The wellness to right-wing pipeline is a real thing. For @nybooks,
Hari Kunzru writes about “Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat,” by @derekberes, @matthewremski and Julian Walker, and “Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists and the New Order in Wellness” by Stewart Home. Both books lay bare the ascendancy of paranoia and pseudoscience [story may be paywalled].

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/05/29/doing-their-own-research-conspirituality-fascist-yoga/

#Science #Pseudoscience #Wellness #Conspirituality #ConspiracyTheories #Health #MAHA #RFK #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Arizona’s Elections Procedures Manual states that supervisors have no discretion when certifying results — or at least, that’s how it’s always been interpreted. @TucsonSentinel reports on a court ruling that threw out that section of the manual, and that may now shake up pending criminal charges for conspiracy against an election supervisor who delayed certification of Cochise County’s 2022 midterm results. “Ambiguity in election certification laws is a problem in several swing states across the country,” writes Jen Fifield.

https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/042925_az_election_certification/are-local-officials-duty-bound-certify-elections-arizona-ruling-creates-new-doubt/

#Arizona #Elections #Law #ElectionSecurity #Voting #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

There’s a new genre of TV shows, comics and board games in Taiwan. Inspired by what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine, producers, writers and artists are imagining a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Elaine Lin and Clara Preve wrote about this for @timkmak’s Counteroffensive.

https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/taiwan-imagines-what-happens-the

#Russia #Ukraine #China #Taiwan #Television #Culture #PopCulture #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Applause, please, for the companies that have managed to make jobhunting even worse, thanks to AI. @404mediaco’s Samantha Cole reports on the experiences of a woman named Ken, who was interviewed by an AI avatar that said “vertical bar pilates” 14 times in a row. She related her experiences on TikTok and received more than 3,000 comments, many sharing similar stories. “A company tried to send me to an AI interview for an HR position… Why would I want to work HUMAN resources for a company that won’t even dignify me with human interaction???” one person wrote.

https://www.404media.co/ai-recruiter-apriora-tiktok/

#JobSeeking #Recruitment #Unemployment #Technology #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Tech #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

This week, @thecontinent celebrates the work of award-winning photographers based in Africa, including Temiloluwa Johnson and Cinzia Canneri, both of whom won World Press Photo Awards recently.

https://continent.substack.com/p/photo-essay-lenses-on-africa-global

#Photography #Photo #Culture #Art #Africa #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Zambia has a long history of mining, since it’s the second biggest copper producer in Africa. But things have kicked up a notch in the past couple of years as a result of the metal’s critical role in wind and solar power. @thexylom’s Kang-Chun Cheng looks at Zambia’s relationship with China, a huge investor since the 1970s, and what happened when she tried to visit the Copperbelt area of the country.

https://www.thexylom.com/post/six-decades-later-zambians-ask-were-chinese-mining-infrastructure-investments-worth-it/

#Africa #Zambia #China #EnergyProduction #Mining #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Something heartwarming from Utah and Idaho, where Salt Lake City and Boise have managed to circumvent bans that were meant to prevent the flying of pride flags by declaring that the flags are official city emblems. Here’s more from @AssociatedPress (our @CultureDesk shared this yesterday).

https://apnews.com/article/boise-salt-lake-city-pride-flags-law-13c8f9f7269d1b33daaa7ef041c6c497

#Pride #LGBTQ #LGBTQRights #TransRights #Utah #Idaho #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Elmo hasn’t been laid off, but the Trump administration is threatening his employer, PBS, and other public service broadcasters. @TheConversationUS reports on the shifting landscape of media as a result of cutbacks and closures of commercial and community outlets, and how public and nonprofit organizations are filling the gap.

https://theconversation.com/trump-targets-npr-and-pbs-as-public-and-nonprofit-media-account-for-a-growing-share-of-local-news-coverage-255740

#TrumpAdministration #News #Media #Journalism #MediaIndustry #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Finally, big congratulations to all this week’s Pulitzer Prize winners. Here’s a Flipboard Storyboard featuring some of their award-winning journalism.

https://flipboard.com/@theculturedesk/the-pulitzer-prize-winners-have-been-announced-bgb7u60ona1ohk6h

#News #Media #Journalism #MediaIndustry #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday