Vera Knauer

Starved in Jail Why are incarcerated people dying from lack of food or water, even as private companies are paid millions for their care?

Sarah Stillman investigates a widespread crisis of deaths by starvation in America’s county jails. Most of the victims she identified had been arrested in the midst of a mental-health crisis, often on petty charges tied to their psychiatric distress.

The result will be chaos for this Nation’s public schools. Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools. The harm will not be borne by educators alone: Children will suffer too. Classroom disruptions and absences may well inflict long-lasting harm on students’ learning and development. Worse yet, the majority closes its eyes to the inevitable chilling effects of its ruling. Many school districts, and particularly the most resource strapped, cannot afford to engage in costly litigation over opt-out rights or to divert resources to tracking and managing student absences. Schools may instead censor their curricula, stripping material that risks generating religious objections. The Court’s ruling, in effect, thus hands a subset of parents the right to veto curricular choices long left to locally elected school boards. Because I cannot countenance the Court’s contortion of our precedent and the untold harms that will follow, I dissent.

Sotomayor, in dissent, correctly says that today's decision in Mahmoud will lead public schools to simply censor books featuring LGBTQ characters and themes, creating "chaos" and stigmatizing children with LGBTQ families. This decision will lead to book bans.
www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24p...

my hottest educational take is that schools should actively, non-punitively teach students how to admit when they don't know something, aren't sure or have made a mistake, with various teaching frameworks adapted to support this ideal, because people who can't admit fault are breaking the world

Annihilation, Jeff Vandermeer, 2014

As someone who curses a lot, you know you’re in trouble when I stop cursing and start using big words.

Just 52 days after first the president turned his eye on the firm, Perkins is now permanently protected by just about the strongest court order conceivable.

Meanwhile, the nine firms that bent the knee are trapped in servitude to the White House with no end in sight.

Let this be a lesson!

One wing of the origami crane says, "1942 Never Again" with drawings of Japanese American children, and part of the body says, "Never Again is Now" with historical details written below.

The neck of the origami crane sign says "Free Them All", the tail says "Close The Camps". The other wing says "Is Now 2020", with a drawing of immigrant children separated from their families behind fencing.

One of the most incredible protest signs I've ever seen. A Japanese American woman folded a huge origami crane to honor the children of Japanese American internment camps & protest current ICE camps.

📸 permission at the Vigil to Stop ICE Expansion in Dublin, CA 4/16/25

✊🏻 NEVER AGAIN IS NOW ❤️

A hand holding up a stack of books in front of blurry bookshelves. The books are, from top to bottom: LIKE A CURSE by Elle McNicoll ONYEKA AND THE ACADEMY OF THE SUN by Tolá Okogwu MIA AND THE LIGHTCASTER by Janelle McCurdy, illustrated by Ana Latese WITCHES OF BROOKLYN by Sophie Escabasse WITCHLINGS by Claribel Ortega THE MARVELLERS by Dhonielle Clayton THE GRIMOIRE OF GRAVE FATES edited by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen

Hey Blueksy, if you're looking for magic books and magic school books that *aren't* horribly exclusionary, let me share some fantastic examples with you. #BookSky 💙📚

The Problem With Abe Lincoln’s Face The president’s iconic beard was a product of the anxious new realities of the photographic age.

The advent of photography in America introduced an intense awareness not just of the self, but of the face—even for Abraham Lincoln, James Lundberg writes in Time-Travel Thursdays.

Seniors Are More Conservative Because the Poor Die Off Sometimes older voters aren’t just naturally more conservative. It’s just that wealthier and whiter people tend to live longer and healthier lives.

Hey, just a quiet reminder: it’s not true that people get more conservative as they age. *Populations* get more conservative as they age because poor and marginalized people die sooner.

nymag.com/intelligence...

I read that as “Frankenspeech.”

Sidewalk chalk message says: "Start imagining the revolution. Stop imagining the apocalypse."

Solid advice. Keep your eye on the future victory, not the temporary doom.

NY public schools tell Trump administration they won’t comply with DEI order | CNN New York state officials have told the Trump administration that they will not comply with its demands to end diversity, equity and inclusion practices in public schools, despite the administration’s ...

New York state officials have told the Trump administration that they will not comply with its demands to end diversity, equity and inclusion practices in public schools, despite the administration’s threats to terminate federal education funding: cnn.it/4iUa8GJ

Rick Steves — the guidebook author, trip host and massive personal travel brand — has put his personal commitment behind the cause of anti-fascism, with a self-funded documentary hosted on his own website.

Respect.

Trans Day of Visibility 2025 - Matt Nightingale It took me a long time to accept myself as a gay man, loved by God and accepted as I am. To my shame, it took me even longer to […]

Beautiful piece from @mattnightingale.bsky.social on TDoV!
mattnightingale.com/trans-day-of...

Whether it's students at Oberlin complaining about banh mi or administrators at NYU cancelling a speech for fear of offending Donald Trump, both schools have fraught relationship with freedom of expression.

Started reading the graphic novel version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Had to take a break bc it scares me that this could be our near future.

P.S. Libraries are the best.

Donate to Support Gabriela's family during this difficult time, organized by Claudia Ortega *Este mensaje esta en español primero, y a continuación en ingles… Claudia Ortega needs your support for Support Gabriela's family during this difficult time

Devastated at the loss of an eighth grader at my kids' school in Durham, North Carolina. Gabriela's family said she was recently repeatedly bullied with threats of calling ICE for her family's deportation.

gofund.me/ba207267

@schumer.senate.gov having no position is a failure of leadership.

The only viable position is "no, I won't endorse Trump/Musk's illegal evisceration of the government."

something sweet

Medicaid is not for sale.
NASA is not for sale.
The Post Office is not for sale.
America is not for sale.

We have an obligation to resist kings. We outnumber them. And they can be overwhelmed.

I will never forget the photo of Zelenskyy’s face after he saw Russia’s war crimes in Bucha in 2022. He seemed to age years in an afternoon. Watching him constantly cross the world asking for aid that should have been thrown at him is one of the deepest shames of our age.

33 times Zelensky thanked Americans and US leaders — a number counted by CNN journalists over the course of the full-scale war.

This comes amid accusations from Trump and Vance that Zelensky has shown “insufficient gratitude” toward the US.

Last night on TikTok I basically skipped my algorithm over to coverage of that meeting and people’s reactions. It didn’t take long before my fyp was flooded with white women being like this is how my dad/ex talked to me.

20/20
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers!
#BookSky 💙📚
#20DayBookChallenge
#BookChallenge
#WritingCommunity

19/20
Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers!
#BookSky 💙📚
#20DayBookChallenge
#BookChallenge
#WritingCommunity

Keith Knight @keefknight.bsky.social