Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by B.G. Firmani

Indivisible ❌👑

@indivisible.org

Support immigrants under attack on this Giving Tuesday.

With the regime escalating its attacks on immigrant communities, we’re encouraging you to support the Defending Our Neighbors Fund. Help families caught up in our increasingly draconian immigration system get the legal assistance they deserve.

Defending Our Neighbors Fund

An urgent lifeline to local organizations providing legal and bond support to immigrant families and individuals who need it most. Donate today.

defendingourneighbors.org

December 3, 2025 at 12:14 AM

Reposted by B.G. Firmani

Dianne Dupuis

@iamfreetobeme.bsky.social

Today is Buy Nothing Day!

November 28, 2025 at 8:26 AM

Reposted by B.G. Firmani

PBS News

@pbsnews.org

Viola Ford Fletcher, who as one of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in Oklahoma spent her later years seeking justice for the deadly attack by a white mob on the thriving Black community where she lived as a child, has died. She was 111. https://to.pbs.org/43OHYaQ

Viola Ford Fletcher, one of the last survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre, dies at age 111

Fletcher spent her later years seeking justice for the deadly attack by a white mob on the thriving Black community where she lived as a child.

www.pbs.org

November 24, 2025 at 10:33 PM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

"Macken, 63, began building the monumental 50-by-30-foot model in his Clifton Park, NY basement back in 2004." This so reminds me of my nonno, Marino Auriti, an autobody mechanic, and his Encyclopedic Palace: collection.folkartmuseum.org/people/772/m... #architecture
gothamist.com/arts-enterta...

Trucker's viral scale model of every NYC building to get official showing

Joe Macken's Museum of the City of New York exhibit is over 20 years in the making.

gothamist.com

November 20, 2025 at 11:02 PM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

"Of the over 500 men who entered the forest, only 194 were rescued." Another library sale find, this melancholy little curio, HISTORY AND RHYMES OF THE LOST BATTALION, from 1929, by "Buck Private" McCollum, one who lived to tell. www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/muse... #WW1 #booksky #LostBattalion

November 19, 2025 at 11:36 PM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

I signed this petition organized by Showing Up for Racial Justice. They still need more signatures. Can you sign and share as well? www.mobilize.us/surj/event/8...

We Ain't Buying It! Pledge to Boycott with SURJ · Showing Up for Racial Justice

............................................................................... ### SURJ is joining forces with the _We Ain't Buying It!_ Campaign to send a clear message to corporate America and the ...

www.mobilize.us

November 19, 2025 at 11:08 PM

Reposted by B.G. Firmani

PEN America

@penamerica.bsky.social

President Trump’s response to the murder of exiled Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the culpability of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman sends a chilling message to authoritarian governments that paves the way to more human rights violations. pen.org/press-releas...

November 19, 2025 at 12:44 AM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

Brave young journalist Malak A Tantesh. "There were times, she wrote, when the surviving members of her family envied the dead." And then look at these beautiful, hopeful faces.
www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n... #Gaza

Guardian’s former Gaza correspondent named young journalist of the year in UK awards

Malak A Tantesh, 20, ‘showed immense talent and bravery’, said judges at Media Freedom awards in London

www.theguardian.com

November 18, 2025 at 10:54 PM

Reposted by B.G. Firmani

NPR

@npr.org

The MacArthur "Genius" Award-winner was best known as the founder of the Disability Visibility Project, which highlights disabled people and disability culture through storytelling projects, social media and other channels. n.pr/47WGe0m

Disability rights activist and author Alice Wong dies at 51

The MacArthur "Genius" Award-winner was best known as the founder of the Disability Visibility Project, which highlights disabled people and disability culture through storytelling projects, social media and other channels.

n.pr

November 16, 2025 at 4:41 AM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

Dwight Garner in @nytimes.com calls @ghoward1950.bsky.social's THE INSIDER: Malcolm Cowley + the Triumph of American Literature "sensitive, well-reported and probing" + brings home how #WilliamFaulkner might have passed into the dustbin of history w/o Cowley. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/b... #booksky

