Good morning, RVA! It's 70 °F, and today's forecast looks a lot like yesterday's: Highs in the mid 80s and maybe some rain this afternoon depending on where you stand.
Water cooler
Vanessa Remmers in the RTD has a really interesting piece on how area jurisdictions feel about Trump's Executive Order about tying local cooperation with ICE to federal funding. I just want to shout out Chesterfield County's (Republican) Sheriff, Karl Leonard, who refuses to detain folks longer than necessary just so ICE can get involved. Leonard is also one of the key supporters in Chesterfield Supervisor Jim Holland's proposal to bring public transportation to Jeff Davis Highway.
Corey Stewart has officially conceded, writes Graham Moomaw at the RTD. Stewart says it's now up to nominee Ed Gillespie to "fight to preserve our history." Gross. We all know whose history Stewart's talking about there, and I really hope that, moving forward, Gillespie drops this kind of coded racist language.
There are about six million interesting tidbits in this Mark Robinson profile of Mayor Levar Stoney. Here are two: Henrico County Manager John Vithoulkas says he's already talked to Stoney more than he did with Jones during all of Jones's second term, and Stoney keeps a spreadsheet where he tracks each week's wins and losses—how much would you like to see that spreadsheet??
Full STEAM Ahead is looking for smart and talented ladies who work in STEAM fields (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) to inspire and engage local middle school girls. If you've got something you'd like to teach a group of kids, take a minute and pitch your idea by filling out this form. Last year, a bunch of smart and talented ladyreaders of this very newsletter volunteered to help out, so I know you're out there! This is important and rewarding work, and you've got until June 21st to pitch them your brilliant workshop idea.
Speaking of smart and talented ladies, check out this interview with Armstrong senior Fatiyah Boone Neville by Style Weekly's Jackie Kruszewski. The stuff Fatiyah's involved in outside of going to school full time is...more than I do in my entire life?
People love Chick-fil-A. Like, a lot.
Sports!
- Weather intervened at the Diamond yesterday and may do so again today, but the Squirrels will try to finish out the series against New Hampshire at 4:35 PM regardless.
- Nats fell to Atlanta, 2-13, and a new series against the Mets begins tonight at 7:10 PM.
This morning's patron longread!
Physiognomy’s New Clothes
This longread comes from a patron, and I totally cannot remember who! That makes me a bad person, and I apologize, but it does not change the fact that this is a super in-depth look at how machine learning might lead us down a unsuspectedly racist science path.
The practice of using people’s outer appearance to infer inner character is called physiognomy. While today it is understood to be pseudoscience, the folk belief that there are inferior “types” of people, identifiable by their facial features and body measurements, has at various times been codified into country-wide law, providing a basis to acquire land, block immigration, justify slavery, and permit genocide. When put into practice, the pseudoscience of physiognomy becomes the pseudoscience of scientific racism.
If you’d like your longread to show up here, go chip in a couple bucks on the ol’ Patreon.
This morning's longread
The Successful Startup That Disrupts Using Bees Instead of Code
I feel like I've been really focused on bees lately?
Once in college, she started to think seriously about beekeeping, but even then, she took a while to come around. She took NC State’s famed “Bees and Beekeeping” course because she figured her experiences at the farm would guarantee her an easy A. (Her grandfather and uncle had also taken this same class when they attended NC State, and Harold and Leigh-Kathryn had the same professor, generations apart.) But her good grade came with an unexpected perk: a newfound love of beekeeping, which she threw herself into wholeheartedly. She began working the family’s hives with her grandfather and uncle and continued studying apiculture