New Documents Reveal a Controversial Vaccine Study's Unusual Path to CDC Approval A new investigation has found irregularities in the ethics review of a grant to study effects of a birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine in Guinea-Bissau.

This a great piece of investigative journalism. @rollingstone.com
This should be required reading for scientists and ethicists.
Ethics matter, especially in science.
www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

ICE Has Doubled Its Presence in Notorious Brooklyn Jail Rep. Dan Goldman learned of the expansion on Wednesday when he became the first lawmaker to visit the federal facility since it began detaining immigrants last June.

www.thecity.nyc/2026/02/18/i...

My new article in @nybooks.com on Authoritarianism from Below.

The Past and Present of Immigration Detention: Your Questions Answered - Bolts A historian of migrant detention responds to questions from Bolts readers on the vast network of local lockups that jail immigrants, and how it's evolving.

Right before Trump’s return to the WH, Bolts ran this fascinating Q&A with a historian of immigration detention.

It feels so relevant right now, amid the semantic discourse of what to call the ICE centers, to understand how all this has evolved.

Highly recommend:

boltsmag.org/the-past-and...

Authoritarianism from Below | Stuart Schrader As National Guard troops and federal officers swarmed Washington, D.C., in August, sent by President Donald Trump to confront what he declared a “crime

really important piece on local police unions aligning with the Trump adminstration to fight off local accountability. ugh www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...

A Thousand Words Leaders of the civil rights movement called their protests "demonstrations" because they aimed to make visible the systems of political repression and physical violence that were all too often hidden ...

@kevinmkruse.bsky.social's describes white culture. Photos from demonstrations in the Civil Rights Movement "were used with great effect to dispel the stubborn argument ...that southern whites were civilizing forces who should be trusted to take the lead".
campaign-trails.ghost.io/a-thousand-w...

Used to be in a large fb group for managing life after eye surgery bc of the [relatively minor] complications the surgery for macular degeneration gave me. That group was dominated by intense LASIK regret w/ a shockingly high suicide rate yet I never see arguments for legislating against eye surgery

I don’t really know what I expect in posting this, but maybe some people see it and can learn from it.

I’ll call it “lessons from an unwilling immigration attorney.”

1/

Building the camps The warehouseification of detention and initial thoughts on stopping it.

When I got the contract to write a history of concentration camps in 2014, I hoped to keep the US from ending up here. That didn't work out! But now it's critical to understand how much is already in process and the enormity of what's coming. The sooner we act to stop it, the more people we'll save.

Every second he is still in the presidency is an abomination. Come on @bardcollege.bsky.social

@rachelschine.bsky.social @emuehlbe.bsky.social @medievaljon.bsky.social @profcwhit.bsky.social @sarahebond.bsky.social @jtpmedieval.bsky.social @adapalmer.bsky.social @medievalrevolt.bsky.social @medievaljay.bsky.social @lisafdavis.bsky.social @sakbari.bsky.social @tlecaque.bsky.social

Moderna says FDA refuses to review its application for experimental flu shot Moderna said the move is inconsistent with previous feedback from the FDA on the experimental influenza shot, called mRNA-1010.

Vinay Prasad of the FDA has broken with the usual approval process and refuses to review Moderna’s new flu shot.

He claims that the proposed clinical trial, which would compare the new vaccine to an already approved one, “does not reflect the best-available standard of care”.

A Fanatical Israeli Settlement Is Funded by New York Suburbanites But recent US sanctions against violent West Bank settlers have put them — and their connections to America — back on the agenda

Donors to the fanatical West Bank settlement Beit El are normal upper-middle-class New York suburbanites whose philanthropic work involves funding an ethnic conflict on the other side of the world.

interviewed Ramirez about her plans to dismantle DHS, abolish ICE, and put money towards housing and health care for communities ICE is terrorizing. www.publicnotice.co/p/delia-rami...

YouTube video by HuntleyFilmArchives C.T. Vivian vs Jim Clark on Courthouse Steps, 1965 - Film 1099240

I originally wrote Wyatt Tee Walker instead of Vivian -- both were fierce as hell -- but this is it. Poor quality video here so you can't see the words land

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRJ4...

Evergreen.

High rents outpace federal disability payments, leaving many homeless Supplemental Security Income, a federal program meant to be a financial floor for people unable to work, hasn't kept pace with inflation. Many recipients are homeless, unable to save for an apartment.

A reminder: there is not a single housing market in America—not one city, state, or county—where someone relying on SSI can afford a one-bedroom apartment.

Deaths like these are always preceded by engineered abandonment. Disproportionate homelessness among people with disabilities is no accident.

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.

Hundreds of kids are still detained.

We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

you read about the German, Austrian, and Polish social democratic parties being like "we can just wait these fascists out" and you shake your head, wondering how anyone could possibly be so obtuse. then you take a sip of coffee and read about what Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are up to in 2026

a thing I said to my therapist this week - all of this is the closest proximity I have ever felt to evil in my life. that’s what will be so hard to ever forget. the dedication to fucking with this boy and this family is just so evil without any purpose whatsoever.

I was extremely naive in my twenties and early thirties, took people very much at their word when it came to values, and absolutely destroyed my mental health (and my career) thinking I could publicly demand accountability and survive it whole.

(1/?)

Feds Release Document of Tips Mentioning Trump and Epstein

the new revelations of the Epstein files are upsetting but here is the worst thing to me:

"Todd Blanche....also said there was no material in the files that would prompt additional prosecutions"

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/u...

Best gas masks “How did these people go out and get gas masks?” AG Bondi asked.

me, emotionally writing an essay on the use of force by federal agents: ok but what if i packaged this in the most insane way possible www.theverge.com/policy/86857...

I will simply never recover from reading this sentence:

"Since Georgia implemented work requirements in 2020, they have spent twice as much on Deloitte consultants and administrative costs as on healthcare for people."

Science and Industry Need to Push Back Hard - TimmermanReport.com The days of strongly worded letters, statements to the press, white papers, and op-eds are over. The people dismantling science are coming at all we care about with a pliers and a blowtorch. If I have...

Powerful call to action from @cdelawalla.bsky.social founder of @standupforscience.bsky.social

timmermanreport.com/2026/01/scie...

Adams Aide Who Acted as ICE Liaison Is Set to Join Trump Administration

Last year, I reported on a problematic NYPD unit led by a particularly problematic commander.

The commander once pointed a gun at a motorcyclist and threatened to kill him.

Well, that commander, Kaz Daughtry, has a new job.

He now works for Trump's DHS.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/23/n...

This Is the Vaccine Story RFK Jr. Doesn’t Want You to Hear The Trump administration says we should learn from other countries. Maybe they should have looked someplace besides Denmark.

You want to read this: www.thebulwark.com/p/this-is-th...

Read Eric's 2025 investigation into the secretive, abuse-ridden NYPD unit that Daughtry led here:
www.propublica.org/article/eric...

The Democrats cannot even bring themselves to talk about reducing the ICE budget (which was TRIPLED out of the blue and no one knows how exactly such sums could ever be spent even on the vast network of concentration camps and private contractors) to, say, its already-record 2024 levels.

Seen in Los Angeles

(Credit: Zurita Carpio)