It's an awful news day; here's a small boost. "The ruling represents a victory for abortion rights advocates in one of the nation’s reddest states. They contend abortion bans conflict with the state’s long history of skepticism toward government involvement in medical and other personal decisions."

I wrote a BDSM 101 guide for @rewirenewsgroup.com ❤️‍🔥⛓️‍💥💥Writing this was a doozy but I was surprised by how much evidence there is for the power of BDSM to heal—especially for survivors, neurodivergent folks, and marginalized people of all kinds rewirenewsgroup.com/2026/01/06/w...

RNG: Starting the year off spicy!

Commencing my K-drama era

This 👇 Maduro has stayed in control against the will of the Venezuelan ppl. There is evidence of corruption, incl. drug-related corruption, at the highest ranks. He has ruined the economy and violently quashed dissent. None of this justifies U.S. military intervention. Be gone, Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela is a real country, with real people in it. Iraq is a real country with real people in it. Afghanistan is a real country with real people in it. The world is not a game for the US to play.

My survival strategy adopted in 2025: read *before* you pick up your phone in the morning. Just a little. Even if five minutes. The difference, both in books read and for my mental health, has been huge. 📚

@malloryjohns.bsky.social, RNG's executive director, shared her vision for journalism w/@niemanlab.org. It's about editorial independence, coalition-building & transparency. This was her pitch when she hired me as Rewire's editorial director and I'm proud to report it's been our shared mission since

Maybe you can't count on CBS to air investigative report into America's Salvadoran gulags anymore. But you can still trust @rewirenewsgroup.com to run a story about the clitoris. Did you think it was all about pleasure during sex? Nah. Try again.

Profoundly dangerous and terribly callous about the consequences in human suffering

This, and Venezuela is also on another continent FWIW Not that geography ever stopped the U.S. from intervening in Latin America before…

“The suspect in the Brown University shooting has been found dead in Salem, New Hampshire, according to two law enforcement officials.”

When I asked @angryblacklady.blacksky.app for a holiday column, the eye roll was palpable. She may have even Slacked me a wee skeptical emoji. But behold! A thoughtful reflection on why the holidays are hard for so many ppl & how Imani has changed. It's a love story, even if I get 😬'd for saying so.

A chilling account of what stress from ICE raids does to the pregnant body: high blood pressure, disrupted sleep, chest pains, depression. And when immigrants fear going outside, they skip prenatal appts & go untreated. OBs are worried: "These policies are having very deep effects on our patients.”

Finally got to sit down with @rebeccakelliher.bsky.social last week to discuss her book, Just Pills. Two drugs--misoprostol & mifepristone--have transformed abortion over the last 30 years, and she tells the story of their unlikely development. A great gift for the abortion advocate in your life!

Thank you to the tireless folks at @rewirenewsgroup.com and to the incisive @catesby.bsky.social for this Q&A on "Just Pills" - I especially loved the last question (you gotta read it to find out)!

If you’re not already following @rewirenewsgroup.com, hit that button. The anti-abortion right has high hopes for 2026; RNG won’t just report the news, we’ll get behind the headline to explain what it means for you, your loved ones and all ppl of reproductive age, from vaccines to mifepristone.

The Duluth Trading Post years come on you fast

We do

Oliver Sacks, on being “processed” by soldiers in a brief encounter on the U.S.-occupied Marshall Islands during a trip. “Being herded this way was deeply chilling—we had a sense of how helpless and terrified one could be in the hands of a military or totalitarian bureaucracy.” Now think of ICE

What's on the ballot next year in terms of reproductive rights? Not a ton, actually. The big fight is over access to abortion pills, and it will be decided in courtrooms & federal agencies, writes law scholar @rebouche.bsky.social in a story jointly produced with @us.theconversation.com.

