Snippet of my Bluesky bio
Hi! This is another edition of Link Roundup here at Forney’s Findings. If you follow me on Bluesky or Instagram (or happen to be in a Discord server with me), you’ll know I love me some links. Pullquotes will cite the author of the article above, not necessarily the quote's speaker.
I am quite behind on these. So I apologize if this is longer than usual. Also, some gift links may have expired. If so, feel free to reach out on any social media or replying to the email (if you’re subscribed) and I can get you a new gift link.
Here are a handful—all read in their entirety by me before adding—that I wanted to share:
Education:
See the books that Texas will be requiring public school students to read (New York Times gift link)
Montgomery County Public Schools top 100 salaries were released weeks after announcing staff cuts (Bethesda Today)
Virginia’s first adult high school celebrates its first graduate (Cardinal News)
Ongoing lawsuits confirmed that billions in California university research grants were cancelled based off nothing more than keyword searches for terms like “diversity” and “structural racism” (Cal Matters)
Howard University unenrolls hundreds days before move-in with little explanation (Capital B)
A Maryland school bus driver crashed into a pharmacy to avoid a driver who ran a red light (Baltimore Banner)
May encounter paywall
Science, Critters, Environment and Healthcare:
The Trump administration wants to repurpose federal land to build data centers faster (New York Times gift link)
After dealing with subpar American healthcare, some Black women are going to Korea for their routine healthcare (The Guardian)
Delaware lawmakers pass bill to designate wetlands as protected areas (Bay Journal)
These researchers turned to OnlyFans to raise money for rodent research (New York Times gift link)
Virginia residents shouldn’t get their hopes up about relief from utility rate hikes (Virginia Mercury)
xAI and Elon Musk will keep their unpermitted gas turbines for another year despite releasing countless pollution to Black communities (TechCrunch)
The government wants to end a Medicare drug subsidy, premiums are expected to rise even more (Wall Street Journal gift link)
New dinosaur just dropped, y’all (BBC)
May encounter paywall
Trump Rx promised cheaper drugs, but the realities weren’t so optimistic (NPR)
Maryland will cut the state budget for overdose prevention, addiction services and mental health (Baltimore Banner)
This Virginia homeowner hopes suing Amazon over the construction of a nearby data center will finally give his family some peace (Virginia Mercury)
Neil is a celebrity in Australia. He’s also an elephant seal (New York Times gift link)
The government is bending over backwards to let employers deny their employees’ birth control coverage (Autonomy News)
Endangered species have one more thing to worry about: the Trump administration (Associated Press)
Around the world, a healthy diet is too expensive for a third of people (The Guardian)
Hell yeah, urban trees send tweet (Grist)
Even for cash-strapped governments, this is an investment proven to bring dividends: A recent report found that for every dollar put into parks and recreation, cities reap $3 in local economic benefits every year. That’s because green spaces encourage people to exercise, supporting public health and reducing the costs associated with sedentary lifestyles. By attracting locals and tourists, parks also spur economic activity as folks filter into surrounding neighborhoods to shop or have lunch. So while yes, it does take money to plant and maintain this greenery, it’s in a city’s best interests to do so.
Cyclospora outbreaks continue across the US (The Guardian)
Government:
More than 500 local laws seek to ban or restrict data center construction (Heatmap)
Montgomery County unanimously passes a data center moratorium (Montgomery Community Media)
New York becomes the first state to impose a data center moratorium (Reuters)
The data center pushback is just beginning (The Verge)
May encounter paywall
[Podcast] Who regulates AI when the federal government won’t? (USA Today)
America’s largest corporate landlord is accused of widespread Fair Housing violations (New York Times gift link)
US government officials used an AI-generated map an international AIDS conference that mislabeled every African county highlighted (The Guardian)
The failure of Graham Platner blows a huge hole in the idea of who exactly Democrats think is “electable” (The 19th News)
ICE agents have more power than ever but their masked agents are also insecure losers (The Verge)
May encounter paywall
US government considers six-figure bonds for Green-Card applicants, further limiting legal immigration (Wall Street Journal gift link)
ICE and DHS continue to lie about their actions (Mother Jones)
The latest institution to draw Trump’s ire: the Smithsonian for not being a colonial highlight reel (The Atlantic gift link)
