Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Phil Orchard

EV Curve Futurist @evcurvefuturist.com · 1d

Renewables have officially overtaken coal in Australia for the first time. ⚡🇦🇺 In September, renewables hit record highs while coal fell to record lows. The shift’s no longer theoretical — it’s happening in real time. Clean energy is now the backbone of Australia’s power grid. 🌞💨 #EnergyTransition

9 72 260

Phil Orchard @philorchard.bsky.social · 1d

And speaking of deterrence, a second conviction by the ICC (following Ntaganda) for the crime of forcible transfer.

Dr Melanie O'Brien @drmelob.bsky.social · 1d

Accountability for #Janjaweed crimes incl rape, murder, torture, forcible transfer. Pleased to see in particular the accountability for SGBV; some #justice for the many girls & women raped in this awful conflict & #genocide in #Sudan. I hope it will be a deterrent to those committing current crimes.

Lucy Gaynor @lucyjgaynor.bsky.social · 1d

#ICC judges convict Abd-Al-Rahman, Janjaweed militia leader, of 27 counts of crimes against humanity & #warcrimes in Darfur, #Sudan, in 2003-04.

Judge Korner made a point of naming #victims from each incident. There was a significant 🇸🇩 presence in the gallery.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...

1 2

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Dr Melanie O'Brien @drmelob.bsky.social · 1d

Accountability for #Janjaweed crimes incl rape, murder, torture, forcible transfer. Pleased to see in particular the accountability for SGBV; some #justice for the many girls & women raped in this awful conflict & #genocide in #Sudan. I hope it will be a deterrent to those committing current crimes.

Lucy Gaynor @lucyjgaynor.bsky.social · 1d

#ICC judges convict Abd-Al-Rahman, Janjaweed militia leader, of 27 counts of crimes against humanity & #warcrimes in Darfur, #Sudan, in 2003-04.

Judge Korner made a point of naming #victims from each incident. There was a significant 🇸🇩 presence in the gallery.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...

ICC convicts Sudan ex-militia leader Ali Kushayb of Darfur war crimes

The 27 guilty verdicts are the first handed down by The Hague-based court over war crimes in Sudanese region in 2000s.

www.aljazeera.com

1 2 7

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Xander ✺ @spectralcodex.com · 7d

A fantastic photo essay about photographing the vanishing Third Front factories of China.

Sixth Tone @sixthtone.bsky.social · 15d

I am a third-generation of the Third Front Movement. There’s a saying that captures the experience of families like ours: “First we devote our youth, then we devote our whole lives — in the end, even the futures of our children and grandchildren are tied to the cause.”

The Factory Workers Who Helped Build a Nation

A photographer strives to protect the memory of China’s Third Front Movement and the families who dedicated their lives to it.

www.sixthtone.com

1 7 18

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Austin Kocher, PhD @austinkocher.com · 1d

From the APA: A mountain of research shows that *detained* asylum seekers exhibited outcomes such as severe symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD, higher rates of self-harm, and worse social wellbeing.

updates.apaservices.org/mental-healt...

Mental Health and Immigration FAQ

This FAQ focuses on the mental health impacts of detentions, deportations, and family separations in immigrant communities.

updates.apaservices.org

1 3 4

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Adam Rothman enjoys a good sandwich @adamrothman.bsky.social · 2d

One guest, a retired major general, was asked about Hegseth's dismissal of the rules of engagement. He answered: "The words the president and secretary of defense are those of potential war criminals."

14 280 1.3K

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 2d

"At the Pentagon, some military lawyers, including international law experts within DoD’s Office of General Counsel, have raised concerns about the legality of the lethal strikes on suspected drug traffickers....

Multiple current and former JAGs ... told CNN that the strikes do not appear lawful."

Exclusive: Classified Justice Department opinion authorizes strikes on secret list of cartels, sources say | CNN Politics

The Trump administration has produced a classified legal opinion that justifies lethal strikes against a secret and expansive list of cartels and suspected drug traffickers, according to multiple peop...

www.cnn.com

54 350 860

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Abe Newman @abenewman.bsky.social · 3d

1/Striking speech by Macron: The future of European democracy depends on taking back its digital information space. A remarkable turn from Silicon Valley as source of enlightenment to being a purveyor of slop. And the stakes aren't just ad revenue but the nation.
defenddemocracy.eu/macron-democ...

