The most impt change at #NIH and to US science this year is bigger than grant cancellations— it’s how the agency is governed.
For 75 years NIH has been largely independent of presidential control. That’s changed this year. New piece from me and @nataliebaviles.bsky.social in @nature.com
🧪
I think this deserves at least as much sustained attention from US media as Claudine Gay's dissertation
I’m glad they’ve gotten better about this. I was *not* excited about the way they represented Covid in the previous season through lice, as well as some other off-hand remarks about teaching virtually. So, it’s at least good to know they’re trying to not do (not so) subtle ableism
These asshole twerps with no brains or education from DOGE really did use ChatGPT to find NEH grants to terminate ILLEGALLY - ruining hundreds lives and destroying hundreds of the greatest humanities projects and partnerships of our time. I’m overwhelmed with rage and anger all over again.
if not war then why war shaped
a thing historians will marvel about when they study this era is the extent to which the "war is a thing that happens to poorer, browner people" class went about systematically dismantling every aspect of the global political order that confined the costs of war to poorer and browner people
One day remind to tell you how many faculty from our college who worked in one specific wing of the building have died from cancer… but correlation is not causation, I guess.
On this Disability Day of Mourning, let’s honor Wael Tarabishi, a disabled man who died when ICE took his caregiver away.
Wael told them he would die without his father who was his “arms, legs & lungs”.
ICE took him anyways.
Wael died 3 months later:
www.disabledginger.com/p/ice-took-w...
If youd like to take a moment to read about the lives of those murdered, you can use the following database, which is not a full representation, but offers information on victims disability-memorial.org
Fuck Trump. Fuck the puppeteers behind him. Fuck the GOP, especially congressional Republicans and quisling Democrats, who enabled him. Fuck the people who voted for this, and fuck the media for never reporting on him realistically.
Fuck them all, for they have truly fucked us and the world.
The Iranian regime is an autocratic one that has devastated lives at home and abroad. Its people deserve so much better.
So much better does not come through illegal strikes involving a genocidal actor that drag multiple countries into conflict and kill more civilians.
I’m gonna mute the word “distraction” for the next 72 hours. None of this is a distraction from anything else, the US Government is, and has been, a death cult run by rapists. Every atrocity they commit is its own reward.
With the DoD/Anthropic news this week, I can't help but think of my dad, who quit his first programming job back in the '80s, because his employer asked him to write software for weapons systems. I hope the current generation of engineers will have that same spine.
10 hour study with me at Columbia showing lunch
Her in the library
DHS illegally arrested me please help Text against image of her knees
Columbia student detained today is a day-in-the-life influencer with 100K followers. Her stories right now go from her studying for a Genetics exam in a nicely edited "ten hour study with me at Columbia" video, to a photo of her knees with the caption "dhs illegally arrested me please help"
Shame on anyone who told women they were silly to worry that, post-Dobbs, birth control would be next.
This 53 year old man who lived in my neighborhood w/no criminal record & who had been in the US for 30 years, was detained and thrown into a cold cell for days, caught pneumonia and COVID there and deported.
He finally died.
I am so angry.
www.kptv.com/2026/02/21/n...
BREAKING: The Department of Education has ended its directive that attempted to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in schools nationwide.
This is a victory for academic freedom and education equity.
After a discussion with their attorney, I have confirmed that Juan, his 16-month-old sister, his mom, and his dad have been deported.
Mia Valentina Paz Faria A 7-year-old from Venezuela who was living in Austin, Texas Detained for 70 days “I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”
UPDATE: Staff at the ICE concentration camp in Dilley, Texas have begun raiding the dormitories of kids and their parents to confiscate and destroy letters from the children. This is in response to the ace reporting by @micarosenberg et al for ProPublica:
“I don’t want to be in this place I want to go to my school.”
- 7 year old imprisoned by ICE for 70 days in a concentration camp in Texas.
Today, after @propublica.org published this story, the camp was raided to confiscate letters from the children.
www.propublica.org/article/ice-...
There are so many levels of hot hot mess here.
"The operation took minutes, but two days later, the couple’s black Mazda SUV remained yards down the road, partially obstructing traffic near the intersection of Covell Street and Belleville Avenue."
This is a gut wrenching story. I do think we're seeing the start of a surge here in Massachusetts.
This move cannot be understood without recognizing how all-consuming the battle for control over "science" has become within institutional medicine. I put it in quotes because it's not about actual science, but whose opinion is laundered by the science cosplay rapidly replacing the real thing.
yep, they're still at it in LA and Portland too
the media is gonna be like "time for a new narrative" and it's so important to keep talking about how none of the cities they invaded have become more safe since the spotlight shifted away from them
It should be illuminating that prosecuting sex trafficking, the thing that prosecutors and police across the country have been using as a cash cow to fund surveillance and weaponry, is actually not something government prosecutors care about at all.
The system does not hold people accountable.
ICE and CBP haven’t withdrawn from a single fucking U.S. city that they’ve occupied.
Sent out the bat signal
I will never forgot how Ozturk could have been a statistic in ICE deaths because her asthma medicine was withheld from her.
Screenshot of a chef saying “if my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike”
Scholars envisioning a radical progressive future enabled by LLMs.
U.S. Olympic men’s cross-country ski team member Ben Ogden, second from left, speaks at a news conference Thursday, Feb. 5 at the competition venue in Tesero, Italy. From left, Ogden’s teammates are Zak Ketterson, JC Schoonmaker and Zanden McMullen. (Nathaniel Herz for FasterSkier)
Masked members of the U.S. women’s Olympic cross-country ski team pose for a photo Thursday, Feb. 5 after a news conference at their competition venue in Tesero, Italy. From left , Jessie Diggins, Hailey Swirbul, Sammy Smith, Julia Kern, Novie McCabe and Rosie Brennan. (Nathaniel Herz for FasterSkier)
Encouraging to see some members of the US Olympic team wearing masks to protect their health ahead of competition.
For billionaires, attacking DEI also creates a new set of allies. It gets blue collar workers (especially White men) to side with billionaires rather than against them, by fueling blue collar workers' anger at the fact that they didn't benefit from efforts to expand access to white collar prosperity
