ence morse

For nearly a century, the @washingtonpost’s foreign correspondents have been on the ground for the world’s most pressing stories. Now, our desk is facing potential steep cuts. Washington needs us. The world needs us. If you read us and need us, please watch this video and share.

Read Naftali Bendavid on this: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Was not expecting this to take off, but just wanted to pop in and say as I’m reading through all the comments that my signal is caitlingilbert.24 if y’all want to reach out with any relevant tips! FWIW I’m also a neuro phd so if you’re from that corner of academia we can chat brains too 🙃

The powerful tools in ICE’s arsenal to track suspects — and protesters Biometric trackers, cellphone location databases and drones are among the surveillance technologies agents are using in their immigration enforcement campaign.

New story: ICE's masks, guns and tactical gear are easy to see. But did you know about all the less visible tech they use? We explain it all here -> wapo.st/4bXee03 w Eva Dou and @arturgalocha.bsky.social

Bar chart showing that dozens of right-wing influencers and Republicans, including 21 members of congress, discussed investigating Alex Pretti's shooting since Saturday, and that the numbers increased in the days after his shooting.

@sarahellison.bsky.social @riegerreport.bsky.social @lmelgar.bsky.social and I found that nearly two dozen Republican members of congress called for investigations into Pretti's killing, along with dozens of high-profile right-wing influencers. wapo.st/4qHFxA5

Line chart showing that right-wing and conservative influencers were initially more likely to talk about "domestic terrorism" in connection with Pretti's shooting, but after the first day more began describing it as a "tragedy".

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The day Alex Pretti was shot, right-wing influencers and Republicans called him a "domestic terrorist" on social media.

But two days later, tone had shifted: the same group was calling his killing a "tragedy".

Video evidence made the difference, per our timeline (🎁 link)
wapo.st/4qHFxA5

This was a common frustration point for ICE public affairs, per the internal chat messages we obtained, given they were also trying to sloganeer the idea they were targeting the "Worst of the Worst." They scrambled to find ways to insinuate the detainees were bad people anyway wapo.st/49JTkjQ

4 paragraphs of a declaration. They describe that when the FBI took Natanson's devices, she was logged into Proton, Google, draft stories, and Slack.

Another paragraph of the declaration, describing that she had Signal messages with 1,200 people on her phone.

This declaration from WaPo journalist Hannah Natanson describing what the FBI took is utterly devastating.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Caller from AR asks about how to get “whole foods” in food deserts and Means responds with:
“Just to confirm your question is how can lower income Americans possibly not poison their kids” and “well, ma’am, I think American mothers don’t want to be poisoning their kids”

The Washington Post Guild is alarmed and appalled by federal law enforcement’s search and seizure of reporter Hannah Natanson’s property and personal devices. Hannah is a valued member of our union whose work covering the federal workforce has been essential (1/3)

I am The Post’s ‘federal government whisperer.’ It’s been brutal. One reporter’s effort to show how Trump was transforming government brought her 1,168 new sources — and nearly broke her.

It’s such an honor to work in the same newsroom as @hannahnatanson.bsky.social, her incredible coverage of federal workers this year has been nothing short of inspiring. I stand with her 100%.

Everyone should read her piece on the toll this work can take: www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

FBI executes search warrant at Washington Post reporter’s home The reporter, Hannah Natanson, covers the federal workforce and has been part of The Post’s most sensitive coverage of the first year of the second Trump administration.

I stand with @hannahnatanson.bsky.social, a terrific reporter whose excellent coverage speaks for itself.

FBI executes search warrant at Washington Post reporter’s home The reporter, Hannah Natanson, covers the federal workforce and has been part of The Post’s most sensitive coverage of the first year of the second Trump administration.

🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨FBI executes search warrant at Washington Post reporter’s home. The reporter covers the federal workforce and has been part of The Post’s most high-profile and sensitive coverage of the first year of the second Trump administration. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

More than a third of the Agriculture Department’s food inspectors left government last year. But ICE's employee counts are way up. @merylkornfield.bsky.social and I dove into the newly released federal workforce data — here's what it shows.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

U.S. vaccination rates are plunging. Look up where your school stands. Take a look to see what the kindergarten measles vaccination rates are in your area.

Kids back to school today? It's a good time to check on how protected they are from measles.
In a massive effort, @caitlingilbert.bsky.social @laurenweberhp.bsky.social & @moriartymaps.com collected vaccination data from ~46,000 public + private schools in the US. You can search it here:

U.S. vaccination rates are plunging. Look up where your school stands. Take a look to see what the kindergarten measles vaccination rates are in your area.

