NEW: A serious staffing shortage — of the Trump admin's own making — is delaying the agency's ability to send billions to universities around the country, leaving labs reeling in the meantime. “I thought we were at rock bottom”, a senior NIH official said. “We are below rock bottom now.”

Feeling overwhelmed with all of this. LISTEN. Another Louisiana resident (Marshawn is the only name we have) testifies against the state’s racial gerrymander, speaking truth to power up and down the hearing room and predicts how this story will end. Speak your truth, fight and believe.

If you've ever sought NIH funding, do this now www.bioniclab.org/news/request...

"Starving Gaza" "Today, the prolonged food shortage in the Strip barely makes the news — after all, we have already seen worse." "The reality in Gaza undermines the future and security of us all." Lee Mordechai and Liat Kozma [The authors are at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.]

Tennessee's already done it, and Alabama, Louisiana, & Florida are racing to do it. Back to the pre-voting-rights-act all-white South in terms of both federal and state legislatures.

jfc

More details on the firing of the National Science Board. The NSF now has no director, deputy director, or board. They have issued almost no new awards in 2026. The plan appears to be to completely destroyed the agency. The details are horrifying and have Russ Vought written all over them.

Trump has threatened to destroy Iranian civilization in 3.5 hours. Could be nuclear, or non-nuclear; could be he'll back down. Just an incredibly frightening moment. Dems in House & Senate should be issuing unified statement: this is genocide and military must disobey illegal orders. But they won't.

Academic friends, It's beyond heartbreaking to watch what's unfolding in Iran & the region. A few of us drafted an open letter calling for protection of civilians & of educational, research, medical & cultural institutions. Please read & sign if you agree: sites.google.com/view/protect... #IranWar

Tell Your State To Pass This Model Law to Protect Your Elections From ICE. NOW. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/tell-...

Opinion: Sinners was by far the best film of the year. But it was a film of black experience & music, straight and direct and without an ounce of bending over to make whites feel more comfortable. One B A Another was a white film, with a powerful black women for 1/3 who was mostly white men's 1/

I just uploaded @jasonparis.bsky.social 's recording of the segment CBS News pulled from "60 Minutes" to YouTube:

I've been told Sameer Project is the "gold standard" for sending aid to Palestinians. Of many projects, this one is to keep Gazans warm this winter: shelter, warm clothing, blankets. Now they're in tattered tents w nothing, w/ Israel blocking aid entry despite ceasefire. chuffed.org/project/1491...

Ketanji Jackson issues a stay on the order forcing Trump to fully pay SNAP now? WTF? Here's a good explanation: she's making the best of a bad situation, forcing things to move quickly; if she didn't do it, the rest of the court would have, and would have let everything slow walk thereafter.

Isn't it amazing that IL was never limiting aid entry, never deliberately inducing hunger/starvation, or denying medical supplies so medical care couldn't function, no drugs, anesthesia/analgesia, proper sterilization; yet when there's a ceasefire Israel can suddenly "allow" 600 trucks/day to enter?

So outrageous. Head of Kamal Adwan Hospital, "detained" by IL since Dec, held w/o charges at ILi torture ctr Sde Tieman, beaten, tortured, held in solitary confinement, starved, lost >40kg (~90 lbs), denied med treatment. They'll eventually claim he's Hamas but if so they'd have charged him.

This is the professor at Rutgers who studies fascism and anti-fascism, got doxxed by some rt-wing group, was getting death threats, and decided to move to Europe.

Haaretz wrote Hebrew-only article re IDF soldiers with PTSD from Gaza combat experiences. Various awful testimonies, including this from a sniper who daily served at GHF aid sites, w job to shoot any of the desperate unarmed people who crossed an invisible line. www.haaretz.co.il/news/magazin...

SCOTUS allowing ICE to racially profile will embolden Trump to use ICE & military against his political opponents, potentially demanding citizenship checks at polls & intimidating Dem voters in 2026. Already seeing such tactics with occupation of LA, DC & Chicago www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Again & again, the Supreme Mullahs rule that Trump can act unlawfully & unconstitutionally & violate constitutional rights w/o restriction, at least until the courts finish the process of officially resolving the legality of these acts (and S.M.'s may well ultimately decide they're legal).

I wrote a substack article: open.substack.com/pub/youngert...

May this portion of the dissent by Ketanji Brown Jackson haunt John Roberts forever and be the final word on his tenure as Chief Justice.

