Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

Ken Paxton sues to shut down Texas Latino voter registration group ahead of 2026 election

www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/tex...

A screenshot of part of the article reads:

Paxton’s claims stem from an August 2024 post on X by Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, who said that a friend of a friend’s wife had seen organizations registering immigrants to vote outside state driver’s license facilities in Fort Worth and Weatherford. She did not say how she knew they were immigrants or provide any other evidence to back up the claims.

December 3, 2025 at 1:20 PM

Reposted by Kevin Baird

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social

Trump has now pardoned a murderous drug lord who smuggled 400 tons of cocaine into the country, AND the guy who ran the Dark Web's biggest drug marketplace.

Reuters @reuters.com · 3d

Former Honduran president released from US prison after Trump pardon reut.rs/3Y3ziKg

Former Honduran president released from US prison after Trump pardon

President Donald Trump, who has painted himself as a fearsome warrior against illegal drugs, pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a 45-year sentence after being convicted of conspiring to import tons of cocaine into the United States.

reut.rs

December 2, 2025 at 8:03 PM

Reposted by Kevin Baird

vp

@vptevo.bsky.social

in the midst of our supposed campaign against Venezuelan drug traffickers the President of the United States has chosen to pardon the Former President of Honduras, freeing him from his long prison sentence earned for trafficking more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States

Donald J. Trump
@realDonald Trump
If Tito Asfura wins for President of Honduras, because the United States has so much confidence in him, his Policies, and what he will do for the Great People of Honduras, we will be very supportive. If he doesn't win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is. Tito will be a Great President, and the United States will work closely with him in order to ensure the success, with all of its potential, of Honduras! Additionally, I will be granting a Full and Complete Pardon to Former President Juan Orlando Hernandez who has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly. This cannot be allowed to happen, especially now, after Tito Asfura wins the Election, when Honduras will be on its way to Great Political and Financial Success. VOTE FOR TITO ASFURA FOR PRESIDENT, AND CONGRATULATIONS TO JUAN ORLANDO HERNANDEZ ON YOUR UPCOMING PARDON. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE HONDURAS GREAT AGAIN!
PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP
24 ReTruths 77 Likes
11/28/25, 1:18 PM

Juan Orlando Hernández, Former President of Honduras, Sentenced to 45 Years in Prison for Conspiring to Distribute More Than 400 Tons of Cocaine and Related Firearms Offenses

November 28, 2025 at 10:12 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

A passage from the book Enchiridion by Epictetus reads:

As a wolf resembles a dog, so both a flatterer, and an adulterer and a parasite, resemble a friend. Take care then that instead of watch-dogs you do not without knowing it let in mischievous wolves.

November 23, 2025 at 2:09 PM

Reposted by Kevin Baird

David Mastio

@davidmastio.bsky.social

The Republicans are still afraid of disagreeing with Trump www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-...

Trump wants death for 6 Democrats. Only 1 of our KS or MO senators disagreed | Opinion

David Mastio asked the four Republican senators from Missouri and Kansas if they agree. Only one thought it was important enough to say Trump was wrong. | Opinion

www.kansascity.com

November 21, 2025 at 10:01 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

The conservative network of record has chosen not to broadcast conservative Liz Cheney speaking at her conservative dad's funeral.

#Cheney

November 20, 2025 at 5:20 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

"The court gave the school districts until Dec. 1 to remove any Ten Commandments displays that are currently up"

Judge blocks Ten Commandments display at Texas school districts like Conroe ISD

A federal judge blocked 14 public school districts — including Conroe ISD — to stop the Ten Commandments displays.

www.houstonchronicle.com

November 18, 2025 at 9:04 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

Spot the difference.

#ReleaseTheFiles

A split screen shows BBC CNN and Ms. Now all playing the Epstein victims news conference while Fox News ignores it and does a segment on the Butler Trump shooter.

November 18, 2025 at 3:06 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

🎁

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

A snapshot of the article reads: The new model not only provides more accurate 2-week forecasts of temperature, pressure and wind, but can also predict tropical storm tracks, according to DeepMind researchers. That means it's predictions of a hurricane's path is accurate 3 days ahead as the previous model was at 2 days out, testing shows.

The new weather model has other improvements sought by energy traders, including hourly forecast instead of 12-hour outlooks. It can also generate predictions roughly eight times faster than DeepMind's previous AI weather model.

An image from Google DeepMind's forthcoming WeatherNext2AI model is shown as well.

November 17, 2025 at 3:35 PM

Reposted by Kevin Baird

Marc Elias

@marcelias.bsky.social

Missouri voters have the power to veto the state’s new GOP congressional gerrymander at the ballot box – but national Republicans are ramping up their efforts to stop them from having the final word. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Republicans in ‘Bare-Knuckle Brawl’ to Stop Missourians From Voting on Gerrymander

Read more here.

www.democracydocket.com

November 14, 2025 at 9:15 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

No new cases since April. 👍

KDHE says 2-year-long tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas City, Kansas, is over

One of the largest tuberculosis outbreaks in the last several decades was declared over Friday by Kansas health officials.

www.kshb.com

November 14, 2025 at 7:41 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

Texas A&M System bans race, gender ideology 'advocacy' in lessons without university president's approval

www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston...

A snip from the article reads:

"Under the new rules, professors must get their president's approval for courses and any material that "advocate" race, gender or sexual identity-related topics, and are banned from introducing course material deemed "inconsistent" with their approved syllabus.

In addition, the schools' complaint hotlines will soon allow students to report "inaccurate or misleading course content" that strays from approved syllabi. The rules could come into play as Texas A&M expands its review of all course across the system to every semester."

