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It’s #NewstodonFriday once again, and as always, we have a great selection of stories from independent newsrooms. This week’s highlights include @ProPublica’s story about a DJ turned white supremacist influencer, @parkermolloy writing for @damemagazine about the death of legacy media, and @bolts’s @taniel on —yikes — another round of U.S. elections. Please check out these stories and all the others in this thread, comment, like, follow their accounts and give them your money. 
The word friends used to describe convenience store worker and part-time DJ Matthew Allison: Goofy. This @ProPublica report explains how he was also a key figure in Terrorgram, a network of white supremacist chat groups and channels. He was arrested last year; prosecutors say he used the Telegram platform to solicit attacks on government infrastructure, encourage the assassination of politicians and distribute instructions for making bombs.
https://www.propublica.org/article/matthew-allison-dj-terrogram-collective-boise-dallas-humber
“Is legacy media dead?” asks @parkermolloy for @damemagazine. She looks at how, with newspaper owners interfering in the work of their reporters, independent media sources are the ones holding power to account. “What independent journalism offers that legacy media increasingly doesn’t is transparency about where it’s coming from. There’s no pretense of objectivity that masks institutional biases and billionaire influence,” she writes. “Readers know what they’re getting, which paradoxically can build more trust than false neutrality.”
https://www.damemagazine.com/2025/03/19/is-legacy-media-dead/
Who could have predicted this? Really, a lot of people. @404mediaco’s @jasonkoebler reports on how 23andMe’s bankruptcy has led to more than 50 class-action and state court lawsuits from around 35,000 people who are worried about what will now happen to their genetic data.
https://www.404media.co/dna-of-15-million-people-for-sale-in-23andme-bankruptcy/
The Massachusetts State House has one of the oldest public art collections in the country with more than 300 works — of which only 20 depict women. Here’s @gbhnews’s story on how Senate President Karen Spilka is trying to change that.
Times are hard in Sweetwater, a town of about 10,000 people in Texas’ Central Plains. Drug abuse is rife, work is limited, and mental healthcare is scarce and stigmatized. Here’s @TexasObserver’s story on the crisis in Sweetwater — one which is replicated in rural towns across the country.
https://www.texasobserver.org/mental-health-crisis-rural-texas/
There are lots of clues to suggest that Mars once had liquid water on it. @KnowableMag talked to planetary scientist Bruce Jakosky about the hunt for H2O on the red planet.
Oh goodie — it’s election season in the U.S. again. @bolts’s @taniel breaks down the 20 races to watch in April, from the high-profile Wisconsin supreme court election to the congressional specials in Florida.
https://boltsmag.org/whats-on-the-ballot/guide-to-elections-in-april-2025/
Women have been playing baseball in the U.S. for 150 years, with the first professional team, the Dolly Vardens, being formed in 1867. @TheConversationUS takes a look at how girls were gradually funnelled towards softball — seen as more suitable for the “weaker” female body — and why a new era in women’s baseball may be about to begin.
https://theconversation.com/women-are-reclaiming-their-place-in-baseball-252590
Are we humans allocating our collective “genius” effectively, @Daojoan wonders? “Because when I look around at our vaunted technological progress, I can't help but notice that we're drowning in slightly better stuff while the rudiments of human flourishing remain stagnant or deteriorate and decay. There's progress here, but it's not science fiction. It's barely even science,” she writes in this essay that also covers how and why we’re trapped in a cycle of over-consumption.
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-future-is-more-stuff/
#Technology #Tech #Innovation #JoanWestenberg Consumption #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday
Yale researchers at the Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) were looking for 35,000 missing Ukrainian children, until DOGE cut off their funding. Mariana Lastovyria and Anastasiia Kryvoruchenko write for @timkmak’s Counteroffensive about what will happen now.
https://www.counteroffensive.news/p/how-doge-scrapped-the-hunt-for-ukraines
What is the most inclusive film festival in the world? @thecontinent says it’s the Berlinale, which this year supported multiple African movies and auteurs. The Golden Bear — the festival’s grand prize — was won by Senegalese-French Mati Diop for her art reparations documentary, “Dahomey.” She is the first Black person to win that award.
https://continent.substack.com/p/the-berlinale-is-getting-it-right
And finally, new data from Nameberry says people in red states are giving their kids the classic Jewish name Cohen (sometimes with the spelling Kohen). Our @CultureDesk featured this Forward story by Benyamin Cohen and Mira Fox, who are trying to figure out why. Theories include that people are naming their children after the directing duo the Coen brothers, or that it’s a co-opting by Christians of Jewish traditions. Says Benyamin: “I think it’s clever to give pets human names. We have chickens and each one is named after an NPR broadcaster. We have Terry Gross, Yuki Noguchi, Nina Totenberg and so on. We’re actually on our third Melissa Block. The first two, alas, are in chicken heaven now.” Mira replies: “And they all, of course, have your last name.” Benyamin: “Yes, yes. We call them the Co-Hens. I wonder what Nameberry would think of that.”
https://forward.com/culture/707893/kohen-mira-baby-name-popularity/
@Flipboard
Maybe we will find out - some day in the distant future - that some aeons in the past, there indeed was a living civilisation on planet Mars.
@KnowableMag
#Mars #Planet #Water #LifeOnMars
"seeing the sunset jacked upped on StarShip dust, would blow the best of minds" - a song Jonny Cash would have wrote