Metro’s general manager says the Red Line is in rough shape (NBC4 Washington)
Black elected officials are feeling increasingly isolated as nationwide calls for gerrymandering gain steam (Politico)
Missing persons posters go up in Kentucky as Mitch McConnell continues to miss time and votes (Newsweek)
Kentucky’s governor is asking the Senator’s office to show better proof of life (CNN)
The second batch of photos are less convincing than the first (Intelligencer)
A Kentucky publication pre-wrote his obituary and published it (Newsweek)
Trump considers pulling attorney general nomination until after Republican holdouts leave office (The Guardian)
Many are still uncertain who Wes Moore actually is (The Atlantic gift link)
The National Parks Service replaced panels depicting colonial slavery in the middle of the night (Washington Post)
May encounter paywall
Drafted contracts show that ICE thinks state laws won’t apply to them (Wired)
May encounter paywall
Upset about DC rent prices? Don’t worry. The National Guard secured a nearly $300M contract to house their troops indefinitely (NOTUS)
After former Senator Lindsey Graham’s death, his sister announced she will run to succeed him despite her lack of political experience (New York Times gift link)
Senator Graham knew better but that didn’t stop him from enabling Trump’s harm (New York Times gift link)
Texas DMV demands a driver remove their “I <3 yaoi” license plate, citing “indecency” (KXAN)
The Supreme Courts refusal to acknowledge the realities of racism doesn’t make it any less real (The Atlantic gift link)
In his majority opinion siding with the Trump administration, Alito dismissed these statements, writing that none were “overtly racial, and in substance all expressed policy views that could rest on race-neutral justifications.” The assertion that Trump’s statements were not “overtly racial” is absurd, but the reference to hypothetical race-neutral justifications is pure Neo-Korematsu Doctrine: If there’s any other motive, even a hypothetical one, the racism doesn’t count.
This appears to be a Trump-era standard, invented for a president who regularly says racist things. If the justices ruled against him every time he did so, a lot of right-wing policies wouldn’t be upheld. So the statements must be ignored or rationalized.
House Republicans have an uphill climb to pass yet another budget reconciliation (MS Now)
Republicans might have made it easier for workplace discrimination to continue (The Guardian)
Energy officials confirmed that they denied grants for states that didn’t vote for Trump (Slate)
May encounter paywall
Trump’s new pick to lead national intelligence agency is an unqualified as the others (CNN)
The 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington will take place Aug. 28 (Afro American)
Economics:
AI companies want electricians for their data center buildout, even if it means pulling them from more applicable training (New York Times gift link)
Is the Cybertruck the biggest flop in American car history? (Futurism)
New Jersey’s governor signed a law banning surveillance pricing in the state (The Guardian)
Suburban Black families are pushing out lower-income ones, creating a new kind of gentrification (Capital B)
Second home owners feel “unwelcome” in Wales as others struggle to afford a single home (BBC)
Texas investigates ghost jobs on LinkedIn (Chron)
Falls Church average home prices have taken first place in mid-Atlantic region (ARL Now)
A study demonstrated (again) that AI screening tools exclude Black and Asian candidates (The Emancipator)
Victimless crime? Maryland accidentally paid SNAP benefits to a lottery winner (Baltimore Banner)
May encounter paywall
There may have never been a worse time to be a job applicant (New York Times gift link)
If you want to stream without ads, consider getting your money up (The Verge)
May encounter paywall
Some New Yorkers wait for years to clean the subway (Wall Street Journal)
May encounter paywall
There’s also a video that may not trigger the paywall
Breaking: no one respects leaders who outsource their thinking to chatbots (Fortune)
May encounter paywall
The housing crisis may also be a retirement crisis (New York Times gift link)
With so many recent layoffs, Disney may not be so good at this whole business thing (Aftermath)
May encounter paywall
The rise of data centers is making it even harder for Black families to pay their utility bills (Capital B)
Cracker Barrel’s CEO has stepped down. She will be replaced by an older man (Wall Street Journal)
May encounter paywall
DoorDash wants to pass a recent DC-area fee onto consumers (NOTUS)
[Video] Are GLP-1s opening doors for women’s careers? Or are they reinforcing existing biases against people in larger bodies? (Good Morning America)
CW: mentions of fatphobia
Technology:
AI CEOs might be better at scamming and lying to people than human ones (Gizmodo)