For anyone wanting to contribute to get aid into Gaza: I've been told that Project Sameer is "the gold standard" for this, one of their projects: chuffed.org/project/help... & a friend tells me this is a trusted source, getting baby formula in: chuffed.org/project/1387... 1/

“A retired US special forces officer has revealed to the BBC why he resigned from his work with US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution centres. "I witnessed the Israeli Defense Forces shooting at the crowds of Palestinians," Anthony Aguilar told the BBC.

By the way, for anyone still on xitter: I stayed on it to read and post about Palestine/Israel/Gaza. It's still where most people living there post, so it's news you can't get anywhere else. But I've been kicked off X since June 12. It looks like someone hacked to change associated email; I got 1/

Invaluable xitter thread on famine momentum, famine response and the current disastrous state of Gaza from Jeremy Konyndyk, President of Refugees Intl and former lead for COVID (46) & disaster relief (44) @USAID: x.com/JeremyKonynd.... Note the alarming increase in starvation deaths; links in reply.

Posts from Palestine on xitter are all reporting a level of hunger & desperation they've never reported before - people collapsing on the street, no food anywhere, maybe 1 inadequate meal in 2 days or 5 days. Mass death will likely soon begin. Here is a set of posts to give an idea. 1/

NIH proposing a crazy new policy: they will not fund proposals involving only animal research, proposals must include alternative approaches such as non-invasive human, computational, or cell culture studies. They are accepting comments at link, deadline is 5pm EST TODAY! www.fda.gov/news-events/...

Just sent this as an email to my department but figured I'd share more broadly in case it is useful. This describes the procedure happening now for science funding in Congress (@davidimiller.bsky.social can correct me if I got this wrong). Importantly, there are still actions that can be taken.

This is an excellent statement of scientific values that we should all strive to uphold. 🧪🧠🤖 Sharing from @suryaganguli.bsky.social , who said this is the Stanford Med affirmation that all their PhD grads sign. 1/

Doesn't discuss NIH, but Senate Appropriating committee wants to restore NSF & NASA research funding & also National Weather Service. Good signs ...https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02171-z

Israel's defense minister is proposing a concentration camp. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

With this vote, Congress makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history, with more money per year at its disposal over the next four years than the budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined.

This account of torture and human rights abuse at Trump's and Kristi Noem's behest is shocking (if not surprising).

Can we pause and reflect on the fact that this statement could be made in a Supreme Court dissenting opinion without hyperbole or exaggeration?

People vote, not polls. This is pretty damn awesome. Now gird your loins for nearly post-9/11 levels of crazed Islamophobia, brought to you by billionaires, right wing media, and “centrist”Democrats.

Her bravery helped make tonight possible.

Mamdani winning and it's not even close! Rejection of Machiavellian power-mad sex-harasser w full support of Dem establishment & $20M in PAC $$, in favor of a young fresh, guy really committed to ordinary people with a huge grassroots volunteer effort. Huge grassroots victory!

I just submitted a comment it was super easy - I urge you to as well. All of our lives depend on having serious vaccine researchers at the CDC, not RFK's crackpots.

Aid massacres continue day after day. Desperate hungry crowds try to get tiny bits of aid allowed in, IDF shoots into crowd-"crowd control". Never admits, never explains, only ever says "investigating reports". Famine intensifies. War crime upon war crime, world yawns www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/w...

New Yorkers: remember, Mamdani and Lander cross-endorsed each other, saying whichever one you rank #1, rank the other one #2 (and don't rank Cuomo)

New Yorkers: If you haven't settled on your five candidates to rank for mayor, here's a simple metric to use: Rank the guy who was wrongly arrested for attempting to protect an immigrant from ICE, and the four people running against him who showed up to demand his release.

Pissed off about that disgraceful NYT hit piece on Zohran Mamdani and his visionary campaign? Take it to the voters! I'm kicking off a phone bank *tomorrow at 6 pm ET* with NYC's next mayor. Join us! volunteer.zohranfornyc.com/phonebank-fo... (fixed link)

Interesting article. Lots more besides this excerpt.

Wow. www.amny.com/news/brad-la...

Aid massacres continue every day. Over 300 killed in them so far.

Haaretz's @nirhasson.bsky.social writes that since the start of their operation, over 300 Palestinians were killed on the way to receive food aid in the GHF humanitarian aid compounds.

51 killed in Khan Younis as they queued for food distribution outside the "humanitarian" compound Every. Day