“It turns out that banishing the slur from public discourse was, in fact, important. Because now it’s back and it turns out that it does matter when subtext becomes actual text, when terrible people enable open hatred and bigotry, encouraging others to emulate them, degrading us all.”

NEW: The Trump administration’s plan to shrink the vaccine schedule is sending the health sector scrambling w/ @chelseacirruzzo.bsky.social @helenbranswell.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2025/12/23/t...

History will be made and space will become a little more inclusive TODAY when my friend Michi Benthaus will become the first ever wheelchair user to leave our planet’s atmosphere (and only the second German woman to do so). Watch LIVE from 10am CST / 5pm CET here: www.blueorigin.com/missions/ns-37

NEW: Public universities in red states, from Texas to Florida, are increasingly required to make their syllabi public. The University of North Carolina may be next. Does "syllabi transparency" help combat distrust in higher ed, or feed ill-informed suspicions of it? www.chronicle.com/article/when...

We're hiring two editors to join our newsroom! Benefits include: 🟣 $105,000 – $140,000 salary range 🟣 20 vacation days a year 🟣 Paid family leave (100% up to 6 months) Learn more and apply here: https://bit.ly/48Xlw0U

By doing so here, the Trump Administration runs smack into the prohibition on Medicare and Medicaid regulating the practice of medicine (as opposed to deciding what they'll pay for). Congress recognized regulating the practice of medicine is a state function, not one for Medicare/Medicaid.

The hollowing out of NIH's comms has (ironically) gotten little press But for one institute, it could mean they are failing their congressional mandate — and unable to rebut problematic rhetoric @mmolteni.bsky.social & I w/ part 9 of American Science, Shattered www.statnews.com/2025/12/18/t...

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

BREAKING: Trump admin officially proposes new CMS rules to restrict trans health care for young people, including one that would change the conditions for hospitals to participate in Medicare/Medicaid by barring those that offer gender-affirming care to minors. www.statnews.com/2025/12/18/t...

take care of yourself today y'all, it's gonna be a bad one

Is the MTA making merch with the F M Swap icon cause they should be

The State of Texas continues to make a list of transgender Texans, per @lmcgaughy.bsky.social: www.kut.org/politics/202...

I interviewed @angelafrederick.bsky.social about her book Disabled Power, which details the extreme challenges disabled people faced when part of the Texas power grid failed during Winter Storm Uri in 2021, at @motherjones.com. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

the people of this great republic yearn for locomotive transport

This week's installments to our American Science, Shattered series @statnews.com include a check-in with scientists, federal workers, policy experts, and patients whose stories we brought you earlier this year. www.statnews.com/2025/12/11/a...

Grateful for this additional reporting on the leadership context from @rosebroderick.bsky.social as well www.statnews.com/2025/09/23/r...

NEW: Here's my story on Arlington, Texas, becoming the first known city in the nation to kill a city-wide LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination policy in response to the Trump administration. With no statewide protections, it was one of the few things protecting LGBTQ+ Texans: www.chron.com/culture/arti...

which Bay Area sports mascots are the most cuddly? the scariest? the most... handsome? @reveleth.com asked some furry friends for their thoughts www.coyotemedia.org/bay-area-spo...

Trans researchers are pivoting away from science/research as the Trump administration takes an axe to their livelihoods and their literal safety. Important read from @theresagaff.bsky.social! www.statnews.com/2025/12/09/h...

How do people feel about this nyt article on MAID www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

I am so tired of proving to nyc landlords that I know the warranty of habitability better than they do

404 Media is making a print zine! About the surveillance technologies used by ICE. 16 pages, riso printed. Shipping early January. Features reworked versions of our best reporting and a few new things. We're very excited! And hope to do more if people like it: www.404media.co/404-media-is...

I had guessed that Sohla el-Waylly had left NYT Cooking, but “working conditions which endangered her health and pregnancy” wasn’t on my bingo card, holy shit sohla.substack.com/p/sorry-abou...

I dug into the expanding fight over disability parking placards for pregnant people. Is it a no-brainer pro-family move or does it make life harder for disabled people? Are those even discrete categories?

