Snippet of my Bluesky bio
Hi! Welcome to another 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.
Before the links, I wanted to share that I’ve worked with Lex Roman at Revenue Rulebreaker to set a subscriber goal for Halloween. I want to reach 100 subscribers! Please consider subscribing (it’s free) for future roundups, essays, and reported stories.
This week, I put some podcasts in here too. Feel free to let me know if you like that addition. Here are a handful—all read/watched in their entirety by me before adding—that I wanted to share:
Government:
ICE is using a facility that used to detain Japanese Americans during Japanese interment to house immigrants (USA Today)
Wes Moore told Trump to get off his golf cart and work. Trump didn’t like that and threatened to cut already allocated funds to repair a bridge (Baltimore Banner)
Possible paywall
Justice: a dish best served toasted? Sandwich thrower and DC local legend will not face assault charges (CNBC)
Texas Democrats were assigned police detail to prevent fleeing the state again. So they took ‘em to a gay bar (Chron)
Speaking of maps, Mississippi ruled its maps were diluting the power of Black residents (Capital B News)
TIL a former Texas senator (R!!!) was pushing for an independent redistricting commission that never came to be (Houston Chronicle)
Kristi Noem requires any DHS contract over $100K get her personal approval first. This has led to huge delays, including the recent Texas flood response (New York Times)
Sorry I ran out of gift links, y’all. You can read through the DCPL or check if your local library/university has a digital day pass
Trump takeover bucket:
He wants to overtake Union Station management from Amtrak (AP)
Trump’s occupation of DC costs 4x as much as it would to house all unhoused people in the city (Common Dreams)
The protests continue (WUSA9)
DC Takeover thorough explainer (51st)
Other “beat it, bozo” news: Trump tried to sue the entire MD federal bench over the right to deny immigrants’ rights when faced with deportation and got his case thrown out (Baltimore Banner)
Possible paywall
An estimated 700 rural hospitals (~one in three) are at risk of closing in the coming years due to Trump’s Medicaid cuts and eliminating tax credits (USA Today)
Several senators sent a hospital risk analysis to Trump citing the states most likely to see significant closures
Eric Adams is aiming for most fraudulent advisory staff ever (Gothamist)
People were bribed with speaking roles on TV shows, home renovations, and thousands in free catering (allegedly)
The Argentos also secured a speaking role for Lewis-Martin in the crime drama TV series “Godfather of Harlem,” according to the indictment. The gig paid $800 and made Lewis-Martin eligible to join a union for actors, prosecutors charged. Tony Argento also offered to help her land future appearances on the show, as well as the CBS police drama “Blue Bloods.”
Former Adams advisor tried to bribe a reporter with a dollar bill-flavored bag of chips (THE CITY)
She apologized and called it a cultural misunderstanding
In an interview later Wednesday, THE CITY asked Greco what her intention was in handing money to the reporter. In response, she said she’d made “a mistake” and apologized over and over. “I make a mistake,” she said. “I’m so sorry. It’s a culture thing. I don’t know. I don’t understand. I’m so sorry. I feel so bad right now. I’m so sorry, honey.”
Music, Arts, and Culture:
Culty or proud? The former, but here’s the history of the Texas pledge (Chron)
Ever wonder how video game guides get made? Here’s a deep dive (Aftermath)
Maybe paywalled
KPop Demon Hunters is Netflix’s most popular movie ever (The Verge)
Indie game developers are delaying their titles to make room for Hollow Knight: Silksong (Aftermath)
SEPTEMBER FOUR. It’s real, y’all
Sean Kingston and his mama are sentenced in fraud trial (New York Times)
Apple TV Plus is getting a price hike because Apple can charge whatever it wants (The Verge)
Education:
An investigation revealed many Texas private schools, which are set to receive public funds in 2026, would have failed conflict of interests probes if they were public (Texas Tribune & ProPublica)
More Texas: a judge blocked the bill requiring the Ten Commandments in public schools (USA Today)
1-4 Texas school districts plan to implement the Bible-focused curriculum, Bluebonnet. Many cite the financial incentives despite its academic shortcomings (Texas Tribune)
The cost of school supplies has teachers and parents mad at one another when they should be mad at the government for not funding school districts (the 19th News)
Arlington Public Schools continue to defy Department of Education in their support for trans students (ARLnow)
Maryland drivers received 20,000 citations in a single school year (Baltimore Banner)
Possible paywall
News Media:
The Texas Tribune surveyed news-avoidant people to see how to get them to check out their work
Wired and several other outlets got finessed by an AI-grifter (Press Gazette)
Wired’s official acknowledgement of the incident
Support local journalism! This new legislation could provide funding through “news coupons” to outlets based on residential preference (51st)
For the fellow journalists reading this, Notify is an app that notifies you when selected websites change (9to5Mac)
Could be useful with all of the silent deletions we’re seeing from the Trump administration
Technology:
A bunch of AI-related nonsense this edition.
