GUN CITY: there’s been a nearly ten-fold uptick in New Yorkers seeking concealed carry permits since 2022, per a new analysis of NYPD data. I tracked down the city’s most prolific instructor to see what it's all about. Today in @thecity.nyc& @thetrace.org. www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/12/n...

Smart take: Mamdani met voters where they were at, listened to them, centered them. To the extent he had social media “magic,” it was his “understanding that the masses are the message.”

I am looking forward to being done with an election and a lame duck disgraced mayor so that city government can get to fixing big problems out there, including this one exposed by my colleague @gregbsmithnyc.bsky.social.

In New Mexico at an interim committee on Monday, lawmakers reviewed their three-year-push to raise alcohol taxes — good coverage by @sourcenm.com. sourcenm.com/2025/10/28/n... Just a few additional observations threaded below 👇

DOJ altered the Biden admin's signature gun violence prevention grant program for "Community Based" interventions to make it inaccessible to...communities. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

A gunmaker redesigning its products to address safety concerns does not happen even in a blue moon. The power of legal and commercial pressure: thereload.com/glock-to-red... @thereloadteam.bsky.social

Inside the alcohol industry’s global campaign to delay Ireland’s world-first health labels New documents reveal an organised effort by alcohol giants to pressure the Irish government into delaying landmark cancer warnings.

Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. aid agency, committed $420 million to provide clean water in East Timor. Now, M.C.C.’s board wants to pull out of the agreement, with the project already underway. Story by grantee @tedalcorn.bsky.social for @nytimes.com. bit.ly/4oqA9zX

it is ALWAYS worth pointing out who gets to be just a helpless little innocent precious baby boy at the age of 34, vs. who is framed by the cops as a big scary dangerous man whose candy bar might be a gun when he's barely in middle school, or described as a "13-year-old woman" by her predator

google reviews for a tailor in my neighborhood are something else

In Albuquerque, where @mayorkeller.bsky.social is cruising towards re-election, his 1st TV ad gives top-billing to his non-police emergency response dept, what @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social is promising for NYC. Just to say, it's possible to run on community safety. www.facebook.com/reel/1486960...

Today’s insane stat about Chinese renewable energy installation: “Every three weeks.” 🤯 www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/b...

Much hue & cry at the end of USAID but Trump admin is also quietly terminating half the grants of Millennium Challenge Corp including $420 million for a water treatment system in East Timor, where nearly half of kids are stunted from waterborne illness. My latest: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/w...

remember when we had the hatch act

More from the Suffolk University poll: www.suffolk.edu/-/media/suff... Do you support or oppose "defund the police"? Support - 21% Oppose - 74% Would you support or oppose cutting some of the police budget and using the money for social services? Support - 54% Oppose - 41%

Have always thought real estate interests could be leveraged to invest *in advance* in local, evidence-based gun violence prevention strategies, since they stand to make some of the largest, most direct financial gains from safer streets. @wsj.com www.wsj.com/us-news/the-...

“I think the main thing that’s caused so much confusion is that he was always generally apolitical for the most part,” the friend told me. “That's the big thing, he just never really talked politics which is why it's so frustrating.”

Interesting to see @gabbygiffords.bsky.social & former Sen. Jeff Flake co-author this. In 2013 he broke a promise to her to support a background check bill, essentially dooming the once-in-a-generation effort. The loss galvanized her to start @giffords.org. www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

If the federal show of force in Washington has had a deterrent effect on crime, it appears to have deterred entirely normal aspects of city life, too. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/u...

The US govt. is burying a major report linking alcohol with cancer, as it prepares to water down dietary guidelines advising stricter moderation. Good review of the industry campaign to kill it, with bipartisan help (👀 @mikethompson.house.gov ). @dylanlscott.bsky.social www.vox.com/health/46008...

Inbox: The city Correction Department just announced another death on Rikers Island, the 12 this year and third over the past week. The judge overseeing the department is currently looking over candidates for a “remediation manager” role. She’s taken the entire summer and no deadline on the books.

Deaths at Burning Man are exceedingly rare, and none to my knowledge have been violent. If this turns out to be, it couldn’t occur at a worse time for the organization behind the event, which has been struggling to fundraise to keep up with its expenses. www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...

Arkadi Gerney and I argue for maximum deterrence as our best path forward in @washingtonpost.com

Last week, I became someone who knew someone killed in a mass shooting. Here's my remembrance of Wesley, across the decades. www.newyorker.com/news/postscr...

