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Two hundred union workers, out of 5,700 who assemble dishwashers, refrigerators, washers, and dryers for GE Appliances-Haier at Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky, received notice this month that the Trump administration is revoking their work authorizations.

The immigrant workers from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela have received a mixed reaction to their imminent deportation—hostility from some co-workers and an outpouring of support from their union and the local labor movement. They’re part of the Communications Workers’ industrial division, IUE-CWA Local 83761.

Today’s libraries, Apple-era versions of the Dewey/Carnegie institution, continue to materialize, at multiple scales, their underlying bureaucratic and epistemic structures — from the design of their web interfaces to the architecture of their buildings to the networking of their technical infrastructures. This has been true of knowledge institutions throughout history, and it will be true of our future institutions, too. I propose that thinking about the library as a network of integrated, mutually reinforcing, evolving infrastructures — in particular, architectural, technological, social, epistemological and ethical infrastructures — can help us better identify what roles we want our libraries to serve, and what we can reasonably expect of them. What ideas, values and social responsibilities can we scaffold within the library’s material systems — its walls and wires, shelves and servers?

Public libraries are often seen as “opportunity institutions,” opening doors to, and for, the disenfranchised. 6 People turn to libraries to access the internet, take a GED class, get help with a resumé or job search, and seek referrals to other community resources. A recent report by the Center for an Urban Future highlighted the benefits to immigrants, seniors, individuals searching for work, public school students and aspiring entrepreneurs: “No other institution, public or private, does a better job of reaching people who have been left behind in today’s economy, have failed to reach their potential in the city’s public school system or who simply need help navigating an increasingly complex world.” 7

The new Department of Outreach Services at the Brooklyn Public Library, for instance, partners with other organizations to bring library resources to seniors, school children and prison populations. The Queens Public Library employs case managers who help patrons identify public benefits for which they’re eligible. “These are all things that someone could dub as social services,” said Queens Library president Thomas Galante, “but they’re not. … A public library today has information to improve people’s lives. We are an enabler; we are a connector.” 8

The need for physical spaces that promote a vibrant social infrastructure presents many design opportunities, and some libraries are devising innovative solutions. Brooklyn and other cultural institutions have partnered with the Uni, a modular, portable library that I wrote about earlier in this journal. And modular solutions — kits of parts — are under consideration in a design study sponsored by the Center for an Urban Future and the Architectural League of New York, which aims to reimagine New York City’s library branches so that they can more efficiently and effectively serve their communities. CUF also plans to publish, at the end of June, an audit of, and a proposal for, New York’s three library systems. 12 New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman, reflecting on the roles played by New York libraries during recent hurricanes, goes so far as to suggest that the city’s branch libraries, which have “become our de facto community centers,” “could be designed in the future with electrical systems out of harm’s way and set up with backup generators and solar panels, even kitchens and wireless mesh networks.” 13

[...]What programs and services are consistent with an institution dedicated to lifelong learning? Should libraries be reconceived as hubs for civic engagement, where communities can discuss local issues, create media, and archive community history? 20 Should they incorporate media production studios, maker-spaces and hacker labs, repositioning themselves in an evolving ecology of information and educational infrastructures?

These new social functions — which may require new physical infrastructures to support them — broaden the library’s narrative to include everyone, not only the “have-nots.” This is not to say that the library should abandon the needy and focus on an elite patron group; rather, the library should incorporate the “enfranchised” as a key public, both so that the institution can reinforce its mission as a social infrastructure for an inclusive public, and so that privileged, educated users can bring their knowledge and talents to the library and offer them up as social-infrastructural resources.

Ten national unions and dozens of locals representing more than 3 million members have issued a joint statement demanding the release of immigrant workers recently snatched by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The statement names farmworker union leader Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez, who was picked up in what appears to be blatant retaliation for his organizing; SEIU Local 925 member Lewelyn Dixon, a University of Washington lab technician detained on her way home from visiting family; SEIU Local 509 member Rumeysa Ozturk, a graduate student whose detention by federal agents was captured in chilling footage; sheet metal worker Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a SMART Local 100 apprentice who was sent to El Salvador’s notorious prison complex; and United Auto Workers Local 2710 member Mahmoud Khalil, abducted by federal agents in front of his eight-months-pregnant wife.

