As so much reporting about RFK Jr. fails to meet the moment or worse, this piece about what it's like with people with actual expertise and the goal of saving lives rather than culling them to work for his HHS from @kerryhowley.bsky.social is should-win-major-awards good: nymag.com/intelligence...

I wrote about the private, intimate, often ridiculous agonies of working for a man who think you’re a monster nymag.com/intelligence...

The many stories about how RFK is gutting our public-health systems have, unfortunately, started to blur together. But this one stuck with me for how viscerally it puts you alongside the scientists fighting the good fight: nymag.com/intelligence...

“Wouldn’t it be nice if all cities were like Milton Keynes?” nymag.com/intelligence...

Writers! Applications for the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award are open. This year, we've increased the prize to $15,000 to account for the higher cost of pasta. Apply now: journalism.nyu.edu/about-us/awa...

"The Sacagawea found in the oral histories of the Hidatsas is both grander and humbler — more like a person, less like a symbol — than the one taught in schools." — @cwhe.bsky.social for The New York Times Magazine

I wrote about Sacagawea and the Hidatsa tribe, which has marshaled some compelling evidence that she lived 57 years longer than mainstream historians say she did. (And died of a gunshot wound.) This story also has my favorite final paragraph I've ever written. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/m...

I wrote about Sacagawea and the Hidatsa tribe, which has marshaled some compelling evidence that she lived 57 years longer than mainstream historians say she did. (And died of a gunshot wound.) This story also has my favorite final paragraph I've ever written. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/m...

Relatedly, if anyone knows someone at @novartis.bsky.social (manufacturer of Ilaris/canakimumab, the drug I need but cannot get!), or Anthem (the insurer refusing access) or their pharmacy benefits manager (Navitus) who might be able to move this process along, that would be very helpful. :)

Wells Tower wrote about lost luggage, just in time for Lost Luggage Day: www.thecut.com/article/wher...

this is a masterpiece @kerryhowley.bsky.social nymag.com/intelligence...

Well this is a big one: nymag.com/intelligence...

English words that are like German words (information-dense and literal): brainchild, plaything, fireplace.

"If you were to blindfold naturalists from New England and take them into some of the forests in Queens, they might think they were back home, as opposed to mere yards from Grand Central Parkway" -- What a wonderful look at NYC's urban forests in @nymag.com www.curbed.com/article/beec...

"'I got into forestry to get away from people,' he said. Now he is working in the biggest city in the country." Robert Sullivan upending some conventional wisdom about forests and forestry. www.curbed.com/article/beec...

Language question: Is the use of “search up” (instead of “look up” or “search for”) confined to Gen Alpha or does Gen Z use it as well?

Wrote this about bird flu preparedness back in February. nymag.com/intelligence...

Uh oh

This article from @cwhe.bsky.social is a great depiction of the state of H5N1 in US cows, and how we got here. Closing line "The only thing keeping us safe, for now, is the virus itself" nymag.com/intelligence...

I wrote about bird flu and Robert Kennedy. nymag.com/intelligence...

Deadline to apply is Wednesday. Writers, it’s not too late!

Meryl Streep did WHAT.

What’s it’s like to be the only home standing in a neighborhood that burned: “I don’t ever want to see my house again. It’s a toxic-waste dump. My community is gone. It’s just a curse that my house is there.” nymag.com/intelligence...

My wife got me a book on how to identify warblers by their songs, and each entry has a phrase to help you remember the rhythm of each bird’s call. The Colima warbler’s phrase is: “A colander of lima beans, dripping quickly and evenly, then dumped out.”

S.E. Hinton: I have had many strange things happen in my life. New York Times: Thank you, no follow-up question.

Number games: 2025 is the last time the square root of the year will be an integer until 2116. The last time it happened was 1936. Those turning 45 next year will share an honor with those turning 44 in 1936 or 46 in 2116. The 1936 cohort is dead. Will anyone from the 2025 group be alive in 2116?

An early reminder to apply for the Matthew Power award, which provides $12,500 to support a longform journalism project. Deadline is February 19: journalism.nyu.edu/about-us/awa...

In his By the Book interview this week, Billy Collins says he began copying other primates and peeling bananas from the bottom. I tried this for a while, and I have to say, the chimps are wrong on this one.

Naught’s had, all’s spent.

One more detail from the Schuyler interview: He says Edward Gorey (!) once told Frank O’Hara he would be murdered on the waterfront and Schuyler’s assessment was, Well, Gorey couldn’t have been more wrong. (O’Hara died on the beach, of vehicular homicide.) www.theparisreview.org/miscellaneou...

This passage from Charles Duhigg’s OpenAI piece in the New Yorker is striking. Compare to Tesla, where engineers wanted to name their self-driving AI Copilot but Musk overruled them.