Clear It With Sidney

The best of the week’s news by Lindsay Beyerstein

February 2025

February 28, 2025

Sidney's Picks: DoorDash Will Pay Millions for Stolen Tips

Photo credit:

Focal Foto, Creative Commons

The Best of the Week’s News

China frees thousands of workers held captive in Myanmar and forced to commit cyber scams on an industrial scale. (VOA, NYT)
Rev. Nelson Johnson, a labor and civil rights icon, was laid to rest this week in North Carolina. (NYT, NCAT.edu)
DoorDash to pay a $16.75 million settlement for stealing Dashers’ tips. (Gizmodo)
How Dan Bongino went from crazed right wing podcaster to deputy director of the FBI. (Wired)
How to address wage theft in New York City in the Trump era. (TheCity)

February 21, 2025

Sidney's Picks: Sepsis Rates Surge After Texas Abortion Ban

Photo credit:

Waikumete Cemetery, Creative Commons

The Best of the Week’s News:

Sepsis rates have surged by more than 50% since Texas banned abortion. (ProPublica)
Venezuelan mother and her two children deported to Mexico hours after a traffic stop. (AZ Luminaria)
ICE prosecutor in Dallas runs a Neo-Nazi X account. (Texas Observer)
DOGE’s claimed savings aren’t adding up. (NPR)
Mississippi judge forces local newspaper to delete editorial criticizing city council, alarming press freedom advocates. (NYT)

February 14, 2025

Sidney's Picks: Trump Deports Immigrants to Guantanamo

Photo credit:

Joe Brusky Creative Commons

The Best of the Week’s News

Families of immigrants detained at Guantanamo dispute government’s claim that their loved ones are violent gang members. (ProPublica)
Immigration authorities raided the town of Cactus nearly twenty years ago, but the consequences still reverberate and other towns fear history will repeat itself. (TX Monthly, WaPo)
Meat industry asks Trump administration to deregulate factory farms and meat-packing plants. (Sentient)
Check out Wage Theft Monitor, a new publicly accessible database of wage theft in New York and beyond. (Documented)
Woman jailed for drug use during pregnancy released following investigation by Mississippi Today. (MT)

February 7, 2025

Sidney's Picks: Unelected Elon Musk Lays Waste to Federal Government

Photo credit:

USAID, Rwanda Reconciliation and Reintegration Project, Creative Commons

The Best of the Week’s News

Elon Musk’s criminal sabotage of USAID and other agencies sends federal workers reeling. (NYT, Rolling Stone, Guardian)
Lexington and Concord: A revolutionary proposal for resistance (Prospect)
Can solidarity defeat the rising tide of reactionary politics? (N plus 1)
Former NLRB member sues Trump for illegally firing her. (Reuters)
Utah legislature votes to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights. (AP)