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. A little lighter than previous weeks as I’ve been busy with school and work things, but still some interesting stuff going on.
Here are a handful—all read in their entirety by me before adding—that I wanted to share:
Government:
The misdemeanor trial of DC’s sandwich guy has begun (CNN)
Savor justice: he was later found not guilty (Washington Post)
Dunn's attorneys said Lairmore was "very heavily armed" and with a group of law enforcement officers, in addition to wearing the bulletproof vest. "If that vest ... is going to keep you safe from military rifle fire, it is certainly going to keep you safe from a sandwich," Shroff said.
How some states are handling the SNAP funding lapse:
Maryland commits $62 million fund share (Maryland Matters)
D.C. to use its own rainy day funds cover food benefit costs in the District (The 51st)
Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance (VENA) will roll out weekly payments in November (Virginia Mercury)
The governor still blames Democrats for the shutdown, despite Republicans having the majority
Millions of Texans worry if they’ll see their food benefits this month (Texas Tribune)
North Carolina residents will received partial benefits starting in November (NC Newsline)
“At the beginning of November, more than 60% of participants had $25 or less on their EBT cards, according to the department. More than 30% had less than $1.”
More than five million Californians expected to lose their benefits (CalMatters)
Dozens of states have sued the USDA for refusing to use its contingency funds for SNAP recipients
Baltimore County loses sanctuary status (The Baltimore Banner)
Cheat sheet covering elections across the country (Bolts Magazine):
Mamdani elected mayor of New York City, conservatives are crashing out (The Cut)
Democrats sweep the Virginia ballot (Virginia Mercury)
A pretend cleaning crew scammed Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton out of $4,000+. She has not announced if she’ll seek re-election (NBC4 Washington)
The rates Black drivers are pulled over in Baltimore County has no improved, despite county statements to address it (The Baltimore Banner)
NIMBYs might not be the entire reason Georgetown doesn’t have a metro station (Georgetown Voice)
Nancy Pelosi (85) announces retirement after 38 years in the House (the 19th)
She really changed the Congressional investor game (404 Media)
May encounter paywall
Related: Inside the Democrats’ geratocracy (Intelligencer)
May encounter paywall
Supreme Court rules that Trump administration can require people to list their gender assigned at birth on passports (them)
White House fires commission responsible for reviewing construction projects before continuing ballroom demolition plans (Washington Post gift link)
Education:
Virginia is making it harder for students to pass end-of-year exams (Washington Post gift link)
What college students are worried about today (New York Times gift link)
Some college students are banking on double majors to help them stand out in a crowded job market (Hechinger Report)
News Media:
Condé Nast folds Teen Vogue into Vogue, laying off entire politics team (The Hollywood Reporter)
“Management plans to lay off six of our members, most of whom are BIPOC women or trans, including Teen Vogue’s Politics Editor — continuing the trend of layoffs at Condé disproportionately impacting marginalized employees,” the organizations stated. They added, “Teen Vogue now has no writers or editors explicitly covering politics.”
The groups continued, “As of today, only one woman of color remains on the editorial staff at Teen Vogue.”
Sports (all basketball again):
Science and Critters:
Five monkeys escaped from an overturned research vehicle. All but one were euthanized. One remains on the loose (WAPT)
A neural network found multiple enzymes that can break down polyurethane (Ars Technica)
The world is a ways off track to meet its climate change goals (The Japan Times)
Under the Paris Agreement, each country is supposed to provide increasingly ambitious plans known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every five years, with plans to 2035 due in this year.
The U.N. on Tuesday said just 64 of the nearly 200 parties to the Paris Agreement had submitted their NDCs by its end of September cut-off date for the official annual report.
Economy:
Rate of first-time homebuyers hits record low, median age of first-time buyers hits all-time high (Fortune)
Black federal workers hit hard by shutdown (Capital B)
How D.C. resolved its $1.1B budget shortfall—more or less (WAMU)
“If you are a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but give your money away, shorties.”—Billie Eilish before giving away millions to charity (Consequence)
How data centers are altering the US economy (Wired)
People and Relationships:
Single tear! MAGA singles are having an awful time dating in DC (Washington Post gift link)
“There’s a lot of talk around the word ‘fascism’ and people on the left calling people on the right ‘fascists’ and ‘Nazis,’” said a 27-year-old Republican staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because her employer did not allow her to speak to the press. “I think if somebody genuinely thought that, they probably wouldn’t want to date me anyways, but like, that’s a red flag, because then you think that I’m that, which I’m not, whatsoever, and never will be. But I mean, my partner can’t think I’m a fascist. That’s crazy.”
A new survey shows that people are more likely to move in with partners sooner specifically to save on housing costs (The Guardian)
Furloughed workers hold singles mixers in D.C. (WTOP)
Modern-day Paul Revere alerts community to ICE activity atop a scooter (The Baltimore Banner)
Employers have no clue how wellness incentives could actually help workers (Slate)
Caregiver companies in Japan turn to bodybuilders during labor shortage (the Japan Times)
Sonya Massey’s murderer was convicted of second-degree murder (Huffington Post)
Arts, Culture and Food:
Yup. King of the Hill renewed for two more seasons on Hulu (The Hollywood Reporter)
Interview with Rosalia discussing her new multilingual album, Lux (New York Times gift link)
Everything we know about the upcoming Victorious spin-off (Teen Vogue)
MTV cancels Ridiculousness after 46 seasons (USA Today)
YouTube TV pulls content from channels including ESPN, ABC after failing to reach an agreement (USA Today)
What happened to public benches in NYC? (New York Times gift link)
Sitting down with Stavros Halkias about how to deprogram young men (Vulture)
May encounter paywall
Kpop Demon Hunters nets Sony $15 million bonus, sequel in the works (The Hollywood Reporter)
Books:
The banning of Banned Books Week (Book Riot)
A Texas judge ruled that requiring libraries to rate sexual material in books as unconstitutional (Houston Chronicle gift link)
D.C.’s queer-focused bookstore embarks on a new chapter (Washington City Paper)
Written by yours truly
Technology:
Wired did a really interesting package on AI themed around tarot cards
International data centers aren’t bringing in a fraction of the jobs they promised (Rest of World)
The case for this moment being an AI bubble (Wired)
Meta says porn downloaded on its company servers was for persoanl use, not AI model training (Ars Technica)
Ed Zitron is AI’s biggest hater…or is he? (Wired)
People are using Meta’s Ray Ban glasses to illegally record and harass massage parlor workers (404 Media)
May encounter paywall
People are using OpenAI’s Sora software to make racist, fake videos of Black people misusing SNAP (Futurism)
Tinder launches mandatory facial scanning for new users to reduce scams (Wired)
The company is aware that asking new members to scan their faces might be seen as a privacy issue, but “theoretically, if somebody were to get access to every single one of these hashes that’s been created, there isn't really anything they could do.”
Video Games:
The Trump administration made a promotional video likening immigrants to the Flood from Halo (404 Media)
May encounter paywall
The Trump administration has long invoked racist imagery, much of it pulled from America’s past, to sell its agenda. But overtly equating immigrants to a ravening horde of monsters from a video game has its closest analogue in Nazi propaganda.
Ghosts of Yotei and the search for style in games (The Ringer)
Yet another free-to-play battle royale game will shut down, despite investors pumping resources—and decimating the games’ industry—into them (Game Informer)
Former Multiverse devs launch indie studio in hopes of avoiding the mistakes of AAA game companies (Gameindustry.biz)
