Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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🎃nisillos @onisillos.bsky.social · 3h

“If H5N1 does make the jump in the US, we will likely not know about it until it is already a pandemic.”

open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse...

The Death of Public Health

Another Friday night massacre, but this time it's not just an essential federal public health agency that will die

open.substack.com

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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 1h

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Rudy wants revolution. @rude1.blacksky.team · Jul 19

I was explicitly rejected from funding by a white man who thought my definition of community Only applies to Black people. And yet, the white environmentalists in my mentions yesterday seem to fit this mutual accountability and grounding principle definition.

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Rudy wants revolution. @rude1.blacksky.team · Jul 19

The word "community" is generally co-opted to mean "audience" or "demographic" but when I use it, it represents mutual accountability and/or dependency between the one and the many. That grounding principle can be rooted in many things (sometimes destructive, sometimes generative)

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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 6h

This story suffers from the typical logical fallacies that come with population decline panic stories.

For starters it mentions robots only glancingly and AI not at all.

Either these technologies will vastly transform labor and capital or they will not.

But you can't have it both ways.

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 6h

China is experiencing a population decline on a scale and at a speed the world has never seen.

The impact could hamper its economic growth and its ambitions to rival the United States.

China’s demographic crisis means it’s going to run out of workers

China is experiencing unprecedented, and probably irreversible, population decline that will hamper its economic growth and its ambitions to rival the United States.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2h

New reporting: many apparently fired at CDC in 'error'. This is a failure by design given that the admin does not care about fulfilling agency missions. This is the kind of error that should have political consequences.

Unserious people cause real-world harm.

🎁
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/h...

Trump Administration Will Rehire Scores of Experts Fired in Error

www.nytimes.com

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Moritz #Ukraine Supporter 🌊🌊🌊 @moritzbhv.bsky.social · 2h

Neil Young to pull catalog from Amazon Music, calls for boycott on Bezos, Zuckerberg

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Wajahat Ali @wajali.bsky.social · 1h

Huge mistake by Trump to let the 4'10 freak Stephen Miller take center stage during his Presidency. The more people hear and see from Mini Himmler the more they are repulsed. Plus the ICE raids are horrific and inhumane.

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Governor Gavin Newsom @governor.ca.gov · 3h

I’m signing SB 41 to lower health care costs for all Californians.

Alongside the 2025 budget and CalRx, this bill marks the most aggressive effort in the nation to drive down prescription drug prices, boost transparency, and ensure savings reach consumers and families.

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Capital B @capitalb.bsky.social · 1h

Since June, the administration has faced lawsuits from four state attorneys general over its deployment — or attempted deployment — of National Guard troops into cities Trump has said requires federal intervention to restore order.

A City-by-City Breakdown of Trump’s Immigration Raids and Troop Deployments

The Trump administration has deployed federal troops into four cities, and there are no signs of a slowdown.

capitalbnews.org

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1h

What is above is either my opinion or me repeating widely-available information about NIH.

#1A
@jameeljaffer.bsky.social

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1h

Also, it is terrible for all the people whose careers are being toyed with, now and all year; all those who are being pushed out without cause, lawlessly.
Alongside all in the public who are being harmed by these attacks on our health and science.
Best to everyone.

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1h

Looks from here like the goal is to create confusion, and focus public attention on a subset of the most outrageous firings — to distract from the other firings.

We shouldn’t be fooled, and should demand that all the illegal shutdown RIFs are made null and void. /end

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1h

So to summarize:

- There is a pattern where Vought makes the RIFs too wide, apparently to flood the zone with sh*t and see who will draw protests.
- They restore some people after outrage and work by us.
- But we are still left with many who remain fired at the end.

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1h

But it took weeks or months of confusion before some had their (lawless) RIF notices revoked.

As was widely reported, several NIH scientists, including a major-award-winning Parkinson’s researcher, weren't fully de-RIF’d until @durbin.senate.gov caught out RFK Jr at a Senate hearing about them.