Mine was Ministry of Time, and my toddler, in a rebuke to the Supreme Court, picked Pride Puppy 🏳️‍🌈

📚Calling all book nerds and parents of book nerds! The book nerd staff at @rewirenewsgroup.com thinks you should cozy up with these novels, memoirs, biographies, board books, YA romances & more. Includes recommendations for adults, small children, and teens. Obviously, we have impeccable taste 💅

Counterpoint: I do in fact need to try every cookie

Absolutely on the mark casting. 10/10 no notes.

It’s happening…⚽️

This story made me want to throw up. If you’ve ever delivered a baby, you immediately put yourself in her place and it’s intolerable. But everyone with a soul will find the cruelty on display here too much to bear.

Get another chaotic vaccine committee meeting. Yet another new federal recommendation that subverts decades of public health best practices. @cameronoakes.bsky.social explains why vaccinating newborns for hepatitis B is the scientific best practice—guidance the CDC will now likely cease to endorse

Update: The rule change process is now beginning in Florida to lift some school vaccine mandates, but does not appear to be final. The state Dept of Health confirmed with me yesterday that it will hold a mtg on Dec. 12 to get public input on the policy; emails can be sent to [email protected]

I read this story well before I ever met @angryblacklady.blacksky.app and had the privilege of becoming her editor. It stuck with me. Every hardworking columnist deserves a week off, so we’re pulling it out of the archives and running it again today. I trust it will stick with you, too.

The thing about toddler parenting is you know the tantrum will end but you don’t know when or how and it’s an extremely humbling way to be “in the moment”

Reyes’ deep humanity and conviction is on full display here. Thoroughly enjoyed

Tomorrow Florida will stop requiring kids to get vaccinated for chickenpox, hep B & other viruses. Kids (and I say this w/love) are adorable disease vectors. Classrooms are petri dishes. This first-in-the-nation policy is about to make things way worse--esp for certain families, says Erica Halbert.

I studied diplomacy. Why didn’t they teach us the metal approach? Would get me to yes!

Pardon the powerful, bomb the fishermen

Thanksgiving mood boost: Across the US, lesbian bars, queer collectives and butch clubs are feeding hungry community members. “When I walked into that space...every single butch or masc in there was ready to work and just wanted to know what they could do,” an organizer told @rewirenewsgroup.com.

Bondi, predictably, has said she'll appeal. But this is still a win for the rule of law.

Before Thanksgiving comes for Blackout Wednesday, when singles mingle at their hometown bars. @cuteflesh.bsky.social's latest sex column for @rewirenewsgroup.com. includes describes life IRL as the "meaty fleshspace"& features some Carrie Bradshaw-esque anthropological dating observations. Enjoy!

It’s the small bathrooms with the inward-opening doors for me

A Kennedy (of the Schlossberg branch) writes about childbirth and dying while her cousins RFK Jr. assaults the health system she and so many millions of others rely on—and discredits the scientific research that is her only hope at survival

Christmas tree already?

We had just beaten back a scam attempting to pass off fake, AI-written story as a hard-hitting investigation when @hallielieberman.bsky.social pitched me this. I was pretty sour on AI at the time! Glad I set aside my annoyance to allow that AI might have a positive use: helping women escape abuse.

People use chatbots as their life coaches and boyfriends, so why not as marriage counselors, too? @hallielieberman.bsky.social reports on the rise of the AI-inspired divorce for @rewirenewsgroup.com

Cool cool cloudflare is down, and with it our website. Just what we all needed this morning

We accept tribute in the form of baked goods, online paeans, and direct cash transfer. Oh who am I kidding the only thing an editor really wants is some nice, clean copy.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of good taste must be in want of a Jane Austen novel. Alas, there are far too few to go around.

This makes me mad on so many levels

As someone who's lived abroad, I frequently compare the experience of getting health care in those places w/that of the US. So when @rewirenewsgroup.com was pitched a story contrasting the pain & cost of IUD insertion in 3 countries, I jumped to assign it. Wild guess: How do you think the US fares?

Boarding a flight that is scheduled to land just before midnight. Here’s to hoping it lands in the United States, ideally New York! ✈️

In addition to being a YesAllWomen moment, this makes me concerned about the attentiveness of her security detail