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Another busy week (maybe one day there’ll be a quiet one) in which independent publications have been doing sterling work on politics, science, tech, the environment and more. Please check out these stories from newsrooms with a fediverse presence, which cover subjects from antifascism to EVs in Zimbabwe. Oh, and Canadians, there’s a special treat for you at the end.
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If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area and you’re interested in the future of news, you might be interested in an event @SFPublicPress is hosting. On March 13, there’ll be a special screening of “Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink,” a documentary by Academy Award-nominee Rick Goldsmith, about hedge fund Alden Global Capital, which has been gutting local papers across America.

sfpublicpress.org/film-screeni

You may not know the name Steve Berger, but the archconservative evangelical pastor has influence in Washington, D.C. — so much so that several Republican party lawmakers live at his nonprofit organization’s headquarters. Berger has said his goal is to “disciple” members of Congress so what “they learn is then translated into policy.” Past and present residents of his townhouse — described by @ProPublica as “what amounts to a group house for conservative lawmakers” include Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump ally Rep. Andy Ogles and Dan Bishop, a former Congressman.

propublica.org/article/roommat

ProPublicaSecretive D.C. Influence Project Appears to Be Running a Group House for Right-Wing Lawmakers
More from ProPublica

Japanese car makers have sent used cars to Zimbabwe for decades — tens of thousands a year. They often end up in a landfill, in particular the electric vehicles, because of a lack of specialized mechanics to get them back on the road or safely recycle them. Zimbabweans have had enough. “Our township landfills are filled with batteries and other sophisticated elements from discarded EV cars, spewing toxic chemicals, because we don’t know how to recycle their parts, nor have the machinery or skill to do so,” garage manager Amos Gwada says. @thexylom tells the full story.

thexylom.com/post/aging-japane

The Xylom · Aging Japanese EVs Are Giving Zimbabwe FitsBy Ray Mwareya and Tsitsi Bhobo

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s “declaration of disaster,” on the border crisis, signed in 2021, allows him to ignore the usual protocol when handing out valuable contracts to private contractors and vendors. And it’s an expensive business: State agencies are paying for everything from zip ties and razor wire to helicopters and planes. Here’s @TexasObserver’s story on who have been the big winners, including some who have become Abbott’s campaign “patrons.”

texasobserver.org/abbott-opera

The Texas Observer · Abbott’s Border Disaster Has Created a No-Bid Bonanza for Private ContractorsThere is now a powerful, well-heeled constituency that has built up around Operation Lone Star.

50 years ago, Tim Bliss and Terje Lømo worked in the Oslo lab of the late neuroscientist Per Andersen, where they made a momentous discovery: the fact that when a neuron signals to another neuron frequently enough, the second one will later respond more strongly to new signals for hours afterwards. The phenomenon is called long-term potentiation (LTP) and it’s fundamental to how we learn and remember. @KnowableMag talked to Bliss and Lømo about their discovery, and to other neuroscientists about how they’re applying knowledge about LTP to their research about memory disorders, chronic pain and more.

knowablemagazine.org/content/a

Knowable Magazine | Annual ReviewsIt began with a rabbit: Unraveling the mystery of memoryHalf a century after the discovery of long-term potentiation, we’re still learning how the brain remembers

American prisons run on forced labor. For @bolts, historian Robert Chase answered reader questions about the legal basis for paying incarcerated people below minimum wage, whether the Americans with Disabilities Act applies in these circumstances, who has the authority to stop prison labor, and more.

boltsmag.org/the-past-and-pres

Bolts · The Past and Present of Prison Labor: Your Questions Answered - BoltsA historian answers Bolts readers’ questions on the deep roots of forced labor in U.S. prisons, how it operates today, and efforts to challenge it.

Ready for some light relief in a heavy thread? Our @ArtPhotosDesk shared some beautiful animal pictures — winners of the Nature Photography Contest — including a polar bear resting in a bed of flowers, a humpback whale swimming alongside a pod of dolphins, and a desert kit fox biting a camera. The story also contains @Phoblographer’s breakdown of the gear the winning photographers got their shots.

Why does President Zelenskyy dress in military-style attire, and why did he get flak from certain quarters when he wore it to the White House? @timkmak, Myroslava Tanska-Vikulova and Anastasiia Kryvoruchenko dig into it for Counteroffensive.

counteroffensive.news/p/why-ze

The Counteroffensive with Tim Mak · Why Zelenskyy wore that shirt to the Oval OfficeBy Myroslava Tanska-Vikulova

“The cost of Trump’s executive disorder is measured in lives” is the headline of this piece in @thecontinent. The team at the Africa-wide weekly newspaper break down how the U.S. government’s freeze on international aid has affected HIV and tuberculosis programs in Uganda, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “American aid to the global HIV response is channelled through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (Pepfar). It is the world’s biggest HIV response fund and it supports – or supported – up to 20-million people,” they write.

continent.substack.com/p/the-c

The Continent · The cost of Trump’s executive disorder is measured in livesBy The Continent

Last of all, given the fraught situation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, our @CultureDesk shared an explanation of the term “elbows up” by MP Charlie Angus. For an extra treat, here’s a video to inspire Canadians through the weekend and beyond: Joe Canada/Jeff Douglas’s updated “I am Canadian” ad, but this time it’s not for beer.

youtube.com/watch?v=1LzhCLzfJF

charlieangus.substack.com/p/el

www.youtube.com- YouTubeEnjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

@Flipboard @CultureDesk I want to vote for Jeff for president in 2028.

@Flipboard @TheConversationUS Find out what flowers are indigenous to your area and plant them in every nook and cranny you can find.

@Flipboard @TheConversationUS @futurebird We used have beautiful huge swallowtails in the 70s and 80s in SE Washington state growing up. Anytime in the summer you could go outside and see one or two.

I don't remember the last time I saw one. I moved away in 2003 and when I came back in 2019, they were all gone. Now we're lucky to see a cabbage moth, which used to practically swarm the flowers.