Historian of medicine here. Yes. Yes, they did.

Recent CBS News news: 1. Anderson Cooper leaves 60 Minutes after two decades 2. Stephen Colbert reveals network won’t let him air interview with Dem 3. Producer says politics dictating what airs 4. Owner’s bid for CNN parent back on the table. 5. Not firing Epstein pal.

The Project 2025 architect who promised to put federal employees “in trauma” is spending $15 million of former USAID funding—money that would have gone toward fighting HIV, polio, malaria, and other diseases—to bankroll his security detail. trib.al/TSV3cmb

Reuters Exclusive: The White House budget office is using millions of dollars from USAID, the former U.S. foreign aid agency, to pay for the security detail of Russell Vought, Trump's budget chief and an architect of the government overhaul cut thousands of federal jobs.

4,049 people gone from NIH compared to 2024, an 18% loss in staff. www.medpagetoday.com/washington-w...

NEW: Oklahoma regulators discovered strong signs of oil pollution, including high levels of salt and toxic metals, in one family’s drinking water. But for two years, they repeatedly delayed basic tests to find the culprit — then closed the case. With @readfrontier.bsky.social

Scoop: Top FDA official Vinay Prasad overruled the agency’s reviewers when he refused to accept Moderna’s application for a new influenza vaccine, STAT has learned. www.statnews.com/2026/02/11/m...

neuroAI comparisons of ANNs to brains do have a range of problems. Even more than I had realized. And I was worried before: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Navarro has repeatedly (and falsely) claimed that "illegals" were taking the jobs of Americans, including in this very interview. If that's the case, then why is he now warning that job growth will slow amidst mass deportations? Shouldn't this be boom times for native-born workers?

Before The Washington Post layoffs came down, a group of wealthy D.C. locals approached CEO Will Lewis with a proposal. @passantino.bsky.social has the details in his Saturday @status.news column: www.status.news/p/washington...

Devastating decision from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last night endorsing the Trump Bureau of Immigration Appeals 2025 ruling that undocumented immigrants “apprehended anywhere in the United States are ineligible for release on bond, regardless of how long they have resided in the U.S.”

Spoke with a PI whose postdoc is trapped abroad because of social media vetting. It appears the postdoc missed disclosing one account and it's unclear if they can come back… ever. This is the country we live in now.

MAGA-aligned military commanders are pressuring enlisted service members to go to the Melania movie and bring their families. Troops at 8 different bases have complained. www.businessinsider.com/us-military-...

While Donald Trump and RFK Jr. push conspiracy theories over science, my administration is forging a path that puts our people first. Illinois will adopt the American Academy of Pediatrics' vaccine schedule to keep families safe.

The Department of Homeland Security is using administrative subpoenas, a secretive tool issued without a judge's signature, to go after people lawfully reporting ICE activity or criticizing DHS policies. This is a direct attack on our First Amendment rights and we're fighting back.

in a democratic republic (and really in all times and places) the slavish hunger to be in the thrall of a strongman or a king is the ultimate moral degeneracy.

Hakeem Jeffries went from “no masks” to “no masks in an arbitrary and capricious fashion.” Schumer has adopted a similar position. At some point, you have to take a stand on something. Not allowing armed men in masks to roam our streets seems like an easy one. Apparently not.

It feels like it's been impossible to get people outside of higher ed to understand that eliminating staff/programs/majors is primarily an ideological project, whatever claims are made about finances. What's happened at the Post is what's been happening in higher ed for ages.

These are the curves for new and competitive renewal grants. The number of new awards is increasing slightly, but only slightly. 17 out of 25 institutes and centers with funding authority have now made awards. 3/4

I grew up with the Washington Post, wrote editorials for the Washington Post and published a column there for more than 15 years. To watch its owners destroy it, seemingly deliberately, in just a year and a half is devastating.

New Epstein files say that Steven Pinker was paid $10,000 to help Epstein’s defense (even though Pinker previously said he wasn't paid).

We are hiring a research specialist, to start this summer! This position would be a great fit for individuals looking to get more experience in computational and cognitive neuroscience research before applying to graduate school. #neurojobs Apply here: research-princeton.icims.com/jobs/21503/r...

Next witness to testify is Marimar Martinez, a U.S. citizen and Chicago resident who was shot five times by CBP agents in October and was later charged with assaulting the agents who shot her. The U.S. Attorney's Office dropped those charges six weeks later.

Fascinating www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

6/7 Our results further highlight the first year of life as a time of intricate brain function. Infants possess the foundations of visual cognition to group the world from very early on. Read more in Nature Neuroscience! 📖🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41....

