"I say! Are you Georgina?" The child in the opposite bed sat up and looked across at Anne. She had very short curly hair, almost as short as a boy's. Her face was burnt a dark-brown with the sun, and “Famous Five 01 - Five On A Treasure Island” By Enid Blyton 7 her very blue eyes looked as bright as forget-me-nots in her face. But her mouth was rather sulky, and she had a frown like her father's. "No," she said. "I'm not Georgina." "Oh!" said Anne, in surprise. "Then who are you?" "I'm George," said the girl. "I shall only answer if you call me George. I hate being a girl. I won't be. I don't like doing the things that girls do. I like doing the things that boys do. I can climb better than any boy, and swim faster too. I can sail a boat as well as any fisher-boy on this coast. You're to call me George. Then I'll speak to you. But I shan't if you don't." "Oh!" said Anne, thinking that her new cousin was most extraordinary. "All right! I don't care what I call you. George is a nice name, I think. I don't much like Georgina. Anyway, you look like a boy."

To give you an idea of how deranged the UK has become about gender stuff, here's Enid Blyton - the absolute avatar of classic English conservatism and a huge fan of racist "gollywogs" - casually describing a gender non-conforming kid in the 1940s and having their friends be totally cool with it.

"everyone has to get back to the office because the important thing about business is human interaction" is dying, but "white collar jobs will be replaced by AI agents within 18 months" cannot yet be born; in this interregnum a variety of morbid symptoms appear.

UK ban on Palestine Action ruled unlawful Ministers argued the direct action group engaged in a campaign of criminal damage and violence

UK ban on Palestine Action ruled unlawful ft.trib.al/TKbvf6A

New School Guidance announces:

Full bathroom ban.
Full PE ban.
Full school trip accommodation ban.

Trans kids will not go to the bathroom, do PE or go on any school trips. 1/

anyway, i drew this for the nib in march 2023 lol

The way you prepare for AI is by increasing taxes on the rich. As a bonus it also works even if AI is a flop.

What Mira Nair Taught Zohran Mamdani The mayor’s famous filmmaker mother reveals the origins of his ferocious ambition.

Cannot believe that I got to profile an extraordinary filmmaker, who happens to be the mother of NYC’s new mayor, and think about intersections of art and politics, and how familial love might produce a buffer against the corrosive politics and cynicism of our time. My story about Mira Nair:

Old tweet from @shelfcomedy: me: god, why must you give me your hardest battles god: i don't. you are my weakest soldier and these battles are so easy. it's an email why are you crying

The morning so far

we need to talk about that Ring Super Bowl ad

Rashomon. Great movie, but all the dudes in it suck.

Israel used weapons in Gaza that made thousands of Palestinians evaporate US-made thermal weapons burning at 3,500C caused 2,842 people to "evaporate" in Gaza, Al Jazeera investigation finds.

Israel used aerosol bombs in Gaza, capable of generating temperatures exceeding 6,332 degrees Fahrenheit. These bombs boil body fluid and turn tissue into ash, leaving no trace of their victims behind.

Israel used these bombs to evaporate more than 2,800 Palestinians in Gaza.

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. 🧵

Good morning, Asia. While you were sleeping, one of our most-read articles was this opinion piece about bitcoin’s worst crash since 2022.

Ever since its creation, bitcoin has been on a journey that will end, splattered on the ground, writes Jemima Kelly. ft.trib.al/KjU0fdA

Macronomics, surely

they're trying to be coy about salivating over the prospect of raping women, they'll contest that but if pushed to explain, that's exactly what they would describe. forced pregnancy of any kind, by a man or by the state, is gender-based violence

Pregnant bicyclist dies in Playa del Rey crash while riding with her children and husband Police said that the pregnant woman was riding a bicycle with her toddler in the saddle when they were hit from behind on Saturday night. They said that her 31-week-old baby was safely delivered at th...

A driver hit and killed this woman from behind while she was riding an e-bike, but will task forces be convened about dangerous drivers?

Clipping this for the next time an American negs British food.

ICE's tear gas sent a 6-month-old to the hospital, the latest in an alarming pattern Federal agents' use of chemical weapons has hurt children at immigration raids, while walking down their block, and in their schools.

The details are horrific.

“He was just lifeless, like he had foam around his mouth... He had tears coming out of his eyes. I was giving him mouth-to-mouth, and I remember stopping, and I said, ‘I will give you all my breath ‘til you get yours back.’”

The actual story is that a family of American citizens trying to evacuate from a neighborhood that ICE had made unsafe, and then ICE tossed munitions into the car, causing three kids to be hospitalized and a six month old to stop breathing. DHS called the family “radical agitators”

Another absolute banger in his obit

Medical examiner believes death of man in ICE custody was homicide, recording says A fellow detainee says he witnessed Geraldo Lunas Campos being choked to death by guards at the ICE detention center in Texas on Jan. 3.

Guards may have choked a man to death inside an ICE tent encampment on the Mexican border. Had three children, been in the U.S. for 30 years. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/... @douglasmac.bsky.social

🚨WHOA. The El Paso Medical Examiner says it will rule the death of a 55-year-old Cuban man at ICE's "Camp East Montana" tent camp as a homicide.

He was allegedly choked to death by a guard during a "struggle" after he refused to enter a housing unit without his medications.

NEW

The UK constitution is even more vulnerable than the US constitution

In the face of an illiberal radical assault, what has happened politically in America could easily happen in the UK

By me, at @prospectmagazine.co.uk

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

Controversial US study on hepatitis B vaccines in Africa is cancelled $1.6m project drew outrage over ethical questions about withholding vaccines proven to prevent disease

BREAKING: The controversial hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau has been *cancelled,* I can now report. A senior official with Africa CDC confirmed the cancellation and said GB officials are working to make sure any research is conducted ethically:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Scoop: The leaked protocol of the CDC-funded Hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau. “This is another Tuskegee.” The protocol reveals that the trial will withhold the Hepatitis B birth dose from thousands—without placebos, without universal maternal screening, and with endpoints critics call indefensible.

We have the CDC-funded Hepatitis Vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau protocol.

It’s worse than you thought.

Check it out, first in Inside Medicine…

with @pauloffit.bsky.social David Boulware and others.

insidemedicine.substack.com/p/scoop-the-...

“This is another Tuskegee” is not hyperbole. good reporting from IM

Ciji Graham, a Black woman wearing glasses, holds an infant boy wearing a black hoodie.

1/ Ciji Graham was the mother of 2-year-old SJ, a sister to 9 younger siblings, a beloved friend.

She's also the 7th case we’ve found of a pregnant woman in a state restricting abortion who died after being unable to access standard care.

This is her story.

YouTube video by LeonardCohenVEVO Leonard Cohen - Democracy (Official Video)

Listening to Leonard Cohen's Democracy youtu.be/DU-RuR-qO4Y?...

Four Oglala detainees located, three still in ICE custody - ICT The four Lakota detainees were reportedly sent to a former concentration camp used during the Dakota Wars

This is surreal. 4 Oglala Lakota men kidnapped by ICE in Minneapolis have finally been located. One of them was released but the other 3 are being held at Fort Snelling, a former concentration camp used to imprison Native people incl. the Dakota 38 during Dakota Wars.

ictnews.org/news/north-c...

Hakeem Jeffries is afraid of a bad poll, meanwhile the observers and neighbors here on the ground in Minneapolis are afraid of being beaten senseless, dragged into a car, and raced out of their neighborhood. They’re not yielding but he is. Consider new leaders, Democrats