EXCLUSIVE: @laurenweberhp.bsky.social & I have spent the last year collecting school+county-level vaccination data from across the US and found that only about 28% of counties now have herd immunity for kindergartners from measles—that leaves about 5.2mn kids unprotected.

Gift link: wapo.st/49zDc43

The @washingtonpost.com still sharing our data and how we did the work while other newsrooms pull back. Check out the gathered data on Github
#opendata #reproducibility #transparency bsky.app/profile/cait...

Screenshot: “Over the same period that Norton's decline became readily apparent, she started loaning significant amounts of money to her campaign for the first time in her political career. Between October 2023 and June 2025, according to a review of documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, shes given her campaign $110,000. The campaign is essentially out of donors and cash on hand and is regularly paying only two people: Pelt and a man named Jeremiah Pope, an adviser for the campaign since 2015. (He did not respond to multiple requests for comment.) Pelt has apparently assumed some degree of oversight regarding Norton's private affairs. When Norton was scammed at her home in October, the ensuing police report described a "caretaker/power of attorney" — Pelt, according to NBC4 Washington — as the person who headed to the residence and alerted police after discovering the scammers by remotely accessing a security camera.”

@nymag.com @alexshultz.bsky.social reporting that while Eleanor Holmes Norton has been showing steep signs of mental decline, she is suddenly loaning a large amount of money to her campaign — which only pays her campaign manager / treasurer / confidant and one adviser. nymag.com/intelligence...

OU still sucks #hookem

Love the methodology box behind this College Football Happiness Rankings story wapo.st/49iK71p

Trump has signed more executive orders in 2025 than in his entire first term One-third of Trump’s executive orders have been explicitly challenged in court, a Post analysis of data from nonprofits CourtListener and JustSecurity found.

A sign of Donald Trump's attempts to dramatically expand presidential authority: he's used executive orders -- bypassing Congress and traditional legislative action -- more this year than he did in his entire first term. From @ence.bsky.social @emilydavies.bsky.social & @cqzakrz.bsky.social:

Chart from The Economist showing the annual income in 1798 of various professions and of Jane Austen characters

Happy birthday to Jane Austen, and to this very on-brand Economist chart
www.economist.com/christmas-sp...

Do Democrats need their own billionaire? JB Pritzker is betting on it. The Illinois governor has tapped his wealth to climb the political ladder, moving toward a White House run while presenting himself as a champion for everyday people.

For years, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has fended off rivals who’ve portrayed him as a “trust fund baby” by presenting himself as an advocate for the working class.

Now, he is using that strategy for what could be his most ambitious political endeavor yet.

Meet the Trump administration’s 12 billionaires At a net worth of $390 billion, it’s the wealthiest White House in modern history.

While previous administrations have included the ultrarich, the wealth held by this group is larger than even the first Trump administration, previously the wealthiest in U.S. history.

Here’s who they are.

Love this @jeremybmerrill.com @fox.computer piece mapping TikTok's brain, especially the tool they made to find a content theme's diametric opposite.

People who like the "Fallout" games, for instance, aren't very interested in videos about having hair

www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...

Fact: Individual donors can give nearly 3,000% more to the national political parties today than they could during the 2010 election cycle when Citizens United helped usher in the super PAC era.

Limit then: $69,900 per cycle
Limit today: $2.1 million per cycle

Meet the billionaire pushing taxpayer-funded school vouchers How one of the richest people on the planet presses his pet issue: school choice

NEW: Our look at one of the most important players in the school choice debate: Jeff Yass, the billionaire funding campaigns across the country and in his home state of PA. Got a chance to talk with him at length and he had lots of provocative things to say 1/x
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

if you found this piece insightful, you'll want to read these (all 🎁!)
- how we got here: wapo.st/4rELTkO
- how Americans feel about it: wapo.st/4pp0xuW
- how Soros changed American criminal justice: wapo.st/4avH2Mu

... and our latest, how a billionaire is changing American schools: wapo.st/4iOU6Ph

Meet the billionaire pushing taxpayer-funded school vouchers How one of the richest people on the planet presses his pet issue: school choice

Yass has given over $350 million since 2015 to influence state and federal elections.

“I am not nearly as powerful as Bruce Springsteen," he told
Laura. "If you want to shut me up, you have to shut him up, too.”

our piece w/ @bethreinhard.bsky.social:
washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

“The more they attack, the more I give," billionaire Jeff Yass told @laurameckler.bsky.social

Our latest piece on the political influence of billionaires dives into Yass's influence on school vouchers, TikTok, and basically every election in Pennsylvania.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...