Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Shannon Mattern

Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 5h

the actual story here, which the media never talks about, is that police in this country have become a discrete right-wing political operation. the story isn't about cops leaving (they're lying about that), it's about the police trying to exert influence over elections.

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 1d

Lmao is this supposed to be a bad thing?

A tweet from Bari Weiss that says “"It's shaken me to my core," a lieutenant said of Mamdani's unexpected victory in June. "The absolute dread I feel is palpable.
"
Today in @TheFP our @Olivia_Reingold talks to the cops who say they will walk if Zohran Mamdani is elected in November:”

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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 2h

Border Patrol “attempted to arrest a plumber working inside a Logan Heights home but left empty-handed after the homeowner refused them entry.

The homeowner told agents she would not allow them inside because the warrant they presented did not include her address and lacked a judge's signature.”

Federal immigration operations target San Diego neighborhoods, sparking community resistance

Federal immigration agents conducted operations in Logan Heights and Southeast San Diego on Friday, with community members capturing footage of the enforcement actions.

www.10news.com

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Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 16h

I was trying to put my finger on what bothered me about this portrayal and I think it’s that it just takes the guy’s words at face value, like he was a nice guy and reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death just pushed him over the edge www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/u...

She Despised Charlie Kirk. He Resolved to Make People Like Her Pay.

www.nytimes.com

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 1h

Sadly (as the article acknowledges), our schools + universities provide virtually no space for this kind of exploration. Learning is utilitarian, and its "use" is entrepreneurial training + salary maximization. Even faculty time is consumed by admin once shared w/ larger staff + faculty colleagues.

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 1h

"In 1939, Abraham Flexner, the founding director of the Institute for Advanced Study, published an essay 'pleading for the abolition of the word "use"' and arguing for the cultivation of scientific knowledge for nothing more than its own sake. To be human is to be curious, after all."

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 1h

"'It is always quite easy to demonstrate the power of curiosity + imagination looking backwards'... Paradoxically, Dr. Dijkgraaf said, 'creating those spaces where ppl can think freely + explore freely is, in some sense, the most efficient way to spend your research 💰'"

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 1h

The science Nobels offer a case for plodding curiosity: that esoteric, seemingly useless exploration can lay the 🧱 for a road to places we cannot yet see. 'It’s not just that it took a long time btw the efforts + the 🏆, but that the effort itself was intergenerational [and lacked] well-formed ?'s"

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 1h

There's "no easy throughline to draw from the lab to our everyday lives. Often that line is a culmination of expertise that outweighs the contributions of one or a few scientists; it is an idea here, a breakthrough there + many failed experiments in between, sometimes over the course of decades"...

Nobel Prizes This Year Offer Three Cheers for Slow Science

www.nytimes.com

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Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.bsky.social · 1d

This seems like a good time to remind everyone that Donald Trump’s first appearance in the New York Times was when the Nixon Justice Dept. sued him and his father for refusing to rent apartments to black people.

◥◤Kriston Capps @kristoncapps.bsky.social · 1d

HUD laid off so many fair housing investigators on Friday that it shuttered the regional offices that oversee discrimination cases in 9 states: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

HUD Issues Layoff Notices, Targeting Fair Housing Staff With Deep Cuts

Fair housing staffers who investigate claims of housing discrimination at field offices nationwide were among the hundreds of HUD staffers who received layoff notices.

www.bloomberg.com

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◥◤Kriston Capps @kristoncapps.bsky.social · 1d

I can confidently tell you that Bruce Harrell shouldn't be Seattle's arts commissioner

Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 1d

Downtown could have "like, a 10-foot wall" where people could talk to AI versions of historical figures. "How cool would this be if we had like, a 10 foot wall. It's interactive and it's historical. And you could talk to Martin Luther King."...

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◥◤Kriston Capps @kristoncapps.bsky.social · 1d

HUD laid off so many fair housing investigators on Friday that it shuttered the regional offices that oversee discrimination cases in 9 states: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

HUD Issues Layoff Notices, Targeting Fair Housing Staff With Deep Cuts

Fair housing staffers who investigate claims of housing discrimination at field offices nationwide were among the hundreds of HUD staffers who received layoff notices.

www.bloomberg.com

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amanda moore 🐢 @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social · 3h

Read my words. Ty.

Arrests and Protests at the Broadview ICE Facility

The Department of Homeland Security says that eleven people were arrested Saturday at a protest outside of the Broadview ICE facility.

www.turtlediaries.net

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 2h

This makes me want to revisit @melgregg.bsky.social's Counterproductive.

I've spent 100s of hours over the past few months moving as many comm channels as I can (everything that's not a *crucial* notice) over to RSS. I'm hoping that'll help a bit, but still: the whole system is absurd + impossible.

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redrum scare(d) corncob (no one said it made sense) @inquiline.myatproto.social · 10h

this app cascade + current events have broken my executive function beyond repair. every trip across the apartment or opened window on my laptop is a journey to a new thing i've forgotten about and/or will forget about by the time i return to the station i just left to go retrieve or do something

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Erin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 11h

I counted up the number of ways (platforms, accounts, apps) that people in my professional and personal lives plus healthcare systems and kid’s school are contacting me and uhh. This is objectively impossible.

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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 17h

Pope Leo quotes Hannah Arendt:

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist."

www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Pope Leo calls for news agencies to stand as bulwark against "post-truths," lies and manipulation

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the "ancient art of lying" and manipulation.

www.cbsnews.com

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 10h

Also lying:
- your own eyes
- every bit of video evidence
- the fabric of reality itself

The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 10h

“I … met with the governor, met with the mayor, met with the chief of police, and the superintendent of the highway patrol. They’re all lying, and disingenuous, and dishonest people,” Noem said, because they wouldn’t back up her baseless claims that the streets were overrun with terrorists.

ICE Barbie Says an Entire State’s Worth of Officials Are “Lying”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is convinced, against all evidence, that Portland is a war zone.

trib.al

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Michael Edison Hayden @michaelehayden.bsky.social · 8h

“They are highly organized … [they] have purchased their own animal costumes”

Andy ngo mad about muppets again — this time in Chicago

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Brian Stack @brianstack153.bsky.social · 1d

My neighbor Judy hits it out of the park again with her Halloween yard skeletons, this year the busted “Coldplay Couple”.

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Philadelphia Inquirer @inquirer.com · 5h

Every day at noon, no matter how busy, Johny Merida Aguilar left his construction job and hurried to his 5-year-old son's school to feed him. His son has brain cancer and generally only accepts food from his father.

Merida Aguilar was arrested by ICE in September and faces deportation to Bolivia.

He was caring for his 5-year-old son with brain cancer. Then he was detained by ICE.

A court has temporarily blocked Johny Merida Aguilar's deportation to Bolivia.

www.inquirer.com

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j-salvo.bsky.social @j-salvo.bsky.social · 6h

Word to the wise: do not fly internationally into Logan. All of the major public detainments of Legal Residents and Citizens at airports have been out of Logan.

Kat Stuart @luckykatstuart.bsky.social · 6h

Anyone in Boston an immigration lawyer or know one who can help this woman? Her husband is detained at Logan over a dismissed misdemeanor from 2017. He’s a legal resident of the US. She just asked for help an hour ago.

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Meredith Shiner @meredithshiner.com · 3h

It’s impossible to overstate how much “abolish ice” is the normie position now here in chicago — just countless random moms at toddler soccer on a park district field asking me where I bought my anti-ice t-shirt. average people don’t like our neighborhoods being terrorized.

laura olin @lauraolin.bsky.social · 10h

A friend ran the Chicago marathon today and said he couldn’t count the number of FUCK ICE signs along the way.

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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 1d

This heartfelt and meaningful statement by Portland resident and author Cristina Breshears on another social media platform bears reposting here. I don't think the intent is to idealize Portland but to remind all of us what is important and why. (Posted here with permission.)

For nine nights now, the steady thrum of Black Hawk helicopters has circled over Portland. The sound is constant, invasive; a low mechanical beating above our homes. It’s expensive. It’s intimidating. And it’s unnecessary.

Our protests have been largely peaceful. There is no insurrection here. Yet this federalized military presence makes us feel like we are living in a war zone (the very kind of chaos this administration claims to be protecting us from).

The irony is painful: it is only this occupation that makes Portland feel unsafe.

Each hour of helicopter flight costs taxpayers between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on crew, fuel, and maintenance. Multiply that by multiple aircraft over multiple nights, and you’re looking at hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars burned into the sky.

Meanwhile, the Woodstock Food Pantry at All Saints Episcopal Church — which feeds working families, elders, and people with disabilities — has seen its federal funding slashed by 75%. How can we justify pouring public money into intimidation while cutting aid to those who simply need to eat?

This is waste, fraud, and abuse in plain sight:
* Waste of public resources on military theatrics.
* Fraud in the name of “public safety.”
* Abuse of the communities that federal agencies claim to protect.

Portland is a Sanctuary City. A sanctuary city is not a fortress. It’s a promise — a living vow that a community will protect the dignity and safety of everyone who calls it home. It means that local governments and ordinary people alike will refuse to criminalize survival. That schools, clinics, churches, and shelters will remain safe spaces no matter who you are or where you were born. But the term reaches far beyond policy. It’s an ethic of belonging; a refusal to criminalize need, difference, or desperation.

Sanctuary isn’t weakness. It’s courage. It takes moral strength to meet suffering with care instead of punishment, to believe that our neighbors’ safety is bound up in our own, to insist that safety is not achieved through force but through community, inclusion, and trust. It is living Matthew 25:40 out loud and in deed. It is an act of moral imagination and moral defiance. To hold sanctuary is to say: you belong here.

When we hold space for the most vulnerable — refugees, the unhoused, the undocumented, the disabled, the working poor, the displaced — we become something larger than a collection of individuals. We become a moral body. We do more than offer charity. We offer witness. We declare that the measure of a nation is found not in its towers or tanks, but in its tenderness.

Sanctuary cities are not lawless; they are soulful. They represent the conscience of the nation, a place where the laws of empathy still apply. To make sanctuary is to affirm that the United States is not merely a geographic territory, but a moral experiment: a republic that must constantly choose between fear and compassion, between domination and democracy.

A nation’s soul is measured not by the might of its military, but by the mercy of its people. When helicopters circle our skies in the name of order, while food pantries struggle to feed the hungry, we are forced to ask: What are we defending, and from whom? The soul of a nation survives only when we make sanctuary for one another. Not through walls or weapons, but through compassion and collective will. If we allow intimidation to replace compassion, we will have traded our conscience for control.

Please know that despite the hum of war machines overhead, the conscience of our city — whimsical, creative, stubbornly kind — can still be heard.

Portland is not the problem. Portland is the reminder. A reminder that a city can still choose to be sanctuary. That a people can still choose to be human.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 4h

Few patients appeal a health insurance denial, but a little-known process that requires insurers and plans to seek an independent opinion can force insurers to pay for what can be lifesaving treatment.

Here’s what experts say you need to know.

How to Fight Your Health Insurance Denial with an External Appeal

When a health insurer refuses to pay for your treatment, you may have the right to have the denial reviewed — and potentially overturned — by an independent provider. Here are six steps experts sugges...

www.propublica.org

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Andrew Blum @ablum.bsky.social · 6h

We had Angela Davis speak at my university a couple of years back. One of the many insightful things she said - protest in the way that aligns with your passion. If that’s poetry do poetry or music etc. Because then you will be able to sustain it. If naked bike rides are your passion, 100% do that.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 6h

Someone in my mentions is upset because these people haven’t suffered the worst at ICE’s hands and therefore they shouldn’t be praised for being out on the streets?

Yeah, no. To push back on these people we need everyone — especially those with relative privilege — to get up and get involved.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 9h

Portland, you magnificent weirdos

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