Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Spooky Fish @jnsq.org · 16h

This will ruin countless lives and the only correction will be a statement advising against using the COPILOT() function in a list of use cases that incrementally grows to include everything that people use spreadsheets for, one disaster at a time.

Tweet by Zack Korman @ZackKorman: "Copilot in Excel is a global financial crisis waiting to happen."

followed by a screenshot of Microsoft Excel with the numbers 1, 2, and 3, followed by a cell where the expression '=COPILOT("sum the numbers above")' has been evaluated as 15.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 1d

i desperately want everyone involved in the destruction of USAID to have to, st the very least, answer to the american people for the suffering and misery they have caused apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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onion person @junlper.beer · 19h

if every democrat doesn’t use the “we took freedom of speech away” on every messaging apparatus they have every single day for the next 4 years assume they want to lose

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 22h

Trump: "We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the courts said you have freedom of speech, but what has happened is when they burn a flag it agitates and irritates crowds."

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 1d

We know more about the massive military-style raid on a Chicago housing complex thanks to the reporting of @southsideweekly.bsky.social, @blockclubchi.bsky.social, and neighborhood resident Eboni Watson who chronicled the event. Among the emerging questions: what's real estate's role in this?

section of text from South Side Weekly's coverage, which says: "The building was purchased by Wisconsin-based investor Trinity Flood in January 2020, according to Cook County records. On October 1, the day after the raid, a judge reviewed an emergency motion from Wells Fargo seeking to appoint Matthew Tarshis of Frontline Real Estate Partners as the property’s receiver.

Flood purchased three multifamily properties in South Shore in 2020. The neighborhood, which had the highest number of eviction filings in Chicago from 2015-2019 according to the Law Center for Better Housing, has seen a rise in outside real estate investors since the 2017 announcement of the Obama Presidential Center’s construction in the neighboring Jackson Park.

Wells Fargo Bank foreclosed on the building in mid-2024, bringing a $27 million lawsuit against Flood for missed loan payments. In late 2024, the City began closing its largest migrant shelters and, through state funding assistance distributed via Catholic Charities and moving support from New Life Church, relocated many families to buildings such as this one."

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Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 2d

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 · 2d

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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Nome @nome.bsky.social · 2d

A life update: this wound up paying off. I'm still applying to several jobs that are hopefully careers, but I've got my survival needs covered by a job at the airport that I'm apparently pretty good at.

And instead of being in an office alone, which was driving me mad, I see 20k people a day.

Nome @nome.bsky.social · Aug 12

There is a line around this building to get to the line entrance to wait to get into this job fair.

At the airport. For airport jobs.

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Zach @thesecretbarn.bsky.social · 3d

prude

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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 3d

If any other president said something like this in a speech to a military academy, it would be a massive scandal. Instead, it isn’t among the ten most dangerous things he’s done this week.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 3d

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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Zach @thesecretbarn.bsky.social · 4d

Doctors can choose to not be doctors if they have a sincerely held belief that cyanide is a treatment for the common cold. State regulations on licensed professions don’t come out of nowhere. They’re there to protect the public from practitioners who would use their own beliefs to harm the public.

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Zach @thesecretbarn.bsky.social · 4d

This person is a bigot who wants the right to abuse her underage clients. This framing is fucking insane, @nytimes.com. You are getting people killed.

When Kaley Chiles welcomes therapy clients to her tranquil bungalow of an office, she offers loose-leaf tea and asks what brings them to counseling, what’s causing distress and how she can help them meet their goals.

Under a 2019 Colorado law, if clients under 18 tell her that their same-sex attractions are causing them stress, as a licensed therapist, she is forbidden from counseling them to change their sexual orientation. If they want to talk about their gender identity, she cannot advise them to change it.

Colorado lawmakers and major medical groups say that kind of counseling is ineffective and potentially harmful for minors, and it is therefore appropriate for state governments to outlaw it for licensed mental health professionals.

