Tootfinder

Prior to 1865, many Afro-Texans reclaimed their sovereignty and autonomy
-- well before the federal government acknowledged their basic humanity,
though there’s a dearth of centralized information about Black placemaking in Texas from this time.
This reclamation was called “marronage”
—a term borrowed from French for this act of antebellum self-emancipation.
The word most often refers specifically to runaway slaves, or “maroons,”
who broke free to set up…

From the Plantation to the Thicket: Juneteenth, Black Freedom, and 'Marronage' in Texas
Freedom in Texas was achieved both after—and before—formal emancipation. 

well, the bummer news is that william tyler had to cancel, but the opposite-of-bummer news is that a truly wig-flipping replacement has consented to blow our minds instead. come to mama tried tomorrow, peel slowly, & see! plus our pal ted barron's spinning 45s all night. https://heads.social/@bourgwick/116619

I’ve signed a letter calling for Andy Burnham to clarify his views on control or ownership of public services. Can you sign and share it as well?
https://weownit.org.uk/act-now/sign-our-open-letter-to-andy-burnham

Add your name to our open letter to Andy Burnham
Public control is not public ownership. Andy Burnham must clarify that he backs public ownership of life's essentials.

"Dr. Hoynes said that one possible explanation for the benefits seen in the Flint study was that the money enabled low-income women to access prenatal care earlier and act on advice to stop smoking, which is closely correlated with poor birth outcomes."
"While the cash-transfer sums were relatively modest, more than half of mothers in Flint earn under $10,000 a year.
“A $1,500 check for a poor person is a pretty good stress reliever,” Dr. Paneth said."

'Everybody is profiting':
Trump dismisses questions about more than $1 billion in crypto earnings
While fielding questions from reporters ahead of his flight to North Dakota today,
Donald Trump rejected questions about the
$1.2 billion he earned from crypto businesses, according to his latest annual financial disclosure.
“We have funds that run my money well. I’ve made a lot of money before I became president,” Trump said.
“They’re big institutions…

‘Everybody is profiting’: Trump dismisses questions about over $1bn in crypto earnings – live
‘We have funds that run my money well,’ US president says. ‘I think it’s called a ‘blind account’ … I purposely I never speak to any of the people that run the money’

A Multi-scale Investigation of Aqueous Foams Stabilised by PNIPAM Microgels
Joanne Zimmer, Luca Mirau, Kevin Gr\"aff, Ga\"etan Barth, Carina Schneider, Vera A. N. A. Hesse, Hayden Robertson, Regine von Klitzing
https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.11999 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.11999 https://arxiv.org/html/2608.11999
arXiv:2608.11999v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Aqueous foams possess multiple structural motifs across different length scales: macroscopic foam, bubbles, foam films and the air/water interface. In this study, macroscopic foams are generated by sparging gas through an aqueous dispersion of PNIPAM microgels which act as foam stabilisers due to their surface activity. The stiffness of the microgels and thus their interfacial activity are tuned by variation of the cross-linker density. The effect of the cross-linker density and the microgel concentration on the resulting foam formation properties (foamability) and the foam stability are investigated. A lower cross-linker density and a higher microgel concentration enhance the foamability, generate foams with smaller bubbles and higher liquid fractions, and increase the foam stability. These observations are correlated with the microgel behavior at the single air/water interface examined by pendant drop tensiometry and Langmuir compression experiments as well as the mobility in single free-standing foam films determined using a Thin Film Pressure Balance. Our findings highlight good agreement across all length scales: increased foamability correlates with a faster decrease in surface tension, and higher foam stability with a higher surface elastic modulus of a microgel-covered single air/water interface and decreasing mobility in foam films.
toXiv_bot_toot

The financialization of the American electoral process is well documented.
Now two key progressive legislators are proposing a new law to do something about it. 
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Democratic Rep. Summer Lee (PA-12) introduced the
"Abolish Super PACs Act" on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
It’s a measure they say will eliminate one the primary ways billionaires funnel cash into elections: super PACs.
The bill would limit donations to super PACs t…

Sanders, Lee move to rein in super PACs amid growing billionaire grip on US elections
The bill targets one of the central vehicles for unlimited outside spending, as progressives warn that billionaire money—and broader threats of voter intimidation—are putting democratic elections under strain.

Don't miss today's Metacurity for a tight overview of yesterday's news involving the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident, as well as other top infosec developments you should know, including
--Anthropic unveils encrypted AI breakthrough,
--AI workers demand global safety oversight,
--Zuckerberg doubles down on AI,
--Anthropic's AI safety stance draws fire,
--MCP gets its biggest overhaul yet,
--OpenAI open-sources Codex security tools,
--FCC bans new Chinese robots, power inverters,
--Russia charges Telegram founder with aiding terrorism,
--Cyberattack disrupts Angola telecom ahead of IPO,
--Australian nurse charged over patient data theft,
--xAI challenges Minnesota deepfake law,
--SparkKitty malware steals crypto wallet seed phrases,
--Man charged after wiping phone during border search,
--AI harness can make or break attacks,
--Bot detection startup Spur raises $200m,
--ThreatLocker raises $190 million,
--Act Security emerges from stealth with $60m
--Mate Security lands $35m,
--AI security startups attract record seed funding,
--Fairlife gets production flowing again,
--AI pushes CISOs toward the exit
https://www.metacurity.com/openai-reveals-broader-ai-agent-campaign-as-hugging-face-publishes-remarkable-timeline/