Just making sure that 2025 is definitely over

Happy New Year! May your 2026 be full of spending time with those you care about and avoiding everyone else… and sometimes even those you care about

I’ll see yall next year ✨

Melissa Hortman Died in a Shocking Act of Political Violence. This Is the Story of Her Life The Minnesota Speaker’s closest friends and family open up for the first time. Read @stephenrodrick.bsky.social's exclusive: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

This is getting passed around a lot because of the way it's worded but it's important to note that researchers have not shown any such thing - they have shown that mice with similar biomarkers can have those biomarkers reversed. No human testing has occurred and shown recovery of cognition & memory.

Britain: oh crap are we really going to have to do a nuclear war plan against the Americans France: oh yay we get to dust off our nuclear war plans against the Americans

Adoration of the Shepherds in the stillest of nights, by Georges de la Tour in 1644. For the end of Second Christmas Day.

26th December is the feast of St Stephen and here's a representation of his martyrdom to be found in the Missel de Limoges. #StStephen BnF MS Latin 9438; Missel de Limoges; 12th century; f.20v @gallicabnf.bsky.social

"Twelfth Night Till Candlemas" The story of a forty-year book-quest and of its remarkable ending My popular seasonal post from last year: emptycity.substack.com/p/twelfth-ni... Now with a couple of footnotes one year on: emptycity.substack.com/p/twelfth-ni...

Greenland is an integral part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Norway stands firmly with the Danish government. Respect for sovereignty, integrity and the inviolability of borders is the foundational principle of international law, and must be upheld by all states without exception.

La France dénonce avec la plus grande fermeté la restriction de visa prise par les Etats-Unis à l'encontre de Thierry Breton, ancien ministre et Commissaire européen, et quatre autres personnalités européennes. 1/3

Second anniversary of our Apple TV’s spectacular attempt to understand me asking for “Hercule Poirot’s Christmas”

I read somewhere that the secret key to postwar British history is that in any incident, meeting, whatever, there’s a high chance that most participants are a bit tipsy and someone round the table is absolutely steaming drunk.

That was one epic party last night....

Agreed 😡 And what about artists? Musicians? Carers? Teachers? Hospitality workers? Bricklayers? Agricultural workers? Stay-at-home parents and grandparents? None are high earners. But all contribute massively to our economy and society - whether directly or indirectly.

History says, Don’t hope On this side of the grave… But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme. So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge. Believe that a further shore Is reachable from here

Look at this absolute professional just doing his job.

First three words superfluous. This framing of unlawful things as a mere matter of legal opinion sadly not limited to US press.

We know good research can take time, and that’s why we’re proud to invest for the long term. After 20 years of public investment, BIOMASS, a satellite mission designed to track the health of Earth’s forests, is in space🚀 Find out more: www.ukri.org/who-we-are/h...

Today the news will be about the government's proposals for juries. Please read this thread so as to be informed about the actual practical problems in the criminal justice system - problems which will not be solved by this misconceived and illiberal tinkering.

Here is a list of reasons why some of my hearings and trials this year have been delayed and kicked off into the long grass, stuck in our record court backlog. Serious allegations which will now be tried *years* after the event. 🧵👇

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree. Ate it.

There are think tanks, NGOs, etc that inform and analyse in order to promote serious political debate and others (most?) much more interested in making lots of noise....front runners in first group include @resolutionfoundation.org @centreeuropeanref.bsky.social and @instituteforgovernment.org.uk

Muscular Christianity. “Wear some headphones, kid. And put your shoes back on”

There's an advert on his website for a 'Depot Supervisor' that pays £12.75 an hour for shift work. If he wants to reduce welfare spending maybe he should pay staff enough that they don't need in-work benefits.

Big news: the European Court of Justice rules that all member states are obliged to recognise a same-sex marriage lawfully concluded in another member state.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

VACCINE NEWS: A pair of Cochrane Review papers provide the strongest evidence to date that the HPV vaccine is very safe and highly effective. Girls who are vaccinated before age 16 have an 80 percent lower risk of cervical cancer.

Profoundly beautiful account of the history of snow studies, the fragility of snow and the impact of the anthropocene by Sverker Sörlin. Also an appeal for a different way of doing #science

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪

Having Johnson & Cummings in Downing Street when Covid struck was, just like Brexit, an entirely avoidable disaster caused largely by utterly appalling journalism. And now exactly the same clowns, arses & bigots with bylines are rolling out the red carpet for Farage. www.thetimes.com/article/1b15...

A reminder that seven years ago almost to the day, the CIA determined that Mohammed Bin Salman ordered the killing of @washingtonpost.com journalist Jamal Khashoggi. I hired and worked with Jamal for a year. www.washingtonpost.com/world/nation...

I will never forget having to edit Jamal’s final, posthumous piece for the Washington Post, after he was murdered. He was calling for free expression in the Arab world. You can read it here : www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/glo...

Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc being the only human character in a film of Muppets is, and I’m trying not to be dramatic here, the reason cinema was invented in the first place!

- It is entirely legitimate for the Home Secretary to highlight the overt racism that she receives for taking part in public life. - Everybody should oppose that racism against her, whatever their politics. - But it is important to make several other points about this argument about racism.

St Mary’s Haddington 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 has some remarkable medieval oak timbers in the nave roof. My #dendrochronology work there dated them to the early 1400s and revealed them as Baltic baulks from the Gdansk region. #MedievalMonday

Pretty unreported in the UK, I think - Japan and China relations are in a very bad way following "unhelpful" comments from the new Japanese PM about military deployments. Several Chinese companies due to attend the event I'm going to in Tokyo have withdrawn. More may follow. It's not good. At all.

Steve had to get through college somehow.

They did say Portland was "war-ravaged"

I’m not saying I won’t moan about it when the time comes to pay, but I think the Govt should raise my income tax because I am profoundly worried about the state of public services.

🔉What dangers does X pose to our democracy? And should the government stop using it? Good to hear yesterday from @sundersays.bsky.social and @petergeoghegan.bsky.social on the immense risk of X as it ignores legal obligations and its owner tries to influence UK politics. @commonswec.parliament.uk

Please take a moment to appreciate this very, very small water sausage!

I'm obliged for the nod. The "Penrose Effect" seems to be a real thing - hypothesised in the 1930s and re-tested in the last decade or so: Where you reduce your inpatient psychiatric provision, you'll see a correlated rise within 10yrs in prisons of seriously mentally ill prisoners.

since chatgpt has coached another young person in a mental health crisis to their death, I am yet again tapping the sign