Chad Small

Uprooter and Advisory Board member @smallthoughts.bsky.social will be speaking along with other AAAS Mass Media Fellows at the AAAS Annual Meeting on February 14th!

A tweet from Lizzie Johnson that reads, I was just laid off by The Washington Post in the middle of a warzone. I have no words. I'm devastated."

This is painful to read.

I don't post enough about the other central pillar of my politics, aside from anti fascism: being anti car

cars are bad in almost every way, especially in cities

if you go to even large, bustling cities that are actually dense, they are quieter than US cities because you can get away from cars

ICE are alllll over Harlem right now, 116 & Frederick Douglass, checking IDs and targeting the area’s African community. Multiple people have been detained.

Community members are advising folks to carry citizenship documents - or stay away if they are at risk

Promoting speaker panel called "Scaling Public Trust in Science Through Journalism: Lessons from the AAAS MMF" featuring Michal Ruprecht, Chad Small and Peter Hall

🌵 Join us on February 14 at @aaas.org Annual Meeting to hear from our fellows! @michalruprecht.com, @smallthoughts.bsky.social and @peterha2l.bsky.social will be sharing their experiences as #MassMediaFellows, bringing their scientific expertise to newsrooms across the country.

Spot the difference

A nurse. A researcher. A helper.

January 23, 2026 — Winter storm begins, bringing ice, heavy snow to much of the US | CNN One of the most extreme storms in years is about to bring travel and much of the country to a standstill.

Don't forget who cut FEMA budget & staff.

edition.cnn.com/weather/live...

Journalists—especially those with resources from major networks who are able to parachute and report on the ground in Minnesota—need to be asking tougher questions.

We need to not just report what we’re seeing, we need to hold people in power accountable. This is not right.

I am seeing quite a few nurses calling for a nationwide strike over the killing of Alex Pretti. I think we are seeing one of the largest workforces being radicalized before our very eyes.

Alex Pretti "used to tell people off when they made sexist comments to female physicians. He bought me coffee when I had a really bad day as an intern...I laughed alongside him daily. He made a point to teach medical residents without judgement, but with a smile on his face and a joke."

UPDATE: @dropsitenews.com has obtained the very graphic video from the lady in the pink coat, which shows ICE executing yet another person in broad daylight:

Disabled son of ICE detainee dies after 30 days of hospitalization It had been months since Wael Tarabishi seen his father. The family is calling on ICE to release Maher Tarabishi so he may attend his son's funeral.

I wonder whether rare disease organizations will start speaking up. Some disability orgs definitely have. www.wfaa.com/article/news...

Your regular reminder that when folks say "its cold outside where I live, what happened to global warming?" that the world is big, and weather still exists.

A masked ICE officials with a 5 year old child

This guy went to work today, put a mask on, kidnapped a 5 year old child, and then used him as bait so both he and his father could be sent behind bars

been tryin to get this point across slate.com/technology/2...

Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback The famed convention's organizers have banned AI from the art show.

The famed convention's organizers have banned AI from the art show.

It's that time of year again! This time the Flagship conference is in France. Highly recommend graduate students far and wide to apply!

Family Guy - officer holds up color palette to determine American or foreignness

Minneapolis: facial recognition app being used to detect brown skinned man

When the racist meme becomes national policy

About the PhD: Audits and evaluation of AI systems — and the broader context that AI systems operate in — have become central to conceptualising, quantifying, measuring and understanding the operations, failures, limitations, underlying assumptions, and downstream societal implications of AI systems. Existing AI audit and evaluation efforts are fractured, done in a siloed and ad-hoc manner, and with little deliberation and reflection around conceptual rigour and methodological validity. This PhD is for a candidate that is passionate about exploring what a conceptually cogent, methodologically sound, and well-founded AI evaluation and safety research might look like. This requires grappling with questions such as: What does it mean to represent “ground truth” in proxies, synthetic data, or computational simulation? How do we reliably measure abstract and complex phenomena? What are the epistemological or methodological implications of quantification and measurement approaches we choose to employ? Particularly, what underlying presuppositions, values, or perspectives do they entail? How do we ensure the lived experiences of impacted communities play a critical role in the development and justification of measurement metrics and proxies? Through exploration of these questions, the candidate is expected to engage with core concepts in the philosophy of science, history of science, Black feminist epistemologies, and similar schools of thought to develop an in-depth understanding of existing practices with the aim of applying it to advance shared standards and best practice in AI evaluation. The candidate is expected to integrate empirical (for example, through analysis or evaluation of existing benchmarks) or practical (for example, by executing evaluation of AI systems) components into the overall work.

are you displeased with today’s AI safety evaluation landscape and curious about what greater conceptual clarity, methodological soundness, and rigour in AI evaluation could look like? if so, consider coming to Dublin to pursue a PhD with me

apply here: aial.ie/hiring/phd-a...

pls repost

I’m seeing posts from people (outside of MN) about how US citizens should carry their passports.

And let me say that *inside* MN, we are calmly responding to requests with: “No, I don’t have to show you any documentation.”

Because that’s how you protect everyone, regardless of immigration status.

health care lawyer here:

CBS 'news' reports that: "Jonathan Ross, suffered internal bleeding to the torso following the incident..."

Here's the thing, that can mean 'a bruise' — it just sounds much more dramatic to call it "internal bleeding to the torso"

The Real Pain of Climate Change Is Easy to Feel, but Increasingly Difficult to Study - Inside Climate News Many chronic pain patients cite the weather as a driver of their suffering, and climate change is making the torment more likely and harder to deal with. But research on the relationship is uncertain,...

Even as climate change worsens suffering for people with chronic pain, "getting funding from Washington for research at the intersection of global warming and pain is virtually impossible." Uprooter @smallthoughts.bsky.social for @insideclimatenews.org

insideclimatenews.org/news/0401202...

Star Tribune identifies ICE agent who fatally shot woman in Minneapolis Jonathan Ross was dragged in a separate incident last year by a fleeing driver, according to court records.

his name is Jonathan Ross and he shouldn't get a good night's sleep for the rest of his life www.startribune.com/ice-agent-wh...

A picture of a two car light rail train crossing the I-90 bridge in the daytime and it's raining.

Today at the @sound-transit.bsky.social System Expansion Committee, Board Vice Chair Claudia Balducci announced the Crosslake Connection — the 2 Line across Lake Washington and the I‑90 floating bridge — has entered pre‑revenue operations. Test trains are running daily. 1/6

How ‘routine’ strip searches traumatize people in U.S. prisons In my 20 years of incarceration, I’ve been strip-searched at least 500 times. Each was an act of humiliation and sexual violence

In my 20 years of incarceration, I’ve been strip-searched at least 500 times. Each was an act of humiliation and sexual violence. Story via @prismreports.org.

Sports media is failing fans.

Two months ago, the NBA and MLB had players and coaches indicted by the federal government for placing bets on games. In previous eras, this would be a crisis.

Now? Crickets.

Social Determinants of Health and Pediatric Long COVID in the US This cross-sectional analysis of a meta-cohort study evaluates associations between social determinants of health and odds of long COVID in children and adolescents.

New research finds that kids experiencing food insecurity etc are more likely to have Long Covid jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

This is all leaving people worried that their chronic pain might be exacerbated by the weather without a clear way forward in learning about the future of their conditions. 5/5