cville! the legal aid justice center & a bunch of local orgs have launched a campaign asking the school board to revote on SROs. click here to sign the petition, c.org/SPNzfPVyGZ and here www.justice4all.org/rethinkrevote/ to instantly email every member of the board!

Hometown hero does good! Proud to have Afroman represent Antelope Valley gumption (even if he’s off in Ohio these days)

Bhattacharya is abt to testify in front of the House approps committee ~Halfway into the fiscal year the agency is behind on spending (again) There isn't one culprit — more involvement from OMB, staffing issues, and adjusting to new priorities are all at play www.statnews.com/2026/03/17/n...

This is a huge victory for federal science agencies, not because it addresses the presence of non-experts, but because it addresses *procedural* violations in agency governance. Advisory panels are authorized by Congressional law to be constituted and inform policy in specific ways. (1/2)

“Are you wearing the—“ “The Bobby Hill earrings? Yeah, I am.”

Working from home due to a bomb threat at UVA has me thinking:

hey cville, if you're wondering whether our kids have been affected by ICE and the national terror campaign: the Hispanic graduation rate at CHS went from 80% to 66% in a single year

More on science presidential power grabs - seen at #NSF with #NCAR today. 1/4 🧪 www.linkedin.com/posts/markhi...

The rollback of scientific advisory committees is not isolated to FDA. As @markhisted.org and I write, it is a general feature of the move away from pluralistic democratic governance toward presidential consolidation in science governance (1/2) www.statnews.com/2026/03/09/f...

The most impt change at #NIH and to US science this year is bigger than grant cancellations— it’s how the agency is governed. For 75 years NIH has been largely independent of presidential control. That’s changed this year. New piece from me and @nataliebaviles.bsky.social in @nature.com 🧪

In a new piece in Nature, @markhisted.org and I cut through the chaos at NIH and argue that what is really at issue is a shift in how we govern science—away from power sharing with scientists, Congress, and civil servants and toward presidential consolidation. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted. What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards. Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

“Scientists are members of civil society [who can speak up], but they sometimes don’t see themselves in that way” “NIH has long been ahead of other agencies in increasing inclusiveness … in part due to lobbying from patient groups” - @nataliebaviles.bsky.social 🧪

On sabotage of our young scientists, by @holdenthorp.bsky.social @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Reminder, we are not in a CR. There’s an appropriation for the FY. And NIH is working on the Cycle of grants that went to Council *before* the government shutdown last fall.

NIH leadership wants to strip worker's rights from the majority of scientists on its campuses. But, the NIH does not get to say whether we are a union or not. We do, and we are no strangers to having to fight for our union. Time for a short history lesson. 1/n Disclaimer: all views are my own.

The HPV vaccine is durably AMAZING.A massive Swedish registry study w 18 years of follow-up found no waning protection against invasive cervical cancer. If vaccinated before age 17, cancer risk is cut by ~80%. Even those vaccinated later still had substantial protection. www.bmj.com/content/392/...

5 USC 2301(b) (2) All employees and applicants for employment should receive fair and equitable treatment in all aspects of personnel management without regard to political affiliation ... and with proper regard for their privacy and constitutional rights.

People say tenure exists so you can do dangerous work, but imo tenure truly exists so you can send emails like this without getting fired. www.reddit.com/r/PhD/s/sgOd...

Stand Up For Science announces Jenna Norton, NIH Whistle-blower (@jenna-m-norton.bsky.social) as a speaker at the Washington D.C. National Day of Action rally on Saturday, March 7th! Visit standupforscience.net/march7 to find a rally near you! #science #standupforscience #rally #March7DC #March7

Jayme Lawson from Sinners hit the nail on the head and said how I felt with the whole BAFTAs situation.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers. The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

My daughter recently became obsessed with Frederick Douglass and appears to have made a pop-up Frederick Douglass Valentines Day card at school

Next para: "A regime of secret policing has no place in our society. Here, the Government’s power is derived by the People, and the People must be able to identify the Government when it acts to infringe on their liberty."