Practical and evidence-based: Johnson City, TN considers shortening hours of alcohol sales to cut crime, a strategy Baltimore has adopted with success (I reported on it last year for @thetrace.org). www.johnsoncitypress.com/news/busines...

So grateful for this opportunity, which allowed me to report on a novel anti-cancer effort in rural Kentucky. Read more: www.statnews.com/2025/07/23/c...

In politics partisan actors are often rational. However, an exception is about to occur in the form of mid-decade redistricting. Republicans and now Democrats are threatening a wave of new gerrymanders. I will skip the part about it being wrong. More importantly in our amoral age: it will not work.

Govt + vendors are a significant cost but based on data @burningman.org shared with me, I don't think they are a major cause of nor the solution to its recent and ongoing financial crunch... A little more detail:

Kentucky has pioneered improvements in rural cancer-care. Now their progress is imperiled by the deepest Medicaid cuts in the country. My story out today about @ukmarkey.bsky.social in @statnews.com, supported by @npcinstitute.bsky.social. www.statnews.com/2025/07/23/c...

Last year #burningman reached more people than ever—but it also fell $20 million short, and has never come closer to extinction. Read my story in @BW about the unique conundrum facing a utopian culture that eschews commerce but still has to pay its bills. www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

The Senate has just passed what amounts to the biggest health reform plan since the ACA, rolling back many of the health insurance coverage increases achieved by the ACA.

It’s every parent’s nightmare, isn’t it? you check your child’s bulletproof backpack and find a picture book about gay penguins

Lander: "It's just gross, racist bigotry. Meanwhile he's running an optimistic, upbeat campaign for a NY where everybody belongs, and I feel proud as the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in NYC to be supporting somebody who would be the first Muslim mayor—what could be more NYC than that?"

Whoa: new $25 million investment in gun violence prevention and research from @blankfoundation.bsky.social. That's among the largest single private contributions ever, up there with @joycefdn.bsky.social and @arnoldventures.bsky.social. www.fundforasaferfuture.org/who-we-are/n...

A pair of vital articles by Keith Humphreys & @jeffasher.bsky.social tell a neglected story of long-term import: the US is experiencing an unprecedented, generational drop in crime & (lagging it) incarceration. Up/down of COVID aside, and bigger than any city, agency, or intervention:

Enjoyed speaking with Inez Russell Gomez of @thenewmexican.bsky.social about my reporting on alcohol in the Land of Enchantment. www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_n...

Many scientists say the US nutrition guidelines should be strengthened to warn people from consuming more than one alcoholic drink per day. But insiders say the Trump administration will throw out a daily drink threshold entirely. “So vague as to be unhelpful.” www.reuters.com/business/hea...

It should not be lost on anyone that Minnesota Rep Melissa Hortman, who was shot to death in her home last night by an assassin, was a gun safety advocate who worked tirelessly to protect her constituents from gun violence.

New in the NYT: pesticides like paraquat cause >100k deaths to suicide per year, and means restriction works - following bans in China, their pesticide suicide rate fell ~60%. Props to James and GiveWell for their early work here; Open Phil is proud to continue it. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/...

For the @nytimes.com I wrote about an insidious public health problem — household access to highly lethal pesticides, which are, shockingly, a leading means of suicide around the world — and the opportunity to save lives by outlawing them. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/10/h...

A technique with a storied history. During Mao's Great Leap forward, his propagandists hailed one fantastical harvest after another, calling them “Sputnik harvests,” on par with the success of the Soviet satellite.

Add Vermont to the list of states looking at alcohol tax increases. @katenugent.bsky.social www.wcax.com/2025/04/22/l...

Staking his secretaryship on whether WH pursues this plan. We’ll see who prevails.

Africa is the youngest and fastest-growing continent, set to exceed 2.5 billion people by 2050. The future of the globe resides there, quite literally. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/20/u...

Ambitious, measurable goal and a smart, comprehensive plan. Now to see how it is implemented and how it plays out. @mayorgreenberg.bsky.social www.lpm.org/news/2025-04...

The headline and photo I needed today. @gettingviggy.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/u...

Justice delayed is justice denied. NYC's sluggish courts are prolonging jail stays on Rikers Island for as long as 5 years, hindering its planned closure, and leaving victims in a terrible purgatory. My latest in @thecity.nyc: www.thecity.nyc/2025/04/10/c...

With a two-day loss in market value of about $5 trillion, I figure the opening shot in this trade war has been about the most destructive action in human history, in monetary terms. Rivals total inflation-adjusted US spending to fight World War II.