Notices by Flipboard (flipboard@flipboard.social)

Some cities are supposed to have storage programs for when they swoop in and destroy homeless encampments, so that folks can get their possessions back. These might include tents, medication, money, food stamps, jewelry and more. @ProPublica reports on the reality: If items are kept, it’s almost impossible to claim them, meaning vulnerable people lose everything — sometimes many times over.

https://www.propublica.org/article/homeless-encampment-removals-property-storage

#Homelessness #HumanRights #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

In 2022, organizers in California introduced a bill to have solitary confinement limited, and banned completely for pregnant people and other vulnerable groups. The bill was called the Mandela Act. For @bolts, Piper French writes about how the bill evolved beyond recognition — so much so that it now codifies in California law that it is permissible to use solitary confinement against pregnant people — and how that happened.

https://boltsmag.org/california-solitary-confinement-laws-2024/

#California #Prison #Incarceration #SolitaryConfinement #Pregnancy #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

4.6 billion people around the world are connected to mobile internet, according to @restofworld. But now, its growth is slowing, due mainly to lack of affordability. There are products and advances that can lead to sudden surges, however — including China’s satellite internet network, which is set to rival Starlink.

https://restofworld.org/2024/mobile-internet-users-growth-rate/

#Internet #MobileInternet #Technology #Tech #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Last of all, eggs. They’re culinary perfection — delicious, nutritious, versatile — but they also have a huge environmental footprint and are produced at industrial scale by animals often living in horrendous conditions. @KnowableMag takes a look at the food scientists who are trying to reverse-engineer eggs. “That’s not easy, because real eggs play so many roles in the kitchen. You can use beaten eggs to bind breadcrumbs in a coating, or to hold together meatballs; you can use them to emulsify oil and water into mayonnaise, scramble them into an omelet or whip them to loft a meringue or angel food cake,” writes Bob Holmes. “An all-purpose egg substitute must do all those things acceptably well, while also yielding the familiar texture and — perhaps — flavor of real eggs.”

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/technology/2024/creating-the-perfect-plant-based-egg

#Science #FoodScience #Cooking #Eggs #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

The number of coffee shops in Ukraine has dramatically increased since the start of the war. The team at @timkmak’s Counteroffensive look at their cultural significance, now, more than ever.

https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/ukraines-resilience-coffee-culture

#Coffee #Culture #Kyiv #CafeCulture #Food #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

These encampment sweeps may also reduce people’s access to voting, @SFPublicPress found in a separate investigation. Lack of ID has other effects too, such as reducing people’s access to housing, city programs and medical help. “Replacement IDs cost money, they take time, they slow everything down,” said Joe Wilson, executive director of nonprofit Hospitality House.

https://www.sfpublicpress.org/encampment-sweeps-uptick-homeless-people-losing-identification-access-to-services-voting/

#Homelessness #HumanRights #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Dagoberto Gilb remains “an artful advocate for the unseen,” writes Roberto Ontiveros for @TexasObserver. The PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author has released two books: a collection of short stories and a series of essays. Which should you read? “These books are different animals,” Ontiveros says. “‘New Testaments,’ with its stories about humble healing and how personal myths may patch up memory loss, is a patient beast.’ A Passing West’ is, with Gilb’s recollections of auto shop epiphanies and insider info about the Corona beers kept in Rolando Hinojosa’s University of Texas office minifridge, decidedly on the prowl.”

https://www.texasobserver.org/seeing-the-unseen-dagoberto-gilb/

#LIterature #Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon #Texas #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Hold the phone — literally, in the case of @404mediaco’s @josephcox, who hasn’t had a cellphone since around 2017 due to concerns about information security. He wrote about a privacy-focused network, previously available just to members of the military, that piqued his interest. [This story may be paywalled]

https://www.404media.co/i-dont-own-a-cellphone-can-this-privacy-focused-network-change-that/

#Security #InfoSec #Cellphones #Hacking #CyberSecurity #Technology #Tech #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

If recent events have you feeling down and defeated, @thetyee wants you to know that it’s still worth fighting back. Alvin Finkel, author of “Humans,” writes about “the persistent spark of resistance throughout recorded history, in service of visions of more humane, egalitarian societies.”

https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2024/11/21/Oppressors-Gonna-Oppress-Get-Tossed/

#Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon #Anthropology #History

Another Friday, another #NewstodonFriday thread, with our usual mix of tech, politics, books and culture (if you haven’t heard of prima ballerina Maria Tallchief, check out @TheConversationUS’s story about her). All the newsrooms featured here are independent and have invested time and energy in establishing a presence in the fediverse. Please follow them, click on the stories, boost them, subscribe, donate and otherwise support if you can.

