May 2025

May 23, 2025

Sidney's Picks: Trump peddles myth of "White Genocide"

Photo credit:

Jeremy Brooks, Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

Trump springs debunked conspiracy theory of “white genocide” on South African leader. (Reuters, NYT)
Inside Donald Trump’s griftocracy. (Bloomberg)
Republicans rush to strip health insurance from millions of Americans in the dead of night in a budget Rev. William Barber calls an act of social and political murder. (Bulwark, Truthout)
Trump’s pick to lead OSHA is expected to kill workplace heat protections. (MoJo)
Trapped on a factory farm (Sentient Media)
Mother of mass shooter Elliot Rodger fights to prevent future violence. (MoJo)

May 16, 2025

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Celebrating the Hillman Prizes in New York City this week.

The Best of the Week’s News

Violent threats against judges surge online as federal jurists receive a barrage of unsolicited pizza deliveries in the name of a judge’s son who was murdered by a disgruntled litigant. (Wired, CBS)
DOGE claimed that 40% of direct deposit calls to Social Security were fraudulent but their new fraud detection system puts the real number at a fraction of 1%. (NextGov)
USDA and DOGE demand unprecedented details about food stamp recipientsfrom states. (NPR)
A brain dead pregnant woman in Georgia is being kept alive against her family’s wishes because of the state’s abortion law. (11Alive)
Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele cracks down on the free press. (Yahoo)

May 9, 2025

Photo credit:

Statue of John Wilkes, 18th century champion of press freedom, Geoff Henson Creative Commons.

The Best of the Week’s News

Columbia and Barnard issued and dropped interim suspensions of student journalists who covered a pro-Palestinian protest at the Butler Library, just days after World Press Freedom Day. (Columbia Spectator, Guardian)
Seven Salvadoran journalists from the Hillman Prize-winning outlet El Faro face criminal charges for exposing president Bukele’s pact with the Barrio 18 Revolucionarios gang. (CPJ, El Faro)
Workers at Kentucky’s BlueOval SK plant report broken bones, toxic mold, and a bat infestation. (Courier Journal)
Trump’s tariffs could erase the hard-won gains of Bangladeshi garment workers. (NYT)
With hurricane season approaching, the National Weather Service’s forecasting capabilities are even more degraded than we thought. (CNN)
ICE arrests workers involved in historic unionization struggle. (Intercept)

May 2, 2025

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The Best of the Week’s News

Columbia student arrested at citizenship interview is released. (NYT)
A Mockery of Due Process: The latest on Trump’s Alien Enemies Act deportations from April’s Sidney winners. (MoJo)
Inside the Taganrog prison, where Russia tortures Ukrainians. (Guardian)
John Fetterman’s downward spiral. (NYMag)
DOGE has a college student rewriting housing regulations with AI. (Wired)
Autocracy is here. (NYer)