LinkedIn added an “AI slop” button (404 Media)
May encounter paywall
Innovative! xAI has started suing users for using its generative AI tools to make child pornography instead of removing the ability for them to do so (Ars Technica)
Meta is accused of using biased AI to decide which of its 8,000 workers to lay off (The Verge)
May encounter paywall
The biggest American AI companies sign a letter asking for international effort to slow down their own technology (Washington Post)
May encounter paywall
After finding a market with pick-up artists and creeps, Meta wants to distance itself from Meta Glasses users filming people without their consent (The Verge)
May encounter paywall
Is AI cringe? We asked local youths to find out (Wired)
May encounter paywall
An Adobe software diss track (Aftermath)
May encounter paywall
The Indian government is trying to compel Meta to keep WhatsApp accounts tied to phone numbers, rather than usernames, for “privacy” (Rest of World)
Amazon accidentally charges people trillions of dollars for their AWS usage (Gizmodo)
Copyright claims from pirated OnlyFans content may be helping secure outdated government websites (Wired)
May encounter paywall
Apple alleges a former employee took trade secrets to OpenAI including hardware devices (Wall Street Journal)
May encounter paywall
Bullying works. Meta walks back opt-out generative AI feature on Instagram after backlash (The Hollywood Reporter)
At what point is using something with a GPU unethical? (The Verge gift link)
Data centers may have a new enemy: Texas Christians (Texas Tribune)
A study found that AI advice made people more confident and more wrong. Who knew? (The Next Web)
Hugging Face points that finger at OpenAI for its recent hacking (Axios)
Uh-oh. Anthropic realized its models hacked into other companies after hearing about OpenAI’s recent hack (Washington Post gift link)
Anthropic said in a blog post Thursday that OpenAI’s disclosure last week prompted it to review records from its own testing of AI models. The company discovered that on three occasions AI models challenged to break into software created solely to test their skills ended up going out onto the internet and breaking into real companies.
Banning social media for children is a bad idea (Wired)
May encounter paywall
Related: France became the first EU country to ban them (CNN)
YouTube copies some more of TikTok’s features for its Shorts service (The Verge)
May encounter paywall
Just how privacy-conscious are today’s period tracking apps? (BBC)
May encounter paywall
Sports:
LeBron should take consider public transit from NYC to Philly (Defector)
Here’s a way-too-early report on various summer league teams (The Athletic gift link)
The “fan” who sent Chelsea Gray racist DMs was fired from his job (ESPN)
This British man broke the single mile world record (The Athletic gift link)
The NBA’s second apron policy is frustrating some front offices (ESPN)
National Women’s Soccer League terminates its streaming rights contract with Victory+ after not receiving payments. They’re the latest in a series of similar moves by other teams in other sports (The Athletic gift link)
The World Cup offered viewers a more positive view of masculinity (The Independent)
How a Baltimore rugby team fought back against a ban on transgender players (Baltimore Banner)
May encounter paywall
While anti-trans activists say trans women and girls pose safety threats to their competitors, there is no scientific evidence and there are no studies suggesting competition is more or less safe with trans women. Flamingos and Ferals players say the biological differences of trans players rarely give them an advantage over cisgender players. Being dedicated on the pitch and in the gym is a more reliable indicator of a player’s on-field success and ability than whether they are trans.
“The more people play alongside trans athletes,” Pizzo said, “the more they can see their assumptions were wrong.”
Women’s Tennis Association wants to mandate gender testing for all athletes (Reuters)
The Houston Dynamo have secured a cheeky new sponsor (Chron)
After the World Cup and Love Island USA, Peacock is finally profitable (Vulture)
May encounter paywall
Following international outcry and several resignations, FIFA abandons its plans to sell to private investors (ESPN)
UEFA had announced it would boycott the World Cups over this (The Athletic gift link)
Caitlin Clark’s flopping and whining to referees may endanger other WNBA players, not that she cares (USA Today)
It seems there is a white nationalist element to Clark’s fandom that is deeply, deeply problematic, made even more so because the WNBA is made up predominantly of Black women, many of them queer. When Clark claims fouls that don’t exist, when she goes on profanity-laced tirades at referees, those racists see her as a white woman in need of saving and take matters into their own hands.
Cathy Englebert did not have a great time at All-Star Weekend (The Athletic gift link)
Seems like she’ll keep her job though (USA Today)
Veronica Burton is reinventing herself in Golden State (The IX Sports)
The Toronto Tempo and Dallas Wings broke the WNBA attendance record with more than 20,000 fans (Yahoo Sports)
Indiana Fever role player, Sophie Cunningham is both loud and wrong in her transphobia (Them)
The Indiana Fever refused to make Cunningham available for questions after an anti-trans rally in her name was announced before a recent game (ESPN)
Related: Cunningham is as edgy as a beach ball (Defector)
Her comments should’ve violated the league’s “No Space for hate” policy but magically, nothing happened (High Post Hoops)
There is a LOT of money on NCAA rosters nowadays (The Athletic gift link)
Related: here’s how many college players will make more than LeBron next season (The Athletic gift link)
There’s a new Houston Rockets beat reporter in town (Chron)
The Atlanta Hawks have traded their former number one pick to the Mavericks (The Athletic gift link)
Minnesota Lynx phenom, Olivia Miles breaks down her historic first WNBA season (SLAM)
After missing half the season recovering from ankle surgery, Napheesa Collier made her return for Minnesota (The Athletic gift link)
Rounding out Lynx highlights, Coach Cheryl Reeve is now the WNBA’s all-time winningest head coach (Hitting the Hardwood)
The Cleveland Sirens were announced as the next WNBA expansion team (The Athletic gift link)
Video Games:
Which games made it into Mothership’s feminist games canon? (Mothership)
May encounter sign-up wall (not a paywall)
Netflix keeps trying to be a games’ service (Aftermath)
May encounter paywall
Street Fighter 6 developers hear online complaints about the drive system but aren’t planning to change anything (IGN)
While fans keep waiting for Far Cry 7, Ubisoft says releasing a game too late could be bad too (GamesRadar)
An ode to Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag’s sea shanties (Aftermath)
Days before AC: IV Resynced, Ubisoft announced layoffs. Its Barcelona studio went on strike (Game Informer)
[Podcast] Are video games in a death spiral as an industry? (Slate)
The Army is using its AI tokens faster than it can pay for them (Wired)
May encounter paywall
Copium stocks are up. Kingdom Hearts will be on stage at D23, giving fans hope for news on the upcoming sequel (Polygon)
Microsoft’s layoffs at Bethesda have hit Maryland hard (Baltimore Banner)
May encounter paywall
A disgruntled gamer is suing Microsoft for not passing their tariff refunds back to consumers (Aftermath)
May encounter paywall
Electronic Arts executive takes home a huge bonus despite the company laying off staff (Eurogamer)
Microsoft is testing streaming games for free with ads (Video Games Chronicle)
Xbox is bringing select games for the original Xbox to PC (The Verge)
May encounter paywall
Staff at the Game Theorists YouTube channel have unionized (Aftermath)
May encounter paywall
People and Relationships:
[Podcast] Don’t bring your true self to work, especially if you’re a Black woman or another intersecting identity (NPR)
Military fitness experts breakdown Defense Secretary Hegseth’s pull-up form (The Atlantic gift link)
Gen Z fell out of love with work and they had every right to (New York Times gift link)
This Texas church defied governor Greg Abbott’s order and painted its steps Pride colors (Chron)
MAGA influencers are trying to reach the men upset about Graham Platner’s through their overlapping misogyny (Salon)
May encounter paywall
Known manosphere celebrities and sex offenders, the Tate brothers, have been arrested on rape charges (NBC News)
An autopsy of singer d4vd’s underaged, alleged victim confirmed she was pregnant (The Guardian)
Content warning: child sexual abuse and alleged murder
After Nolan Well’s death, Black parents wonder who will look out for their children when no one is looking? (The Cut)
We still don’t have specifics from his autopsy (PBS News)
Consider removing therapy speak from your vocabular if you’re not a therapist (Vanity Fair)
And that’s the real problem with therapyspeak. At worst, it’s employed by those who want permission for—or, dare I say, to enable—bad behavior. “I’ve done the work,” therapyspeak says. “Therefore I can act like a jerk, but nobody is allowed to be mad at me.” As any toddler can tell you, the impulse to do whatever you want while suffering no consequences may be the most deeply human one there is. But therapyspeak couches this very understandable behavior in a thick layer of malarkey, putting plausible deniability between the speaker and the meaning of what they’re actually saying. It obfuscates where it should illuminate, a feint toward radical transparency that’s inherently dishonest.