SCOOP: An outspoken critic of Trump who organized the "Bethesda Declaration" is seeking whistleblower protection. NIH program director @jenna-m-norton.bsky.social says the administration retaliated against her by putting her on paid leave. She wants her job back. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/u...

Since a lot of the coverage is omitting this detail: The Kennedy Center HAD a $250 million renovation and expansion just a few years ago, in 2019.

New: Tesla 4th quarter profit plunges 61% year-over-year; annual profit down 46% the brand damage: -1 million lost vehicle sales, per study -Declining revenue, profits, deliveries in 1st half of '25 -Lower total production/deliveries than '24 -Lost crown as world's leading EV seller wapo.st/3LYTef1

“Abolish” or “defund” aren't within grasp in 2026. But where are: - End qualified immunity - Rewrite use-of-force so this crap isn't ruled “within policy” - Overturn July 8 mandatory detention memo - Reinstate TPS - Open up detention centers, enforce humane conditions He doesn’t even *ask* for it.

i have just gotten off a productive call with sauron where i laid out our requests - nazgul bodycams - morgul knife must remain sheathed unless suspect is determined to be carrying the one ring - shelob will be the new point of contact

Powerful call to action from @cdelawalla.bsky.social founder of @standupforscience.bsky.social timmermanreport.com/2026/01/scie...

“I can’t look my daughters in the eye and say I’m running as a Republican, when they’re pulling over Hispanics and Asians because of the color of their skin and what they look like. I did not sign up for that.” www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

We have been using a platform that is banned in Russia to say that free speech is banned in the EU on the platform we banned.

NEW: The Transportation Department, which oversees the safety of airplanes, cars and pipelines, plans to use Google Gemini to draft new regulations. “We don’t need the perfect rule,” said DOT’s top lawyer. “We want good enough.” By @jessecoburn.bsky.social

Why is Dem leadership not on the ground in MN? If the answer is “polls show Trump’s disapproval is only -15 on deportations, but -25 on prices,” thats a Bad Use Of Polling and a complete failure in their capacity as leaders to lead public opinion and fight for democracy and the rule of law

ICE is now responsible for 66% of the homicides in Minneapolis this year.

Minneapolis Police Chief O'Hara: 37-year-old US citizen shot, killed by federal agents was a resident of city "The only interaction that we are aware of with law enforcement has been for traffic tickets, and we believe he is a lawful gun owner with a permit to carry."

🚨 New paper out in Science Advances 🚨 With @suryagayet.bsky.social and @peelen.bsky.social, in two fMRI studies we investigate mental object rotations that are driven by the scene context, rather than purely by cognitive operations. 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New research from @peelen.bsky.social, shows our brain actively predicts how they should look based on the 3D structure of the environment. Even when objects are temporarily hidden from view, their expected orientation can be decoded from activity in the visual cortex. 👇 www.ru.nl/en/donders-i...

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻? "High-resolution activity maps of PFC did NOT align with cytoarchitecturally defined subregions." Key tenet in neuroscience is that cytoarchitectonic boundaries correspond to functional ones. NB: study in the mouse #neuroskyence doi.org/10.1038/s415...

BREAKING: Jack Smith: "As I testify before the Committee today, I want to be clear: I stand by my decisions as Special Counsel, including my decision to bring charges against Pres. Trump. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Pres. Trump engaged in criminal activity."

Honored to see this paper from the lab profiled by JNeurosci’s “This week in the Journal”! www.jneurosci.org/content/46/3...

This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again. www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

The National Science Foundation sign on our Eisenhower Av building is now gone. The NSF mural in the foyer is removed and torn off in sheets. We were supposed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the agency in May 2025. That never happened.

DOJ investigating whether Denmark lied on its Greenland mortgage.

New at Can We Still Govern? "I am writing as an ordinary citizen of Minneapolis/St Paul...to share with the outside world what is really going on ─ the terror being inflicted upon a U.S. city and state by our federal government." Please read, share, help. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/dispatch-f...

My (now) weekly update on 2026 NIH funding. New and competitive renewal awards. 3 new awards (compared to ~100 expected based on recent years). No new ICs... still just NIA, NINDS, NIDCD, and NIDCR. 1/2

Really thrilled that this paper led by @neurozz.bsky.social is now published in its final version in @elife.bsky.social!! This is a memory-focused (as opposed to RL-focused) account of the detailed characteristics of forward and backward awake and sleep replay! elifesciences.org/articles/99931

Schumer as a major American metro is being brutally occupied by Trump goons: "The affordability crisis will be our focus throughout 2026 because that's what the American people are demanding"