American Literature Owes a Great Debt to This 20th-Century ‘Insider’

www.nytimes.com

November 11, 2025 at 12:41 AM

Reposted by B.G. Firmani

Zohran Kwame Mamdani

@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social

November 5, 2025 at 2:41 AM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

Thank you! Also featuring Siân Gibby @sianfach.bsky.social as part of a discussion with #poet Dennis Barone (www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/dennis...) and me about Robert Viscusi on "pick-and-shovel poet" Pascal D'Angelo. #ItalianAmerican #booksky

November 5, 2025 at 10:31 PM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

Someone needs to talk about @ghoward1950.bsky.social and Edwin Frank, founder and editor of the NYRB Classics, discussing Gerry's THE INSIDER: Malcolm Cowley and the Triumph of American Literature at @greenlightbklyn.bsky.social on Weds, 11/5 @ 7:30. greenlightbookstore.com/event/2025-1... #booksky

November 4, 2025 at 12:13 AM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

Found at a library sale in Kent, CT, this beautiful and powerfully spooky edition of Gustav Meyrink's DER GOLEM, in the original German. With lithographs by Hugo Steiner-Prag. Published by Kurt Wolff in Leipzig, 1915. #booksky #vanishedworld

October 31, 2025 at 11:15 PM

Reposted by B.G. Firmani

Robert Reich

@rbreich.bsky.social

Watch our full conversation here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqU0...

A Conversation with Zohran Mamdani

YouTube video by Robert Reich

www.youtube.com

October 29, 2025 at 9:35 PM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

give.doctorswithoutborders.org/campaign/678...

Donate to Help save lives. Donate now.

Support our cause by donating to Doctors Without Borders.

give.doctorswithoutborders.org

October 28, 2025 at 10:37 PM

Reposted by B.G. Firmani

Zohran Kwame Mamdani

@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social

Forget the polls. Take nothing for granted. And let's work our hearts out these next seven days.

Vote now: zohranfornyc.com/vote

Canvass + phonebank: zohranfornyc.com/gotv

October 28, 2025 at 8:19 PM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

I almost wrote "unbelievable," but all bets are off with the insanity of the t administration and the hatred, stupidity, and violence they sow in the world. #booksky

Al Jazeera English @aljazeera.com · Oct 28

The first African author to win the Nobel in literature, Soyinka has been an outspoken critic of governments worldwide.

Trump administration strips Nigerian Nobel winner Wole Soyinka of US visa

The first African author to win the Nobel in literature, Soyinka has been an outspoken critic of governments worldwide.

bit.ly

October 28, 2025 at 10:23 PM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

"As the operation carried on, agents were confronted with a spontaneous crowd of protesters, who heckled them to leave New York City and called them Nazis."
This is the #NYC that I love.
#WeStandWithImmigrants

THE CITY @thecity.nyc · Oct 22

As news spread of the Canal St. raid Tuesday evening, local elected officials gathered in Foley Square including City Comptroller Brad Lander and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and several members of the City Council, to denounce it.

www.thecity.nyc/2025/10/21/i...

Military-Style Immigration Sweep Hits NYC as Masked Federal Agents Arrest Canal Street Vendors

Spontaneous protests were met with an armored military vehicle and assault rifles in a crackdown that escalated the Trump administration’s focus on NYC.

www.thecity.nyc

October 22, 2025 at 10:04 PM

B.G. Firmani

@bgfirmani.bsky.social

"The future is always being written at every moment, and hope and faith and even an irrational belief in literature’s primacy in and importance to the human prospect is the cure for despair." Terrific piece in the @nytimes.com by @ghoward1950.bsky.social #booksky

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · Oct 20

I wrote this op-ed in the New York Times to shine some light on the supposedly dismal literary situation. The cure, as always: crazy hope and leaps of faith.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/o...