~news~: this week I started at The Guardian US @us.theguardian.com as Movement Building reporter, continuing my coverage of protest, repression and resistance against war, LGBTQ rights, policing, labor, and more under Trump. organizers, advocates—send me your stories! I’m on Signal lex.mcmenamin.68

The FEDS drugged and shot Fred Hampton in bed. Philly cops blew up a building in the 1980s and most people don't even know the MOVE bombing happened. I think you're downplaying how normalized US death is.

Really? Wow i had no idea

AP: "Palestinian women across Gaza bake bread as their only source of income." Conditions remain dire for civilians. They rely on donations to survive. No amount is too small. Please give to my dear friend Tasneem so she can take care of her children. And to others. ❤️ chuffed.org/project/1587...

~news~: this week I started at The Guardian US @us.theguardian.com as Movement Building reporter, continuing my coverage of protest, repression and resistance against war, LGBTQ rights, policing, labor, and more under Trump. organizers, advocates—send me your stories! I’m on Signal lex.mcmenamin.68

Just how bad is Grok's nonconsensual porn problem? Musk's AI chatbot is generating another sexualized image of someone without their permission every single minute:

“...how did Black feminism become a longstanding historical tradition? In part, by shedding light on the ways Black women’s bodies have been routinely exploited to preserve white supremacy, and by providing a liberatory framework to build solidarity across communities.”

this article is a good example of what i mean — literal kids work the orchards where the bulk of our oranges/lemons are grown, earning a piece-rate that can work out to less than minimum wage, and i genuinely don’t know what you or i can do about it even if it disgusts us. that’s shame

in February 2023, the nation's first openly nonbinary state legislator described the death of 16-year-old Oklahoman Nex Benedict, and the policy and rhetorical attacks on trans life, as part of a "transgenocide." Mauree Turner stepped down from public office the following year.

“These viruses are serious, dangerous, and life-threatening. We are seeing children who are seriously ill, families grieving devastating losses, and hospitals under capacity strain.” www.cnn.com/2026/01/05/h...

Dr Janell Green Smith, CNM a respected midwife, scholar, and advocate has died from complications related to childbirth. She leaves a husband and newborn that need the support of her village. If you are able, please consider joing me in donating. www.gofundme.com/f/dr-janell-...

once again encouraging you all to support billionaire-free, worker-run, independent newsrooms how and where you are able

NYT and WaPo claimed they refused to publish the plan to abduct Maduro when they had it because they feared making soldiers vulnerable, but clearly it wasn’t exactly a secret

I've been tracking the spread of nonconsensual deepfakes on X for more than two years. Here's a timeline of how Musk's leadership allowed the practice to flourish from a once-underground market to a viral trend, with little recourse for victims or legal enforcement. spitfirenews.com/p/grok-csam-...

NEW: 4 months have passed since a Louisiana oil facility burst apart, spewing black sludge across homes, farms, and waterways as far as 50 miles away. Yet the black goo still clings to walls, roofs, and soil of more than half of the majority-Black town’s properties capitalbnews.org/roseland-lou...

Calls are growing to release Palestinian protester Leqaa Kordia, who has been detained by ICE for nearly ten months.

The judge also ordered that teachers have a right to misgender trans youth even when the parents know of and are supportive of their trans child. Just in case you thought this was actually about parental rights.

“We’ve gotten through some crazy things. Pulse was not that long ago,” said Jenda Envy, a drag queen from Orlando. “It would have to take a lot. Ron DeSantis? Ooh girl, you’d have to show up to my house.”

my first @theguardian.com: I wrote about this year's "Drag Queen Christmas" tour stop in Pensacola, FL, which from the 1950s-70s hosted America's biggest LGBTQ event; the state AG tried to get the "demonic" show canceled. I talked to Florida drag queens and supporters that refuse to go underground:

we, in the United States, through Trump’s mass deportation scheme, have engaged in abductions and torture for the past year, none of it in secret, much of it attested to in legal documents. there is nothing to expose, only to face.

In this sense, she really is the second coming of Bill Buckley! First as tragedy, then as farce

so much of what's been "newly" released re: Epstein is just confirming past credible assertions made by his victims. I've been re-reading 2019 stories while reading the new coverage and so little has changed about what we know. meanwhile Andrew Tate walks free. people only care about the spectacle

oh, thank god. no one has asked this before in the last 50 years

missed this the other day because been offline (preparing to share some 2026 ~updates~) — thank you @evanurquhart.bsky.social and the team @assignedmedia.org for including my story on how LGBTQ and Native Oklahomans healed in the year after Nex Benedict's death in their best trans stories of 2025 ❤️

The House passed legislation today that would charge doctors with a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison for providing transition-related care to minors. Rep. Sarah McBride strongly condemned the legislation in rare personal remarks ahead of the vote. www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

For a brief time American workers had a lot of leverage over employers. That power has now evaporated.