The unions are also calling on employers, university administrators, and local governments to refuse to cooperate—and demanding that elected officials “find their spines.”

A marine rewilding initiative to restore an underwater kelp forest in West Sussex is celebrating "remarkable" results, a wildlife trust has said.

The project was launched after the implementation of a new bylaw prohibiting trawling in a 117 sq mile (302 sq km) coastal area between Shoreham-by-Sea and Selsey in March 2021.

Celebrating its fourth anniversary, Sussex Kelp Recovery Project (SKRP) researchers have reported positive signs of recovery, including an increase in the populations of lobster, brown crab, angelshark and short-snouted seahorse.

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The most influential promoter of antisemitism in the United States isn’t Elon Musk, who appeared to Sieg heil at Trump’s inauguration; nor is it Kanye West, who famously tweeted that he loved Hitler, or the podcaster Candace Owens, who has promoted the blood-libel conspiracy theory. The pro-Israel lobbying organization Stop Antisemitism wants you to believe the real danger is actually a lady in overalls and a pink headband who sings about how bubble gum is sticky.

The organization that has spent the past year and a half publicly identifying pro-Palestine protesters is now coming after Ms. Rachel, a beloved YouTuber known for her videos for babies and toddlers. In a letter posted to social media on Monday, StopAntisemitism asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate whether Ms. Rachel is “being funded by a foreign party to push anti-Israel propaganda to skew public opinion” and referred to her as an “amplifier” of pro-Hamas content.

Electric bikes have become ubiquitous in the world’s second-largest Amish settlement, routinely flying past the horse-dawn buggies that have trundled across the hilly countryside here for two centuries. Not everyone is rolling with it.

The angst voiced by some Amish isn’t about the motors that propel e-bikes to nearly 30 miles an hour. It’s about the mobility the bikes enable, and the implications of that independence.

“We could easily end up with not having many Amish people around anymore,” said Mart Miller, a 67-year-old market worker who is the bishop of a church district, akin to a parish, that rejects e-bikes.

Many Amish e-bike enthusiasts, by contrast, see them as tools to make life easier without harming the insular Christian society known for its plain dress, prohibition of cars and wariness of new technology.

The bikes have transformed the community of more than 40,000 people in and around Holmes County. Men, women and teenagers are on the go from before dawn to after dark, often pulling children in trailers. Charging stations abound at businesses alongside hitching posts.

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked on Tuesday a judge's order for President Donald Trump's administration to rehire thousands of fired employees, acting in a dispute over his effort to slash the federal workforce and dismantle parts of the government.

The court put on hold San Francisco-based U.S. Judge William Alsup's March 13 injunction requiring six federal agencies to reinstate thousands of recently hired probationary employees while litigation challenging the legality of the dismissals continues.

In recent years, opponents of trans medicine have increasingly presented themselves not as oppressors—intent on denying care to individuals whose gender identity they reject—but rather as the righteous critics of a corrupt “gender identity industry.” Big Pharma and Big Tech are to blame, they allege, for warping the fragile psyches of vulnerable youth via social media platforms and then selling them expensive, “experimental” puberty-suppressing medications, hormone replacement therapies, and surgeries as salves. This populist-in-form critique has spread rapidly, along with state bans on trans health for minors that now cover over half of the country. Criticisms of this so-called “transgender treatment industry” can be found in conservative states’ litigation defending their bans, as well as in a recent executive order that questioned whether such care might constitute consumer “deception” or “fraud.”

In a forthcoming essay in Signs, I have sought to understand the origins and ideological power of this anti-industry narrative. The fear of a predatory “transgender-industrial complex” clearly draws from due skepticism of industries that many understandably abhor. Pharmaceutical and social media companies do indeed hold dominion over our wallets, health, and attention spans. From there though, the narrative spirals into baseless paranoid suspicions about the perverse motivations of gender identity clinicians and their professional associations, complicit bureaucrats in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and trans subjectivity itself, which in this account is a blend of psychic pathology and a shopping disorder. Perhaps that it why this conspiratorial idea was at first confined to the fringes of the blogosphere—mainly in the writings of gender-critical, anti-transhumanist, and Catholic and Christian fundamentalist authors from around 2018-2021—before right-wing politicians, media outlets, and think tanks adopted a version of the idea to ground their anti-trans scapegoating policies.

