Ben Howell

The way to ensure independent/non-oligarchic media is to really support it.

Not just by posting about the latest round of layoffs and consolidation. Before and apart from that happening.

thank you for all the support; the statement from our union is now live here with some more reporting.

now that this is public I can confirm that the majority of today’s layoffs were women of color. there are no longer any Black women working at Teen Vogue.

Oligarchs and capital really ain't beating the rap that they're falling in line & quashing alternate left-of-center points of view.

For any unfamiliar with the quality of journalism at Teen Vogue, it's well known for hard-hitting stories on "politically sensitive" topics including climate.

Then there's CBS: the only major network to increase climate coverage in the last few years. They just axed nearly their whole climate team.

Vogue's absorption of and closure of Teen Vogue feels like -- is -- a direct attack on a new generation of queer journalists who were committed to excellence and the power of journalism to illuminate the stories of people at the margins.

And it impacts all of us, no matter our age.

why it's almost like there's a concerted assault on informed consensus by extraction class owned media conglomerates to replace what was left of U.S. political journalism with lazy controversy hounding infotainment and right wing and corporatist agitprop

Timely (grim) new NBER working paper: Households screened out of SNAP "suffer tangible downstream economic consequences. Specifically, we find that process-related denials increase debt and delinquencies, and decrease credit scores."

www.nber.org/papers/w34434

Real garbage strike zone for a World Series game 7

the party now cared more about climate change and various academic fixations than cheap energy and good-paying jobs.

This right here, this exact sentence, is THE problem in American political journalism.

The IRA *was* cheap energy and good jobs! That was the whole bill! Democrats did precisely what political pundits are telling them to do and the pundits just ignore it.

feed thy neighbor. mutual aid in times of invented crisis.

A good list for people in NYC to share about how people impacted by SNAP cuts might access some food:
open.substack.com/pub/eboyle/p...

I just want every person to consider this in its distilled form.

**********************************************************

The President of the United States is unilaterally levying a tax on every citizen because he didn't like a commercial.

A research letter from JAMA titled "Poverty, Food Insecurity, and Housing Instability Among US Health Care Workers." Published online October 22, 2025.The US health workforce faces projected shortages of more than 180 000 physicians and 200 000 registered nurses.

Among US health care workers, rates of poverty, food insecurity, and housing instability are highest among direct care and support staff, with over 1 in 4 experiencing food insecurity.

ja.ma/47p4fwG

UM Employee Sues After Losing Her Job for Criticizing Kirk Former University of Mississippi employee Lauren Stokes is suing Chancellor Glenn Boyce for firing her after she criticized Charlie Kirk.

“By terminating Lauren for reposting the speech in question, the University says its employees must conform to a point of view,” the lawsuit over Lauren Stokes’ firing for criticizing Charlie Kirk says. “That ought to distress all of us. After all, today’s policed are tomorrow’s policemen."

This is the Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the Pacific ocean!

Still appalled at how paltry and terrible the NYT coverage of the protests were and how nobody there feels any responsibility to address the criticism. This was not something that caught them off guard. This was many levels of decisions.

Yes!

More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days. The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes people who were held for days without a lawyer. And near...

Extraordinary NEW story: We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days. @nicolefoy.bsky.social w/ photos by @sbmaneyphoto.bsky.social

I said nothing, and tried to think nothing.

@aaronecarroll.bsky.social of @academyhealth.bsky.social says, "The capacity to collect, analyze, and share high-quality, nonpartisan data is essential to good governance, accountability, and the health of every community...” Thanks, @josh-caplan.bsky.social.
#defenddata #HHSstrong #NCES

surprised there hasn’t been more discourse around the illegal firing of NCHS leadership, including those in vital statistics.

which are vital

MMWR stole the show in the first round of headlines about CDC cuts but in the chaos, many missed that the NHANES mobile team remains RIF'd. This is the backbone of this key survey that contains some of the only representative anthropometric, biochemical, clinical and dietary data on the country.

Seven more punished in Connecticut state police ticket data scandal, records show The new reports also include four constables who were found to have been creating false traffic tickets and could still face discipline.

Great story by my colleague Bill Cummings that answers some lingering questions around the Connecticut State Police ticket scandal, particularly around town tickets. www.ctinsider.com/connecticut/...

America’s brain drain

No words

Business Insider headline reads: UPS is telling customers that their packages coming to the US are marked for destruction.

About a month ago, the Trump administration got rid of the de minimis exemption, whereby packages valued under $800 could slide in without import duties. Now there's a backlog as the government can't process all of this paperwork, leading to UPS just destroying packages

Obvy same w MD, DC, northern VA. I don’t see how this doesn’t leave a stink on republicans for generations for people living in these communities (which are large & populous)

Like closing the factory in a factory town changes people’s politics for generations. In addition to weakening US’s ability to prevent disease and death (and world leadership in public health, medicine, & science) we need to make this tied to all R’s going forward.

Georgians (& esp Atlantans) are fairly proud of the CDC. I have to see the destruction of the CDC as playing a pivotal role in elections (e.g., Ossoff’s seat) in the near term against Republicans. The network effects of people this hurts and people who know someone this hurts has to be high.

Per CDC source: At internal leadership meeting this afternoon, it was shared that 1,257 people were RIF'd at CDC. Number may not be final. Apparently, chief of staff was unaware that RIFs were going to occur so not clear who is making decisions. (Short 🧵)

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice: