Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 2h

All of their faces give GenAI even though I'm pretty sure they're real. Photographer going way overboard on a smoothing filter?

Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 2h

Really we need more wealthy people who want to build cool shit* (AI doesn't count) instead of destroying the country so they can see bigger numbers on their spreadsheets.

* We don't actually need more wealthy people. We need poorer people to have reasonable amounts of money to live.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 2h

For less than $6 billion (the cost of a presidential/congressional election) you could probably buy enough politicians to save us from fascism.

For $400 million I could probably buy, renovate, & maintain indefinitely the derelict historic theatre nearby that needs $190 million of renovations.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 2h

I put way too much thought into this question and it continued to bring home how much money $100 billion really is.

If you wanted $2 million/year to spend the rest of your life (gobs of money!), you'd need ~$50 million in the bank.

That's a lot of money! But nowhere close to even $1 billion.

Adam Lasnik @adamlasnik.net · 4h

Just a random thought exercise / curiosity poll:
If you could have a genie INSTANTLY make your net worth whatever number you wanted... $100K USD, $100B.... any number in between... what would it be and why?

[...]

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 3h

Other major priorities: Immigrant rights and funding art. I've had a semi-detailed idea for a grant-making arts foundation & training studio forever.

Ideally no one would know I was given that kind of money though. That's the thing that would actually mess one's life up.

Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 3h

Less than $6 billion (the cost of an entire presidential/congressional election) would probably be enough to buy off politicians & effectively end the US march toward fascism.

With $94 billion to spare even afterward, you could run the experiment, potentially saving us all.

UChicago Alumni & Friends

alumniandfriends.uchicago.edu

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 3h

Sure, let's go with $100 billion. But then my job would be to give almost all of it away as quickly as possible, because holding on to that amount of money is morally indefensible.

Just $7 billion/year would prevent the hungriest from starving. Put some $ into an endowment for exactly that.

How Much Would It Cost to End World Hunger? - World Food Program USA

We know what it takes to end world hunger, and we know what it costs. We simply need the collective will to make it happen.

www.wfpusa.org

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 4h

More context about how deliberate the "sloppy and careless" is.

Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 11h

Seeing a lot of celebration of this as a win.

But at NIH we have seen this exact play before.

It looks like it is the Vought strategy -and to stop the lawless firings we have to see the bigger picture.
A 🧵:

Trump Administration Will Rehire Scores of Experts Fired in Error

www.nytimes.com

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 5h

It's not just sloppy and careless, though it's that too.

They explicitly said they wanted to traumatize federal workers.

Well, they're doing it.

shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 9h

it actually offends me how sloppy and careless they are. anyone who’s ever been laid off knows the panic you feel when it happens. and while obviously it’s good that they backtracked, these are people’s fucking LIVELIHOODS they’re messing with.

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

www.nytimes.com

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 5h

About a month ago, the Trump administration got rid of the de minimis exemption, whereby packages valued under $800 could slide in without import duties. Now there's a backlog as the government can't process all of this paperwork, leading to UPS just destroying packages

Business Insider headline reads: UPS is telling customers that their packages coming to the US are marked for destruction.

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Joanne Freeman @jbf1755.bsky.social · 14h

Honestly.

Portland is being savaged by rioting.
Or it’s not.

CLEARLY, it’s NOT.

You can’t “both sides” a simple fact.

This drives me bonkers.

Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 15h

Should the New York Times be sold to Pennysaver and its editors sent to work in Amazon warehouses? It depends on who you ask.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 13h

It's pretty cool!

The generalized cancer vaccine is still in mice trials, but they had human trials for individually-tailored ones.

Surprising finding could pave way for universal cancer vaccine - UF Health

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — An experimental mRNA vaccine boosted the tumor-fighting effects of immunotherapy in a mouse-model study, bringing researchers one step…

ufhealth.org

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 13h

MR. SEXY ENT 💀🤣

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Reposted by Dawn Xiana Moon

Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 17h

If this was happening in any other country you'd have journalists and analysts discussing risks of state failure

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 13h

This affects you even if you do have insurance.

Hospitals are already closing thanks to existing Medicaid cuts. It's only going to get worse.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 13h

🧵 regarding the shutdown:

The Democrats aren’t being clear enough about this but we can be: this shutdown is about saving lives.

If we don’t reverse the Medicaid cuts (and the ACA subsidies on insurance bought through the exchanges) that Republicans made this year, people will die.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 13h

Seriously, not washing hands in that kind of environment should be grounds for being fired. It's a health and safety hazard for everyone else.

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 1d

Genuinely tempted to round up some performer friends and get some inflatable frog costumes...

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 1d

For real. Whiteness is Pete Hegseth proudly proclaiming he hadn't washed his hands in a decade.

But he still got put in charge of the entire US military.

I'm still grossed out.

Fox host says he 'hasn't washed hands in 10 years'

Harvard and Princeton graduate Pete Hegseth says germs don't exist because he can't see them.

www.bbc.com

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Reposted by Dawn Xiana Moon

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1d

CNN reporting that 4,000 federal employees were fired on Friday, in HHS, Education, Energy, HUD, Homeland Security, Patent and Trademark Office, EPA.
www.cnn.com/2025/10/10/p...

Trump administration lays off thousands of federal workers during government shutdown | CNN Politics

More than 4,000 federal employees received layoff notices Friday as part of the Trump administration’s broad effort to reshape the government while it remains shutdown, according to a court filing Fri...

www.cnn.com

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 1d

Not gonna lie, I'm super tempted to buy an inflatable frog costume and join in the fun. They're pretty cheap even! 😂

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 1d

I actually read MMWR consistently for about a year (I worked with the CDC on COVID data for a while) and it is essential public health infrastructure.

If you wanted to know what scientists were saying, even as a layperson you could read it & get a solid picture of what was happening.

Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 1d

For some context the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report in addition to being just a good read, to quote wikipedia, "is the main vehicle for publishing public health information and recommendations that have been received by the CDC from state health departments. "

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 1d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 1d

They're hobbling our ability to fight & understand diseases for no reason.*

It's so short-sighted - wealth buys you better healthcare, but there are limits. Ultimately better understanding of disease helps *everyone.*

* No reason that's good.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 1d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Reposted by Dawn Xiana Moon

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 1d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 1d

Honestly it'd be great for practicing lightsaber tricks and other things indoors... 😄

(The actual use case for this is performers practicing aerial & circus at home. But that's a pretty small demographic.)

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Dawn Xiana Moon @dawnxianamoon.bsky.social · 1d

Yet another tech CEO bowing down.

Screenshot from the NYT: Marc Benioff Says Trump Should Send Guard Troops to San Francisco.
Mr. Benioff, the Salesforce C.E.O. and owner of Time magazine, once supported Hillary Clinton and a business tax for homeless services. Now he’s fully behind Donald Trump.

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