Read the story by @vic-parsons.bsky.social here: www.wearequeeraf.com/queer-activi...

truly terrifying

"Our analysis shows that in the aftermath of extreme weather events, lower-income neighbourhoods are less likely to rebuild and do not return to their pre-disaster state, whereas higher-income areas rebuild and tend to improve...highlighting increasing disparities in their built environments."

Twenty years ago, over 90% of revenue from recorded music came from physical album sales. Now, streaming accounts for 84% of that money. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

This year, I set out to chronicle free speech under the Trump admin. No small feat. Trump attacks dissent & leverages the White House to go after critics constantly. But how? Read our bombshell new @freepress.bsky.social report. I'm proud & horrified: www.freepress.net/attack-on-fr...

Folks, this redistricting landscape is as confusing as it is outrageous. The VRA case. CA. TX. UT. FL. VA. IN. NC. MD... So, at Bolts we're doing a reader Q&A to answer some of your questions. But to do that, we need to know what's perplexing you most, what you're left wondering. Let me know! (↓)

i'm available for freelance work, bio writing, consulting, anything! for now going to start writing a newsletter over on substack best way to support me right now is to subscribe! brittanyspanos.substack.com

Good morning! I’m currently at Beaverton High School in OR where a mass student walk out has just started to demand a proactive ICE protocol for their school and district. Students say that similar walkouts were planned at multiple other high schools, including Aloha, Sunset, Southridge & more.

404 Media is making a print zine! About the surveillance technologies used by ICE. 16 pages, riso printed. Shipping early January. Features reworked versions of our best reporting and a few new things. We're very excited! And hope to do more if people like it: www.404media.co/404-media-is...

Pre-trial hearings are usually empty for most cases. The Luigi Mangione hearings, on the other hand, are happening in a packed courtroom — and not everyone is happy about the coverage. Read more from @miasato.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/policy/83905...

Zohran Mamdani has an ambitious agenda. What does he need to do immediately during his first 100 days in office to make his promises real? We're kicking off our "First 100 Days" series with a look at his plans for universal child care, via @brycecovert.bsky.social: hellgatenyc.com/zohran-mamda...

Have you heard the good news? Black Zine Fair is coming back to NYC on May 9, 2026—and we need your help to have a successful event. gogetfunding.com/black-zine-f... We’re raising $20,000 to keep the fair free and accessible. If you can, please give $5, $15, $50, or more.

i'm grateful there's a fervor to launch new projects and publications right now, because the times are as dire as they appear to be, and a generation of young writers is looking out at a landscape that appears to be all ash and dust

When young people learn people's history, including stories posted here, they make more informed decisions, ask questions, & take collective action to shape a just future. That's why the right suppresses education. Join us. Provide free lessons & classes, & defend teachers right to use them. ⬇️

My newsletter was fire in 2025 if I may say so myself, lol. It really was though. Proud of the work and those who helped me make it happen.

I was on A Life Creative, hosted by my dear friends and former neighbors who I have known since I was 15! www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoem...

"I believe that to have interfered as I have done — as I have always freely admitted I have done — in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right." -- abolitionist John Brown, executed #tdih 1859 Read about Brown + the other Harpers Ferry Raiders ⬇️ www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/jo...

thank you to everyone who contributed to our gofundme ❤️ more fundraisers! — @condeunion.bsky.social Fired Four were illegally fired for protected action, asking Conde to explain folding Teen Vogue into Vogue — In Oct, the majority of VIBE Magazine was laid off; they’ve struggled to meet their goal

For at least a year, I've been returning to the question, how would you know when it's time to leave the US? For this piece, I asked trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer Americans who, with their families and partners, have recently fled the country, about how they made this decision and how they left.

I’m still thinking about Bari Weiss saying that Hasan Piker (extremely popular influencer) is less of a measure of where Americans are than Alan Dershowitz (extremely unpopular Epstein associate, his own neighbors won’t sell him a pierogi)

Savannah Standing Bear’s family and friends have heard plenty of rumors, but not many answers. It’s been eight months since she disappeared from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. The latest from an #MMIP series in collaboration with @ict-news.bsky.social ⬇️ buff.ly/uyIDKr8

in the last 1.5 years journalistic fact-checking has become significantly harder specifically bc of this, without touching all the other ways education and knowledge-sharing are under attack rn (book bans, censorship, media industry crumbling, etc etc)