"Europeans, let's wake up!" — Defend Democracy

“We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks.” President Macron on the occasion of German Unity Day, 3 October 2025.

defenddemocracy.eu

25 320 850

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 3d

Possible he was referring to the strike on Friday.

But the threat of conducting strikes on land is ominous and would be patently illegal.

They should think about implications for cooperation on migration if U.S. starts doing drone strikes in Venezuela or Mexico.

www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Trump says US hit another boat off Venezuela coast on Saturday

U.S. forces hit another vessel allegedly carrying illegal drugs off the coast of Venezuela on Saturday evening, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday, adding that the U.S. would also start looking at drug trafficking occurring on land.

www.reuters.com

1 9 16

Phil Orchard @philorchard.bsky.social · 3d

Tawny Frogmouth for the win!

Adam Morton @adammorton.bsky.social · 3d

Vote early/often.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Australian bird of the year 2025: vote for your favourite #birdoftheyear in the Guardian / BirdLife Australia poll

From little penguins to (very big) cassowaries, every bird has its fans. Vote for your favourite in the 2025 Guardian/BirdLife Australia poll

www.theguardian.com

1 1

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Scott Lemieux @lemieuxlgm.bsky.social · 5d

Again, the question here is not whether the order is constitutional -- it's exactly as constitutional as an executive order giving 20 Senate seats to Oregon -- but whether the Supreme Court believes that there is any set of facts in which the Constitution applies to Donald Trump

Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 5d

BREAKING: The First Circuit rejects Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. In the New Jersey-led multistate case, the appeals court, in a 100-page ruling, keeps the nationwide scope of the injunction blocking the EO in place. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The Government now asks us to reverse the preliminary
injunctions in these cases. We see no reason to do so. The
Government is right that the Framers of the Citizenship Clause
sought to remove the stain of Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 119
How.) 393 (1857), which shamefully denied United States
citizenship to "descendants of Africans who were imported into
this country, and sold as slaves," even when the descendants were born here. Id. at 403. But the Framers chose to accomplish that
just purpose in broad terms, as both the supreme Court in United
States . Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), and Congress in
passing § 1401(a) have recognized. The Government is therefore
wrong to argue that the plaintiffs are not likely to succeed in
showing that the children that the EO covers are citizens of this
country at birth, just as the Government is wrong to argue that
various limits on our remedial power independently require us to
reverse the preliminary injunctions.?

The analysis that follows is necessarily lengthy, as we
must address the parties' numerous arguments in each of the cases
involved. But the length of our analysis should not be mistaken
for a sign that the fundamental question that these cases raise
about the scope of birthright citizenship is a difficult one.
•It
is not, which may explain why it has been more than a century since a branch of our government has made as concerted an effort as the
Executive Branch now makes to deny Americans their birthright.

Thus, it is no surprise that, when presented with even
more uncontroverted evidence by the State-Plaintiffs about the
need for an injunction of the current breadth, the District Court
again found that a narrower injunction would leave unremedied
"administrative and financial harms." We therefore decline to
conclude that the District Court has abused its discretion in
fashioning relief. See Philip Morris, Inc. v. Harshbarger, 159
F. 3d 670, 680 (1st Cir. 1998) (explaining that "[als a general
rule, a disappointed litigant cannot surface an objection to a preliminary injunction for the first time in an appellate venue"
because doing so deprives the district court of the opportunity to
"consider [the objection] and correct the injunction if necessary,
without the need for appeal" (quoting Zenon, 711 F.2d at 478)).

The "lessons of history" thus give us every reason to be
wary of now blessing this most recent effort to break with our
established tradition of recognizing birthright citizenship and to
make citizenship depend on the actions of one's parents rather
than -- in all but the rarest of circumstances -- the simple fact
of being born in the United States. United States v. Di Re, 332
U.S. 581, 595 (1948). Nor does the text of the Fourteenth
Amendment, which countermanded our most infamous attempt to break
with that tradition, permit us to bless this effort, any more than
does the Supreme Court's interpretation of that amendment in Wong
Kim Ark, the many related precedents that have followed it, or
Congress's 1952 statute writing that amendment's words in the U.S.
Code.
The District Court's order for entry of the preliminary
injunctions is affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for
further consideration consistent with this decision.

3 15 63

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Eladio Bobadilla @eladiobobadilla.com · 5d

22 450 1.8K

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 5d

Again and again we see federal judges standing up for the rule of law, and again and again these positive moments are undermined by the suspicion that SCOTUS will undercut them.

