so stoked to be talking about my book with the great @kimkelly.bsky.social at the Pen & Pencil Club in Philly on Tuesday! Come through! www.penandpencil.org/content.aspx...

MN Ice Abduction Memorials, Mapped sites.google.com/umn.edu/here...

Book about how engagement metrics and the Internet killed journalism titled “Tragedy of the Comments”

horrified by that mass shooting story? Forbes would love you to predict what comes next

turns out delivery robots are kind of like birds in that they run into windows sometimes www.404media.co/delivery-rob...

"I want to remind you that the future is yours, and it is not known — not by you, not by Georgetown, not by Sam Altman or Elon Musk, not by the chatbot, not by me. And that is a beautiful thing."

“Jewelry is armor, and queer and trans people need a lot of armor right now,” she said. “I don’t know what Barb was protecting with her mounds of things, but she had plenty of armor to share.”

my first piece for the Inquirer was a welcome respite from The Dark Times. read about the iconic Barb and then come to the Bearded Ladies’ Bling-Along tonight to take home some of her jewelry

Bitch has received your signed W-9 and will forward to Kelly Bitch expects you’ll receive payment by the end of the week Bitch knows it has been three weeks and wants to thank you for just checking in on this

It’s entirely legal to record LE officers from your car. So they’re brazenly, illegally terrorizing this woman for exercising her constitutional rights. Yet we know that none of these officers be held accountable. We know this administration encourages this behavior. This is police state stuff.

Video shows ICE leaving behind an infant and broken glass after arresting a man with no criminal history. “There was a car seat in the back... There were broken glass shards all over it... There was just this tiny peanut of a baby. He was crying.” My latest: www.pressherald.com/2026/01/28/i...

“Without Dan’s voice, Philly Mag wouldn’t be Philly Mag. And, I’d argue, Philadelphia wouldn’t quite be Philadelphia.” Dan’s editor here, Brian Howard, on what our friend meant to this magazine and, more importantly, this city.

i'm sorry but palantir has been blanketing cities with ads talking about the decline of western civilization and dominating on the battlefield. surely their employees can't be shocked.

the Defector homepage is devoted to Dan and some of his greatest hits. one of the most curious, funniest, and idiosyncratic writers to ever do it. will salute him every time I pass a New Jersey rest stop. defector.com

I think the key that unlocks Dan was his desire to share the things he loved with other people. Wouldn’t be the worst way to honor him if we make the effort to do that for the things we love, too. defector.com/dan-mcquade-...

Rest in peace to one of the great bloggers and the de facto mayor of Philadelphia. It was my honor and pleasure to work with him. defector.com/dan-mcquade-...

i got to know dan too late, just this past year. he vouched for me when he really didn't need to, he was that kind of guy. he texted last month about the book he was writing and the exhibition he'd do after that. an incredibly generous and creative soul, gone too soon. defector.com/dan-mcquade-...

"When he goes to grocery stores now, Juan said, he sees lots of Somali and Latino teens in the aisles staring at their phones, as their immigrant family members stay safe at home, trying to explain to them what to buy." www.cnn.com/2026/01/28/u...

I'm back on QAA this week, talking about the YouTubers who travel to London to tell their audience that western civilization is collapsing, and that England's supposedly lawless, multi-ethnic capital city is at the heart of it. The episode is called London Has Fallen.

Here's how to identify some crowd control munitions, canisters of which federal agents have left on the ground after deploying them against people in Minnesota. bit.ly/3YWp1jE Graphic by Mark Boswell/The Minnesota Star Tribune

News: The Washington Post is preparing to slash upwards of 300 staffers, incl sports, metro and foreign desks @nataliekorach.bsky.social reports. “The newsroom is being punished for absolute incompetence from the owner and publisher,” one staffer told @status.news www.status.news/p/washington...

hey folks, six figure opinion columnist here and gotta say, made a big ol’ whoopsie on the most consequential and honestly, probably the most obvious opinion of my life. thats my bad. anyway, guess I’ll just keep getting paid to give my opinion, thanks for reading

I’ve never heard of a “law enforcement” agency putting an officer who just killed someone back on the street under 24 hours. And that’s because all shootings are treated as homicides pending investigation. This is as clear a sign as you’ll get that DHS personnel enjoy practical immunity from murder.

