Lorena O’Neil

The Media's Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to Work AI is not going to save media companies, and forcing journalists to use AI is not a business model.

There's much more in the piece, with commentary from the great @mattdpearce.com, @arielwittenberg.bsky.social, @mishal-khan.bsky.social, and @jasonkoebler.bsky.social, who touched on this dynamic in the barnburner linked below.

In sum, the fight over AI in journalism is just beginning to erupt.

Woman in line in front of me at the post office is not happy about the cost of shipping. She just whipped out her phone, asked ChatGPT how much it thinks the shipping should cost, and is trying to get the mailman to honor that price.

BREAKING: In a unanimous decision, a federal court of appeals has ruled that Louisiana's law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms is unconstitutional.

We’ll keep saying it: Public schools are not Sunday schools.

The Supreme Court's Anti-Trans Decision Will Live In Infamy In its bigotry and deceitfulness, US v. Skrmetti is destined to be seen alongside Plessy, Dobbs, Dred Scott, and all of the court's other most notorious decisions.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause does not protect everybody equally. Instead it upheld the Tennessee law that seeks to eradicate trans kids.
My latest in @thenation
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Confusion Over Maternal Care Medication Plagues Politics in Louisiana and Beyond New Orleans health department fields complaints over access obstacles for non-abortion health needs A year ago, Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill into law that made Louisiana the first state in the...

It's been a year since #Louisiana became the first state in the U.S. to reclassify pregnancy care drugs as controlled dangerous substances.

StoryReach U.S. Fellow @lorenaoneil.com explains how this has affected the lives of many.

Story for @lailluminator.com. bit.ly/45YRYju

NIH staff and biomedical community sound alarm about agency politicization, funding slowdown In test of NIH director’s support of dissent, NIH staff sign Bethesda Declaration urging reversal of grant cuts and freezes

🧪NIH staff have released the Bethesda Declaration, a public statement signed by over 340 scientists and staff, urging their director to depoliticize the agency and reverse significant cuts and freezes to external grants. It comes in response to a proposed 40% budget cut to NIH for 2026. #MedSky

misoprostol before an IUD insertion seems like a good idea. the most painful part of insertion is typically the tenaculum holding your cervix. Misoprostol softens and opens your cervix.

The beautiful Breonna Taylor should have celebrated her 32nd birthday today. Never forget her. ❤️🕊️

Confusion over maternal care medication plagues politics in Louisiana and beyond • Louisiana Illuminator A year ago, Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill into law that made Louisiana the first state to reclassify pregnancy care drugs as controlled dangerous substances.

Confusion over maternal care medication plagues politics in Louisiana and beyond lailluminator.com/2025/06/06/m...

Katherine Faulders @KFaulders NEW - Ben Schrader, the former chief of the criminal division for the U.S. attorney's office in Nashville, resigned following the office's decision to seek an indictment against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

WOW. Breaking news from ABC that has the potential to cast serious doubts on today’s indictment of Mr. Abrego Garcia.

Just incredibly cruelty. Lorena has reported for months about concerns that this law could kill people hemorrhaging during birth

Reading:

Louisiana's law that defines mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances is leading to patients being denied care for biopsies, hysteroscopies, and miscarriages.

Read @lorenaoneil.com in @lailluminator.com
lailluminator.com/2025/06/06/m...

Even among state lawmakers who approved the law, confusion reigns. At a Louisiana House committee hearing last month, Rep. Lauren Ventrella, R-Greenwell Springs, said that last year “we made it illegal to prescribe” mifepristone and misoprostol. However, both can still be legally prescribed by health care providers with the proper licensing for Schedule IV drugs. When the law reclassifying the medication passed, its supporters repeatedly stated they were not restricting access to the medication for people who needed it for reasons outside of abortion. When Ventrella misspoke, she was introducing House Bill 575, which would allow families to sue over suspected abortions. Attorney General Liz Murrill has referred to the law as “another tool in the toolbox” that could be used against out-of-state doctors who prescribe abortion medication to patients in Louisiana. Murrill is currently prosecuting at least two cases involving a New York doctor who allegedly prescribed medications to pregnant women in Louisiana. So far, New York’s shield laws, which protects abortion providers, have held up against states that have tried to prosecute doctors. Ventrella’s bill awaits Senate floor action with less than a week remaining in the legislative session.

Even Louisiana state lawmakers are confused about the legality of mifepristone and misoprostol, as was shown recently while talking about new legislation that would allow families to sue over suspected abortions. (HB575 is a bill to keep an eye on as it heads to state senate.)

