Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Laura Sell

Siva @sivav.bsky.social · 2d

I wrote about the “compact” for higher education

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down

How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

newrepublic.com

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Reposted by Laura Sell

Progress NC Action @pnca.bsky.social · 5d

Voters across party lines agree. We want fair maps. #ncpol #gerrymandering https://ncnewsline.com/2025/10/02/as-redistricting-fight-looms-north-carolina-poll-shows-voters-of-all-parties-oppose-gerrymandering/

As redistricting fight looms, North Carolina poll shows voters of all parties oppose gerrymandering • NC Newsline

A poll found 84% of North Carolina voters say redrawing maps for partisan advantage is “never acceptable” and they should be drawn neutrally.

ncnewsline.com

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 6d

Holy shit!

southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 6d

I love when student journalists break a crazy story, especially about their own school. This one is extraordinarily macabre. www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2025/10/01/u...

USC sold dead bodies to U.S. military to train IDF medical personnel

A review of seven years’ worth of contracts unveiled more than $860,000 to use cadavers in surgical trainings involving the Israeli Defense Forces.

www.uscannenbergmedia.com

Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 7d

What a life, what an unequivocally good person who devoted herself to making the world a better place.

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 7d

Jane Goodall, ethologist and conservationist, has died. She was 91

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 8d

Staff where I work have been targeted for their political views in the past. Academic staff like book editors deserve academic freedom too.
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Academic Staff Need Academic Freedom, Too (opinion)

Colleges cannot continue to operate as if all staff work is identical, Aaron Stoller writes.

www.insidehighered.com

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Reposted by Laura Sell

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 8d

my latest is expanding on the observation that your view of the politics of opposition to the administration depend largely on your view of the election (gift link)

Opinion | Trump Has No Mandate to Destroy America

www.nytimes.com

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 8d

I recommend the new book from @lilyking.bsky.social, "Heart the Lover," especially if you went to UNC-CH in the 80s or 90s! Fun Easter eggs in there for locals. But also smart and romantic.
groveatlantic.com/book/heart-t...

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 9d

I am definitely "let me read this!" years old.

Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 10d

The real generational divide is people who refuse to watch a video if it could be an article versus people who refuse to read an article if it could be a video

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 9d

"Publishing is an industry with stagnant salaries, considerable instability, and high turnover. 'It’s hard to invest in authors when the people who are working on the books are not being invested in.'"
thewalrus.ca/the-publishi...

The Publishing Industry Has a Gambling Problem | The Walrus

Companies keep betting on the next bestseller. Literature is poorer for it

thewalrus.ca

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 12d

My colleagues & I mentor over a dozen student workers a year, teaching them all aspects of publishing and helping prepare them for jobs.

Rebecca Colesworthy @rcolesworthy.bsky.social · 13d

"Bucknell has decided to close its highly respected, decades-old UP in June 2026. The stated reason? The press serves scholars, not Bucknell undergrads. Bucknell undergrads—& some grad students as well—disagree." FANTASTIC piece on BUP's student internship program. networks.h-net.org/group/discus...

Bucknell UP Closure Would Also Mark End of Vital Student Internship Program | H-Net

A post from Feeding the

networks.h-net.org

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 13d

I am 52, and yes, I was assigned full books to read starting in 5th grade. By senior year, probably about 10 novels, plays, and books of poetry. My kids are 20 & 23. In public school in NC, my son was not assigned a full book (in AP classes). In private, my daughter read 2 or 3 a year.

Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 14d

I was unfamiliar with this recent EU law that could cause millions of books to be pulped or banned in the EU because of burdensome rules. Crazy.

The Scholarly Kitchen @scholarlykitchen.bsky.social · 14d

Guest Post — If a Tree Falls with Nobody Around to Record its Exact Location, Was it Even Compliant? scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/09/25/g...

Guest Post — If a Tree Falls with Nobody Around to Record its Exact Location, Was it Even Compliant? - The Scholarly Kitchen

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) could make millions of books illegal in Europe, forcing publishers to pulp stock and raising costs for readers.

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

Reposted by Laura Sell

Progress NC Action @pnca.bsky.social · 14d

"Farmers, small businesses, & local governments are hanging by a thread. We need officials in Washington to do their job and act with urgency, not hide behind empty rhetoric about creating efficiency." #ncpol #helene https://ncnewsline.com/2025/09/23/where-does-western-nc-stand-a-year-after-helene/

Where does Western NC stand a year after Helene? • NC Newsline

Farmers, small businesses, and local governments are hanging by a thread. We need officials in Washington to do their job and act with urgency.

ncnewsline.com

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Reposted by Laura Sell

Soraya Nadia McDonald @sorayanadiamcdonald.com · 15d

This part was pretty brilliant

'Sounds like threats to me': Jimmy Kimmel bashes FCC chair in new skit with famous actor

YouTube video by Robert Davis

youtu.be

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 17d

Glad parts of the Eno are back open, but looks like it's a long haul before it's back to "normal."
indyweek.com/news/chantal...

