Devin Hester out here

In which a top US Border Patrol official, incredibly, tells my tall and Anglo colleague @chipmitchell1.bsky.social that he's not the type they're looking for as they go about downtown Chicago arresting people based on "how they look" chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

masked men snatching a family off the street in Chicago -- your tax dollars at work blockclubchicago.org/2025/09/28/a...

Also, homicides are down 50% in Portland this year, to 17 YTD as of August. But facts like these are irrelevant when Trump can say “sun rises in the west” and the Times reports it, context- and factcheck-free, as a just a statement (of seeming fact) by Trump.

parking meters debut in Lincoln, NE, 1940:

In this story they talked to a guy who lives four blocks away (!) from the proposed ADU and is very opposed to anything that changes the neighborhood he's lived in for 40 years. It should not be a surprise that concerns about parking are driving the opposition.

icymi

why is everyone in New York wearing cowboy boots

Critical part of the President's new $100,000 charge for H1-B visas: The Administration can also offer a $100,000 discount to any person, company, or industry that it wants. Replacing rules with arbitrary discretion. Want visas? You know who to call and who to flatter.

It’s a true fact: I got a Business Job in the Business World, which I start next week. But on my last day, Slate let me do one last job: A post about [portentously] all that I’ve seen. slate.com/news-and-pol...

An all-time Slate Legend, RIP

I have a piece in the latest issue of @vitalcitynyc.bsky.social about New York City's very special building codes (evacuation maps! mass timber! drop ceilings! pipes!), and some issues for code reform more broadly www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/the...

Immigration agents shot and killed a man driving AWAY from a traffic stop — not towards them, as they initially claimed chicagoreader.com/news/ice-sho...

scary stuff for anyone who has ever filled out a green card application slate.com/news-and-pol...

This is good, IMO. Casino urbanism is a contradiction in terms. www.thecity.nyc/2025/09/17/m...

enjoyed this reflection from @hawthorne.bsky.social punchlistmag.com/p/shockingly-enough-the-world-trade-center-site-is-turning-out-ok

A skyscraper Pokémon evolution

Firing a Black woman for quoting Kirk’s horrific statements about Black women is insane. It seems the Washington Post would rather perform politeness (and demand that the people Kirk harmed do it too) that tell the truth: karenattiah.substack.com/p/the-washin...

i wrote about the *other* snuff film that played nonstop on social media last week: slate.com/technology/2...

"How I view myself anyways is as just another human being, I just happen to play baseball. Taking the train is just what New Yorkers do, and I want to be that," he told me

Nice write-up of the event in Arlington the other night, and how the county is doing dynamic pricing for parking www.arlnow.com/2025/09/11/e...

On our early dates, we’d walk the same paths Thoreau walked,” Ms. Wilczek, 51, said. “He’d be like, ‘Have you ever been to Thoreau’s favorite swamp?’ And I’d say, ‘No, but I’d like to.’” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/s...

Can you beat ME at this week's Slate News Quiz? slate.com/news-and-pol...

This from @mattyglesias.bsky.social on Abundance seems right to me

that's a crazy chart bsky.app/profile/pbum...

Thought this was an interesting chart in @economist.com highlighting how mayors have such different roles in different cities. www.economist.com/united-state...

I prefer my parking well done

More democracy isnt always democratic — from @jakeanbinder.bsky.social on NYC’s big ballot questions www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

I wrote about the promise of modular housing — long the technology of the future! But maybe for real this time? slate.com/business/202...

YIMBY movement schism approaching over the Dog Issue bsky.app/profile/ndha...

DC-area people! I am going to be in Arlington on Tuesday talking parking, come thru! ggwash.org/calendar/eve...

Sam Beer to Ted Kennedy in 1968, from Common Ground: "The racist appeal opens up to economic conservatives a superb method of bamboozling the working class... We cannot simply let the racist Democrats go over to the GOP and trust to some new force, eg young people, to counterbalance the loss."

this is a great get by @calllmenadira.net, spilling the secrets of the make-up trade slate.com/life/2025/09...

Tactical urbanism “is the rare participatory process where everyday people can physically participate in designing the place where they live… Inscribing it in the asphalt… says: This place belongs to us. And when it gets removed, it says the opposite.” via @henrygrabar.bsky.social

that's how you write a headline

this is the way bsky.app/profile/finc...

Reading, Writing ... and Road Restrictions.

we must do Big Queens bsky.app/profile/open...

wrote about Florida's war on gay crosswalks slate.com/business/202...

"SEPTA cuts made Philly schools’ attendance tumble significantly Early district data show 63% of city schools showed an increase in late arrivals, and 54% had more students absent." -- www.inquirer.com/education/ph...

some guys i remembered defector.com/defector-and...

A lot is covered in this critique of today's podcast culture, but I would also add (after talking about malls on 30+ shows) that chat shows with guest rely on someone else paying for the work that makes someone a good guest and that pay is increasingly hard to get! defector.com/the-future-o...

She was brought to the US as an 8yo, worked hard, studied, earned a scholarship, planned to become a nurse. ICE kidnapped her. Held her for 6 MONTHS in a detention facility with conditions so miserable that she finally agreed to voluntarily move to Honduras, which her family left at gunpoint.

this picture of a mom shoes off sprinting to the Mpls school: www.startribune.com/minneapolis-... By Richard Tsong-Taatarii for @startribune.com, which should be a go-to source for anyone following

When you can’t get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich… www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...

What an image (J. Scott Applewhite, AP)

"The union said hundreds of people nationwide have been told their clearance is now revoked." www.wbur.org/news/2025/08...

You love to see it www.bisnow.com/washington-d...

great reporting. political malpractice. www.chalkbeat.org/philadelphia...

this is great news, these are some of my favorite writers