Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion, according to ProPublica’s first-of-its-kind analysis, which found the sepsis rate for women hospitalized as they miscarried in the 2nd trimester shot up by more than 50%. (Published Feb. 2025)

Wow. More info via Instagram:

gotta do investigations into DHS “waste, fraud and abuse” as pretext for killing the agency

“[James Talarico] was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said.

Every time you speak up - and every time you don't - there are people watching and learning about you and the world you help create.

This is how you live a life

One flex I remain quite proud of: even after a v long workday, we can still make a restaurant-quality meal at home. Tonight: chicharrón-encrusted chicken schnitzel, crispy smashed potatoes, & lemon-zested broccoli. Absolutely delicious. You’ve got to find a way to hold on to joy amidst all this.

@tressiemcphd.bsky.social wrote a really great article about AOC, beauty, and power a while ago that I enjoyed. No longer have access to the unpaywalled version though tressiemcphd.medium.com/aocs-attract...

So when thousands of women (and children) were being duplicated--including in non-consensual AI porn--it was no big deal. But it took "only a 15-sec clip" of these two famous white men to draw outrage and fear. Gotcha. Cool cool.

BREAKING: Majestic Realty, who owns one of the warehouses ICE was planning to purchase to create a detention camp, announced today that it would not sell to the agency. More at DMagazine.com shortly.

🚨🚨 It's new research week for me on the socials! 🚨🚨 First up, just released today as an NBER working paper: "More Hours, More Work: Head Start Expansions Boost Maternal Employment" with fantastic coauthors Esra Kose and Maria Rosales-Rueda www.nber.org/papers/w34831

Coming this May. A documentary about WEB Du Bois - www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kMs...

The drunk uncle theory. You don’t argue with the casually homophobic uncle at Thanksgiving dinner to change his mind; you argue so that the closeted cousin at the kids table knows there’s safe people and better possibilities out there

Wow.

This is a nice move in an interview www.nytimes.com/2026/02/16/u...

"I don’t think that the debates between the left & moderates would necessarily be any friendlier if they were disagreeing over the best ways to experiment to attract voters & create compelling policies, but I do think that they would be more likely to result in interesting & unexpected discoveries"

Agree. In addition (changing the subject), I really like the concept of “clarity trap.” It might be the best summary I’ve seen of what is wrong with Econ 101ism.

📢 Predoc Opportunity I'm hiring a full-time predoc to work with me at UC Berkeley, supporting my research on labor economics, the economics of education, and public policy. jesse-rothstein.com/rothstein_pr... Please pass on to anyone who might be interested. #econsky #econ_ra

AOC’s biggest problem if she runs for president is that the white men who control our media ecosystem will not so much put a finger on the scale to stop her as an entire hand it can be done (see: Zohran) but it’s going to be blatant and it’s going to be infuriating

It is absolutely a choice.

If you want to understand why rich guys are turning back to eugenics and recreating the rhetoric and theology of slavery, it’s because they know on some level this level of wealth inequality is unjustifiable bsky.app/profile/marl...

Higher Ed, in particular, should have fought 2FA on personal phones and removing our office phones tooth and nail for this reason.

Bye Truckee! Going home in a snow storm without any worries at all. "You chose a good day to take the train!"

Hotel guests are fleeing early because of the snowstorm. Traffic to the Bay Area and Reno is jammed due to gridlock, plows and crashes. Drivers are clearing snow off windshields and having to buy tire chains. But not us. Our Amtrak is on time. We'll relax in the dining car. The smart way to go.

read that first paragraph if nothing else:

Abigail Spanberger ran for governor of Virginia on her record as one of the most bipartisan members of the House. After her first weeks in office, critics on the right are calling her a witch, a “Bond villain” and dangerous. She sees it as a sign of her success. nyti.ms/3MO2wLb

👀 Invoking Orwell, a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore panels and historical acknowledgments of the history of slavery that the National Park Service removed in Philadelphia. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Mamdani taps ex-Biden official to audit NYPD, other agencies for sanctuary law lapses

I'd be excited if she ran and I agree that the moment might be right but I am also just so so grateful to have her on an international stage, representing the US and US interests, compared to the alternatives, both on the right and the left 💅🏽

Good arguments here from Bacon. To add: Main thing I want to see from candidates is the willingness to build and foster year-round organizing that has a chance of delivering systemic change, like Obama tried with OFA. Pretty sure @aoc.bsky.social would do that despite lots of opposition.

chris christie might have been president if he had struck when the iron was hot in 2012, and the same goes for liz warren in 2016.

from the perspective of someone who might want to be president, the best time to run for the white house is now, not later. so if AOC is thinking about it — if the white house is her ambition — then her best bet is to throw her hat in the ring

Keza Macdonald — author of a fantastic new book on the history of Nintendo — is coming on the pod this week to talk about women/non-binary people getting into gaming *as adults.* We need your questions!! Spectacularly easy question submission form here: docs.google.com/forms/d/1x-9...

Reminds me of a recent post by @tressiemcphd.bsky.social about how male loneliness only becomes a social *problem* if lonely men are violent men. Men who feel emasculated are embarrassed, but a particular brand of embarrassment that leads them to become violent. www.instagram.com/reels/DOMGr0...

Inspired by this from @perrybaconjr.bsky.social who's becoming pretty much my go-to political analyst

Trump backed off calling Renee Good & Alex Pretti domestic terrorists because people didn't like it. But as I wrote, the admin is still doubling down on the use of domestic terrorism investigations to scare Americans away from using their First Amendment rights. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...

I'm going to promote the heck out of this: The Minneapolis Foundation has $4 million in grants available to small businesses for everything from rent and payroll costs to legal help and temporary relocation. More details and the application here: www.minneapolisfoundation.org/stories/comm...

Former NPR Host Accuses Google Of Copying His Voice For AI Offering https://gizmodo.com/former-npr-host-accuses-google-of-copying-his-voice-for-ai-offering-2000722402

🧵 New preprint! Our 4-lab team evolved Streptococcus pneumoniae in antibiotic-treated mice of varying immune states and discovered something surprising: bacteria rarely evolved resistance. Instead, they found a different way to survive — by rewiring RNA turnover. 🔗 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Terrific piece by @rexhuppke.bsky.social on Elon Musk, White Nationalist

When people say “I hate writing but I love having written,” they are not saying “I love that some completed text exists.” They are saying “I love getting to the end of the process and realizing that all the work was worth it, that this sentence really pops, that I nailed it.”

I don’t know how many times people have to say this, but if you really are and feel like a writer, you *need* to write. It’s the best part of your job, it’s the part that you find satisfying, it’s why you chose to do what you do. Writers are not trying to escape the writing part!

“These jobs are 100 percent reporting,” said as if the writing of the report is not a part of reporting. What an absolute embarrassment.

Looking through the e-mails, I was disappointed how many astronomers/physicists were in contact w Epstein. People who interviewed me for faculty jobs, were friends' PhD advisors, selected professional prize winners, were in charge of promotion & tenure. I felt like the tree is rotten to the roots.