Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Josh Spero @joshspero.ft.com · 8m

SCOOP! Billionaire hedge fund manager Sir Chris Hohn’s charitable foundation has stopped giving grants to US NGOs on.ft.com/4ohEfdJ with @costasmourselas.bsky.social @joemillerjr.ft.com @tobyn.bsky.social

Chris Hohn’s foundation blames ‘policy environment’ as it stops giving to US charities

[FREE TO READ] Billionaire hedge fund manager’s CIFF has focused donations on issues such as climate change

on.ft.com

Reposted by Josh Spero

Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 1h

One of my favorite moments from Nobel Prize history:

The Nobel Committee couldn’t reach Stanford professor Paul Milgrom to let him know that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics, so his fellow winner, Robert Wilson, went over to his house in the middle of the night to wake him up!

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Twlldun @twlldun.bsky.social · 1h

The speed and booze addicted dressed in black playing raw live shows in prisons with a voice like god almighty himself guy is “deeply uncool”? What

The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 16h

Compared to Dylan and Springsteen, country-music legend Johnny Cash can seem deeply uncool. It took time for me to appreciate his profound, plainspoken strength, writes Jon Fasman.

Essay | Can We Finally Give Johnny Cash His Due?

Compared to Dylan and Springsteen, the country-music legend can seem deeply uncool. It took time for me to appreciate his profound, plainspoken strength.

on.wsj.com

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Amy Kazmin @amykazmin.bsky.social · 3h

Italian opera is known for on-stage melodrama: performers belting out impassioned arias + emotionally charged plots. But Venice's prestigious La Fenice theatre is being engulfed by off-stage melodrama too, as the orchestra revolts against a new conductor close to PM Giorgia Meloni. on.ft.com/4h6BTvF

Discord at the Venice opera house

[FREE TO READ] La Fenice’s orchestra has objected loudly to the appointment of a conductor aligned with Giorgia Meloni’s party

on.ft.com

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Roland Smith @rolandmcs.bsky.social · 4h

I see Robert Jenrick is supporting Hamit Coskun who is appealing his conviction by reference to the ECHR (which Jenrick wants to withdraw from).

Who knew that the ECHR could be useful, even to the anti-ECHR Hard Right?

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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 4h

All my comics have happy endings!

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Joseph Cotterill @jsphctrl.ft.com · 4h

“Bessent told Fox News Thursday that he thinks the peso is undervalued.”

Again, even investors who are very positive on Argentina dollar bonds think it's overvalued by at least 20% and that the band is not long for this world. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Bessent’s Big Gamble on Argentina Has a Narrow Road to Pay Off

For Scott Bessent’s $20 billion bet on Argentina to pay off, a lot of things have to go right – things that in the past, in Argentina, have tended to go wrong.

www.bloomberg.com

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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 6h

Just realised, listening to @thetwomatts.bsky.social pod this week, that I forgot to recommend this fab piece on Bobby J by @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com, written before his 'another white face' schtick but very telling anyway.

Robert Jenrick, the hollow man

He heads into the Conservative conference as the stricken party’s likely next leader. But this opportunistic ‘saviour’ could kill off the Tories completely

www.thenewworld.co.uk

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Josh Spero @joshspero.ft.com · 5h

👏👏

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Guggenheim Collection @guggenheim.bsky.social · 5h

Quarrel by Marc Chagall, 1909
https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137700

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, By gift

© 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

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Heather Stewart @guardianheather.bsky.social · 6h

If this isn’t evidence of an AI bubble I don’t know what is 🫧

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 6h

Rishi Sunak’s twin appointments mean he will be advising rivals in the push for AI breakthroughs. on.ft.com/3KNw22e

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 3d

I spoke to The Guardian's Steve Rose for this wide-ranging interview about identity issues: flags & patriotism, the far right & racism online + offline, control & compassion on asylum, and still looking for the common ground in polarised times
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Sunder Katwala on race, patriotism and flag-waving: ‘The far right is vocal and angry because it is shrinking’

The director of British Future has spent his career trying to find common ground when it comes to race and immigration. He describes his own experience of racism – and why he’s still hopeful for the U...

www.theguardian.com

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Jack Kessler @jackkessler.bsky.social · 6h

My newsletter, Lines To Take, is changing.

Here’s what’s next — and why I hope you’ll join me.

✍️ www.linestotake.com/p/this-newsl...

Music was blaring, lights strobing, bodies gyrating. There was glitter everywhere. Welcome to Daybreaker, an early morning dance movement based in 33 cities around the world, where people come to “sweat, dance and connect with ourselves and each other”. It is also how I ended up in a nightclub at seven in the morning, sober and alone, approaching strangers to ask if they were having a good time.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky. My editor at the time had initially (and a little too cheerily, I felt) suggested I go walking with wolves somewhere in the Lake District. Back in 2019, Daybreaker was a noisy example of what seemed like a striking shift in our consumption habits. The so-called “experience economy” was booming then and — following the Covid-19 interruption — has come back with a vengeance

“The history of economic progress,” Joseph Pine II, who helped coin the term “experience economy” told me (and many others, I suspect, given the rhyme), “is paying a fee for what used to be free.”