I came to Minneapolis to report on what's going on, and one of the main questions I showed up with is "just what is the scale of the resistance?" After all, we're all used to the news calling Portland a "war zone" or whatever when it's just some protests in one part of town.

A Supreme Court ruling from September allows federal agents to continue stopping people based solely on race or ethnicity; speaking Spanish or accented English; being at locations such as day-labor sites or bus stops; and appearing to work in jobs like construction or car washing. Read more here:

Jesus. www.startribune.com/ice-raids-mi...

Local governments in the Philadelphia region have been taking a stand against cooperation with ICE.

A few months ago, ICE hired me I didn't sign and submit any paperwork. I almost certainly failed the drug test. I'm real outspoken about my opposition to the Trump administration, and I am extremely googlable And yet, there it was, in plain English. "Welcome to ICE!" My latest for Slate

Last year when I wrote about prison staff jumping ship for ICE, I reported that BOP had lost a net of at least 1400 employees by late fall. I just got new data showing they lost a net of ~1700 by mid-December -- though w/EOY retirements the final 2025 figures will likely be higher.

Elon Musk’s chatbot has been used to generate thousands of sexualized images of adults and apparent minors. Apple and Google have removed other “nudify” apps—but continue to host X and Grok. www.wired.com/story/x-grok...

pls tell me the weirdest website that sent you a “year in review” this year

lmfao www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...

philly journos etc - join the pen and pencil club today! the city's newsroom, one of the oldest press clubs in the country, last late night center city bar... and if you sign up by 5pm today you help me win a recruitment competition! name me as your sponsor :) www.penandpencil.org/content.aspx...

Forever aspiring to become hot enough to be mistaken as someone who grew up in Philadelphia

FOIA fun, here's a CoPilot log from Mineapolis PD where an employee asks AI to rewrite an email that reads: "Good morning, I'm sorry, I don't think we have ever met. What is this in reference too."

monetizing a lack of belief in anything defector.com/toward-a-the...

Come to the Pen and Pencil Club this Thursday in Philadelphia for an event with Liz Moore, author of Long Bright River and God Of The Woods, in conversation with WHYY's Dave Davies! penandpencil.org/content.aspx...

A W. Philly apartment building was destroyed in a suspected arson right after its tenants were evicted and the building sold to shell company. What is this, the ‘70s? Great reporting by Ryan Briggs and William Bender. www.inquirer.com/news/phil-pu...

oh thanks @defector.com , i love to generate outsized page views and/or new registrations. finding this in the (shockingly readable) annual report was a nice little surprise :) defector.com/defector-ann...

work on the creative project that pays me money and that i am under contract for and that people like????? no thanks, im busy thinking about my creative project that im kind of bad at and somehow costs me money and that nobody asked for

This is Bad (source: network.fintechtakes.com/library/3d38...)

I loved this story about how one bin store in West Philly launched this massive conversation about the future of the neighborhood. Great reporting from @jkjenkinney.bsky.social in her @phillymag.com debut:

NEW: The private jet that flew 10 shackled migrants to an Eswatini prison last weekend is owned by Israeli-American billionaires with close ties to Trump. It’s oligarchs all the way down. My first for @zeteo.com: zeteo.com/p/this-famil...

So much tear gas that people who aren't even protesting are getting sick when they leave their homes to run errands: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

"Jones, 27, is among the residents left at 7500 S. South Shore Drive who are trying to piece together what remains after an early morning, high-powered federal immigration raid led to the arrests of dozens of their neighbors at their South Shore apartment building."

please listen to sophie kazis's maddening investigation into the BBC axing a doc about Israel's systematic attacks on Gaza's hospitals. a rare chance to see behind the scenes as these decisions are made, influenced by fear of pro-Israel lobbyists and critics. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

More than 1800 detainees are missing after the closure of Alligator Alcatraz. Their families and lawyers can’t find them and they’ve vanished from the ICE database. Feels like this should be a much bigger story www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...