Here, I want to focus on one voice in the anti-gender identity industry chorus, the ostensibly libertarian Manhattan Institute, and ask what its leaders and donors might gain from fomenting distrust of healthcare professional associations and bureaucrats. [...]

“A Minecraft Movie” leveled up at the box office, collecting a blockbuster $157 million in its opening weekend. It’s not only the biggest domestic debut of the year but the best in history for a video game adaptation.

Heading into the weekend, Warner Bros. and Legendary’s PG fantasy comedy, starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa, was projected to take in $70 million to $80 million, with some bullish analysts suggesting a final number closer to $90 million.

Thanks to pent-up demand for a family film, broad appeal and goodwill toward the 2011 video game, however, “Minecraft” squashed expectations in the U.S. and abroad. At the international box office, the tentpole added $144 million for a global start of $301 million. The film cost $150 million to produce before global marketing expenses.

Taylor Crittenden still feels “righteous rage” when she thinks about her experiences at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Crittenden, a nurse at a hospital in Texas, remembers staffing shortages, limitations on personal protective equipment like heavy-duty masks, and long hours as health facilities were being overrun with COVID patients.

“I was impacted by seeing all these people lose their lives,” Crittenden said. “I was also feeling frustrated and quite mad. We just needed more help on the floor. We were the ones in the rooms having these conversations with patients. We were their emotional support and their physical support. And managers and supervisors and directors were nowhere in sight.”

Two years later, Crittenden was among the hundreds of nurses at Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin who voted to unionize. It was a snapshot of the worker power brewing within the health care industry — led in part by nurses, a workforce dominated by women — that received nearly daily public recognition of its crucial role in keeping people healthy and safe while grappling with realities like reduced resources, increasing burnout and health risks.

Now, as nurses mark the five-year anniversary of the first wave of the pandemic, they’re reflecting on their victories in securing protections but also new emerging challenges. Members of National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest union for registered nurses, spoke with The 19th about their ongoing push for worker protections.

The Supper Table is a low-barrier food bank and community meal program that tackles food insecurity in downtown Ottawa by serving anyone in need of food, regardless of gender identity or expression, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, ability, religion, age, culture, social or economic status.

I sometimes wonder how LGBTQ2S+ community members feel about accessing our food bank. While the Supper Table and its staff and volunteers are very welcoming of LGBTQ2S+ individuals, unfortunately this is not true of all food banks connected to churches and faith-based organizations. I imagine some folks might fear being discriminated against and feel more comfortable visiting a food bank specifically geared toward queer and trans people where they can rest assured they’re entering into a safe and non-judgmental space.

A report released last year by the Department of Health and Society (DHS) at the University of Toronto looked at how LGBTQ2S+ people in the GTA experienced food insecurity during the pandemic. It found that 42 percent, nearly half of survey respondents, reported “some level of household food insecurity (HFI), with severe HFI higher among respondents who were bisexual, transgender/gender diverse and/or assigned-female-at-birth.” The study also showed that perceived discrimination was linked to an increased likelihood of all levels of household food insecurity.

Thankfully, community food banks for queer and trans folks exist in cities across the country. These programs aim to address food insecurity by creating inclusive and safer spaces for LGBTQ2S+ people to access food and find community alongside their peers.

Since 2012, Saige Community Food Bank has been serving individuals in East Vancouver, with a special focus on Two-Spirit, trans, gender-diverse and other marginalized communities who might also be navigating challenges like mental health issues and physical disabilities when accessing government-run food resources. They cultivate a safe, community-based experience for participants to receive healthy food, including fresh produce and higher-end items like baked goods and culturally appropriate foods that might otherwise be out of reach because of what is typically donated to food banks (shelf-stable items that are easy to store). Participants are empowered to select their own food items based on their personal needs and preferences, an approach also known as “the shopping model,” which differs from the pre-selected foods that some food banks provide, and have the opportunity to engage socially with fellow attendees as well as volunteers who function as community resource navigators connecting participants with other service providers and sharing information about local events.