Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

www.thenation.com/article/worl...

“I hate to say it, but the American settlers are the most harsh, the most racist towards us,” Abu Diab, the activist from Al Bustan, told me.

“For example, so many of the settlers who took over houses in Sheikh Jarrah, in Silwan, in Batn al Halwa: you can immediately tell they are American from their accent,” Abu Diab said in a later interview in August 2025, “and some of them who commit violence against the Palestinian citizens also proudly say, ‘I am from New York, I am from California.”

August 27, 2025 at 5:15 AM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Baffling page in Night-Night New York

Page says “good night Yankee stadium, the crowds have gone away, turn out the lights, close up the gates, until it’s time to play.” With a drawing of soccer field

August 14, 2025 at 2:39 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

July 22, 2025 at 12:15 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

www.middleeasteye.net/news/afp-war...

AFP, following the lead of its journalists’ union, warns its journalists in Gaza are dying of starvation

July 22, 2025 at 12:07 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Good sprinkles are back

May 18, 2025 at 12:21 AM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

This is Hossam’s team, and we are sharing his final message :

“If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed—most likely targeted—by the Israeli occupation forces. When this all began, I was only 21 years old—a college student with dreams like anyone else. For past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents—anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side.

By God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now, I am finally at rest—something I haven’t known in the past 18 months . I did all this because I believe in the Palestinian cause. I believe this land is ours, and it has been the highest honor of my life to die defending it and serving its people.

I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories—until Palestine is free.”

— For the last time, Hossam Shabat, from northern Gaza.

March 24, 2025 at 5:51 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Sir this is your bio

March 13, 2025 at 1:08 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

ok, good…

Screenshot of bluesky accounts skeeting “who up grounding they hog”

February 3, 2025 at 5:05 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Fine

Screenshot of the word “spaghetti” in Webster’s word-of-the-year gif, taken at 4:27

Screenshot of the word “spaghetti” in Webster’s word-of-the-year gif, taken at 6:21

January 3, 2025 at 11:25 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Ah, and an ad on the story.

Sponsored content from Amazon about "disrupting with generative AI" and "navigating the AI wilderness" and "leveling up."

December 23, 2024 at 4:40 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Excellent reporting about how Big Tech's insatiable desire for AI data is sapping electricity from power grids, leaving many people without basic services or dealing with the fallout from environmentally destructive power plants.

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Screenshot from Washington Post article, reading:

"CAMERON, Ariz. — Living on one of the largest swaths of land in America without electric power, Thomasina Nez’s entire life is a scramble to complete basic tasks.

To take a hot shower, she must wait for buckets of water to come to a boil on a small propane stove outside her wood-framed roundhouse. To make meals, she relies mostly on canned goods because unrefrigerated produce rots quickly in the Arizona heat. It’s a struggle to stay warm at night, because she refuses to use her coal-powered heater after its fumes killed her two dogs."

Screenshot from Washington Post article, reading:

"Nationwide, concern is rising in local communities about the burgeoning data center industry, with residents complaining that the units bring little in the way of jobs or revenue while straining local resources, raising utility prices and forcing communities to return to outdated and environmentally suspect modes of electricity generation, including coal and natural gas.

In drought-ridden Arizona, several towns have passed ordinances deterring tech companies from using water to cool the supercomputers that fuel the artificial intelligence revolution. That has forced the data centers to chill their warehouses with electricity, making the stress on the power grid especially intense, experts said."

Screenshot of the Washington Posr article, reading:

"After a years-long courtship of Big Tech by local politicians, power companies and utility regulators eager for the promise of tax revenue and jobs, the strain on Arizona’s power grid is already apparent. Often, vulnerable communities are paying the price. While Nez and her neighbors lost a shot at getting power, the historically Black town of Randolph, almost 60 miles south of Phoenix, faces the expansion of a massive natural gas plant that emits particulate matter linked to asthma and lung cancer."

December 23, 2024 at 4:40 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Ok another gift idea: tiny beautiful vase shaped like a mushroom, large enough for a single flower or sprig. For sale at union square holiday market. Got the one in the middle for my sister

Row of tiny vases shaped like mushrooms. The one in the middle is grayish white and brown, and charmingly lopsided

December 19, 2024 at 10:44 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

lol www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/b...

Screenshot of a quote from the NYT story saying: “I can think of very few better stories than the role of the C.E.O. at this particular moment in history, where the demands on individuals are bigger than ever and they’re more confusing than ever.”

December 19, 2024 at 1:18 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

I recommend hanging your holiday wreath on your front door, to welcome guests into your home

December 3, 2024 at 8:22 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Abundance agenda:

November 29, 2024 at 6:11 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Good blog on a fun movie imo blindfieldjournal.com/2024/11/08/w...

November 24, 2024 at 5:16 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Under “news analysis,” the NYT published a thoughtful history of the word pogrom in order to evaluate its usage in reference to clashes between Israeli soccer fans and protestors in Amsterdam. Other words, meanwhile, are not up for analysis.

Screenshot of headline and subhead: “The Amsterdam Attacks and the Long Shadow of ‘Pogroms’
Many have used an old word to refer to recent events. Is it accurate?”

Screenshot of a headline and subhead: “LEAKED NYT GAZA MEMO TELLS JOURNALISTS TO AVOID WORDS “GENOCIDE,” “ETHNIC CLEANSING,” AND “OCCUPIED TERRITORY”
Amid the internal battle over the New York Times’s coverage of Israel’s war, top editors handed down a set of directives.”

November 24, 2024 at 4:58 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Me rolls

November 24, 2024 at 4:13 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

my loav

November 22, 2024 at 10:03 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Oh my god lol

www.404media.co/email/c1b02e...

November 20, 2024 at 2:20 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

Yes and Aghast banana says what’s up

November 19, 2024 at 3:36 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

The National Writers Union released the following statement about Israel’s killing of journalists.

“While Palestinian journalists are being silenced with bullets, many US journalists are being silenced by firings, intimidation, fear, and self-censorship,” said NWU president Larry Goldbetter.

October 10, 2024 at 4:45 PM

Laura Wagner

@laurawags.bsky.social

I’m glad this report and others like it exist, but I wonder how long American media can go on treating the US continuing to support Israel despite it having “broken the law” as a newsworthy aberration and not as our country’s longstanding formal policy position www.propublica.org/article/gaza...