📌 ICYMI — How the US Christian Right and Anti-Abortion Lobbyists are Reshaping NHS Policy A new investigation exposes a global network of anti-abortion groups and US Christian…… https://bylinetimes.com/2026/04/02/how-the-us-christian-right-and-anti-abortion-lobbyists-are-reshaping-nhs-policy

More context on this #Artemis II image: * This is the night side, lit by moonlight. You can see city lights in Spain & Portugal, & a sliver of day at lower right * The Sun is entirely behind Earth, which makes it a kind of solar eclipse, but w/ Earth doing the eclipsing instead of the Moon: ☀️🌍🚀🌕

This Easter weekend, there are a number of counter protests against far right anti-migrant demonstrations in cities around England. If you're taking part, make sure you know your rights greenandblackcross.org/guides/key-a...

In April, the health part of universal credit to be halved (or frozen for new claimants) unless their condition is terminal or severe & lifelong. Multiple sclerosis, learning disabilities, bipolar, Parkinson’s, ME may not meet new eligibility criteria. More cruelty towards people with disabilities.

Excited to share our editorial in @bmj.com - we discuss the need for targeted action to address the fact that the UK has lost its measles-free status. We highlight issues like public health spending cuts, fragmented infrastructure, training cuts that impacted vaccine access #HealthPolicy 🧵

Hey, I wrote a thing about AI in astrophysics ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...

"The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing. Not a dramatic collapse. Not Skynet. Just a generation of researchers who can produce results but can't produce understanding."

Please read this, understand what the govt is doing & take action. Labour's immigration proposals swap integration for segregation, introduce a Dubai-style Kafala system of coercive employer control & drive low-income families into poverty. They're an abomination. open.substack.com/pub/wewanted...

So many truths in this blog. Have a read. Here’s the link again: scottishcare.org/news/social-... One for #MedSky and #PublicHealthSky folks too. #PublicHealth #Prevention

• Preventing accelerated frailtyis about nutrition, movement, social connection and dignity, the things social care can enable every day, if it is designed as a relational service rather than a timed transaction.

• Preventing avoidable admissions is often about continuity: someone who knows you, sees the early signs, coordinates quickly, and steadies the situation before it becomes an emergency.

Some good tips from @drdmacaskill.bsky.social on where social care belongs, not downstream, but upstream (🧵) • Preventing falls is not primarily about a poster campaign. It is about home adaptations, strength and balance support, medication prompts, and time enough for a worker to notice a change.

This is a good way of looking at social care. It’s an investment, not a burden. Create a “preventative infrastructure that stops crisis becoming destiny”. From @drdmacaskill.bsky.social - can I recommend following him for more regular wisdom and astute analysis? scottishcare.org/news/social-...

• Preventing carer breakdown is as fundamental as preventing a heart attack; without respite, advice and practical help, the system loses its most precious and uncosted workforce.

“…a wide range of debilitating conditions may not meet the strict eligibility criteria, despite them often leaving someone unable to work. This includes multiple sclerosis, learning disabilities, bipolar, Parkinson’s, ME and long Covid.” 📣📣📣

This looks fantastic - a festival for films made by or featuring people with learning disabilities or autism. Founded by filmmakers frustrated at having nowhere to show their work in 2004, it runs over six days from Saturday at five venues in Brighton oskabright.org/2026-programme

Trump pardoned 77 people this week that stole from Medicare. This flew under the radar. I believe Trump is selling pardons which is enough to send Trump away.

I think it's a good thing that media are still reporting about COVID. It isn't gone. It isn't mild. It's still evolving. Minimizers hate nicknames for variants like "Cicada" because they make it easier for people to understand that the virus is still here and still evolving.

It is striking how little media appetite or interest there has been for the Covid inquiry's conclusions

Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant was struck by a projectile late Friday night in its third reported attack. Officials warn the plant contains radioactive material, so any serious hit could trigger a major nuclear incident.

Not so marvelous news. ~95,000 scientists have left the federal government since the Trump regime took over.

The Guardian's deal with OpenAI is a disaster for independent journalism. It's not a "partnership", it's a deliberate de-fanging of the press for corporate gain. And now Brittin is poised to do the same trick at the BBC dazzling the BBC board with his AI dog & pony show 6/

A month after Brittin joined, the Guardian announced a "strategic partnership" with OpenAI. Unlike, the NYT which chose to sue it for illegally scraping its site, the Guardian settled. It's refused to disclose a single detail about a deal that's cloaked in secrecy. 5/

The BBC's profile quotes sources "close" to Matt Brittin to deliver a fawning portrait of an "inspirational leader". Only he's never led anything. Brittin is a middle manager whose job was to stop Google being regulated and grow the business like late stage cancer. 3/

NEW: Will Google's AI hype man kill the BBC? I've written about Matt Brittin because the coverage of his time at Google is shockingly naive. The BBC's next DG is a corporate yes man at a rapacious AI monopoly that preys on journalism in order to destroy it. 1/ www.thenerve.news/p/matt-britt...

