Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Juliet Liu

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 22h

Right to protest under ‘sustained attack’ across the west, report finds

Counter-terror laws being ‘weaponised’ against pro-Palestine groups in UK, US, France and Germany, says FIDH The right to protest has come under “sustained attack” across the west , according to a report highlighting the growing criminalisation of pro-Palestinian demonstrations. The study by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) pays particular attention to the UK, the US, France and Germany, where it says governments have “weaponised” counter-terrorism legislation as well as the fight against antisemitism to suppress dissent and support for Palestinian rights in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 1d

What I learned from Miss Major was persistence and also keeping a sense of humor. I was lucky to see her work in various organizing meetings over the years. She was a model of how to be a good elder. Truly grateful for everything she did to make the world better. Time for the rest of us to continue.

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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 1d

Just in case the dramatically low Leni Riefenstahl-style angle was too subtle, they used a word from her most famous movie

Time magazine cover featuring a photo of Trump from a dramatically low angle

HIS
TRIUMPH
by ERIC CORTELLESSA
THE LEADER ISRAEL NEEDED
by EHUD BARAK
HOW GAZA HEALS

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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 1d

OMG! Airports are in the resistance? Too cool (and thanks to @resistlist.bsky.social, which has been sharing all the best resist-y news for a while now.)

The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 1d

Across the country, airports are refusing to air a video from the Homeland Security chief blaming Democrats for the shutdown. trib.al/tw3Hd3X

Airports Are Pushing Back Against Kristi Noem’s Shutdown Propaganda

Across the country, airports are refusing to air a video from the Homeland Security chief blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

trib.al

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Rei Takver @rtakver.bsky.social · 1d

OpenAI *really* isn't hiding its intention to power the AI boom with fossil fuels.

New from me @desmog.com

www.desmog.com/2025/10/13/o...

OpenAI’s New Energy Chief Is a Trump Administration Natural Gas Evangelist

The ChatGPT creator hired John McCarrick, a gas-loving former Trump energy official, to guide how the company will source huge quantities of power for its colossal supercomputers.

www.desmog.com

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ACLU @aclu.org · 1d

The trailblazing transgender rights activist Miss Major has passed away at the age of 78.

Miss Major was a lifelong organizer and participant in the ballroom scene. She took part in the 1969 Stonewall Riots and was injured by the police — but she kept fighting.

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Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 1d

Warming waters cause corals to “bleach” when these organisms expel symbiotic algae that provide nutrients, oxygen & vibrant colors.

The latest global bleaching event - researchers estimate >84% of the planet's coral ecosystems have been affected since Jan 2023 - has made it clear the crisis is now.

nature

NEWS

12 October 2025

Coral die-off marks Earth's first climate
'tipping point', scientists say

A surge in global temperatures has caused widespread bleaching and death of warm-water corals around the world.

By Jeff Tollefson

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Molly Jong-Fast @mollyjongfast.bsky.social · 1d

Solidarity is the only way

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 2d

Chicago not letting Portland have all the fun 🐧

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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 3d

"A top Wall Street analyst has sounded an alarm over the U.S. equity bull market, warning that its remarkable run is built on a precariously narrow foundation: a surge in spending on, and optimistic assumptions about, infrastructure for artificial intelligence (AI)."

75% of gains, 80% of profits, 90% of capex—AI’s grip on the S&P is total and Morgan Stanley's top analyst is 'very concerned' | Fortune

The long bull market since 2022 is a "one-note narrative" since the explosion of ChatGPT, according to Lisa Shalett, CIO of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.

fortune.com

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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 3d

"Sceptics are privately - and some now publicly - asking whether the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be, at least in part, the result of what they call 'financial engineering'. In other words - there are fears these companies are overvalued."

A tangled web of deals stokes AI bubble fears in Silicon Valley

Some are worried that the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be a bubble waiting to burst.

www.bbc.com

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Juliet Liu @juliet.social · 3d

"As AI swallows up more and more capital, it is both the economy and the stock market - and the government."

Really important piece from @kyla.bsky.social that I think everyone should read: kyla.substack.com/p/ai-is-the-...

AI Is the Market, and the Market Is the Government

AI, Gold, and the New Logic of Governance

kyla.substack.com

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Reposted by Juliet Liu

Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 4d

Premium: The AI Bubble's promises are impossible. NVIDIA's customers are running out of money, GPUs die in 3-5 years, most 1GW data centers will never get built, and OpenAI's Abilene data center doesn't won't have the power it needs before 2028 - if it ever does.
www.wheresyoured.at/the-ai-bubbl...

The AI Bubble's Impossible Promises

Readers: I’ve done a very generous “free” portion of this newsletter, but I do recommend paying for premium to get the in-depth analysis underpinning the intro. That being said, I want as many people ...

www.wheresyoured.at

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David Wallace-Wells @dwallacewells.bsky.social · 3d

“Planet-heating methane is escaping from cracks in the Antarctic seabed as the region warms, with new seeps being discovered at an ‘astonishing rate,’ scientists have found.” www.cnn.com/2025/10/10/c...

Scientists discovered something alarming seeping out from beneath the ocean around Antarctica | CNN

Planet-heating methane is escaping from cracks in the Antarctic seabed, with new seeps being discovered at an “astonishing rate,” raising fears that future global warming predictions may have been und...

www.cnn.com

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Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 6d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 8d

i could write a tome about how fucking embarrassing it is for journalism that someone as morally bankrupt as bari weiss has ascended to the highest levels of money and power by tickling trump's balls but instead i'm going to keep covering the people hurt most by his terror and giving them a voice.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 8d

perhaps the biggest story TFPever ran was a catastrophically shoddy argument that George Floyd ackshully died of an overdose. When confronted with irrefutable evidence that the piece was simply wrong, Weiss didn’t take it down, she asked her critic, @radleybalko.bsky.social, to come on a podcast.

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 8d

David Ellison’s note to staff on Paramount’s acquisition of the Free Press

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Phillips (she/her) 🪓 @mizzpoppyseed.bsky.social · 14d

Yes, and reward good people. To paraphrase @mekka.mekka-tech.com, a culture = which behaviors are rewarded + what behaviors recieve punishment (& shame)

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Juliet Liu @juliet.social · 14d

I'm starting to think we need to bring back a constructive form of shame, which @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social makes a great case for in this excellent piece:

www.bostonreview.net/articles/how...

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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 14d

I continue to think that one of the reasons this country is falling apart is the wholesale abandonment of public virtue as a broadly shared aspiration. Or even something people should be embarrassed about if they don’t have it.

Charles PM @charlespulliam.bsky.social · 14d

Fuckin yikes, man

Some comics were transparent about their willingness to ignore their moral convictions in order to play at the festival. “So what, they have slaves?” asked Tim Dillon in a podcast segment that led to his firing from the festival. “They’re paying me enough money to look the other way.” Pete Davidson offered a similar take, acknowledging in a chat with Von that people have asked him why, given his father’s death on 9/11, he would take a paycheck from the Saudi government. He did not address the criticism directly, but he did suggest he was happy to forget 9/11 for the right price: “I just know I get the routing, and then I see the number, and I go, ‘I’ll go.’”

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Labor Notes @labornotes.bsky.social · 17d

"We may live in a formal democracy, but in practice we’ve been disempowered for a long time—denied real control over the decisions that shape our lives...That’s why we must commit to a fuller vision of democracy," writes @lfelizleon.bsky.social labornotes.org/blogs/2025/0...

We Who Believe in Democracy Must Fight to Make It Real

We wake daily to new spectacles of violence and humiliation: kidnappings in broad daylight, attacks on unions, LGBTQ people, women, and immigrants, the erosion of long-cherished rights. It’s no longer...

labornotes.org

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Olga Nesterova @onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 15d

This is what Blair’s team created together with BCG

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Mississippi Free Press @mississippifreepress.org · 15d

Meta is constructing its largest data center yet: a $10 billion facility in Louisiana, as big as 70 football fields, requiring more than twice as much electricity as the City of New Orleans.

Louisiana has had to greenlight $3 billion in new energy infrastructure to service Meta's facility.

New Meta Data Center Needs Twice as Much Energy as New Orleans

Meta is constructing its largest data center yet: a $10 billion facility in Louisiana requiring more than twice as much electricity as New Orleans.

www.mississippifreepress.org

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