We were hoping for the summer of love, or at the very least, the summer of ice cream and going to the beach, but alas, @damemagazine tells us, it’s the summer of stagflation. Kaz Weida explains the difference between this and a common-or-garden recession, the signs that indicate the U.S. is going in that direction, and lessons from the past about how to survive the squeeze.

https://www.damemagazine.com/2025/05/20/the-summer-of-stagflation-is-here/

#Stagflation #Inflation #Economics #Tariffs #USPolitics #USEconomy #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Nine-year-old Jackie Cazare was one of the victims in the horrific Uvalde, Texas, shooting. In total, 19 children and two teachers were murdered. In the aftermath, Jackie’s uncle, Jess Rizo, became a regular at local government meetings. A year ago, he was elected to the Uvalde CISD school board. He spoke to @TexasObserver’s Gus Bova about turning anger to activism, what he’s learned, and how the community is coming back together. “Everybody, when you go to these meetings, you hear the word transparency, you hear the word accountability, and so everybody’s practicing what they’re preaching, and so we hold each other to that,” he says.

https://www.texasobserver.org/uvalde-jesse-rizo-school-board/

#Texas #TexasPolitics #Uvalde #SchoolShootings #Safety #School #Education #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

John J. Lennon lives at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where he is serving his 24th year of a 28-years-to-life sentence. He’s also a journalist whose work has appeared in Esquire, the New York Times, the Atlantic, and more. Until last year, he was at Sullivan Correctional Facility, where he mentored emerging writers, both informally and most recently, through the Sullivan Nonfiction Writing Workshop. He writes for @nybooks about setting that up, and what happened when it came to an end with the prison’s closure. “I often think about the time before I came to prison, when I had no promising future. I’ve come to realize that two opposing realities can be true at once: prison probably saved my life and it’s where I learned to write; and prison is a disgusting place that’s hurting me more now than ever,” he writes. “I’m both ashamed and proud of my path. But it wouldn’t have been possible if prison officials hadn’t given writing programs a chance.” [Story may be paywalled]

https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/05/21/finding-the-story-prison-writing/

#Writing #Journalism #AmWriting #Prison #Incarceration #JusticeSystem #Crime #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

Graphic novel legends Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco collaborated on a three-page “comic” about Gaza earlier this year. @thetyee’s Tom Sandborn thought that might lead to controversy, but it didn’t. He looks at the art of the comic form — how it can provoke, satirize, and challenge moral complacency, and whether it’s journalism.

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2025/05/22/Comics-Power-Moral-Horror-Spiegelman-Sacco-Gaza/

#Culture #Art #Comics #Journalism #Media #GraphicNovels #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

On Tuesday, Larry Krasner easily won the Democratic primary ahead of a November election that could see him win a third term as district attorney of Philadelphia. @bolts’s @taniel writes about Krasner’s role as one of a number of progressive prosecutors across the United States, the opposition he faced from everyone from Elon Musk to the city’s Democratic Party, and why he continues to be supported across Philadelphia.

https://boltsmag.org/larry-krasner-wins-philadelphia-primary/

#Pennsylvania #Philadelphia #LarryKrasner #ProgressivePolitics #Law #Elections #LocalElections #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday

A pattern of practices, both deliberate and unintentional, has concealed the history of Massachusetts’ state institutions from the public, including institutional survivors and their family members. This is the finding of a newly released report from the Massachusetts Special Commission on State Institutions — a commission that was made up of majority disabled people, many with personal experience of having been institutionalized. Here’s @gbhnews’s story about the report, which could have national ramifications, since Massachusetts was the home of the U.S.'s first institution for disabled people, creating a blueprint for the nation.

https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2025-05-21/shocking-report-spotlights-mass-history-of-mistreating-disabled-people

#Disability #DisabilityRights #Massachusetts #Newstodon #NewstodonFriday #FollowFriday