1. Historically, eugenics was not a pseudoscience. It was *science* Almost every scientist, social scientist, academic, etc. believed in the validity of eugenics. You would have to search far & wide to find a scientist that didn't believe in some form of it. They taught it in college!

We've spent all year tracking how the Trump administration has eviscerated the decades-old compact between scientific research and the federal government. We're dropping a new series today, taking stock of what's been lost. Here's the first @statnews.com. www.statnews.com/2025/12/04/a...

#News: Top drug regulator Richard Pazdur filed papers to retire from the Food and Drug Administration at the end of this month, but could withdraw them www.statnews.com/2025/12/02/r...

5/5 CDC must follow the published HHS policy. Employees: insist on your rights. Supervisors: follow the law. Transparency, accountability, and lawful action are non-negotiable. ✅ Tthank you @rosebroderick.bsky.social @statnews.com for excellent reporting and providing the link to the policy doc:

SCOOP from me + @makenakelly.bsky.social: despite recent reports, DOGE isn’t dead—it’s actually everywhere. @wired.com www.wired.com/story/what-i...

The latest chapter in the ongoing saga around reasonable accommodations at the CDC: HHS has a new policy that permits telework for people with disabilities — but CDC officials still plan to cancel existing agreements and force people back into the office www.statnews.com/2025/12/02/c...

The announcement is deceiving. OpenAI is funding grants w/ budgets "between $5,000 and $100,000." That's like throwing a penny at a tornado. OpenAI is facing lawsuits alleging that ChatGPT drove ppl to delusions and suicide — and this is their answer? You can't do research with such a paltry sum.

People are increasingly leaning on chatbots for emotional support, pushing mental health apps to build their own therapy bots. What are their plans and how are they approaching this challenge amidst regulatory and technological limits? www.statnews.com/2025/12/01/a...

"Never spread the lie in the headline" should be a hard rule of 21st century journalism. Research shows that repeating lies helps to spread them, and people read headlines more than they read stories.

the tallest man in the world at the Rochelle Jordan concert and all he does is check his phone and make parlays

h/t @adamwren.bsky.social Michael Bohacek, a Republican state senator from Indiana who has a daughter with down syndrome, says he will vote against redistricting in Indiana after Trump used the word "retarded."

i’m stunned. if even half of these allegations are true, this is a devastating blow to political journalism as an institution. it reads like a caricature and will give bad faith critics of good journalists new ammunition. if accurate, how on earth did it take so long for this to come out?

Never thought I'd see @autisticadvocacy.org @autismspeaks.org and @autismsciencefd.bsky.social all sharing space on a statement, but Kennedy's order last week to erase the phrase "vaccines do not cause autism" on a CDC site is enough to make unlikely bedfellows autisticadvocacy.org/2025/11/lead...

Emmanuel, a 15-year-old with intellectual disabilities, wandered away from his mom’s fruit stand in October. She reported him missing to Houston police. But instead of reuniting them, the city turned him over to ICE. “They’re failing all of us,” his mom said. thebarbedwire.com/2025/11/24/d...

Scoop: The CDC is moving to end telework agreements for employees with disabilities — again www.statnews.com/2025/11/21/c...

The Trump Administration is abandoning plans for the biggest-ever cut to Social Security Disability Insurance, which would have hit older workers hardest. The rule would have devastated up to 1.5 million workers' financial stability, retirement security & access to health care. wapo.st/4o48J24

Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other. Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq

Scoop: The Trump administration has quietly erased trans people, people of color and to some extent, the idea that some groups have more or different difficulties than others from the National Strategy to Support Family Caregivers. Why? Unclear! They wouldn’t tell me.

Last night, the CDC's website abruptly changed to promote the debunked idea of a link between vaccines and autism. It's the latest move by Kennedy-led HHS to sow doubt about vaccines. More below: www.statnews.com/2025/11/20/c...

A very good article about one fake freelancer and the grim state of journalism/the world: thelocal.to/investigatin...

I’m howling.

a disconcerting and remarkable story from @msjpauly.bsky.social and @pablo.show about anti-trans grifter Riley Gaines and how she transmogrified from collegiate swimmer to a conservative star (stay for the kicker quote!)

Not much to say about Trans Day of Remembrance anymore besides “try loving and celebrating us while we are alive”