Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · 10d

NYPD's "building vast, hidden repositories of data it collects on everyone in the city, with no clear boundaries on how it can be used" w/ surveillance on "a scale that it has begun to erode a large number of people’s basic civil rights" says Elizabeth Daniel Vasquez www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Opinion | The N.Y.P.D. Is Teaching America How to Track Everyone Every Day Forever (Gift Article)

New tools allow law enforcement agencies to track us at an unimaginable scale.

www.nytimes.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · 18d

Truly. I had the pleasure of writing for them when they went by Crosscut. It has turned out some excellent reporters. A grim day.

Katie Campbell, KUOW @katiecampbell.bsky.social · 18d

Devastating news for local journalism.

Seattle's Cascade PBS announces layoffs, end of online long-form journalism

The move, attributed to the loss of federal funding for public media, marks the layoffs of 17 staffers and the creation of three new positions, station President and CEO Rob Dunlop told KUOW.

www.kuow.org

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Aug 21

In a first-in-the-nation move, Colorado now requires health warning labels on gas stoves that point to the evidence of health harms. Manufacturers are suing. This is what the labels say: “Understand the air quality implications of having an indoor gas stove.” www.canarymedia.com/articles/fos...

Colorado now requires health warning labels on gas stoves

The state is the first to put labels on the appliances pointing consumers to evidence about the harms of cooking with gas. Appliance manufacturers are…

www.canarymedia.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Aug 19

So, the president of Google called the Trump admin's climate denialism "fantastic." Read the latest from @geoffdembicki.bsky.social at @desmog.com + @thelever.bsky.social www.desmog.com/2025/08/19/g...

Google President Praised MAGA Speech Slamming ‘Climate Extremist Agenda’

Interior Sec. Doug Burgum told an AI conference that data centers should be powered by coal, gas, and nuclear. Ruth Porat called his comments "fantastic.”

www.desmog.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Aug 19

Also, no offense but the graph is not super clear, so you maybe should despair just a little about the science communication

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Aug 19

Please explain to me what the sweet spot is and why. I am a public transit user and journalist who is legitimately interested.

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Aug 19

Well, it’s a great question. Texas alone is already home to more than 400 data centers www.desmog.com/2025/06/12/t...

In Texas, AI Gold Rush Helps Spur Demand for Over 100 New Gas Plants

State may be “rubber stamping” some air pollution permits, according to new report on the boom.

www.desmog.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Aug 19

Sometimes it's hard to grasp the scale of data center projects and the amount of power they might use. Here's one attempt to explain that for a proposed project in a rural community 40 miles southwest of Atlanta. There's a public hearing on it Tuesday www.desmog.com/2025/08/18/a...

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Reposted by Ashley Braun

DeSmog @desmog.com · Aug 19

🚨 NEW 🚨 County commissioners in Georgia may pave the way for a $17 billion “hyperscale” data center on Tuesday by adopting new planning laws shaped by industry lobbyists. buff.ly/ev66QkH

Data Center Lobbyists Clear the Way for Mega-Projects in Rural Georgia

Public records reviewed by DeSmog show developers worked to dilute draft planning rule in Coweta County.

www.desmog.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Aug 16

“What they’re offering people is not health insurance or economic security,” Stanley says. “They’re offering them delight in the torture of others.”

Mother Jones @motherjones.com · Aug 15

The White House's memes about imprisonment, deportation, and death by alligator are designed to radicalize and desensitize.

“What you have is this desire to get people to buy into the fun of sadism,” says Jason Stanley, an author who’s leaving the US because of “concerns over fascism.”

The official voice of the US government Is cruel, gross, and weird. What is that doing to us?

Joking memes about imprisonment, deportation, and death by alligator are designed to radicalize and desensitize.

www.motherjones.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Aug 16

Heads up for users of Otter AI, especially if you connect it to any other apps, like Zoom or Teams: Lawsuit claims AI service Otter secretly records private chats

www.npr.org/2025/08/15/g...

Class-action suit claims Otter AI secretly records private work conversations

The suit claims the popular service may be recording and processing millions of users' private conversations without consent.

www.npr.org

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Aug 2

The Karuk Tribe has been helping bring down barriers to beneficial burning in California, paving the way for rebalancing the land’s relationship with fire. More great 🔥 reporting from @murphywoodhouse.bsky.social

Murphy Woodhouse @murphywoodhouse.bsky.social · Aug 1

There is much to worry about in wildfire today. But one of the most hopeful things happening is a revolution of sorts in Karuk territory, where the tribe is insisting on being able to burn as their ancestors did for millennia. The ideas are spreading. www.boisestatepublicradio.org/environment/...