November 14, 2025 at 12:28 AM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

This was an interesting read.

Google’s top AI executive seeks the profound over profits and the “prosaic” -

www.reuters.com

November 13, 2025 at 1:16 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

It should be repeated over and over again. Republicans have clearly shown they will grind this country to a halt and starve Americans before they agree to any ACA extensions.

It's beyond shameful and another #AmericaLast policy choice.

🎁

Republicans Reject Shutdown Offer as Travel, Food Aid Delays Hit

Senate Republicans on Friday rejected Democrats’ offer to scale back their shutdown demands to a one-year extension of expiring health care subsidies, prolonging a stalemate that has disrupted air tra...

www.bloomberg.com

November 7, 2025 at 9:02 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

‘Jenga Tower’ US Economy Teeters as Middle Class Pulls Back Spending

The surprising resilience of the US economy this year is masking underlying weakness among low- and middle-income households, as higher-income Americans continue to drive growth.

www.bloomberg.com

November 6, 2025 at 8:26 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

The author is obviously biased to LDES, and I'm a fan of Fourth Power's solution, but I found this article interesting nonetheless as I was unaware of ELCC.

Why this little-known metric will decide the value of future energy resources

The declining effective load carrying capability of short-duration batteries creates a planning dilemma for utilities, writes Fourth Power CEO Arvin Ganesan.

www.utilitydive.com

November 6, 2025 at 2:28 PM

Reposted by Kevin Baird

Jesse D. Jenkins

@jessedjenkins.com

Cost estimates for new gas power plants just keep rising! www.utilitydive.com/news/gas-pow... 🔌💡

According to Enverus, capital costs for new natural gas power plants now average $2,200/kW to $3,000/kW. An analysis by GridLab adds another $1,500/kW levelized for the 20-year cost of fuel and $500/kW for pipeline infrastructure, putting the cost of new gas generation at $4,000/kW to $4,500/kW.

Kevin Smith, CEO of Arevon Energy, spent years working on natural gas projects alongside nuclear and renewables before transitioning to focus on renewables exclusively. He suggested there was a ceiling to how much gas could be built to meet near-term demand given the prices, pipeline constraints and interconnection queues.

“Tens of gigawatts of new generation from natural gas is likely at least five years away, if not more,” Smith said.

Table: Comparison of typical cost and flexibility characteristics for various gas generation technologies: Natural Gas Combined Cycle, Natural Gas Combustion Turbine, NGCT Aeroderivative, and Reciprocating Internal Combustion Engine plants. From Ascend Analytics’ report on thermal generation.

November 4, 2025 at 6:26 PM

Reposted by Kevin Baird

Michelle

@footnoted.bsky.social

After losing my beloved dog, Max, back in March after just one shot of Zoetis' so-called magic drug #librela, I started shouting at whomever would listen that this drug was bad news. Zoetis knew it because they registered the domain name: librelakilledmydog.com. Today's 3Q earnings confirm this.

librelakilledmydog.com

November 4, 2025 at 7:23 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

How to Crush the American Battery Boom

washingtonmonthly.com/2025/11/02/h...

A screenshot of the article reads:

With the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, the nonpartisan energy policy think tank Energy Innovation projects that 31,000 battery jobs will evaporate by 2030. But the more profound tragedy is the number of American jobs—approaching 1 million—in manufacturing, supporting industries, and local economies that will now never materialize.

November 3, 2025 at 4:11 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

Future of nation’s energy grid hurt by Trump’s funding cuts

theconversation.com/future-of-na...

This image is a horizontal bar chart titled, "Federal grants to improve the electricity grid cut or delayed."

A caption below the title provides context:

"The Trump administration's Department of Energy has terminated or put on hold billions of dollars of funding that includes projects meant to reduce the frequency and duration of blackouts and help utilities restore power faster. Other programs on hold had other primary goals, but would have improved the grid as well."

The chart lists the programs affected and the amount of funding cut or delayed for each. It is divided into two main categories.

Direct grid support

This section shows funding cuts for programs directly related to the grid:

Grid resilience and innovation (other than smart grid program): A cut of $1,420 million (or $1.42 billion).

Smart grid program: A cut of $725 million.
Long-duration energy storage: A cut of $127 million.

Energy improvements in rural and remote areas: A cut of $36 million.

Other primary goal with grid support as additional benefit

This section shows cuts for programs that had other goals but would have also helped the grid:

Improvements in energy-intensive industries: A cut of $8,898 million (or nearly $8.9 billion). This is represented by the longest bar on the chart by a large margin.

Hydrogen hubs: A cut of $1,200 million (or $1.2 billion).

The chart's sources are listed as The Conversation and Yardsale Energy.

November 1, 2025 at 3:07 AM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

Missouri gives ‘one of the biggest millionaire tax cuts’ this year...

thebeaconnews.org/stories/2025...

“We’re now in a situation in Missouri where someone who’s working very hard at a job and earning a modest wage has to pay income tax, whereas somebody who has a lot of passive income — say they’re making a lot of profit off cryptocurrency sales, for example — is going to be exempt from income tax,” he added. “And I don’t think that’s a situation that’s going to sit well with a lot of people.”

October 30, 2025 at 3:38 PM

Kevin Baird

@kevinbaird.bsky.social

What horror is in store for us if riots are being planned for?

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · Oct 29

“.. A top US military official has ordered the national guards of all 50 US states .. to form ‘quick reaction forces’ trained in ‘riot control’, including use of batons, body shields, Tasers and pepper spray, according to an internal Pentagon directive ..”

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...