Heavily Damaged by Chantal, Eno River Trails Start to Reopen

Huge swaths of land and many trails along the Eno were closed due to dangerous flooding, following Chantal. Now they are slowly reopening.

indyweek.com

Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 20d

Lovely piece about beavers who have improved a stretch of Rocky Branch creek near NC State.
lithub.com/how-mutualis...

How Mutualism Between Humans and Beavers Can Boost Our Ecosystems (and Our Happiness)

I have been walking, nearly daily, past the lodge of beavers who have begun to asynchronously collaborate with a group of engineers. In this case, the engineers did not reshape logs that had been c…

lithub.com

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 20d

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history."
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Censorship Is the Authoritarian’s Dream

The right to free expression must include the right to say horrible and evil things.

www.insidehighered.com

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Bookshop.org @bookshop.org · 20d

Whatever you do, please don’t stop reading.

Read for joy. Read for education. Read for resistance. Read banned books. Read books by marginalized authors. Read about experiences that differ from your own.

Just. Keep. Reading.

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 20d

I am bummed that we cannot watch Only Murders and Abbott Elementary, but I think @tightheadpop.bsky.social did the right thing canceling our Hulu/Disney+ bundle. #BoycottDisney

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Laura Sell @laurasell.bsky.social · 21d

This is good news. Thanks, @joshsteinnc.bsky.social!
www.wunc.org/health/2025-...

North Carolina lifts prescription requirement for adults to get the new COVID-19 vaccines

The North Carolina health officials have issued a standing order that allows adults over the age of 18 with a high-risk condition to get a COVID-19 vaccine without a prescription.

www.wunc.org

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Reposted by Laura Sell

Duke University Press @dukepress.bsky.social · 21d

Durham! Join jazz great Nnenna Freelon and friends for the launch of her new memoir, "Beneath the Skin of Sorrow" next month at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The event is free, but tickets are required, so get yours now.
buff.ly/iYf1tzw

Photo of Nnenna Freelon, a Black woman wearing a white shirt and hoop earrings, with upswept hair, and a pink graphic reading "An evening with Nnenna Freelon. Conversation and book launch with Mark Anthony Neal and Karla F.C. Holloway. Thursday, October 23rd 6:00 pm. Nasher Museum of Art. dukeupress.edu The Duke Press and Nasher logos are at the bottom of the graphic.

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Reposted by Laura Sell

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 21d

Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love. The reason all of this is happening under the color of law is hyperconsolidation, dissent being traded straight up for merger approval, or fear of harassment.

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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 21d

Here’s what a Ball State University employee said that led to their termination:

Suzanne Swierc

Let me be clear: if you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can't be friends.
His death is a tragedy, and I can and do feel for his wife and children.
I believe in the Resurrection, and while it's difficult, I can and do pray for his soul.
Charlie Kirk's death is a reflection of the violence, fear, and hatred he sowed. It does not excuse his death, AND it's a sad truth.
The shooting is a tragedy, and I can and do feel for a college campus experiencing an active shooter situation.
The deaths of Melissa and Mark Hortman, the children shot and killed in Minneapolis last month, and the children shot in Colorado today are all tragedies that also deserve your attention.
Charlie Kirk excused the deaths of children in the name of the second amendment.

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Writers Guild of America West @wgawest.bsky.social · 21d

WGA Statement on ABC’s Decision to Pull Jimmy Kimmel Live!

The right to speak our minds and to disagree with each other - to disturb, even - is at the very heart of what it means to be a free people. It is not to be denied. Not by violence, not by the abuse of governmental power, nor by acts of corporate cowardice.
As a Guild, we stand united in opposition to anyone who uses their power and influence to silence the voices of writers, or anyone who speaks in dissent. If free speech applied only to ideas we like, we needn't have bothered to write it into the Constitution. What we have signed on to - painful as it may be at times - is the freeing agreement to disagree.
Shame on those in government who forget this founding truth. As for our employers, our words have made you rich.
Silencing us impoverishes the whole world.
The WA stands with Jimmy Kimmel and his writers.

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max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 21d

The union representing the musicians from Jimmy Kimmel’s band releases a statement calling the FCC’s pressure on Disney “state censorship.”

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