Mrs. Chiles, an evangelical Christian with a master’s degree in clinical mental health from Denver Seminary, says the law violates her First Amendment rights, constraining what she is allowed to say in therapy sessions with young people who have sought out her care.

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 5d

Incredible @perrybaconjr.bsky.social interview with Chris Van Hollen

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

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Zach @thesecretbarn.bsky.social · 4d

Albuquerque balloon fiesta, Day 2

60+ hot air balloons, with a crowd of people in the foreground and the Sandia mountains in the background

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Zach @thesecretbarn.bsky.social · 4d

Exactly

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Zach @thesecretbarn.bsky.social · 5d

In Mexico they refer to R2-D2 as “Arturito”

www.instagram.com/reel/DJPlQv-...

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Zach @thesecretbarn.bsky.social · 5d

@jamellebouie.net summarizing life, the universe, and everything

“I do think that Democrats took what has always been not a great hand — they are in the minority — and they played it quite badly, which is maybe the story of the modern Democratic Party.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/o...

Opinion | ‘If You Don’t Want This Consequence, Don’t Vote for Republicans’

www.nytimes.com

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Emily Guskin @emgusk.bsky.social · 5d

Most American Jews say Israel has committed war crimes

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

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Zach @thesecretbarn.bsky.social · 6d

Open to correction but I’m left wondering if anyone here remembers 2003.

Zach @thesecretbarn.bsky.social · 6d

Kristol was Dan Quayle’s Chief of Staff and a PNAC guy. No, lol, he was never a leftist. I don’t understand any of these replies.

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Billy Bragg's Liquid Aminos @aminosbilly.bsky.social · 6d

Every. Damn. Time.
They're all self-professed "experts" in knowing how a crime is committed because they're all actively committing it.

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 6d

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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David Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · 6d

Holy hell. DHS just openly stated that its agents use “reasonable suspicion” to make ARRESTS. This is blatantly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court is clear that you need probable cause to arrest someone, as opposed to stop them to ask them a question or two. This is huge b/c…

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John Timmer @jtimmer.bsky.social · 7d

Having now read the Administration's proposed compact with universities, I have two thoughts:
This is not the sort of system set up by an administration that ever expects a different party to be in power again.
It is a "fuck you, make me" moment for universities.

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Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 6d

There is a gulf in America. I submit it is the gulf between good and evil, or at least not-evil and evil.

The gulf is not just between people who oppose this and people who are indifferent to it or reluctantly accept it in support of immigration policy or see it as collateral damage.
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Jessica Pishko @jesspish.bsky.social · 6d

This raid is disgusting, abominable behavior, traumatizing children and families in their homes.
abc7chicago.com/post/ice-chi...

"They was terrified. The kids was crying. People was screaming. They looked very distraught. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner, because they was bringing the kids down, too, had them zip tied to each other," Watson said. "That's all I kept asking. What is the morality? Where's the human? One of them literally laughed. He was standing right here. He said, 'f*** them kids.'"

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Zach @thesecretbarn.bsky.social · 6d

Do you recall what it’s from?

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Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 7d

We left Austin (and UT) for personal reasons, not political ones. That said, this story makes me relieved that we got out when we did—and despondent for the future of an amazing institution that played a really important role in my life; and whose students, staff, faculty, and alumni deserve better:

New Trump plan offers UT funding benefits with conditions on academics

The Trump administration named the University of Texas as one of nine schools that can access funding benefits in exchange for demands outlined in a compact.

www.statesman.com

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Philip Palermo (Batten Disease is my scary name) @palermo.bsky.social · 7d

The cruelty against people with disabilities continues.

If you’ve traveled with someone who uses a wheelchair, you probably know how stressful it can be — especially if that wheelchair is damaged during the trip.

Reuters @reuters.com · 10d

USDOT will not enforce Biden wheelchair passenger protection rule reut.rs/4pMMWy0

USDOT will not enforce Biden wheelchair passenger protection rule

The U.S. Transportation Department said on Monday that it will not enforce key provisions of a Biden administration rule issued in December requiring new consumer protections for disabled passengers using wheelchairs.

reut.rs

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