AI may put low-wage workers who impersonate OnlyFans creators in chat threads out of a job (Rest of World)
Businesses forcing AI into things aren’t seeing the financial improvements they’d hoped for (Gizmodo)
YouTube got caught using AI to touch-up people’s YouTube Shorts without their permission (BBC)
In response to The Guardian’s investigation on how Microsoft’s technology is used to surveil Palestinians, some protestors occupied its president’s office and streamed it (TechCrunch)
May the AI bubble burst be as loud as its hype cycle (decrypt)
Some 911 non-emergency lines are being answered by AI (TechCrunch)
Content warning: mentions of suicide
OpenAI said it’ll add parental controls after ChatGPT offered to help draft a teen’s suicide note before he eventually took his own life (The Verge)
Anthropic settles copyright infringement suit with authors whose books they pirated to train large language models (TechCrunch)
Science:
Bioengineering carbon sequestration through phytoplankton fertilization (Grist)
Meet eight chemists with disabilities who made history (Chemical & Engineering News)
People, Relationships, and Labor:
Some cities are paying people to move there + other perks (USA Today)
But the city has also seen spill-over effects. An independent study published earlier this year by the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research found that each dollar spent on the program delivered $4 in benefits to existing Tulsa residents.
So far, the program has welcomed more than 3,500 people to the city.
Study author Timothy Bartik wrote that the program has a better “benefit-cost ratio than many business tax incentives” and is a “relatively cheap way to create local jobs.”
Red Lobster’s new CEO is betting on niggas to save their floundering brand (New York Times)
[Podcast] Girlboss revenge arc? Let’s hope not (Slate)
A fascinating feature on the cultural implications of thong bikini bottom’s current comeback (The Guardian)
With price hikes deeply unpopular, companies are looking for “creative” ways to sneak tariff charges onto consumers (Marketplace)
[Podcast] Is strong having a moment? As a buff person enjoyer, I sure hope so (Vox)
A Stanford study shows AI adoption is impacting entry-level work opportunities (Fortune)
There may be a paywall
Dating app, Raya, has a 2.5 million person waitlist (WSJ)
[Podcast] Offline dating might be the way as people grow increasingly tired of the apps (CNN)
Today’s depressing vocab term is: Heteropessimism (The Guardian)
Related reading (and more intersectional) on how all gendered expression is, in some way, performative (them)
Arlington is building more apartments than most metros but rents remain absurd (ARLnow)
How the increasing housing stock will impact rents in the region remains to be seen. Typically, an increase in units causes overall rents to remain flat or decline.
A monthly analysis from Apartment List in late July pegged Arlington as the fifth most expensive area for renters among the nation’s 100 largest urban areas, and the most expensive outside of California.
CEO salaries are absurd. Many businesses would rather pay their executives than improve their actual businesses (The Guardian)
Between 2019 to 2024, Low-Wage 100 firms spent $644bn on stock buybacks. More than half spent more on buybacks than on capital improvements at their firms.
Lowe’s spent $46.6bn on stock buybacks: $28,456 per each of the retailer’s 273,000 employees, according to the report. Home Depot ranked second in stock buybacks during this period, spending $37.9bn.
The report also noted 32 billionaires owe their wealth to Low-Wage 100 corporations, including eight billionaires from Walmart, four from Estee Lauder and three from DoorDash.
