Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Alastair Coote

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 1h

The elimination of USAID is a moral atrocity and all involved made a choice to enable, and then lie about, ending the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) - Mohammed Taher clutched the lifeless body of his 2-year-old son and wept. Ever since his family's food rations stopped arriving at their internment camp in Myanmar in April, the father had watched helplessly as his once-vibrant baby boy weakened, suffering from diarrhea and begging for food.
On May 21, exactly two weeks after Taher's little boy died, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat before Congress and declared: "No one has died" because of his government's decision to gut its foreign aid program. Rubio also insisted: "No children are dying on my watch."
That, Taher says, "is a lie."

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Alastair Coote @alastair.is · 1h

Ah! That's nuts.

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Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 1h

Humans evolved a cognitive 'social proof' system for establishing what's true (if enough of the people around me believe something, I'll go along) and media fragmentation + social media has completely and totally hijacked it

Feels like AI will only make this worse

Lord Businessman II @lordbusinessman.bsky.social · 1h

"no in the future people will cryptographically verify what's true and-" no they will not. People are fucking stupid.

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Alastair Coote @alastair.is · 4h

Are there viable discount brands in the UK? Was surprised when I was visiting home to see everyone on a Tern. Here in NYC there are Radwagons, Lectrics less than half the price. Or maybe the tax dodge means everyone buys the upgrade?

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Melanie D’Arrigo @darrigomelanie.bsky.social · 15h

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 16h

NVIDIA and OpenAi:

Concerns that their “increasingly complex and interconnected web of business transactions is artificially propping up the trillion-dollar AI boom.“

@bloomberg.com $NVDA 👀
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

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Alastair Coote @alastair.is · 16h

Love this idea. You could probably do something interesting with geolocation tracking to unlock the audio… equally, not everything needs a tech layer. Conflicted!

Rick Paulas @rickpaulas.bsky.social · 20h

Loops, a serialized walking audio mystery through Prospect Park. Part 1 out now. Sound on. loopsprospectpark.com

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Alastair Coote @alastair.is · 16h

Alfred Hitchcock lived long enough to see The Muppets Movie and I hope he did

rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 17h

you ever think about those real weird overlaps. like tennessee williams might have listened to the ramones

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Tom Flood @tomflood.bsky.social · 20h

An adult driver angry at a child they hit with their car.

Our car culture summed up in one video.

Robson Fletcher @robsonfletcher.com · 20h

Police in Airdrie, Alberta (just north of Calgary) say this driver hit a 17-year-old girl in a marked crosswalk, got out of the vehicle, and appeared to get upset at the teenager before driving away.

They released this video and are now trying to identify the driver.

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Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · 21h

Her explicit reason for leaving, by the way, was that when she live-tweeted a staff meeting and accused her colleagues of hating free speech and they publicly pushed back, management refused to discipline them for arguing with her. You can understand most contemporary media dynamics from that alone.

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 21h

It's amazing how everyone supporting her seems to forget she wasn't cancelled at all. She quit. And almost immediately was able to launch this new publication. How the hell was she cancelled?

Some people criticized shitty takes. That's not being cancelled.

Eli Valley @elivalley.bsky.social · 21h

As one of the countless people *actually* cancelled by Bari Weiss, via her vast favor-trading networks of fellow nepotistic gatekeepers in media and publishing, I think both of these asinine dipshits should go fuck themselves.

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Alastair Coote @alastair.is · 22h

My hot take is that e-bikes are 10x more transformative than electric cars but get 0.1x the coverage

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

i recently got a great deal on a barely used folding ebike and i have to say it has revolutionized my train travel. i can get from my front door to the amtrak station in a little less than 5 minutes!!!

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Alastair Coote @alastair.is · 23h

When you prepare for your new job by binge watching The Newsroom

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 1d

Bari Weiss introduced herself to CBS News staff today on the network's 9AM call, saying she wants to "win," which requires restoring trust to CBS. She also said she was excited for staff to get to know the Free Press, and ended her remarks by saying: "Let's do the fucking news."

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Chicago Sun-Times @chicago.suntimes.com · 1d

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b-----' before shooting

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. A judge ordered Martinez and a co-defendant released pending trial.

trib.al

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Lydia Polgreen @polgreen.bsky.social · 2d

Not to be a pedant but Bari Weiss was a junior editor who occasionally wrote opinion pieces in the opinion section, not a columnist.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 2d

perhaps the biggest story TFPever ran was a catastrophically shoddy argument that George Floyd ackshully died of an overdose. When confronted with irrefutable evidence that the piece was simply wrong, Weiss didn’t take it down, she asked her critic, @radleybalko.bsky.social, to come on a podcast.

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 2d

David Ellison’s note to staff on Paramount’s acquisition of the Free Press

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Philip Eil @phileil.bsky.social · 2d

We really need to retire "contrarian" as a descriptor for Weiss immediately.

The reason she is getting this job right now is because of her *non-contrarian* sensibilities.

She espouses views that the US's current power structure likes.

NPR @npr.org · 2d

CBS' parent company will buy The Free Press and install Bari Weiss, its contrarian founder, as editor in chief of CBS News. n.pr/4o634cr

CBS' next top editor to be Bari Weiss of The Free Press

CBS' parent company will buy The Free Press and install Bari Weiss, its contrarian founder, as editor in chief of CBS News.

n.pr

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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 2d

Portland never stops being Portland.

competentposter @competentposter.bsky.social · 3d

wizard frog is insane

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Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 2d

One big asymmetry that Dems enable: Republicans attack Dem VOTERS as evil, enemies of the state and now, per Trump, a problem for the military to get rid of. We have one politician who called some of them deplorables and one who said they were weird and people behave as if these are the same

Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 2d

The media trots out the "deplorable" comment from a decade ago to castigate the left. Once a week now Trump implies that the military should destroy democrats, and it is just how things are.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

Trump to the Navy: "We have to take care of this little gnat that's on our shoulder called the Democrats."

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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 4d

Some of the same people yelling about H-1B visas are also loud boosters of AI, simultaneously telling us one is bad because it takes away jobs and the other is good because it eliminates jobs.

Justin Wolfers @justinwolfers.bsky.social · 4d

If H‑1Bs “took jobs,” you’d expect lower wages for U.S. grads. The best available studies show the opposite: 1990–2010 H‑1B inflows raised wages of American college grads by 4.2% and non‑college by ~2%, with native employment unchanged.

Think complements, not substitutes.

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Martin Robbins @mjrobbins.com · 4d

It’s also beyond insane that the Independent are quoting ChatGPT slop from a completely random blog that went viral, including factual errors about her life, and pretending that Routledge wrote it.

Joe Noonan @joenoonan.bsky.social · 5d

Dame Patricia Routledge’s poignant last message on ageing and finding herself

‘Let these years ahead be your treasure years,’ said actor in a moving reflection on her life

www.independent.co.uk

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 5d

SCOOP — Pennsylvania prosecutors were alerted to possible voting irregularities by one of MAGA's leading voices against voter fraud. A long paper trail shows Jack Posobiec has been living in Maryland but voting using his parents' PA address for years.

From @jsweetli.bsky.social, @slate.com + me:

MAGA’s “Voter Fraud” Watchdog Votes in a Swing State. He Doesn’t Live There.

A long paper trail shows that Jack Posobiec casts a ballot in one state and lives in another.

slate.com

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Alastair Coote @alastair.is · 5d

Note the use of “buzzworthy”. The Free Press isn’t popular and doesn’t generate impactful journalism. The metric here is “people in the industry talk about it”

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 5d

Bari Weiss is set to be named the editor in chief of CBS News, the New York Post reports

Paramount Skydance is poised to name Bari Weiss as editor in chief of CBS News in the coming days — giving the hard-charging journalist unusual clout to revamp the struggling network as it also acquires her scrappy news site the Free Press, The Post has learned.

Weiss — a 41-year-old former New York Times opinion writer who has built the Free Press into a buzzworthy site with a contrarian bent — is expected to be named to the top post in a Monday announcement, although the talks are in flux and the timing could change, a source close to the situation said.

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Ida Bae Wells @nhannahjones.bsky.social · 5d

In case it wasn’t clear, the anti-DEI crusade has never been about merit. Zero news experience. Never been a reporter. Elevated to Editor in Chief of CBS News, one of the most storied news institutions in the nation. www.mediaite.com/media/news/p...

Paramount Officially Acquiring The Free Press and Making Bari Weiss CBS News Editor in Chief: Report

Paramount Skydance will be officially acquiring The Free Press and hiring its founder Bari Weiss as editor in chief of its CBS News division, with the deal to be announced this coming Monday, accordin...

www.mediaite.com

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 6d

But also we’re terrified of the subway

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6d

Stephen Miller: "All that bullshit is done, over, it's finished. The gangbangers you deal with- they think they're ruthless? They have no idea how ruthless we are. They think they're tough? They have no idea how tough we are. They think they're hardcore? We are so much more hardcore than they are"

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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 6d

Green card holders versus undocumented immigrants being "a distinction without a difference" is an absolutely insane thing to assert

Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 6d

This short passage from a Politico afternoon newsletter captures a huge amount of the advantage gained by lying at scale and the why the DC press corps remains wired for the GOP.

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