Women Human Rights Defenders in #Ukraine are evacuating civilians, delivering aid, and sustaining communities on frontlines. Our new report highlights their life-saving work, the risks they face, and the gap in support. They must be backed with real resources and power in Ukraine’s future.

"There is no documented example, in the United States or anywhere in the world, where sulfide ore copper mining has operated without pollution over time," writes Ward Brehm in Community Voices. www.minnpost.com/community-vo...

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail), by Hieronymus Bosch, 1480-1505, 📸 by @alexbrandon

“Every story has to be discovered twice, first in the world, and then in the author’s study. One discovers a story the second time by constructing it.” — Tracy Kidder (1945-2026)

Yes!! @matteaston.bsky.social 's book is an absolute must! I learnt so so much from it. Excellently written too, so a great one if you're dipping a toe in Indonesia's labour and human rights recent-ish history. Truly can't recommend it enough!

Great work, @juliepeppito.bsky.social!!

Forgot to mention: Among the faith leaders who visited the offices of Speaker Johnson and Rep. Ogles yesterday — urging Johnson to censure Ogles for his anti-Muslim remarks, and Ogles to recant* — was Rabbi David Saperstein. Saperstein is the former U.S. Ambassador-at-large for Religious Freedom.

“In 2021 more than fifty environmental defenders were assassinated in Mexico—more than in any other country.” —Anjan Sundaram

A nice thing about music is that it typically doesn't respect borders. Spending some time with Eishan Ensemble today, who blend Persian and Western traditions into songs that are beautiful and tender and, considering *all this*, ultimately quite hopeful. eishanensemble.bandcamp.com/album/aftern...

"the largest act of mass murder of this decade, and of this century so far, was not perpetrated by militaries or militias, but by the world's richest man in Washington D.C.'s Eisenhower Executive Office Building." www.liberalcurrents.com/what-elon-ha...

One tab that I found particularly interesting, on Trump's soft approvers: www.cnn.com/2026/02/23/p...

In honor of Lunar New Year, one of my all-time favorite maps: How dumplings spread around the world (tl;dr: It was largely, though not exclusively, the Mongol invasions!)

I think it’s time for Democratic leaders to start saying “if you’re a pilot or ground crew involved in a deportation that was stayed by a judge, you’ll be held criminally liable for human trafficking.” Everyone involved in these flights should have that fear in the back of their minds.

After being jailed as a resistance organizer for the Tamil minority in his native Sri Lanka, T. Kumar studied law, moved to Washington DC, and spoke out against governmental repression worldwide www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/w...

You cannot "train" murderous, violent ICE agents not to be murderous and violent. Bodycams will do nothing to stop this. The agent who killed Good PROUDLY RECORDED THE KILLING. The entire agency must be defunded and abolished. cc @schumer.senate.gov @kirstengillibrand.bsky.social

Standing outside 26 Federal Plaza this morning to call out a quiet injustice: asylum seekers facing pretermission without a fair hearing. This is the federal government denying due process. We must organize and pursue legal avenues to stop it.

Mongabay founder @rhettayersbutler.bsky.social has written 70+ obituaries this year for people who spent their lives defending the natural world. These portraits show ordinary people standing between ecosystems and erosion, proving protection happens through imperfect, sustained effort.

Lots of folks brought their kids! Who were awesome!

In the century leading up to 1975, nearly 6000 freighters went down in the Great Lakes. The Edmund Fitzgerald was the last. The last. In 50 years, not a single commercial freighter has been lost in the Great Lakes. Why? It's NOAA. Of course it's NOAA.

BREAKING from PP We found immigration agents have held more than 170 *citizens* The govt doesn't track citizens held. So we did. We tallied: Nearly 20 kids, two w/ cancer More than 20 citizens held for day or more, incommunicado www.propublica.org/article/immi... by @nicolefoy.bsky.social

after the 10th radioactive shrimp recall in 7 weeks, i decided to do some digging little did i know it would lead me to an underreported industrial accident that may have released an airborne plume of radioactive debris over swaths of indonesia www.consumerreports.org/health/food-...

Donald trump can still win the Nobel Peace prize if Mike Pence has the courage

Historians and citizens who say they are concerned about the Trump administration's pressure on the Smithsonian are working to document exhibits, as they exist today, throughout the museum network.

Happy to announce the sold-out Indonesian version of "We Have Tired of Violence" is now available in a 2nd printing from marjinkiri.id, local bookstores, and online shops. It's timely, as some protestors have begun bringing a copy to demonstrations since the first run came out last year.