Can you see where I’m going with this?

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Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · 15h

I do wonder if Labour might look at the sorts of people dominating the discourse and dominating the content wars and maybe, just maybe, rethink the sorts of grey figures they routinely put up for interviews, instructed at that to be as cautious as possible. Things have changed. Their comms hasn’t.

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Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.bsky.social · Aug 29

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Tony Tassell @tonytassell.bsky.social · 7h

Read of the day: Can Japan satisfy the world’s thirst for matcha? just a great story from Harry Dempsey and @urbandirt.bsky.social reporting from Shizuoka and Uji www.ft.com/content/be14...

Can Japan satisfy the world’s thirst for matcha?

Booming demand is straining a supply chain that prioritises quality and cannot expand quickly enough

www.ft.com

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Tony Tassell @tonytassell.bsky.social · 7h

Back in 2009, Willem Buiter wrote that gold was in a 6000-year-old bubble. SInce then it has risen from $1,100 to $4000 an ounce. But he writes here is still has no intrinsic value and should be sold by central banks. www.ft.com/content/589d...

Gold bubble should prompt central banks to sell the metal

The world is thoughtless of history when it treats bullion as desirable and a store of value

www.ft.com

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Lux "Nightmare" Alptraum @luxalptraum.com · 1d

TFW you paid $1400 to see Beckett’s most famous work without knowing anything about it

One Star Review of Waiting for Godot on Broadway
I recently attended Waiting for Godot on Broadway and spent over $1,400 for two Row C seats (103 and 104). I'm a longtime admirer of Broadway productions and even hold a season pass for Shea's Performing Arts Theatre, so I came in with genuine enthusiasm and high expectations. Unfortunately, this show was unlike anything ! have ever experienced —and not in a good way.
What I encountered was not the artistry, music, or emotional storytelling I usually associate with Broadway, but instead what felt like an endless cycle of nonsensical conversation between characters who seemed trapped in their own madness. I tried-truly tried-to find meaning, symbolism, or even a thread of emotional resonance. I stayed through the first half hoping the second would offer clarity. But by intermission, it was clear: this was a waste of both time and money.
Keanu Reeves is an actor I respect greatly, but I cannot fathom why he would agree to participate in such a disjointed, inaccessible production. His talent was lost in a performance that defied reason rather than provoked insight.
To anyone considering attending: unless you are drawn to highly abstract, nearly incomprehensible theater, I strongly caution you against this show. For the average, educated, thoughtful theatergoer, it is far more frustrating than fulfilling. In my opinion, this was the single most disappointing Broadway experience I've ever had - an unfortunate waste of money and, more importantly, of time.

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Brad Heath @bradheath.bsky.social · 1d

WSJ: President Trump believed his Truth Social post demanding prosecutions of James Comey and other political foes was a private message to his attorney general, and "and was surprised to learn it was public."

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 23h

Some exciting news: 404 Media just won a grant via Muckrock to investigate book bans and educational censorship in the U.S. The plan is to file hundreds of public records requests around the country and to report on and archive all the documents for public use:

www.404media.co/help-us-inve...

Help Us Investigate Book Bans and Educational Censorship Around America

404 Media has gotten a grant to unearth public records about systematic censorship of books, schools, and libraries in the U.S.

www.404media.co

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 22h

The world's in a bad way, but now and then something goes right

Headline: "Man who appealed Pelicot rape conviction handed longer jail term"

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Fred Studemann @frederick65.ft.com · 23h

European modernism reaches new heights …. Hungary’s László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel literature prize

on.ft.com/4mVpHPC Hungary’s László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel literature prize

Hungary’s László Krasznahorkai wins Nobel literature prize

[FREE TO READ] Dystopian novelist recognised for his ‘compelling and visionary oeuvre’ in the central European tradition of Franz Kafka

on.ft.com

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Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 23h

Opinion: The real challenge is for Donald Trump to ensure the agreement moves beyond the hostage deal and leads to a more permanent settlement in Gaza, with the thornier issues still to be negotiated. on.ft.com/48nbyHr

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Josh Spero @joshspero.ft.com · 1d

Garbo talks! Tbf Garbo never shuts up

TV screen reading Breakfast talk with Josh Spero, FT wealth editor

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Ian Beestin @ianbeestin.bsky.social · 1d

My school orchestra percussion section once sabotaged Songs Of Praise’s continuity by swapping clothes and instruments between takes of hymns. The teachers were quite angry when it was broadcasted but stopped short of accusing us of being part of the “leftwing cultural elite”.

Josh Spero @joshspero.ft.com · 1d

Interesting comment: “Orchestras destroy conductors they dislike, and do it in such a subtle way there is no way to prove it.” on.ft.com/3KFgtd3

Discord at the Venice opera house

[FREE TO READ] La Fenice’s orchestra has objected loudly to the appointment of a conductor aligned with Giorgia Meloni’s party

on.ft.com

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