ACOG reaffirms that acetaminophen is safe for managing pain and fever during pregnancy. No reputable studies support suggestions like those in HHS’s recent announcement linking acetaminophen use in pregnancy to autism; in fact, high-quality studies show no such risk. https://bit.ly/47Wxc59

I cannot tell you how grim the AI in higher ed situation is. Many of the students have completely surrendered to letting AI do their homework, badly, I might add. How do you fix this? Truly, what the hell do we do, beyond what grading can address, which isn't a solution?

47 year old Robert Redford & 49 year old Wilford Brimley in "The Natural" (1984)

This is my last week at the Wall Street Journal. I'll be returning to Chalkbeat to launch a new section focused on the big ideas and debates in American education. More on this soon! You can sign up to keep following my work here: www.chalkbeat.org/newsletters/...

we have gone from a world in which we were told not to cite wikipedia because it was unreliable to a world where wikipedia might be the only reliable source left on the internet and we all owe a lot to the pedantic nerds who got us there

Apple turned AirPods into Babel fish?! www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/t...

A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say. This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand. All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.

Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repurcussions.

my favorite robert redford story is that mike nichols considered him for dustin hoffman's part in THE GRADUATE. during their conversation nichols asked redford something like, "have you ever struck out with a girl?" and redford's response was basically, "i don't understand the question"

An @nytimes investigation finds staggering levels of insider dealing: The Trump administration confers benefits on the UAE (despite security concerns) as the UAE confers riches on the Trump family. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/u...

There's no such thing as being a free speech absolutist until you seize power. That's when you reveal what you were all along.

This was Robert Redford trying to play a nerdy uncool policy analyst.

Media / power structure absolutely careening into 2002-03 levels of "shut up and don't say what your eyes can plainly see."

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

We're at the point where you need a detailed map of administration and social media influence to guess which of today's deranged tweets will become tomorrow's White House Executive Order

Significant, on many levels.

[the shooter is unidentified] the left must be purged with the sword [the shooter is, again, a compulsive masturbator who loved Hitler] I believe it was pascal who said that the heart has reasons that reason may not know

Honestly it seems to me that one of the most important tasks for modern parents is raising their kids to be mostly offline normies

dan bongino and kash patel lying unconscious on the ground after bonking their heads together as they both bent down to examine what is later determined to be their own footprints

I don't think people should be murdered, and I don't think videos of those murders should autoplay on social media websites for millions of people to unwittingly view. How the fuck did we get here

Oh come on

The most chilling part of the video is when the student says the professor is violating "the President's laws." Texas A&M is not a real, or American, university.

The Onion News Network truck is currently stationed outside the Broadview ICE Detention facility just outside of Chicago.

The biggest analytical weakness of Americans in trying to understand the current moment is that their powers of analogy begin and end with US history. The idea that something qualitatively different might be arising simply doesn’t occur to them.

Don’t print lies in the newspaper

I self-Googled. Got a hit for "Rick Perlstein or Julia Orringer." I was intrigued; we both wrote books called "The Invisible Bridge" Clicking yielded a comment thread without those words, so I Googled us together, and learned...this. I have never met her Our elites are staking our future on AI.

“Audience feedback” Jesus Christ have some self-respect

Drove across DC border to Maryland, and got flu shot and (new) Covid shot, at CVS. We qualify, by age. "A ton of people have been coming in for these." Go to hell, RFK Jr.

Florida Decided There Were Too Many Children

Remarkable: Trump's losses in court are suddenly piling up in a big way. *court just invalidated his nixing of Harvard funds *use of Alien Enemies Act blocked *tariffs ruled illegal What's really becoming clear is that his entire agenda rests on extraordinary abuses of power.

Making Communicable Childhood Diseases Great Again

This one is either secretly the hero or secretly the main villain of Alien:Earth; either way it's the breakout star.

There's an "S" in the NY Times Spelling Bee? What is happening?

Well that only took four years Wordle 1,535 1/6* 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

If Texas is this huge rich football-crazed state with 10,000-seat high school stadiums and Friday Night Lights, why can't the UT football team ever hang in with actually good college programs?

Reports say Trump is dying. I’d be careful — that’s usually when Phase 2 starts, a health bar refills, and the giant centipede emerges. Toxic damage incoming.

The website that I co-own Defector.com is hosting a RARE sale where you get three months of blogs for just $5! That’s something like 600 blogs for FIVE AMERICAN DOLLARS. Pretty good deal imo and you get to support worker-owned media.

This isn’t bad luck or coincidence or predestination. This is our choice. To live in a nation where our leaders teach hate, and military style guns are everywhere.

Update: it got funny again

There will be many casualties from UChicago ending ('pausing') PhD admissions in Humantities, but one which I am keenly aware of: this is close to a death sentence for teaching cuneiform in the United States (esp. Sumerian, Hittite, Elamite, Eblaite, Luwian) and it will affect the whole world.

Sandwich guy deported to Uganda in 3, 2, 1... www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/u...

My friend @kevincarey1.bsky.social dives into the authoritarian attacks on American universities and doesn't pull any punches. He pinpoints that higher ed leaders are unfamiliar with solidarity and collective action. And thus the destruction of the institutions they lead will continue.

“As for “existential terror,” there is simply no precedent in American history for the way Trump has turned the full force of the federal government against elite universities.”

I put all my hot takes and strong feelings about Trump’s assault on higher education into one convenient essay. Check it out! washingtonmonthly.com/2025/08/24/h...

Yeah, criminals are definitely stealing radios right out of new cars, that's absolutely something that happens today in 1987.

The most powerful form of propaganda is "of course as everyone knows" ground-truth establishing asides in straight news coverage. For example, this is, at best, a highly-contested opinion! www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

MPD, FBI, and others with non-agency specific gear arresting a guy for — get this — smoking weed on U Street.

“is anyone actually doing this” is the one question that it is apparently verboten for most political commentators to try to answer

Important www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/o...

Eric Schmidt (February) vs Eric Schmidt (August) is the fight of the century. [joking aside, this is a very significant shift] www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/o...