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 5d

BREAKING: A federal judge says there is a realistic likelihood that the prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was driven by vindictive motives — reflected in the public statements of Bondi, Blanche, Noem et al.

He has ordered discovery on the question.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

13 120 530

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 5d

NEW: By a 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to cancel Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan migrants.

KBJ, dissenting, says she "cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference" while "lives hang in the balance."
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

I view today's decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. This Court should have stayed its hand. Having opted instead to join the fray, the Court plainly mis- judges the irreparable harm and balance-of-the-equities factors by privileging the bald assertion of unconstrained executive power over countless families’ pleas for the sta- bility our Government has promised them. Because, re- spectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous, and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.

86 860 2.4K

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 5d

An interesting point raised elsewhere: these boats that the United States is striking don't appear to have the fuel capacity/storage capacity to even reach American shores.

370 2K 6.8K

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Kon Karapanagiotidis @kkarapanagiotidis.bsky.social · 6d

Q: How much does it cost to be cruel?
A: $430,512 per day
That's the amount the Government is spending per day to warehouse 105 people seeking asylum on Nauru. It's 16X the original contract the Albanese Government signed with US prison company MTC in 2022.

20 28

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 6d

The president is claiming the power to make up a war so he can engage in extrajudicial killings

Patrick De Klotz @patdeklotz.bsky.social · 6d

Is it our government’s position that if an American commits a drug crime with a cartel (or they allege that) it can just kill that person without trial even if not an immediate threat? I am genuinely trying to understand what if any lines they believe exist. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

53 320 740

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Paul Gowder @gowder.io · 6d

THANK YOU. This is what I said they should do all along. The UCs are state schools, their capitulation is the state of California's capitulation, and the state of California has the right to say "fuck no."

Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen.bsky.social · 6d

Gavin Newsom announces that any California university that caves to Trump and signs his “loyalty pledge” will be immediately defunded.

“CALIFORNIA WILL NOT BANKROLL SCHOOLS THAT SELL OUT THEIR STUDENTS.”

2 10 61

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 6d

Pleased to speak with @cbsnews.com about the administration's absurd legal rationale for killing people in the Caribbean.

"This justification put out here that the U.S. is somehow in an armed conflict does not do the trick because it's not supported by the facts."

www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-t...

Trump administration tells Congress the U.S. is in "armed conflict" with drug cartels after Venezuela boat strikes

A notification sent to Congress and viewed by CBS News says President Trump has determined drug cartels are engaged in an "armed attack" against the U.S.

www.cbsnews.com

12 95 280

Reposted by Phil Orchard

David Owen @artsofdenial.bsky.social · 6d

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Deaths, disappearances and forced recruitment: refugees recount horrors of relentless war in Sudan

Refugees who left Darfur and Khartoum for South Sudan say they feared being targeted by both sides in conflict

www.theguardian.com

5 3

Phil Orchard @philorchard.bsky.social · 7d

The full study is here: www.holmesglen.edu.au/content/dam/...

www.holmesglen.edu.au

Phil Orchard @philorchard.bsky.social · 7d

It's reporting on a study based on Australian census data, which finds that arts degrees lead to higher incomes over certificates, and have a better career lifecycle. And- with the Society and Culture category- Political Science has the 4th best income after law and econ.

1 1

Phil Orchard @philorchard.bsky.social · 7d

Interesting article by @JohnRoss49 @timeshighered showing that arts degeres are ‘more lucrative than working in trades’: www.timeshighereducation.com/news/arts-de...

Arts degrees ‘more lucrative than working in trades’

Australian study finds that philosophers outearn motor mechanics – on average

www.timeshighereducation.com

1 1 1

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Nando Sigona @nandosigona.bsky.social · 7d

Exhausted by the avalanche of soundbites from #Labour dehumanising refugees and conflating asylum with ‘illegal migration’—a sign of a leadership that has lost any moral compass (assuming, generously, it ever had one).

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Refugees to face longer route to settlement rights

Details of the new conditions refugees will have to meet are to be set out later in the autumn.

www.bbc.com

5 10

Reposted by Phil Orchard

Jessica Washington @jesswash.bsky.social · 8d

Based on some of my conversations with veteran groups about the culture of military sexual violence under Hegseth, this feels deeply concerning.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 8d

Hegseth: "You should not pay for an earnest mistake for your entire career. That's why today, at my direction, we're making changes to the retention of adverse information on personnel records."

37 160 730