In another instance, a pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for misoprostol ahead of an IUD insertion, telling the patient “he thought she was going to use it for an abortion,” wrote the doctor. There were also multiple accounts of misoprostol being prescribed for miscarriages, but pharmacists delayed filling prescriptions until they spoke to the doctor on the phone. In one instance, the mother who miscarried filed a complaint with the city health department. “I was denied misoprostol, essentially leaving me with my dead baby inside of me even longer because the pharmacist said he couldn’t give it to me,” the mother wrote. “It was more horrific than it needed to be.”

One mother who miscarried said: "I was denied misoprostol, essentially leaving me with my dead baby inside of me even longer because the pharmacist said he couldn’t give it to me. It was more horrific than it needed to be.”

The political assault on the medications continues to ramp up on the state & national level. La. doctors detail challenges accessing misoprostol for their patients. One OB had to manually dilate their patient's cervix because they couldn't get misoprostol for a hysteroscopy

Confusion over maternal care medication plagues politics in Louisiana and beyond • Louisiana Illuminator A year ago, Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill into law that made Louisiana the first state to reclassify pregnancy care drugs as controlled dangerous substances.

NEW: A year ago, Louisiana became the first state to reclassify pregnancy care drugs as controlled dangerous substances. Since then, a misinformation-fueled political assault has continued to ramp up on the state and national level. @lorenaoneil.com reports. lailluminator.com/2025/06/06/m...

Confusion over maternal care medication plagues politics in Louisiana and beyond • Louisiana Illuminator A year ago, Gov. Jeff Landry signed a bill into law that made Louisiana the first state to reclassify pregnancy care drugs as controlled dangerous substances.

For the final story of my @pulitzercenter.bsky.social StoryReach fellowship with @lailluminator.com, I look at where we are on mifepristone and misoprostol one year after the law was signed that reclassified the pills as controlled dangerous substances in Louisiana: lailluminator.com/2025/06/06/m...

The writer goes on to say “Ted K.”, presumably the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, made some “good points on the future of humanity, but to make his point he indiscriminately mailbombs innocents.” “By committing indiscriminate atrocities — he becomes a monster, which makes his ideas those of a monster, no matter how true. He crosses the line from revolutionary anarchist to terrorist — the worst thing a person can be.” As the entry continues, the writer talks about how rebelling against the “deadly, greed-fueled health insurance cartel” shouldn’t involve bombing the headquarters because that might make it seem like “the unjustified anger of someone who simply got sick/had bad luck and took their frustration out on the insurance industry, while recklessly endangering countless employees.”

An October entry says: “The problem with most revolutionary acts is that the message is lost on normies." It mentions Unabomber Ted Kaczynski: "By committing indiscriminate atrocities — he becomes a monster, which makes his ideas those of a monster, no matter how true."

An entry from the notebook in question, dated Aug. 15, 2024, states the writer was in San Francisco for a month at the time. “I finally feel confident about what I will do,” the entry says. “The details are coming together. And I don’t feel any doubt about whether it’s right or justified. I’m glad — in a way — that I’ve procrastinated [because] it allowed me to learn more about UHC. [Indecipherable] would have been an unjustified catastrophe that would be perceived mostly as sick, but more importantly unhelpful. Would do nothing to spread awareness/improve people’s lives.”

The Manhattan DA provided images of what they say are handwritten notes Luigi Mangione wrote in the months leading up to the assassination of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson. rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
@rollingstone.com

Mr. Mangione has been held in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center ("MDC") located in Brooklyn, New York, since December 19, 2024. During the 167 days in pre- trial detention, Mr. Mangione has not been a security or flight risk requiring special, restricted or different treatment than any other general MDC inmate. He has never been cited by officers for misconduct, nor has he ever been punished or restricted; he has not exhibited any uncooperative behavior and has not been placed in any specially restricted location such as the Special Housing Unit ( also known as "the SHU"). In fact, he has been assigned to a work detail and is in the general population. To further illustrate this point, counsel visits Mr. Mangione nearly daily in the common visitor area at the MDC-a large open room with rows of small plastic chairs and no barriers between people or groups, where unshackled inmates meet with their families and where visitors and lawyers walk freely to buy food from vending machines and heat their food in a microwave. There are often dozens of people (including young children, babies, family members and others) sitting arms-length apart in the same large area as a completely unshackled Mr. Mangione. In other words, Mr. Mangione is treated just like any other pre-trial detainee, not like someone who is a heightened security or flight risk.