Great news for Alaa, his family, and Egypt. #freeAlaa

🇧🇾 #FacesOfHope: For 5 years, woman human rights defender Marfa Rabkova, member of Viasna, has been arbitrarily detained in Belarus. She is behind bars for doing what every society needs: monitoring peaceful assemblies and documenting torture and ill-treatment of protesters.

An ICE watch zine (Chicago edition) being handed out today.

The Alaska summit between Trump & Putin must not sideline justice for Ukraine’s war victims. “Any deal that lets Russia off the hook for war crimes is not peace—it’s a green light for the next massacre.” — @dooleydooley.bsky.social Read our statement here: humanrightsfirst.org/library/huma...

"I finally self-published my book in 2001 to celebrate my 25th birthday. I didn’t care if it sold or not. I didn’t even know how to sell books; I just wanted to fulfil my dream. It turned out to be a huge success: 7,000 copies sold in two weeks." fivebooks.com/best-books/c...

‘She stood up to men with machetes’: Sandra Domínguez fought against femicide in Mexico – then became a victim herself

Economist Amartya Sen won a Nobel in part for asking: Why did India avoid the mass famines that killed tens of millions in China? His answer: a free press. Journalists could expose suffering and shame governments into action. Silence and avoidance, by contrast, can be deadly.

READ @nikkimcr.bsky.social: "Trump and Bukele have bonded over their shared visions of themselves as national saviors unaccountable to the laws of their nations." www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

✊ Today in Vilnius, we stood with the imprisoned #HRDs of Viasna. Ales Bialiatski, Valiantsin Stefanovic, and Uladzimir Labkovich were arrested four years ago in #Belarus for their #humanrights work. Solidarity matters — especially when justice is denied. #FreeViasna #FreeAles #FreeThemAll

Elon Musk casually, and illegally, dismantled USAID. According to a new study in the Lancet, that action will lead to *14 million* premature deaths between 2025 and 2030. Again: Elon Musk is directly responsible for 14 million coming deaths. 4.5 million will be children.

Ladies and gentleman, the F train

A happy #Bloomsday to all! Hear Joyce reading from Ulysses and Finnegans Wake in two rare recordings from the 1920s: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/james-joyce-reading-his-work-1924-1929 #Bloomsday2023

‘Laila had given ten years of her life to fighting for her son, and now, in what she decided would be the final act of the fight, she put her life on the line.’ Ahdaf Soueif on her sister Laila’s struggle for the release of her son, Alaa Abd el-Fattah: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ju...

One reason perhaps some elite Dems shouldn’t say Elon, baby, come back is because of all the dead people

RIP Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o While imprisoned without charge in 1977, he made the seminal decision to write only in Gikuyu, expounding the idea that African literature should be written in African languages, and wrote a novel in Gikuyu on government-issued toilet paper. www.wsj.com/arts-culture...

Indonesian news outlet Detikcom took down an opinion piece titled, "Generals in Civilian Posts: Where Is Merit of Civil Servants?" following the author's request. The author said that he was terrorized after the op-ed was published, making him fear for his safety and his family's.

“No children are dying on my watch,” said Rubio. It's blatantly false. Credible estimates count 190K deaths so far. In Kenya, I am seeing devastating impact, incl this child's starvation & many deaths directly caused by Rubio’s actions. More in my @msnbc.com clip. www.instagram.com/atul.gawande...

This is really smart. I hope we're getting closer to the top candidates creating a strategic alliance to tell their supporters to rank the others and not rank Cuomo at all. (My slate, in order: Lander, Mamdani, Ramos, Myrie, A. Adams.)

Activists piled hundreds of fake coffins at the State Dept. today to warn of mass deaths if funds from the global AIDS relief program PEPFAR are not reinstated. One analysis estimates that over 36,000 adults and nearly 4,000 children have died overseas as a result of the funding cuts. Full story TK

U.S. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota has introduced legislation to permanently ban mining for copper, nickel and precious metals over about 350 square miles within the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

And here I stand both to impeach and purge

There's a lot going these days, but please consider contributing to these folks helping victims of the earthquake near Mandalay. AJAR is run by good friends with existing partners in Myanmar, and 100% of your donations will go to help people on the ground emergency-relief-burma.raiselysite.com

Never forget, a 13-year study found that protected bike-lanes led to a drastic decline in fatalities for all road users. ALL ROAD USERS. And painted bike-lanes? No safety improvement at all. For sharrows, it’s actually safer to NOT have them. Via @usa.streetsblog.org @nyc.streetsblog.org