AOC: Companies like Palantir are mining endlessly the data and privacy of the American people—keeping track of everything that they say and do. And sending it to a militarized government. 

Danish Social Democrats adopted hardline, nativist anti-immigration policies and look to have recorded their worst election result in over 100 years. So, the lesson for the European left from the “Danish model” is that copying and normalizing the far-right leads to gutting your own support.

How Palantir, not Anthropic, led US bombs to kill 175 civilians, mostly 7-12yo girls, in a school in Minab, Iran on Feb 28. How embedding automation - not LLMs in this case, just image processing and sensor fusion - in military workflows mutes human judgment, causes errors, & diverts accountability.

The proliferation of this quote is so interesting to me. It's often posted by right wing chuds who use it to defend conventional aesthetic ideas — such as the importance of having a lean, athletic body — but they don't really understand Owens's work. Let's talk about it. 🧵

I just completed a 'survey' on 'AI' use in higher education, via Canvas On multiple questions, it was *not possible* to answer without selecting at least one way in which you *will* or *do* use 'AI' Instead of "I do not use AI" you were forced to say "I do not understand 'AI'" Free comments: 🤬🤢

Happy Birthday to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and a massive thank you to her for inventing rock and roll She was born on March 20th, 1915

Latest toll since March 2, released by the Lebanese ministry of health. 886 killed including 67 women & 111 children.

The president is handing out oversized clown shoes to his cabinet — and watching to see who refuses to wear them. It's Solzhenitsyn's Stalin story come to life: the first person to stop applauding ended up in the gulag. The lesson then, as now — never be the first to stop clapping.

🟨 Print Edition — Nazir Afzal: ‘Class Discrimination Isn’t a Complex Mystery – It’s a Structural Issue Quietly Enforced, Politely Denied, Endlessly Deferred’ The Chancellor of Manchester University has co-authored a new report, ‘Class Ceiling…

NEW POST: The Government’s use of unaccountable ‘experts’ for SEND reform is shutting down debate & excluding vital voices: those of parents and people across the sector who don't agree with them—and says Dr Kieron Smith, it's undemocratic: www.specialneedsjungle.com/s...

NEW: Is this the broligarchy’s first world war? AI, like war & rape, is a hyper-masculine fantasy of God-like power, a myth at the dark heart of what we’re seeing play out in the Gulf. This war hasn’t replaced the Epstein scandal. It is the Epstein scandal. open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

The Ig Nobel awards (for science that makes you laugh and think at the same time) have traditionally been given in the US but this year they are moving because of concerns about safety of winners and journalists from Trumps regime

Israel is bombarding, literally bombarding, two Middle East capitals, Beirut and Tehran, killing 100s of civilians, and yet the US and UK media continue to portray Iran as the threat to the region. Israel has nukes, but Iran is the nuclear threat. We live in Orwellian times.

Is anyone asking what is the structure that is coordinating UK and other forces in the Mediterranean and the Gulf? What is the chain of command? Is it a free for all? Or is the US involved?

"The Met Police may want to intimidate us into contributing to the govt's closing off of the right to protest... We will continue to hire space to explicitly nonviolent groups, with appropriate checks in place, just as we always have." – Clerk of Westminster Quakers www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

Yesterday evening, for the second time in a year, the Met Police raided Westminster Quaker Meeting House and arrested a number of young nonviolent activists. STATEMENT: www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-eve...

What is it about non-violent protest that the govt fears so much that they have to raid a Quaker Meeting House? Again. Perhaps having your complete loss of moral direction exposed is too uncomfortable. Democracy dies without dissent.

This ghoul has finally been fired. But make no mistake, Stephen Miller is still in charge of DHS and especially ICE.

It looks the well-paid and ought to know more journalists of the @thenewsagents.co.uk need to go back to school and learn how cabinet government works in the UK. The idea that some cabinet ministers have influence over the PM should not be an alien one. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

NEW: A group of Hollywood execs are running a smear campaign against "The Voice of Hind Rajab" to stop it from winning an Oscar. The group has ties to the Israeli government & received support from foundations of Russian oligarch Len Blavatnik & Casey Wasserman (both featured in the Epstein Files).

Just a reminder that everything Carney has done is consistent with him being in favour of war in the Middle East. 🧵

Now Mandelson’s Global Counsel will no longer be holding dinners for its clients, top civil servants and politicos, will there be fewer lobbyist-brokered meetings with government? Hospitality registers for new cabinet secretary Antonia Romeo suggest not. Full story in the new Private Eye, out now.