Mangione's lawyers request is for his hand shackles to be removed, not his leg shackles. Their argument is that Mangione has not shown himself to be a security or flight risk and he's often visited (unshackled) in a large open room with children present.

Although Deck and Best refer to cases in trial and sentencing postures, the rationale underlying these decisions equally applies in Mr. Mangione's case given the high-profile nature of the three concurrent prosecutions. While there is obviously no jury in the courtroom for the prejudicial restraining of Mr. Mangione, because of the unprecedented public interest in these cases, Deck and Best still apply. Every court appearance is widely covered by the news and social media-providing video footage, still images, court sketches, online content and multiple purported "documentaries" where actors attempt to recreate every alleged aspect of this case. In fact, after the February 21, 2025, court appearance, images of Mr. Mangione in handcuffs and a bulletproof vest were featured in major news organizations such as Reuters, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, BBC and NBC, as well on social media platforms such as X and Reddit, to name only a few. These news and social media articles attract millions of views. For example, one photograph of Mr. Mangione's shackled ankles while seated in this Court was posted on X and has garnered more than 36 million views. Consequently, given that Mr. Mangione will be photographed and sketched at the next appearance in court and potentially video recorded, 2 the repeated imagery of Mr. Mangione in shackles with a bulletproof vest unjustifiably prejudices Mr. Mangione in the eyes of future jurors by portraying him as a dangerous person who requires special security treatment in court.

The lawyers mention that a photograph of Mangione's shackled ankles garnered more than 36 million views at his Feb. 21 appearance

before this Court, and there is no reason for him to be wearing one now. To counsel's knowledge, there have been no threats to Mr. Mangione's safety, and the only one wishing to execute him is the federal government. Wearing a bulletproof vest therefore serves no other purpose than to prejudice Mr. Mangione in the media and before future potential jurors. Each time Mr. Mangione has appeared in federal court (both in December 2024 and more recently in April 2025), he was wearing neither a bulletproof vest nor arm restraints of any sort, only leg shackles-which is what we are requesting here. Notably, counsel did not even have to request that Mr. Mangione appear with his hands unrestrained, as the U.S. Marshals Service removed his restraints on their own as is standard. There is no justification to treat Mr. Mangione's security protocol differently in state court than in the more serious federal court case where he faces potential execution. That Mr. Mangione's state court appearances have cameras in the courtroom (as opposed to federal court) does not suddenly turn Mr. Mangione into more of security threat that requires shackles and a bulletproof vest in the courtroom, especially given that the state and federal cases involve identical allegations.

Luigi Mangione's lawyers request to remove bulletproof vest and hand shackles ahead of his appearance on June 26 at state court. "To counsel's knowledge, there have been no threats to Mr. Mangione's safety, and the only one wishing to execute him is the federal government."

Defying DeSantis, Florida Pride Marchers Light Up Jacksonville Bridge with Rainbow Organizers demonstrated that they didn’t need state permission for queer visibility.

1. Florida banned cities from lighting up bridges rainbow colors for Pride.

So the people of Jacksonville did it themselves using flashlights and gels.

They opened the drawbridge to block them.

So they marched to a different bridge.

The latest from S. Baum.

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@jemsinger.bsky.social

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: 'The People Will Show Me the Way' Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the Fighting Oligarchy rallies with Bernie Sanders, crypto billionaires, cuts to Medicaid, and taking on Trump

“An authoritarian regime, or the Trump administration… are always going to use the people most maligned and most marginalized in order to attack and erode the rights of every American, precisely because they know that not everyone will come to their defense.”

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: 'The People Will Show Me the Way' Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the Fighting Oligarchy rallies with Bernie Sanders, crypto billionaires, cuts to Medicaid, and taking on Trump

Earlier this month I sat down with
@aoc.bsky.social for a @rollingstone.com
interview and spoke with the congresswoman about her Fighting Oligarchy tour, tech billionaires, immigration and Trump: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

"If the president is in any way confused about his responsibility, he should resign. Trump wants to transform the definition of what it means to be an American — from upholding the Constitution and our freedoms — to a pledge of loyalty to him." - @aoc.bsky.social

Good luck Kylie!!!

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: 'The People Will Show Me the Way' Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the Fighting Oligarchy rallies with Bernie Sanders, crypto billionaires, cuts to Medicaid, and taking on Trump

"I feel very indebted to people for how powerfully people are choosing to show up, when everything about this moment would support tuning out," Ocasio-Cortez says.

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...