Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · Apr 17

They did, and you can read the letters written by Roman aristocrats living in Gaul who had basically given up on trying to fix anything and retreated to a comfortable self-exile on their vast estates

Scott Shapiro @scottjshapiro.bsky.social · Apr 13

I wonder if Roman elites watching the fall of their empire also thought: “This is so stupid.”

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tomcrackers @tomcrackers.bsky.social · Apr 17

Making it even clearer how much of a loss she is to the BBC. I hope we still get to see her Bloomberg interviews in some shape or form.

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/a...

Mishal Husain criticises ‘bombastic’ presenting after BBC departure

Former Today host speaks to British Vogue about changes to radio show and shift towards personality-led media

www.theguardian.com

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · Apr 7

You may be fearing your 401k is no longer enough for you to retire. But with all the cuts to NIH and Medicare you also won't live as long. So the policies are integrated.

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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · Apr 2

takes a special kind of genius to win an election on the back of unpopular price rises and then instigate a policy that will inevitably create more unpopular price rises

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · Apr 2

The standout madness in the general madness are the enormous tariffs on South East Asia which, if these stick, is going to magnify China's sphere of influence. Geopolitical lunacy.

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Frances Ryan @francesryan.bsky.social · Mar 17

I know news coverage of benefit cuts can be distressing. So, I wanted to do something for readers.

If you click on a Guardian news story, you’ll see a “drop box” of signposted mental health support as well as benefits advice. Please do share. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Which benefits is Keir Starmer’s government planning to cut and why?

PM is under increasing pressure over targeting of incapacity and disability benefits. We look at some key questionsUK politics live – latest updates

www.theguardian.com

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · Mar 17

Why do all these people have depression we ask as we create systems designed to make their lives as insecure as possible.

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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · Mar 17

Last government cut payments for those looking for work, which created an incentive to get placed in the "no sanctions" group. So then this government cuts funding for that group to try and reduce the incentive.

Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot.bsky.social · Mar 17

MP gets in touch and sums up it up pretty succinctly - "Everyone understands PIP needs reform. Everyone understands there are too many signed-off sick who get no help. No one gets why - if true - we seems to be cutting incomes for those too disabled to ever work."

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James Ball @jamesrball.com · Mar 16

This is the kind of take that you can only produce by not actually talking to any of the people you’re writing about.

The explanation for me is this: Bluesky generates better traffic and engagement than X does. Even with half as many followers. It’s that simple.

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · Mar 16

Thought I'd seen the dumbest, most ignorant take on Bluesky last year, but I was wrong. This person is living in a world that only exists in their own mind.

As far as I can tell, the author is not even on Bluesky, so they've just fantasized what must be happening here.

It might seem crazy that so many left-wing thought leaders—and even entire media brands, such as the Guardian—would walk away from huge followings on X in exchange for a relatively tiny audience of like-minded souls on Bluesky. (The site’s total user base is well under a tenth of X’s global following.) But the move made sense as an expression of the left’s growing hypersensitivity to ideas leftists find offensive. Having emerged from the intersectional hothouses of academia, many progressives today view policy disputes through a therapeutic lens: They see themselves—and the marginalized groups they claim to speak for—as victims of trauma. The solution to that trauma is not rigorous debate. Quite the opposite; they need protection. Exposure to dangerous speech could threaten their mental stability. So progressives now treat opposing ideas not as errors that need to be rebutted with facts, but as dangerous contagions that must be quarantined.

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James Ball @jamesrball.com · Mar 13

Democrats think tariffs help American workers but don’t support them because of higher prices.

Republicans think tariffs *don’t* help American workers, but support them anyway.

God knows what anyone is supposed to do with that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Harriet Fitch Little @harrietfl.ft.com · Mar 12

My favourite week of the year - the week I am finally reassured that finding it impossible to wake up in the mornings didn’t mean I was dying, it has just been VERY DARK for about 27 months. Easy mistake to make!

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Lizzie Dearden @lizziedearden.bsky.social · Mar 8

Exclusive: The government is cutting all funding from the Islamophobia reporting service Tell Mama, leaving it facing closure weeks after revealing a record number of anti-Muslim hate incidents in Britain

www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ma...