With reforms in place, California’s Karuk Tribe works to reestablish cultural burning as 'common practice'

For millennia, Indigenous peoples have intentionally set fires to care for the land. Colonization and fire exclusion largely put an end to those practices, though the tradition endured. Now, Californi...

www.boisestatepublicradio.org

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Jul 3

I’ve always appreciated your work!

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Jul 3

"Yes, the U.S. is a climate train wreck right now. But global warming is just like immigration or healthcare: Nothing will change if most of us do nothing." @sammyroth.bsky.social on the climate stakes of the Big Beautiful Bill and what comes next link.latimes.com/view/65d63a3...

Los Angeles Times

link.latimes.com

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Reposted by Ashley Braun

DeSmog @desmog.com · Jul 2

Who is the self-styled "fossil fuel philosopher" behind the clean energy cuts in Trump’s deeply unpopular Big Beautiful Bill? Even GOP Sen. Tillis called him out on the Senate floor: people "without a clue about what they are potentially doing to our grid." Learn more 👉

Who’s the Fossil Fuel-Backed “Philosopher” Shaping Trump’s Megabill Clean Energy Cuts?

GOP Sen. Thom Tillis took to Senate floor to decry lobbyists like Alex Epstein pushing huge energy moves “without a clue about what they are potentially doing to our grid.”

buff.ly

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Jun 26

Your daily hit of marine marveling: these sea slugs can steal and store chloroplasts in mini fridge organelles for solar-powered food on the go! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

‘Wildest thing’: solar-powered slug steals chloroplasts and stores them for emergencies

Marine creatures house contraband structures in special organelles, which the animal raids for food in times of need.

www.nature.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Jun 2

Despite a “ban” on incoming Trump officials having links to Project 2025, more sitting cabinet members have links to Project 2025 than don’t, according to an exclusive @desmog.com analysis of these ties, which have not been previously reported (and mapped!) in this level of detail.

DeSmog @desmog.com · Jun 2

Project 2025 isn’t just influential in Washington. Its friends and creators are literally running the show, according to a new analysis from @DeSmog buff.ly/xyzwHZE

MAPPED: 70 Percent of Trump’s Cabinet Tied to Project 2025 Groups

More than 50 high-level Trump administration officials have links to groups behind the Heritage Foundation-backed plan, a DeSmog analysis found.

www.desmog.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · May 19

My latest from @smithsonianmag.bsky.social: What holding your breath while hanging onto glass volleyballs has revealed about the climate over the past half century. The Keeling Curve, CO2 levels, and what this simple instrument is still teaching us www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-...

This Simple but Ingenious Instrument Helped the World Measure Carbon Dioxide Levels in the Atmosphere

Scientist Charles Keeling's invention had a profound effect on scientists' understanding of the severity of the climate change crisis

www.smithsonianmag.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · May 16

Ah okay. And makes sense, mis/disinformation research hasn’t exactly been a secret target for some time—as you’re intimately aware with your experience with the Stanford Internet Observatory shutdown

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · May 16

Were any of your research projects affected by the cancellations?

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · May 16

www.sciencefriday.com/articles/bre...

Can Breeding Pest-Resistant Trees Save American Forests?

Pests are ravaging keystone species like ash, elm, and beech. But researchers are breeding the survivors into more resilient populations.

www.sciencefriday.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · May 16

Here’s that story, on efforts to find and breed naturally pest and disease resistant “lingering” trees—you could volunteer just by hiking. “You’re detecting them by virtue of them being really healthy trees, outstandingly healthy trees, when almost everything around them is dead,” says Rosenthal,

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · May 16

That moment when you’re listening to @scifri.bsky.social b/c fellow wildfire reporter @murphywoodhouse.bsky.social is talking about a registry tracking long-term firefighter health + you realize you know the reporter (hey Sophie Hartley!) behind the next story www.sciencefriday.com/segments/fir...

Tracking The Hidden Dangers Of Fighting Fires

How well do we understand the long-term health risks to firefighters? Plus, researchers across the country are breeding pest-resistant trees.

www.sciencefriday.com

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Ashley Braun @ashleybraun.bsky.social · Apr 16

Too often we think of nature as 'untouched.' On one of California's Channel Islands, the presence of one small mammal reveals a much bigger truth: ecosystems are often shaped by ancient human choices we’ve long forgotten.

Read my latest for @biographic.bsky.social www.biographic.com/how-santa-ca...

How Santa Catalina Island Got Its Ground Squirrels - bioGraphic

The ecosystem we see today was molded by human hands.

www.biographic.com

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Reposted by Ashley Braun

Jude Isabella @judeisabella.bsky.social · Apr 15

Adorable, but you cannot hug this ground squirrel. From @ashleybraun.bsky.social -- this is probably how these cuties got to an island off the coast of California: www.biographic.com/how-santa-ca...

How Santa Catalina Island Got Its Ground Squirrels - bioGraphic

The ecosystem we see today was molded by human hands.

www.biographic.com

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