Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Karrie Jacobs

@karrieurbanist.bsky.social

1.3K followers 1.3K following 3.8K posts

Writer. Mostly cities, architecture and design. Also the politics of public space, technology and trees. Faculty at SVA’s DCrit. South Brooklyn and the Western Catskills.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · Jun 17

As 270 Park nears completion, I review my decades long fascination with architect Norman Foster, and the lifecycle of starchitecture.

www.thenation.com/article/cult...

Norman Foster’s 270 Park and the Rise of the New Office Building

The building's dramatic and dazzling feats of architecture make it appear as if it were hovering above the street. But is that a good thing?

www.thenation.com

2 9

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 8h

Corruption is the new black.

Nick Pinto @nickpinto.bsky.social · 13h

The NYC Department of Correction is extremely serious about projecting an image of reform, lawfulness, and considered, sober judgment these days, so it has decided to rename its Lower Manhattan jail complex after... multiply disgraced criminal Bernie Kerik.

hellgatenyc.com/city-jail-na...

Adams Administration Quietly Renames the Tombs for Disgraced Criminal Bernard Kerik

The Lower Manhattan jail facility briefly bore Kerik's name once before, until he was convicted of corruption.

hellgatenyc.com

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 8h

Too bad. Al Jazeera was an unusual force for openness in the Middle East. But if Qatar is as deeply entangled with Trump and Netanyahu as it appears, they will no longer be willing to support independent journalism.

Charles Keener @charleskeener.bsky.social · 8h

israelpalestinenews.org/trump-netany...

Trump and Netanyahu force Qatar to purge Al Jazeera

Change at Al Jazeera, and a sober reflection on Israeli society two years after the October 7 massacre.

israelpalestinenews.org

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 9h

What she said…

omallj.bsky.social @omallj.bsky.social · 9h

youtube.com/shorts/TweC6...

BREAKING: ICE brutally attacks female journalist in Chicago and wrecks bystander’s car #shorts

YouTube video by Jess Craven 101

youtube.com

Reposted by Karrie Jacobs

Slackermom @slackermom.bsky.social · 12h

Was just at a neighborhood school at dismissal. Hundreds of people with whistles surrounding the school and stationed down every block making sure ICE doesn’t snatch anyone. The same is happening at all the schools around here. I love my neighborhood and I love Chicago.

24 740 3.4K

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 10h

I believe he’s issued a traditional architecture edict this time around, too. May be the only D.C. tradition he values, or claims to value.

1 1

Reposted by Karrie Jacobs

Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 16h

Lawyers have been publicizing a new term to describe ICE's racially targeted detainments: a “Kavanaugh stop.”

Mother Jones reporter Pema Levy explains in this new video:

22 320 630

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 12h

Why?

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/10/w...

WGN-TV producer detained during ICE enforcement action in Lincoln Square

A WGN-TV video editor and producer was roughly detained by two Border Patrol agents on Friday morning during a highly visible rush hour enforcement action in Lincoln Square.

www.chicagotribune.com

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 16h

Adding this to the list of reasons why I’ll never again set foot in Florida.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...

Customers May Openly Carry Firearms in Florida’s Publix Stores, Company Says

www.nytimes.com

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 16h

I know what you mean. I hate stuffingshed.

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 17h

Has Albert Speer come back from the dead?

Olga Nesterova @onestpress.onestnetwork.com · 1d

Press pool: “On Trump’s desk in the Oval Office today was a plan for a triumphal arch on the other side of the river from the Lincoln Memorial”

2 1 4

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 17h

War ravaged Portland: the plushies are battling it out with the inflatables. Take shelter immediately!

dr. caitlin m. green @caitlinmoriah.bsky.social · 1d

there are SO many more inflatable costumes tonight. clearly we have settled on a motif

Wide shot of many people in inflatable costumes

5 31 130

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 19h

Quite the coincidence.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

Letitia James Is Among Prominent Black Women Targeted by Trump

www.nytimes.com

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 20h

Just a story about DHS’s relentless efforts to deport the dead….Because Kristi Noem is “just trying to make our streets safe.”

enewspaper.latimes.com/infinity/art...

enewspaper.latimes.com

Reposted by Karrie Jacobs

WEFAIL @wefail.bsky.social · 21h

6 68 240

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 21h

“‘He said boxing helped him out a lot. But he still was going through struggles. He still had anger issues.’”

A nut job beat a stranger to death at Jay Street-Metrotech, a busy Bklyn subway station.

After a previous arrest, someone sentenced the nut job to boxing lessons as rehab. Bad idea.

Man, 64, Is Fatally Beaten in a Subway Station After Chance Encounter

www.nytimes.com

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 22h

“No other country on the planet is using high altitudes for solar, wind and hydropower on a scale as great as China’s on the Tibetan Plateau. The effort is a case study of how China has come to dominate the future of clean energy.”

Meanwhile, our dumbass autocrat is canceling off-shore wind.

Why China Built 162 Square Miles of Solar Panels on the World’s Highest Plateau

www.nytimes.com

1 2

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 22h

“The song, Noem said, ‘attacks individuals who are just trying to make our streets safe.’”

Safe? For whom?

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/a...

Kristi Noem Attacks Zach Bryan’s New Lyrics About ICE

www.nytimes.com

3 8 35

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 22h

Too late for Tish. But a Venezuelan opposition leader, female, has just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

(Maybe bombing random boats in the Caribbean isn’t the way to woo the Committee.)

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 22h

“…when Jared Kushner heard that Hamas would begin talks to release Israeli hostages, he was fielding calls at his mansion, which sits on a man-made island just north of Miami. He…drove…to another mansion — this one owned by the billionaire Steve Witkoff…”

We’re now an oligarchy.

How Jared Kushner, a Self-Described ‘Deal Guy,’ Helped Broker a Gaza Breakthrough

www.nytimes.com

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 22h

Pssst.

Nobel Peace Prize for Tish James.

Pass it on.

Reposted by Karrie Jacobs

Four Seasons Total Landscaping (not really!) @4seasonstl.bsky.social · 1d

Did Schumer hire a new social media team?

Chuck Schumer @schumer.senate.gov · 1d

Someone like JD Vance, who has been on the receiving end of a lot of insinuations, should know to couch his language more carefully.

Anyways, I’ll be here, ready to make a deal to save Americans’ health care and reopen the federal government that Republicans shut down.

A headline from the New York Post reads: “JD Vance calls Chuck Schumer ‘one of the most famous Palestinians’”

26 60 550

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 23h

I don’t know who’s inside the Portland frog costume, but whoever they are, they’re playing 10-dimensional amphibian chess.

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 1d

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

Reposted by Karrie Jacobs

Melissa Ryan @melissaryan.bsky.social · 1d

After Pritzker and Newsom threatened to leave the NGA, the Republican Chair breaks with Trump. Pressure works. Keep it up!

Alex Wayne @aawayne.bsky.social · 1d

“Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”

The Republican chair of the National Governors Association breaks with Trump.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...

Oklahoma’s Republican Governor Criticizes National Guard Deployment in Chicago

www.nytimes.com

21 440 1.7K

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 23h

Hello, New York!!!

Daisy Gardner @daisygardner.bsky.social · 1d

FYI for all New Yorkers:

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 23h

I read this and think:

Wait, they slice a baby’s foreskin off and all they give him is Tylenol?

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 1d

RFK JR: There are many other confirmations -- there are two studies that show children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism. It’s highly likely because they are given Tylenol