How the Manosphere made its way onto this season of Love Island USA (Them)
When Conservatives want to co-opt masculinity, its meaning gets even more nebulous (The Atlantic gift link)
Nantucket businesses are getting tired of influencers (The Cut)
May encounter paywall
Books:
A book allegedly written by AI is a best-seller (The Atlantic gift link)
Boomers can’t stop gifting their grandkids AI slop books that they didn’t ask for (Wired)
May encounter paywall
Austin is going on defense against book bans (Austin Current)
How lit mags are dealing with AI-slop submissions (Vulture)
May encounter paywall
The 2026 Booker Prize longlist has been revealed (The Booker Prizes)
Where have all the Dad books gone? (Wall Street Journal gift link)
An absolutely insane saga about a man stealing ancient Chinese manuscripts and replacing them with forgeries (USA Today)
This book review exemplifies the “boring Millennial novel” but maybe they don’t need to fit this stereotype (The Atlantic gift link)
[Podcast] Learn about a new book on the history of Black women codebreakers during the Cold War (Science Friday)
A Black-owned horror and sci-fi store is coming to Alexandria (The Alexandria Brief)
NIMBYs complained about this Maryland book exchange (Baltimore Banner)
May encounter paywall
Are we in the post-literate age? (The Atlantic gift link)
The top 50 thrillers of the 21st century according to experts (New York Times gift link)
American publishers file lawsuit against Google for training its AI on their books (The Bookseller)
May encounter paywall
Check out these recommendations for Disability Pride month (Hachette)
An explainer on dark romance as a genre and its common misconceptions (USA Today)
Who is Dua Lipa’s anti-book banning campaign actually for? (The Atlantic gift link)
Maybe the project seems oddly contradictory: a temple to the freedom to read, open exclusively to paying customers and stocked with literature that is widely available. But perhaps that’s only natural, given that today’s book-ban wars have become harder to define.
Art, Culture, Food and Entertainment:
This whaling museum is embracing its “worst aquarium ever” review for viral marketing moment (New Bedford Light)
Tokyo women say they’re being affronted by men’s leg hair after some wore shorts to the office (BBC)
May encounter paywall
Some commentators enjoy the relaxed rules, helping them work more comfortably. Others say the policy is unfair to women since they are still expected to wear tights when showing a part of their legs, while men can now opt for shorts.
And a few women describe the experience of "leg hair harassment" or a term coined online "sunehara", referring to the discomfort of being forced to see their colleague's leg hair.
Tom Holland threw up on a recent episode of The Hot Ones (Vulture)
May encounter paywall
We have our official casting for T’Challa’s adult son in Black Panther 3 (The Hollywood Reporter)
Cult classic, Jennifer’s Body is getting a sequel (Dread Central)
Netflix is in early talks to purchase Letterboxd (Variety)
BBC has announced the casting for the TV adaptation of Open Water (Deadline)
A college student took to social media to bring some much-needed business to her grandmother’s restaurant (Baltimore Banner)
May encounter paywall
The English voice actress for Fullmetal Alchemist pulled out of a recent anime convention after being asked to share the stage with an abuser (Chron)
Boosie BadAzz thought Trump would pardon him after pivoting to MAGA. He was mistaken (The New Republic)
Citizens are organizing to document signs at museums and national parks that were changed in Trump’s “anti-DEI” push (NBC4 Washington)
Did streaming kill the social aspect of television? (Slate)
May encounter paywall
YouTube is planning to include Peacock in its YouTube Premium plans (The Hollywood Reporter)
This reviewer is on their hands and knees asking Disney to stop with the live-action remakes (Vulture)
May encounter paywall
Dave Eggers was invited to speak to OpenAI’s staff. He told them their product was garbage (The Verge)
May encounter paywall
Etsy’s refusal to reign in AI slop on its marketplace is running vendors and customers off the platform (Wired)
May encounter paywall
With It Ends the Gen Z existential dread cinematic universe is complete (Vulture)
May encounter paywall
Wai Ching Ho, known for roles on Daredevil and Iron Fist, has passed away at 82 (The Hollywood Reporter)
News Media:
Why does Elon Musk get a pass to be a racist, xenophobic bigot? (New York Times gift link)
Substack’s new AI detection tool has some “AI-assisted” writers clutching their pearls (404 Media)
May encounter paywall
Once known for its news aggregation, Business Insider wants to pivot to original reporting (Nieman Lab)
Arizona freelance photographers rejected The Wall Street Journal’s new contract, citing concerns with AI training of their work (AZPM)
A judge has thrown out UnitedHealth’s defamation suit against The Guardian (Health Exec)
The founder of Libs of TikTok refused to answer court documents, so she was summoned through social media (Baltimore Banner)
May encounter paywall
Buzzfeed, Huffpost, and Tasty announce layoffs in new CEO’s first move (The Hollywood Reporter)
The Trump administration has withdrawn its subpoenas of the New York Times, citing legal errors (Associated Press)
The request for phone records raised questions about the extent of the investigation being carried out by the Justice Department.
David McCraw, the Times' chief newsroom lawyer, said after the hearing in a statement that it "was an important affirmation of our country's commitment to a free press."
"We are pleased that the government finally conceded that the subpoenas violated the law, but they should never have been issued in the first place," he said. "We will not be deterred in the face of tactics like these."
