Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

AI Data Centers, Desperate for Electricity, Are Building Their Own Power Plants

Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 16h

Bypassing the grid, at least temporarily, tech companies are creating an energy Wild West; ‘grab yourself a couple of turbines’

www.wsj.com/business/ene...

Utilities are pushing to increase supply, but meeting the surge in demand won’t be easy or fast. Tech companies aren’t waiting around.

Trump Names More Foes He Wants Prosecuted as Bondi and Patel Look On

Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 16h

Top officials, unwilling to fight for the independence of their institutions, watched on Wednesday as President Trump continued his pursuit of controlling law enforcement.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

Never mind America’s real economy. Its deal economy is booming

Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 1d

Mr Trump’s paradoxical approach to free markets, which involves a light touch on antitrust issues while using deals, along with tariff exemptions, as tools of private-sector coercion and industrial policy. Anything goes until it displeases the boss, as in a casino.

economist.com/business/202...

Donald Trump has unleashed an M&A bonanza

Ukraine’s most prestigious military units are run like businesses

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 1d

The three corps are examples of Ukraine’s extraordinary capacity for self-organisation, and of how business skills can be applied to the armed forces. With cult status among the public, they could also become launchpads for post-war political careers.

economist.com/europe/2025/...

Marketing and human-resources departments are key

Opinion | The Shadow of Jim Crow Looms Over the Supreme Court

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 1d

For over a decade, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has been chipping away at this landmark civil rights legislation.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/o...

‘I’ll Have Eric Call’: Trump Sets Up Son’s Meeting With Indonesian President

Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 1d

The president’s personal business and his government role intersected this week when he was heard on a hot mic arranging a meeting between his son Eric, who runs the family company, and Indonesia’s leader.

www.wsj.com/us-news/ill-...

A hot-mic moment suggested a blurry line between the U.S. president’s roles as political leader and businessman.

China, Betting It Can Win a Trade War, Is Playing Hardball With Trump

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 2d

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is betting that the U.S. economy can’t absorb a prolonged trade conflict with the world’s second-largest economy.

www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Chinese leader Xi Jinping thinks the president will fold before launching new tariffs that would roil markets.

Factory Towns Revive as Defense Tech Makers Arrive

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 3d

Drawn by local talent, cheap labor and state cash incentives, start-ups building the weapons of the future are revitalizing manufacturing in once-vibrant industrial towns.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/t...

Originalist ‘Bombshell’ Complicates Case on Trump’s Power to Fire Officials

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 3d

As the Supreme Court seems poised to expand the president’s power, a leading scholar whose work the justices have often cited issued a provocative dissent.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/u...

China tries shock-and-awe on Donald Trump

Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 3d

Reliability is for losers. Strength keeps superpowers safe. Some version of that bleak philosophy appears to unite the supreme leaders of China and America.

economist.com/internationa...

Xi Jinping bets that dramatic escalation is the way to win a trade war

Dutch Government Takes Control of Chip Maker From Chinese Parent

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 3d

The Dutch government wrested control of a Netherlands-based semiconductor company from its Chinese owner, a new flare-up in tensions between China and the West over key technologies and materials.

www.wsj.com/business/win...

In a “highly exceptional” move, the Dutch government wrested power of Netherlands-based Nexperia from owner Wingtech, citing risks to economic security.

Rekindling of Tariff Fight Pressures Wall Street’s Hottest Trades

Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 5d

…its breadth and its focus on red-hot tech shares and smaller banks rattled some analysts and portfolio managers, who had come to believe that the 2025 market advance had grown immune to trade-war tensions.

www.wsj.com/finance/stoc...

Friday’s market slide—fueled by President Trump’s new threat of “massive” tariffs on goods from China—rattled some investors who thought the 2025 market advance was immune to trade-war tensions

Donald Trump’s fortress economy is starting to hurt America

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 5d

Brick by brick, President Donald Trump is building a wall around the world’s largest economy.

Donald Trump’s fortress economy is starting to hurt America
economist.com/leaders/2025...

The pain from trade and immigration restrictions cannot be postponed forever

Leaked texts on Scott Bessent’s phone suggest the White House got played bailing out Argentina—and U.S. soybean farmers are the casualties

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Reposted by Miles Roman

purrfectlyfrank.bsky.social @purrfectlyfrank.bsky.social · 13d

According to a photo of a private text on the phone of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Argentina responded to the treasury secretary’s $20 billion bailout by turning around and removing its export taxes on soybeans & striking a huge new deal with China. China then immediately pulled out of its...

“This is highly unfortunate,” the text said. “Soy prices are dropping further because of it. This gives China more leverage on us.”

finance.yahoo.com

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 17d

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · 25d

The president is gambling that he can consolidate authority before the public turns too sharply against him.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Trump Might Be Losing His Race Against Time

The president is gambling that he can consolidate authority before the public turns too sharply against him.

www.theatlantic.com

Donald Trump’s approval rating

Reposted by Miles Roman

The Economist @economist.com · 25d

Donald Trump claims to have ended six wars in six months and has been angling for a Nobel peace prize. Americans are less convinced of his diplomatic prowess, as our polling shows econ.st/4mUl20Y

Follow our presidential approval rating poll tracker to see how favourably Americans view Mr Trump

econ.st

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · Sep 15

The Treasury Secretary owns thousands of acres of North Dakota farmland, worth up to $25 million. The properties grow soybeans and corn in a state that exports most of its agricultural products to China.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/b...

China’s Snub of U.S. Soybeans Is a Crisis for American Farmers

Why Charlie Kirk Mattered So Much to the Right

Reposted by Miles Roman

Adam Keiper @adamkeiper.com · Sep 11

NEW: Our Will Sommer, who has reported on Charlie Kirk's career from the beginning, tries to understand what he left behind.
www.thebulwark.com/p/why-charli...

More than anyone not named Trump, he changed the way conservatives understood modern media.

www.thebulwark.com

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · Sep 11

A mix of sympathy and blame proliferated in messages posted from figures across the political spectrum.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/s...

Social Media Falls Into Well Worn Grooves After Charlie Kirk’s Death

You Really Need to See Epstein’s Birthday Book for Yourself

Reposted by Miles Roman

Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · Sep 10

I wrote about what I think is a genuinely revealing document of elite depravity and impunity. It is shocking and sickening. But it's also a crucial moment. We're about to see what happens when conspiracy theorists actually get what they asked for but it turns out not to be what they want.

This time, the conspiracy theorists were right.

www.theatlantic.com

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · Sep 7

Tensions between President Trump and Illinois leaders escalated on Saturday when the White House posted an image on social media depicting Mr. Trump with helicopters, billowing flames and the Chicago skyline.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/06/u...

Tensions Mount as Trump Administration Threatens Federal Crackdown in Chicago

‘I have never been as worried as I am now’: Arkansas farmers gather to share concerns

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Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · Sep 7

youtu.be/-VYtabeCROY?...

YouTube video by K8 News

youtu.be

Miles Roman @packetleaf.com · Sep 5

A group of Navy SEALs emerged from the ink-black ocean on a winter night in early 2019 and crept to a rocky shore in North Korea. They were on a top secret mission so complex and consequential that everything had to go exactly right.

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/u...

How a Top Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission Into North Korea Fell Apart