“Harvard didn’t blink. The fight starts here,” writes @Daojoan for her Index newsletter. “[It] did not act quickly. But it acted clearly. That clarity must be contagious. Because unless every university in America is ready to say no to federal ideological coercion, this moment will not be a line in the sand. It will be a footnote in the obituary of academic freedom,” she writes. “The government has already decided it can control the curriculum by controlling the cash. What happens next is not up to them. It's up to everyone else.”

https://www.theindex.media/harvard-didnt-blink-the-fight-starts-here/

#Education #HigherEducation #University #Harvard #TrumpAdministration #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

4/15

Texas is almost certainly getting school vouchers — Senate Bill 2 has passed in the state’s House and is likely to have a fairly smooth passage to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. It’s the culmination of a 30-year battle that has until now been blocked by Democrats and rural Republicans.

@TexasObserver takes a look at how it happened. Zeph Capo, the president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement: “Greg Abbott relied on a last ditch phone call from Donald Trump to bully Republican lawmakers to fall in line.”

https://www.texasobserver.org/abbott-trump-house-vouchers-pass/

#Education #SchoolVouchers #SchoolChoice #GregAbbott #DonaldTrump #USA #Texas #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

5/15

Remember when Nate Silver tipped New York City Mayor Eric Adams as a future U.S. president? How’s that going for you, Nate?

@nybooks takes a look at Adams’ hubris, the scandal that will likely come to define him, and how his mayoralty has “come to epitomize the spirit of Trump’s second term — from its ethos of aggrieved narcissism to its punitive approach toward the vulnerable.” [Story may be paywalled]

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/04/17/the-president-of-brooklyn/

#NewYork #EricAdams #TrumpAdministration #USLaw #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

7/15

Social interactions can help us stay healthier and happier, and according to a report from the University of Michigan, women aged 50+ are lonely. “At my loneliest, I’ve felt a nauseating emptiness in my chest during every waking hour,” writes Melissa Hart for @damemagazine.

“Rumination takes over my brain — if only I’d done, I should have joined, if only I were more like — and fills in the blank spots with a multitude of actions, organizations, and friends who seldom have a free hour in their social calendars.”

https://www.damemagazine.com/2025/04/17/older-women-are-battling-a-loneliness-epidemic/

#Aging #Lifestyle #Health #Wellness #Loneliness #Women #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

8/15

As sea levels rise, living forests can become salinated. Sometimes they turn to mudflats with minimal plant life, and sometimes invasive flora species take over. But sometimes they turn to marshland, the best possible outcome as marsh plants can do some of the work of forests, such as buffering against storms and storing carbon. @KnowableMag reports on the expansion of these “ghost forests,” the near-impossibility of slowing the trend, and what coastal transition might look like.

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/food-environment/2025/ghost-forests-are-growing-sea-levels-rise-climate-change

#ClimateChange #Sea #CoastalGeography #Geography #Science #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

9/15

Roseline Mgbodichinma is mourning her aunt. In her beautiful essay for @thexylom, she writes about grief, the need for witnesses in death, and a Nigerian vegetable soup called egburegbu, the translation of which is “cut” or “kill.”

“[My aunt] loved egburegbu and on the days we cooked it, she would sit cross-legged in the kitchen, patiently waiting for a serving of her favourite soup. This is how I choose to remember her, as someone who loved without caring about the origins of the life around her, or how it will all end.”

https://www.thexylom.com/post/perspective-grief-grows-like-ugu

#Bereavement #Grief #Death #Essays #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

10/15

When she was 15, April Barber Scales was convinced by the man, twice her age, who had impregnated her, to set her grandparents’ house on fire. Her grandparents died, and Barber Scales received two consecutive life sentences without parole. In 2022, she had been in prison for 31 years when under a clemency program for juvenile lifers established by then North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, she was released. Since then, she has completed an associate’s degree and is now finishing a bachelor’s in criminal justice. She works, volunteers, studies, and thrives. @bolts reports on other successes from the program, and how those who remain in jail hope it continues under the governorship of Josh Stein.

https://boltsmag.org/north-carolina-juvenile-life-sentences/

#NorthCarolina #USPrisonSystem #Crime #USNews #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

11/15

Ever looked at the White House and thought: “You know what that needs? Gold cherubs.” Donald Trump sure did when he started his second term as U.S. president. Our @CultureDesk shared this Wall Street Journal story on how Trump’s gilty conscience is changing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-white-house-oval-office-gold-touches-6018016d?st=2mVtHM&mod=flipboard

#Design #Interiors #Architecture #DonaldTrump #WhiteHouse #OvalOffice #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

12/15

Mount Kenya is one of only a few mountains in Africa to have glaciers, the largest of which is Lewis Glacier. This has lost over 90% of its mass since 1934 as a result of climate change. @thecontinent shares photos from Luis Tato of the mountain, an extinct volcano that sits in the middle of Mount Kenya National Park. It’s home to delicate ecosystems that are now under threat as a result of the glacier’s decline.

https://continent.substack.com/p/photo-essay-breaking-the-ice

#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Environment #Photos #Photography #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

13/15

A U.S. federal judge has found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court over its failure to halt deportation flights to El Salvador. Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University, explains to @TheConversationUS what it all means.

“It’s not too late for the government to comply. One option for the government is called “purging the contempt,” meaning the administration complies with the court order and brings the individuals who were sent to El Salvador back into U.S. custody,” Burke Robertson says. “If the administration does that, there will not be any further contempt proceedings. Normally, that would be attractive to the government in this position.”

https://theconversation.com/federal-judge-finds-probable-cause-to-hold-trump-administration-in-contempt-a-legal-scholar-explains-what-this-means-254767

#USGovernment #TrumpAdministration #ElSalvador #Deportation #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

14/15

Lastly, the Canadian federal election is on April 28. @thetyee’s John MacLachlan Gray writes about wannabe Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre, aka Skippy.

“Politics may have nothing to do with morals, but even Machiavelli thinks that there comes a time in a country’s history when politics are not enough: when a leader is called upon to exemplify what it means to be — in this instance — a Canadian. And frankly I don’t think Skippy has given this much thought.”

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/04/17/Skippy-Wants-Shatter-CBC/

#Canada #CanPoli #PierrePoilievre #CdnElxn2025 #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

15/15