RFK Jr. told Congress no working scientists were fired, but these top NIH brain scientists are still facing job cuts

"As far as I know, we have not fired any working scientists," RFK Jr. had told Congress.

www.cbsnews.com

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1h

After the White House fired too many people, they then seemed to revert firings of people who would look bad to the public.

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1h

(side note: on lawlessness of the firings, see KBJ’s dissent at the SCOTUS shadow docket.)

Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1d

Scientists, journalists, all of us who believe in democracy and freedom and rule of law:
Please read KBJ's opinion in t July RIF case.

She begins:
"Under our Constitution, Congress has the power to establish administrative agencies and detail their functions"
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 1
JACKSON, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 24A1174
DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES, ET AL. v. AMERICAN FEDERATION
OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, ET AL.
ON APPLICATION FOR STAY
[July 8, 2025]
JUSTICE JACKSON, dissenting from the grant of application for stay.
Under our Constitution, Congress has the power to establish administrative agencies and detail their functions.
Thus, over the past century, Presidents who have attempted to reorganize the Federal Government have first
obtained authorization from Congress to do so. The President sharply departed from that settled practice on February 11, 2025, however, by allegedly arrogating this power
to himself. With no mention of congressional buy-in, the
President’s Executive Order No. 14210 mandates a “critical
transformation” of the Federal Government, to be accomplished by “eliminat[ing] or consolidat[ing]” existing agencies and ordering agency heads to “promptly undertake
preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force.” 90
Fed. Reg. 9669, 9670.
This unilateral decision to “transfor[m]” the Federal Government was quickly challenged in federal court. As relevant here, the District Judge thoroughly examined the evidence, considered applicable law, and made a reasoned
determination that Executive Branch officials should be enjoined from implementing the mandated restructuring until this legal challenge to the President’s authority to undertake such action could be litigated. But that temporary,
practical, harm-reducing preservation of the status quo was

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1h

In April there were widespread firings (RIFs) across HHS. Many people at NIH were lawlessly fired.

It was reported as more people getting RIF notices than the White House intended. Many scientists got included.

Doctor Behind Award-Winning Parkinson’s Research Among Scientists Purged From NIH

Leading scientists at the National Institutes of Health, the US’s leading medical research agency, were swept up Tuesday in the Trump administration’s latest firing blitz.

www.wired.com

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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 1h

Seeing a lot of celebration of this as a win.

But at NIH we have seen this exact play before.

It looks like it is the Vought strategy -and to stop the lawless firings we have to see the bigger picture.
A 🧵:

Trump Administration Will Rehire Scores of Experts Fired in Error

www.nytimes.com

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Serienya @serienya.bsky.social · 1h

Gee, would have been nice if the media had treated Project 2025 as an actual threat to democracy.

www.huffpost.com/entry/stephe...

As Trump Moves Toward Autocracy, Top Aide Stephen Miller Is Way Ahead Of Him

The president’s chief propagandist accuses opponents of “insurrection” and attempting a “coup” — while declaring Trump has “plenary authority.”

www.huffpost.com

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🦋💔🇺🇸SEB🇺🇸💔🦋 @sebastiangarof5.bsky.social · 11h

1/4🧵
Dominion Voting Systems was sold to a company founded and run by Scott Leiendecker, who is a former Republican election official from Missouri. The new entity, Liberty Vote, now owns and operates Dominion, with Leiendecker serving as its head. 🔄

Scoop: Dominion
Voting sold to company run by ex-GOP election official

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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 1h

So now the Administration are saying that the mass firing of CDC scientists, including many responsible for preventing outbreaks, was an “error” and many will be brought back.

Whether by intention or incompetence, dismantling public health will kill people.

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Wtime @wtime.bsky.social · 1h

I have never had a DO use manual medicine or only hands-on treatment, even the DO surgeon, decades ago.

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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 1h

"Sceptics are privately - and some now publicly - asking whether the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be, at least in part, the result of what they call 'financial engineering'. In other words - there are fears these companies are overvalued."

A tangled web of deals stokes AI bubble fears in Silicon Valley

Some are worried that the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be a bubble waiting to burst.

www.bbc.com

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 2h

Ha ha ha they're like authoritarians www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

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