Important things happening in cville. Add this to your calendar. I am looking forward to learning more about these efforts!

In a post-Schedule F landscape, we should expect NIH civil servants to be more at risk than ever before—just as their ability to get reports of what’s really going on inside the agency to the public is most urgent. open.substack.com/pub/elizabet...

Get in, dorks. We're ready for round two. RALLY TO TAKE BACK SCIENCE! 🔬🧪✊ March 7th, 2026 in Washington, DC Learn more at www.standupforscience.net/ma... (link in our bio.)

interesting to think that revolutionary era americans understood themselves as making a break with the “old world” and establishing a new civilization. and crucially, this new civilization rested on republican self-government, not “sovereignty.”

Some good reading for the day... sciencefightclub.substack.com/p/fear-and-f... @standupforscience.bsky.social

The chill FDA’s Moderna decision sends through the entire vaccine R&D ecosystem can’t be ignored. Many bigger pharma companies already downsized in-house vaccine efforts or cut them entirely after the 80s out of liability concerns. An administration set against vaccines can kill US vax R&D capacity.

straight out of those Civil War histories where some ill informed white Union soldier got a view of slavery up close and became hyper abolitionist in an instant

Scoop: The NIH infectious-diseases institute (NIAID) will soon scrub “pandemic preparedness” and “biodefense” from its web pages, according to e-mails I obtained. The directive is the start of a broader shake-up at NIAID, which has long been attacked by Republicans.

Presidential appointees chosen for loyalty to the administration rather than scientific expertise are overruling the judgment of experts to undermine the US’s ability to innovate and distribute valuable medicines. What happened at FDA is one piece of this bigger problem affecting NIH, CDC, etc.

C'ville folks! Local luminary and lender of e-bikes Josh Carp created this very cool site, which combines videos of public meetings with searchable, linkable transcripts. meetings.cvilledata.org/meetings

Rep. Delia Ramirez to DHS officials: "I have as much respect for you as I do for the last white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color. I have no respect for the inheritors of the Klanhood and the slave patrol. Those activities were criminal and so are yours."

New, from me: Trump finalized his Schedule F policy, allowing him to remove job protections from career civil servants. The new rule is dishonest and unmoored from reality in its effort to formalize the politicization of the federal government 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/trumps-sch...

Final schedule F rule "will allow agencies to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or *obstruct the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives.*" (emphasis mine) public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-02375.pdf

The Washington Post gutted the health team which I helped to lead despite our stories being among the most widely read, impactful and adept at reaching new audiences.

If Trump ever read the Bible he’d be so pissed right now

Surprise! The White House’s attempt to undermine the administrative capacity of the entire federal government is reallllly unpopular. An excruciating read for its pedantry, but important to see how Federalist Society originalism is being used to argue for dramatically unpopular policy decisions.

As far as I know, this is DHS's first effort to explain their position that I-205 forms allow entry into the home. They rely on the dicta in the 1960 Abel case (before Payton) and re-imagine the plurality opinion in Lucas as if it were the majority (and then overrely on it).

NEW: Abigail Spanberger this afternoon ordered that all state agencies leave ICE's 287(g) program. This means that the state police (and some other agencies) will no longer be empowered to detain and arrest people for ICE. Big, big move by the governor within weeks of coming into office.

I’m about to receive my first royalty check from my academic book! I can’t wait to find out how much I made. Elevens, perhaps twelves of dollars!

I'd say it's less outrageous than simply absurd but it's those too. I mean, you go into NIH and you close down the ability to review or issue grants, send out stop work orders and then fire half the people. That's probably going to have an impact on research and patient care.

So the question here is mis-specified. There is no "alternative" research funding in any way that would make American biomedical research whole for researchers to seek out. 1/ www.statnews.com/2026/02/03/p... via @statnews.com

Please stop saying the bill allows "no more multi-year funding" - or at least be clear the 'more' is in reference to disastrous FY25 levels. The bill allows 39% MYF, same as in FY25, which contributed substantially to a 24% drop in new research. The bill has some wins. MYF is not one of them.

lol what intramural program??