Islamophobia charity Tell Mama facing closure after funding pulled by government

Police sources raise alarm over cut as anti-Muslim hate incidents in Britain hit record high

www.theguardian.com

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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · Mar 6

Great, troubling scoop. The point of a public service broadcaster is that it’s NOT personalised, IMV.

Michael Savage @michaelsavage.bsky.social · Mar 6

SCOOP: BBC News to create a new department using AI to help give the public more personalised content.

In a note to staff seen by the Guardian, Deborah Turness, CEO of BBC News, says the corporation has been “defying gravity” in reaching audiences amid seismic changes in the way news is consumed.

BBC News to create AI department to offer more personalised content

Boss says BBC News’s reach is ‘defying gravity’ and it must use AI to ‘support and accelerate our growth’

www.theguardian.com

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Rape Crisis England & Wales @rapecrisis.bsky.social · Mar 3

Our CEO, Ciara Bergman, spoke to The Observer about the closure of two Rape Crisis centres and how other centres are reducing services because of acute and chronic underfunding.

📰 Please read and share: www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

‘Criminals will go unpunished’ after victim services cuts, Reeves warned

Victims commissioner tells chancellor cutbacks and national insurance hike creating ‘existential crisis’ for abuse charities

www.theguardian.com

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Lizzie Dearden @lizziedearden.bsky.social · Mar 2

Exclusive: The government has cut millions in funding for victims’ services, prompting warnings that criminals will go unpunished

In a letter to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the Victims' Commissioner says the "cost of inaction is a price this nation can ill afford"
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

‘Criminals will go unpunished’ after victim services cuts, Reeves warned

Victims commissioner tells chancellor cutbacks and national insurance hike creating ‘existential crisis’ for abuse charities

www.theguardian.com

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Lizzie Dearden @lizziedearden.bsky.social · Mar 1

Buy a copy of The Observer for:

🗞 a scoop on the Victims Commissioner's warning to the Treasury over funding cuts to support services

📰 a deep dive into the growth of school shooting plots in the UK and what is inspiring them

...and of course much more great stuff not by me

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Lewis Goodall @lewisgoodall.com · Mar 1

Deafening silence from Obama, Clinton, Bush, Biden so far…

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Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · Feb 28

At this rate you wouldn’t bank on a “full turnout” at the 2028 LA Olympics

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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · Feb 28

a regular bugbear of mine - when something goes over budget on costs by 50% it's the end of the world, but you can underestimate the benefits massively and people treat it like a success story. Crossrail was arguably built 20 years too late because of these errors

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · Feb 27

"TfL’s analysis shows that within a km of an Elizabeth line station in London, the number of new houses is 8-14% higher, and nearly 400,000 jobs have been created since 2015."

A smashing success: it's carried half a billion passengers since opening in 2022.

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

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Hughes-on-the-Wold @notthathughes.bsky.social · Feb 24

Darren Grimes was born in 1993

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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · Dec 20

Defence spending per head (current US$, 2023, SIPRI numbers):
USA: $2,694.2
UK: $1,106.4
France: $946.6
Germany:$802.3
Italy:$603.5
Canada: $701.9
Russia: $757.8
China: $207.9

www.sipri.org/databases/mi...

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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · Feb 14

where to even start with this

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Pippa Crerar @pippacrerar.bsky.social · Feb 12

Kemi Badenoch’s spokesman has decided to give the usual Tory post-PMQs briefing a miss.

Keir Starmer’s (political) spox tells waiting reporters: “I’m not sure I’d want to follow that either”.

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tomcrackers @tomcrackers.bsky.social · Jan 28

Why have we, as a society, not solved the problem that is January?

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Jules Birch @julesbirch.bsky.social · Jan 23

Additional bit of context: social housing waiting lists are almost back at 2013 levels. The fall in between was not down to more social homes being built (there are now fewer) but because coalition 'reforms' allowed councils to cut people off the lists
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

London's social housing waiting lists at 10-year high

Data shows 336,366 households were on social housing waiting lists in 2024 across London's 32 boroughs.

www.bbc.co.uk

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