Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Anshu Sharma

Atlas Mugged ✊🏿🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ @pamacious.bsky.social · Apr 30

"In practice, the Halo Law lets police get rid of witnesses temporarily and take their phones as evidence if they violate it...

“It’s doing exactly what I suspected it was for, which is to stop people from monitoring the police, not for safety.”

www.orlandoweekly.com/news/florida...

Florida begins first prosecutions under controversial ‘Halo Law’ intended to protect law enforcement

The first people arrested and prosecuted under the law say they were left in the dark

www.orlandoweekly.com

2 1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 4h

kstp.com/kstp-news/to...

Lawsuit: Man died after Eagan police, Dakota County jail staff mistook stroke for intoxication

A civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court alleges police and jail staff actively ignored the signs of 50-year-old Kingsley Bimpong's medical emergency and treated him instead as though he was und...

kstp.com

2 6

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 4h

torment for anyone. If there is to be a punitive aspect to prisons (big 'if') the loss of freedom is punishment enough.

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 4h

"President Trump, who canceled Biden’s moratorium on federal executions on Inauguration Day, has long favored the death penalty for dangerous criminals."
Inaccurate imo. Trump favors death penalty for people he deems dangerous, regardless of their actual danger.
Also federal prison shouldn't be

Daily Rotation @dailyrotation.bsky.social · 14h

Gift link

Hard to envision trump as a Christian

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

Biden Spared 37 Killers From Execution. Trump Ordered Up a Lifetime of Torment.

Even America’s harshest federal prison, where inmates spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, was too good, one official said. “I’ve got no problem with gruel.”

www.wsj.com

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

; and Israel, with US backing, continues to starve Palestinians in Gaza, quibbling over details rather than admitting what is in front of all our eyes."
Tankies should consider the similarities between Holodomor denial and Gaza genocide denial.

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

"Even today, a statue of one of the most notorious agents of mass starvation in India, Robert Clive, stands in central London; Russia refuses to admit its responsibility for the Holodomor and has destroyed memorials to its victims when it occupies Ukrainian towns

Jewish Currents @jewishcurrents.bsky.social · 5d

In a new analysis piece, famine expert Alex de Waal explores how weaponized mass starvation has historically been used to engineer societal breakdown—and how Israel is now trying to reproduce this pattern in Gaza. Read here: jewishcurrents.org/famines-long...

Famine's Long Shadow

Even if food is surged into Gaza today, the history of weaponized mass starvation shows that the social aftershocks will reverberate for generations.

jewishcurrents.org

1

Reposted by Anshu Sharma

Mitchell Plitnick @mjplitnick.bsky.social · 5h

Most media are glossing over Israel soon releasing 1,700 Palestinians it abducted and held without charge--in other words, hostages they kidnapped. And they're not releasing all of them.

Double Standard for Israeli and Palestinian Hostages

open.substack.com/pub/mitchell...

Double Standard for Israeli and Palestinian Hostages

Most media are glossing over Israel soon releasing 1,700 Palestinians it abducted and held without charge--in other words, hostages they kidnapped. And they're not releasing all of them.

open.substack.com

6 6

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

How to see two bright, once-in-a-lifetime comets with your naked eye

Comet Lemmon and Comet SWAN will be closest to Earth as a new moon sets up prime viewing conditions. Add in a meteor shower and we may get spectacular sky gazing.

www.washingtonpost.com

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

a living space that gets more dirty and tricky to walk around and be in, the result of practices that feel good in the moment but cause greater frustration later on. Everything we do or don't do has tradeoffs, we need to be honest with ourselves about what we're willing to accept.

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

housing precarity. The damage from storms and wildfires is a form of us paying back debt of not acting more drastically earlier to reduce carbon emissions. And there's work debt, e.g. technical debt, or organizational debt (think growing piles of mail, is there another term for this)

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

The above is from 2019, I wonder if things have gotten better in 6 years.
Third somewhat tangential takeaway: the concept of debt not going away isn't just applicable to loans. I think our housing shortage can be thought up as a form of debt that we're paying for through raised rents and increased

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

"This thorny challenge has multiple consequences. Farmers leave up to 30% of their produce in the field because it isn’t aesthetically pleasing enough to pick and sell. Grocery retailers, who operate on razor-thin margins, trash up to $15.4 billion of edible fruits and vegetables each year."

Why Aesthetic Matters in Produce Selection [Consumer Behavior]

Consumers’ won’t buy safe and tasty ugly fruits and vegetables, contributing to grocers disposing of $15.4B in edible produce each year. A new Journal of Marketing study shows the surprising way groce...

www.ama.org

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

I need to verify this but I don't think we have a shortage of food produced, we may have a shortage of food that makes it to people's plates because of tariffs/insufficient welfare states/deliberate starvation/lack of investment, esp in formerly colonized areas.

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

That brings me to my second takeaway: we need to make necessities more available. Eliminate restrictions on residential zoning. Fund a variety of public schools at all levels for people at all ages and in all kinds of situations. Expand SNAP and WIC. Free meals for all students at all levels.

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

My takeaways: debt matters; don't take it on lightly. Having said that, there are times when the benefits and potential rewards of taking on debt outweigh the costs and risks; I do think student loans can fit this category at times. As might mortgages.

1 1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkKx...

The Rise of Luxury Poverty

YouTube video by According to Nicole

www.youtube.com

1 1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p3c...

Luxury Poverty Is Destroying Us

YouTube video by Cara Nicole

www.youtube.com

1 1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/m...

They Got to Live a Life of Luxury. Then Came the Fine Print.

www.nytimes.com

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

www.wsj.com/personal-fin...

A Generation Is Turning to ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ for Botox and Concert Tickets

Young Americans are turning to easy, high-interest loan products. Research shows some are spending more.

www.wsj.com

1 1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

slots? I guess for a institution with a course catalogue as large as Harvard's, they have to be creative in making sure students don't miss out on classes they want. Hats off to the profs and students who make it work, although I definitely understand why students and profs wouldn't like it

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

every year with all the schedule change requests they got) but this is the first time I've heard of an educational institution allowing students to enroll in classes whose times overlap. A lecture that overlaps <=30 min with a lab, maybe I can see if the instructors approve. But overlapping lecture

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

But he also defends the double-scheduling practice because so many classes at Harvard meet at overlapping times.

“If we didn’t allow simultaneous enrollment, we’d be giving a lot of students heartburn,” he said."
I know class scheduling is stressful (I feel bad for TJHSST counselors at the start of

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

Something that absolutely surprised me: "Harvard may be partly to blame for encouraging student absences, with a policy that allows students to enroll in two classes that meet at the same time.

Dr. Laibson tells his students that in-person learning is better than learning by video.

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

worker pay and stipends were what they should be, and if there was more than enough housing, so we'd feel less pressure to work to avoid debt, and when we did work we could focus more on building savings rather than avoiding debt.

1

Anshu Sharma @anshugsharma.myatproto.social · 5h

almost any level working (elementary and middle school is questionable, although I think some family farms and restaurants may have children work so they don't have to hire as many staff, not a practice I endorse), but it'd be a lot better if tuition, room, and board cost a lot less, if student

1