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Leaked audio from a staff meeting at the U.S. Social Security Administration suggests the agency may be in peril. Acting Social Security Commissioner Leland Dudek, a career civil servant who was promoted to his current position by the Trump administration, told others at a closed-door meeting: “Are we going to break something?” referring to what DOGE has been doing with Social Security data. “I don’t know.” Here's more from @ProPublica.

https://www.propublica.org/article/recording-reveals-leland-dudek-thoughts-trump-doge-social-security

Last week, Aix Marseille University in France offered funding to American scientists who feel like their work is being censored. It’s already seeing great interest from researchers at NASA, Yale and Stanford, and the program may extend through more universities across Europe. “We are witnessing a new brain drain,” Éric Berton, Aix Marseille University’s president, said in a press release. Here’s more from @emanuelmaiberg for @404mediaco

https://www.404media.co/nasa-yale-and-stanford-scientists-consider-scientific-exile-french-university-says/

Speaking of drained brains and France, here’s a gentle reminder from our @CultureDesk of why America doesn’t actually have a Champagne business.

https://www.foodandwine.com/wine/champagne-sparkling-wine/champagne-basics-explainer

@gbhnews has a new podcast series, “Scratch & Win,” which is about the rise of America’s most successful lottery. Expect tales of organized crime, the FBI, and U.S. politics — just another day in America, in other words.

https://www.wgbh.org/podcasts/scratch-win

School vouchers sure are good for someone — but it’s not necessarily kids. Here’s @TexasObserver on how in the Lone Star state, the push for school choice could provide a huge payday for private contractors. These certified educational assistance organizations (CEAO) will act as middlemen between the state, parents and private schools — for a fee, of course.

https://www.texasobserver.org/school-vouchers-vendors-millions-legislature/

When Spanish colonizers established a town in the mountains of Bolivia in the 1500s, they might have expected to expand their communities by having babies, but they could not. While Indigenous folks raised families, not a single child of European descent was born for decades. It was all down to the lack of oxygen at altitude, which the settlers were not genetically adapted to deal with. @KnowableMag reports on how scientists are now studying this to see if they can help pregnant people whose bodies are struggling to provide enough oxygen to their fetuses, at any altitude.

https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2025/overcoming-risks-of-pregnancy-at-high-elevation

Utah was one of only a few red states to allow universal vote-by-mail, but not anymore. @bolts’s Alex Burness writes about how the Republican-controlled legislature is about to get rid of the practice, which has been in place since 2019, and is imposing new restrictions on absentee voting too.

https://boltsmag.org/utah-legislation-ending-universal-vote-by-mail/

Is ranch dressing a liquid or a solid? our @ScienceDesk asked, via @TheConversationUS's Curious Kids series (also good for curious adults). Turns out it’s something called soft matter, like cookie dough, toothpaste, and snot.

https://theconversation.com/is-ranch-dressing-a-liquid-or-a-solid-a-physicist-explains-249435

“The Fediverse Isn’t the Future. It’s the Present We’ve Been Denied.” Here’s yet another brilliant feature by @Daojoan. “The fediverse won’t succeed just because it’s better. It will succeed if and only if people choose it. If they reject the idea that being trapped in someone else’s ecosystem is just the cost of existing online. If they stop believing that “free” means surrendering ownership of your own connections, your own history, your own data. If they see that the internet wasn’t built to be a factory for engagement metrics and AI-generated content farms. It was built to connect us, not silo us to pad a wealth-extremist’s bank account,” she writes.

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-fediverse-isnt-the-future-its-the-present-weve-been-denied

When the United States went to war with Iraq, nations from across the world fought with them — including Ukraine, which didn’t ask for money or minerals in return. @timkmak and Myroslava Tanska-Vikulova write for Counteroffensive about the “trend of the Trump administration taking decades-long partnerships as mere leverage for transactions.”

https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/ukraine-fought-alongside-us-in-iraq

Mahmoud Ahmed is a national icon of Ethiopia, a musician who rose to prominence during the time of Haile Selassie, and whose songs are known by every generation, though he hasn’t released a new track in decades. Now, he’s retiring, and @thecontinent spoke to him days before his final concert in Addis Ababa. Here’s the interview — writer Maya Misikir suggests listening to it accompanied by Ahmed’s most famous track, “Tizita,” (sometimes known as “Tezeta”) which is a song about nostalgia.

https://continent.substack.com/p/i-would-be-happy-to-die-on-that-stage

#Africa #Ethiopia #MahmoudAhmed #Music ##Tezeta #Tizita #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Finally, our team had a wonderful time at #SXSW on Sunday and Monday, where Flipboard and @surf hosted the first #FediverseHouse. Our CEO @mike and the whole team are 100% #TeamFediverse, and were thrilled to meet and talk to so many other open social web advocates. Here’s a feature by @Markoff for @newyorktimes, where Mike, @Gargron and @reckless1280 discuss the rise of decentralized social media, and how it can help publishers and media companies survive and thrive.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/technology/mike-mccue-surf-browser-decentralized-internet.html