day series about what Medicaid cuts to Planned Parenthood and subsequent closures will mean for hundreds of thousands of people around the country.

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Jax (the original) @jacqueline321.bsky.social · 17d

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Olivia Messer @oliviamesser.bsky.social · 18d

Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination, HBCUs received terroristic threats. Black students have been expelled or forced to withdraw. Black professors and teachers have been fired and placed on leave. A Black firefighter was placed on leave. A Black journalist was fired

thebarbedwire.com/2025/09/26/f...

The Free Speech Crisis for Black Americans Is Worse Than You Think

Don’t let Jimmy Kimmel’s return fool you: Black academics are more frightened of talking to the press than I’ve ever seen.

thebarbedwire.com

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