⤵️

#Media #Journalism #News #MastodonMigration #FollowFriday

When will someone make a biopic about Maria Tallchief, America’s first prima ballerina? A member of the Osage nation, she was key to the success of the New York City Ballet, danced with Ballet Russe (which tried to make her change her last name to Tolchieva) and became the highest paid ballerina in the world. Tallchief once said a ballerina “takes steps given to her and makes them her own.” Learn more about her in this story from @TheConversationUS

https://theconversation.com/75-years-ago-maria-tallchief-made-the-ballet-world-reimagine-itself-and-find-a-place-for-a-native-american-prima-ballerina-241205

#Dance #Ballet #Culture #MariaTallchief #History @histodon @histodons #NativeAmericanHeritage #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Who should be guiding the Democrats over the next four years? Maya Contreras writes for @damemagazine about how it’s time to listen to experts in disinformation, historians and economists. “We must center the voices who’ve consistently shown up for the party, promote new leaders that have a proven track record of winning elections, and understand that the consultants who knew how to win elections in the 1990s don’t understand how elections are won in the current environment,” Contreras writes. “We’ll need a plan to counter the right-wing echo chamber with our own robust media. That won’t be easy or cheap.”

https://www.damemagazine.com/2024/11/20/democrats-policies-drowned-out/

#Disinformation #USPolitics #Media #Journalism #EchoChambers #USElection #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Political violence is a big earner for Meta. In the 10 weeks after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July, advertisers paid between $593,000 and $813,000 for political ads on Facebook, according to reporting by @themarkup and @CALMatters. “There’s huge problems with their advertising broadly,” said Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project. “They’re profiting off of a lot of harmful things, really without any sort of repercussions.”

https://themarkup.org/investigations/2024/10/04/how-meta-brings-in-millions-off-political-violence

#Technology #Meta #Facebook #Advertising #DonaldTrump #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

A rallying cry from @damemagazine as Kaitlin Byrd asks, “Can anything stop Trump now?”

“The system would not stop Donald Trump. Ballots didn’t either,” she writes. “But we will be enough. We will not acquiesce. And when we meet our next turn at the crossroads of time, we will know that we did everything we could.”

https://www.damemagazine.com/2024/11/12/can-anything-stop-trump-now/

🧵 7/12

#Trump #Newstodon #USPolitics

PTX Diverse is an advocacy group in Princeton, Texas, one of America’s fastest growing cities. Its goal is to promote diverse education, and it was also the organizer of Princeton’s Pride events for several years. @TexasObserver reports on how the city’s school board used technicalities in its permitting to cancel Pride. “The school board’s votes represent one of the first Pride events ever canceled by a government entity in the state, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas, transforming Princeton’s LGBTQ+ advocates into a symbol of progressive Texans’ struggle to survive in pockets of the state that have been targeted for right-wing school board takeovers,” writes Candice Bernd.

https://www.texasobserver.org/pride-and-prejudice-in-princeton/

🧵 6/12

#LGBTQ #Pride #USSchools #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Here’s another story on how important state elections are in the U.S. For @bolts, @taniel covers how, with SCOTUS locked in for the conservatives, judicial elections at the state level are increasingly important, and what happened at last week’s election.

https://boltsmag.org/state-supreme-court-results-2024/

🧵 5/12

#USElections #USPolitics #Government #GOP #Democrats #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

No one likes school vouchers — even conservative voters. Here’s @ProPublica’s story on how “school choice” was rejected at the polls in Kentucky, Nebraska, Colorado, but is sneaking through as Republicans build legislative majorities that can enact voucher laws, regardless of what voters want.

https://www.propublica.org/article/school-vouchers-2024-election-trump

🧵 4/12

#Education #Schools #SchoolChoice #SchoolVouchers #StateElections #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Now, to earwigs, which seemingly have more vibrant social lives than we do (though based on this @KnowableMag story, we’ll stick with what we’ve got). Tim Vernimmen writes about their 20-hour mating rituals, peculiar penises, protective parenting, and occasional cannibalism.

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/living-world/2024/social-life-of-earwigs

🧵 8/12

#Science #Nature #Insects #Entomology #Earwigs #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Loss and damage funds that are supposed to help countries hit by climate disasters are nowhere near adequate. For @TheConversationUS, Erin Coughlan de Perez looks at other ways governments and organizations can help those in need.

https://theconversation.com/3-innovative-ways-to-help-countries-hit-by-climate-disasters-beyond-a-loss-and-damage-fund-238943

🧵 3/12

#ClimateCrisis #ClimateChange #ClimateDisaster #InternationalAid #UnitedNations #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Don’t worry, America, Elon Musk is coming to save you — or so the AI slop going megaviral on Facebook would have you believe. @404mediaco reports on proliferating nonsense about how Trump’s latest BFF is going to solve climate change and the housing crisis.

[This story may be paywalled]

https://www.404media.co/absurd-ai-slop-about-how-elon-musk-will-fix-america-is-megaviral-on-facebook/

🧵 2/12

#ElonMusk #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Facebook #Slop #Technology #Tech #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday