Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Julie Goldberg

niki grayson @nikigrayson.com · 4h

the city of los angeles burned in january in part because of a man who couldn’t stop generating images of burning cities on ChatGPT, and then after he lit the fire he asked if the fire he started was his fault

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 1h

Pathetic. bsky.app/profile/step...

Stephen Totilo @stephentotilo.bsky.social · 2h

SCOOP: Last year, Ubisoft cancelled an Assassin's Creed game set during Reconstruction. Was to feature a Black Assassin who, among other things, fought the rise of the Klan

Sources: Leadership nixed it over concerns re: U.S. political climate, backlash to Yasuke

www.gamefile.news/p/scoop-ubis...

Scoop: Ubisoft cancelled a post-Civil War Assassin’s Creed last year

Company leadership deemed the project too controversial for the moment, sources tell Game File

www.gamefile.news

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 3h

Solar & wind met 109% of new electricity demand, globally, in the first half of 2025.

Renewables are handling all new demand & are inexorably moving beyond, to chip away at the FF foundation.

Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025 | Ember

Solar and wind outpaced demand growth in the first half of 2025, as renewables overtook coal’s share in the global electricity mix.

ember-energy.org

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 3h

Just your latest reminder that, although everyone has decided to stop talking about climate change, it is still very much happening -- worse and faster than predicted.

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Timothy Burke @bubbaprog.xyz · 3h

i'm not sure how you can claim to cover things fairly and fully when you're using the bootleg name that is officially only a "secondary name" for the department

Jon Passantino @passantino.bsky.social · 4h

CNN is now using the Trump preferred “Department of War” name in its official statements

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Julie Goldberg @juliegoldberg.bsky.social · 3h

Apple being neutral would be bad enough, but they are actively helping the villains.

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@GottaLaff @gottalaff.bsky.social · 3h

As Apple removes Joshua Aaron's ICEblock app.

ACLU @aclu.org · 3h

ICE has bought access to an “all-in-one” surveillance tool that gives it updated location data from hundreds of millions of phones, putting us all at risk of being tracked.

The government can’t be allowed to surveil us simply for having a cell phone.

ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day

Documents show that ICE has gone back on its decision to not use location data remotely harvested from peoples' phones. The database is updated every day with billions of pieces of location data.

www.404media.co

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Julie Goldberg @juliegoldberg.bsky.social · 3h

Baker & Taylor, founded in 1828, #library book distributors for approximately forever, is over. americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2025/10/08/b...

Baker & Taylor to Cease Operations | American Libraries Magazine

Despite measures to continue operations and preserve pending contracts with libraries, the book distributor Baker & Taylor will shutter.

americanlibrariesmagazine.org

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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 4h

A practice that would have been unthinkable under past administrations is becoming normalized: Sending ICE detainees, without due process, to far-flung prisons.

@nlanard.bsky.social takes us inside the "legal black hole" in Eswatini, where Trump is sending detainees.

ICE is sending people to a prison in Africa’s only absolute monarchy

Inside the “legal black hole” in Eswatini where Trump is sending detainees.

www.motherjones.com

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Congresswoman Chellie Pingree @pingree.house.gov · 4h

🧵

Yesterday, Stephen Miller had one of the most terrifying Freudian slips I've ever heard.

He claimed Trump has plenary authority (absolute power)—before cutting himself off.

Today, Trump said Governor Pritzker and Mayor Johnson should be *jailed*.

This is how authoritarian regimes talk. (1/3)

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4h

Pritzker: "He said he was going after the worst of the worst. It's not going after the worst of the worst when you're just literally stopping children who happen to be brown & asking them for papers as if they're gonna have proof they're a citizen. Pull out your phones and film everything you see"

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4h

Pritzker: "It's unconscionable. This has never happened before. They're calling out troops onto the streets of a state that doesn't want them and they're not even telling us where they're gonna go, what they're gonna do. This hasn't happened I don't think since the Civil War."

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 4h

Pritzker: "He wants to militarize major cities because he wants us to get used to the idea of troops on the streets. I believe he's gonna post people outside of polling places and if he needs to in order to control those elections, he'll assume control of the ballot boxes & count the votes himself"

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More Perfect Union @moreperfectunion.bsky.social · 6h

Microsoft has withdrawn its proposal for a data center in a Milwaukee suburbs after community pushback.

After opposition from area residents and elected officials the 244 acre Caledonia project will not proceed.

Microsoft drops Caledonia data center after facing opposition. Company looking for new site

Outcry from residents and elected officials caused Microsoft to drop the Caledonia plan. But the company is seeking an alternative site.

www.jsonline.com

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Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 9h

Miller has a real theory of the case: A latent majority out there can be sleepwalked into authoritarianism with enough numbing agitprop. Polls show majorities reject the autocratic abuses but Miller plainly thinks voters in the middle lack conviction about any of it.

newrepublic.com/article/2014...

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Julie Goldberg @juliegoldberg.bsky.social · 10h

"’Protestant Christianity is in our DNA.’ Wilson says. Because of that, …the U.S. must once again be largely populated by Protestants and perhaps ‘a handful of Catholics and a handful of Jews.’ Just like it used to be, maybe. The rest…should convert or leave.”

www.spiegel.de/internationa...

Trump's Crusaders: Christian Nationalists Are Gaining a Solid Foothold in Washington

U.S. President Donald Trump has opened the doors of power to far-right Christian nationalists. Their goal: an American theocracy. The separation of church and state in America is at risk.

www.spiegel.de

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 18h

Monstrous.

"federal agents detained nearly every resident of the 130-unit building—including children and babies—placing them in zip ties and separating them by race into vans for more than two hours early Tuesday morning."

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 21h

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 22h

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Julie Goldberg @juliegoldberg.bsky.social · 1d

Write about libraries without assuming librarians are backward technophobes challenge 2025.

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skellyton bones jensen @heykellyjensen.bsky.social · 1d

**NEW**

Today, the ACLU of South Carolina filed a lawsuit on behalf of public school students and school librarians. They're challenging the constitutionality of the state's book banning law and a memo outlining the state's content censorship policy.

bookriot.com/aclu-sc-laws...

Image of lady justice beside a stack of books.

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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 1d

Trump would not be treating half the country (well, more than half, but half of all voters) this way were it not for the Electoral College.

It's an artifact of slavery and it has got to go.

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Julie Goldberg @juliegoldberg.bsky.social · 1d

I have questions about the Wells Fargo story, too. The building went into foreclosure. ICE invaded. Those two events might be connected, but they might not be. The article everyone is sharing doesn't prove the connection.

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Sky Marchini @sky.skymarchini.net · 1d

Supreme Court: of course states can regulate, and restrict access to, medical procedures if there’s a compelling public interest

Colorado: (bans conversion therapy for minors)

Supreme Court: no not like that, we only meant abortion

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Julie Goldberg @juliegoldberg.bsky.social · 1d

So many AI tools seem to be a solution in search of a problem.

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Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 1d

It's not just that they're going to strike down a law against conversion therapy, it's that they're going to do it on behalf of made-up claims from a straw plaintiff who can't honestly show the law affected her at all

Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 1d

One thing about American's widespread distrust and disapproval of the Supreme Court is that mainstream news coverage mostly doesn't dwell on stuff like standing, so people don't even begin to grasp how rigged the Court truly is www.nytimes.com/live/2025/10...

Supreme Court Live Updates: Justices Seem Set to Rule Against Colorado’s Ban on Conversion Therapy

www.nytimes.com

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