For YEARS, my cholesterol has been high. When I weighed less and more. When eating healthily and stress-eating. Doctors always told me to eat better and lose weight. Two months ago, I started a low dose of a statin. Just got bloodwork. My cholesterol is normal for the first time since my early 20s.

Working theory: If one had a chance to improve society by injecting just one piece of knowledge into every human — so that they truly UNDERSTOOD it, not just knew it on a surface level — "the difference between a million and a billion" would be pretty high in terms of return on investment

NEWS: The cuts were so severe that at least one department head asked to leave The Post rather than be included in the planning. Peter Finn, The Post's international editor, requested that he be laid off once he learned about the scope of the cuts to his section. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/b...

How, precisely, do you become "more essential to people’s lives" by offering them less? www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

My husband's name got garbled in a contact file somewhere, and now everyone who sends junk mail using that file is addressing it to a mangled portmanteau of his first and middle name. Like, if he were Anthony Isaac, these would be addressed to "Anthonesvac" I can't help it, I laugh every time

For more than 60 years, newborns in the US have routinely received vitamin K injections to prevent potentially life-threatening bleeding. These aren't vaccines, but they are getting swept up in anti-vaccine sentiment, doctors told me, and more parents are rejecting them.

I'm not listening to a rodent. Winter ends tomorrow, do you hear me, weather

Condolences to all the photo editors at legacy media trying to figure out how to get Chappell Roan past the standards editors

NEW: The Justice Department published dozens of unredacted images of nude women (and possibly teens) as part of its Epstein release. The faces of those people were also left unredacted. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/u...

I really hate when companies frame their "you just called customer service" survey this way, because it conflates the product/company (hate) with the customer service (the rep was excellent) and forces me to pretend I like the company in order to give the customer service rep the rating she deserves

Live your life in a way that the dictionary pays tribute to you

Why is Spelling Bee impossible today

As the CDC removes vaccines from its childhood schedule, vaccination rates decline and measles spreads, parents are trying to figure out how to keep their children safe — including, in some cases, by limiting their activities or seeking vaccinations early. I talked to a number of them. Gift link:

Dude on my train is coughing without covering his mouth, and I wonder whom I should notify that a preschooler is traveling unaccompanied

The Trump administration formally withdrew federal guidance that required pharmacies to dispense methotrexate. Chronically ill people may face more challenges in getting this drug for their health. My latest for @motherjones.com. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

I've been staring at this for five full minutes

You accepted CORPORA the other day, gtfo

How, then, am I supposed to propel pieces of news into the sun

Over in The Other Place, that tweet everyone's sharing the screenshot has been deleted without comment — I would take a breath and wait for confirmation

Lil lamp by the sidewalk, 11am and now

This feels like the first weeks of covid in NYC. The ambulance sirens were so constant that I heard them in my sleep and started to have trouble distinguishing between real sirens and phantoms. I heard phantoms for months even after the real ones lessened. Deeply destabilizing and not a small thing

Great day for Bluesky to somehow RECHECK the "autoplay videos" box that I had previously unchecked in my settings

I have 23 single-spaced pages of notes to turn into an article, and my brain is just blinking "WHAT ARE WORDS" at me in those buzzing neon sign lights

Breaking News: Rejecting decades of science, the chair of the federal panel that recommends vaccines for Americans said that shots against polio and measles — and perhaps all diseases — should be optional. The vaccines are credited with preventing disability and millions of deaths worldwide.

We set out to determine how many images of women and girls Grok created during its nudifying spree. What we found was “industrial-scale abuse,” experts said. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/t...

I just whispered "Minneapolis, Greenland, Federal Reserve, measles" to him and he didn't budge because he's never heard of any of them, the jerk

"Under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the answer has been in the millions of dollars. The higher the value, the more the government has required businesses to spend on their operations to prevent a single death."

This is almost verbatim a quote from Otto in A Fish Called Wanda

Me coming through the front door and screaming as though it's my husband's fault

My winter coat that has served me faithfully since I bought it for the 2020 Iowa caucuses just chose today of ALL DAYS to tear I'm not saying it owes me anything after six years, but TODAY? Windchill single-digits? Today?

It took a one-minute call to get this resolved once the office reopened, and I am so adopting my dad's old policy of never, ever, ever opening a letter outside of business hours if it might contain a bureaucratic error that I will stew over

If I live to be 100, I will never caramelize onions and I'm okay with that. I get bored and irritable just scrambling eggs.

F is the hardest center letter in Spelling Bee. Y is the least interesting.

Mailed rent check bc new company hadn't sent online payment info yet. As of 12/31, hadn't been deposited. They said they hadn't gotten it. Paid over the phone, said I'd cancel the lost check Just got a letter: "your check bounced, we're charging $20" Can't call to yell til Tuesday bc of long weekend

I'm still welcoming submissions through this form if you're a parent or medical provider and want to share how the new vaccine schedule and decline in vax rates is affecting you. For my first story, I'm especially interested in hearing from parents trying to navigate all of this. (See next post)

We recently set up a bot in a Slack channel to scrape new and advancing state legislation and alert us to bills related to vaccines, and the noise I just made is indescribable (***the introduction of a bill does not mean it will pass or get anywhere near passing; most introduced bills don't***)

Thinking about this again

This is a great piece about the shame and stigma surrounding lung cancer. “Do you smoke?” was one of the first questions I got from people after diagnosis. No, I don’t. I’ve had the odd cigarette over the years, but a genetic mutation gave me cancer. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/w...

CHOTINER: You said you did nothing to provoke the cat. But here it says you — ME: Moved my foot. Yes. CHOTINER: While the cat was sleeping. ME: Yes. CHOTINER: I see

Six leading medical organizations plan to ask the courts to throw out revisions to the childhood vaccination schedule announced last week by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other federal officials. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/h...

Today the NYT Guild began bargaining a new contract. We presented a pledge signed by 82% of our 1400+ members, supporting 5 core priorities. We're fighting for fair wages, affordable healthcare, remote work flexibility, AI protections & keeping union work—incl. our Athletic coworkers—in our union.

Ah, one of those days where the office has slid from its usual state of "temperature set for men, so kind of chilly" to "considering cutting the fingertips off my gloves in order to keep them on while typing"

Me: all the stress eating hasn't had THAT much effect Also me, briefly removing my wedding ring to put on moisturizer and seeing the deep indentation in my skin: Oh

Matlock offers two leggies as a timeline cleanser

Yes, if the sun is going to have the audacity to set before 5pm — and, to be clear, it should be ashamed of itself — I get to call the week over before 5pm

We have completed 1/52 weeks of 2026

RFK Jr. has said previous dietary guidelines were untrustworthy because advisers had ties to food-industry groups. But so do several advisers on his dietary guidelines — just different parts of the industry, including red meat and dairy.

When it comes to vaccine schedules, the U.S. is now the outlier, @helenbranswell.bsky.social and @jaspar.bsky.social report. www.statnews.com/2026/01/09/c...

So this is a tack that phishing scams are taking now. This is an actual email that my husband received from a scammer posing as the email management company his employer uses. The opt-out link went to the company's name dot net; its legitimate website is dot com.