Susan Campbell Beachy

Nudist Camp for Sale: The Rise and Fall of the Florida Naturist Park

If the headline "Nudist Camp for Sale" doesn't get you to click, what will? Quite the tale from @rondakaysen.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/r...

Violent Crime in D.C. Hits 30 Year Low Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years, according to data collected by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) a...

As Trump plans to deploy national guard troops in DC, citing "crime that is totally out of control," it's worth noting just how high up, or far down, a news organization includes this fact in its reporting:

www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/v....

TikTok Loves the New York City He Built Out of Balsa Wood

Who doesn't love a tiny New York? www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/n...

A New Rail Line May Come to New York. Will a Housing Boom Follow?

More than 70K new homes could be built within a half mile of stops along the train line over the next decade, if some land-use changes are approved by city officials, according to an analysis released today by the New York Building Congress, a trade group for construction and real estate companies.

This remains an excellent campaign promise

Opinion | Ken Jennings: Trivia and ‘Jeopardy!’ Could Save Our Republic

No alternative facts on the Alex Trebek stage www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/o...

Hundreds Join Trump at ‘Exclusive’ Dinner, With Dreams of Crypto Fortunes in Mind

“The event was unlike anything in recent American history — not a campaign fund-raiser but a gathering arranged by the president’s business partners to directly enrich the first family.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/u...

A Times Square Office Tower Will Be Converted Into Apartments

Times staffers could roll out of bed and be at the office www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/n...

Congestion pricing was designed to finance more than $15 billion in critical transit upgrades in New York City. Those investments will take years. But the parallel changes at street level are already apparent. Here’s what we know so far. nyti.ms/4mbuGg0

Chatting in Movie Theaters Is a No-No. But What About Chatbots? (Gift Article) Blumhouse, the horror movie studio, has teamed up with Meta on a chatbot that encourages people to use their phones while watching a movie.

That's a NOPE from me www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/b...

Want to Try Driving a City Bus, Hauling Trash or Building a Skyscraper? (Gift Article) A new exhibit at the New York Hall of Science celebrates cities by letting visitors get hands-on with urban infrastructure.

Come for the skyscraper, stay for the fatberg www.nytimes.com/2025/04/29/n...

This kind of story is why we need the NYTimes and other institutions like it. Multiple bylines, weeks of work, deep research, important sourcing based on relationships earned over long periods, and, of course, the institutional strength and money to resist any retaliation for it.

NYT headline: “Kennedy Advises New Parents to ‘Do Your Own Research’ on Vaccines” Subheader: “In an interview with Dr. Phil, the health secretary offered false information about vaccine oversight and revealed a lack of basic understanding of new drug approvals.”

“And I’m like, what do you mean, you ‘do your own research’? You running a double-blind study in your living room, dawg?”
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic

The State Department is changing its mind about what it calls human rights The agency's annual human rights reports are being purged of references to prison conditions, political corruption and other abuses.

The administration is substantially scaling back the State Dept's annual reports on international human rights to remove longstanding critiques of abuses such as harsh prison conditions, government corruption and restrictions on participation in the political process www.npr.org/2025/04/18/n...

A Columbia Activist Sought Middle Ground on Gaza. The U.S. Detained Him. (Gift Article) Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested at a citizenship interview in Vermont. He had spent a decade trying to understand the conflict that shaped his life, his supporters say.

Growing up in a Palestinian refugee camp, Mahdawi, 34, saw his best friend killed by an Israeli soldier. Rather than calling for vengeance, since immigrating to the U.S., he has delivered 100+ lectures extolling empathy as key to a resolution in the Middle East. He is a practicing Buddhist, he said.

They Work All Day and Go Home to Shelters (Gift Article) Thousands of working people in New York City now live in shelters, unable to afford apartments despite holding down jobs that pay them $50,000 or more.

"This is not the homeless problem that New Yorkers are most familiar with," reports @elizashapiro.bsky.social "These are the people who help make New York run, now shut out of the city’s rental market." www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/n...

Sad to hear about the passing of Clem Burke, drummer for Blondie and many others. Gonna listen to this on repeat for a bit youtu.be/TU3-lS_Gryk...

Friday's Elk: Decimation As we head into the third month of the new Trump administration, some of the damage that it is inflicting on American science and medicine is starting to...

The title of my email newsletter today is "Decimation": buttondown.com/carlzimmer/a...

Lots of fond memories from those conferences. For years I'd brag that I interviewed both Urkel and Screech

2025 version of the NYC subway map

Say hello to a new subway map! 🗺️

Today, the MTA unveiled a new subway diagram that provides riders with essential travel information in an easily readable, bright, and orderly manner.

Happy International Fact-Checking Day! Some resources for those who celebrate:
www.politifact.com
www.factcheck.org
www.snopes.com
www.newsguardrealitycheck.com
toolbox.google.com/factcheck/ex...
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fac...
www.nytimes.com/spotlight/fa...
reporterslab.org/fact-checking/

Trump Science Funding Cuts May Hurt Economy, Experts Say (Gift Article) Since World War II, U.S. research funding has led to discoveries that fueled economic gains. Now cutbacks are seen as putting that legacy in jeopardy.

To economists, the policies threaten to undermine U.S. competitiveness in emerging areas like artificial intelligence, and to leave Americans as a whole poorer, less healthy and less productive in the decades ahead www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/b...

‘Chaos and Confusion’ at the N.I.H., the Crown Jewel of American Science (Gift Article) Senior scientists at the National Institutes of Health fear that research on conditions like obesity, heart disease and cancer will be undermined by President Trump’s policies.

Dr. Francis Collins, a former director of the N.I.H., said, “If you are taking an F.D.A.-approved drug that is improving the quality or length of your life, there is a 99 percent chance N.I.H. was involved in the pathway to its discovery.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/24/h...

What’s being lost with the DOGE cuts? These fired feds can tell you. The Washington Post spoke to fired workers who explained their roles — and what the country is losing with the elimination of those jobs.

wapo.st/3DwbAjl

Defunded Aid Programs Are Asked by Trump Administration to Prove Their Value, on a Scale of 1 to 5 (Gift Article) A week after terminating thousands of contracts, the administration has sent questionnaires to those programs asking how their work benefits the U.S. national interest.

Defunded Aid Programs Are Asked by Trump Administration to Prove Their Value, on a Scale of 1 to 5 www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/h...

Opinion | America Is Pushing Its Workers Into Homelessness (Gift Article) The working homeless are casualties of our prosperity.

Today there isn’t a single state, city or county in the United States where a full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a median-priced two-bedroom apartment www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/o...

"As humans, we don't love uncertainty. It's something that we don't tend to tolerate well. And then when we're anxious, it's excruciating." www.axios.com/2025/02/10/t...

Trump officials exerting unprecedented control over CDC scientific journal "The MMWR has lost its autonomy," one health official told CBS News.

“Efforts by Trump officials to control the publication have stalled the release of three studies about bird flu for weeks, as the virus continues spreading through wild birds, poultry farms and cows around the country.” www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-o...

USDOT is proposing to prioritize areas with high marriage & birth rates for funding.

Our new analysis @urbaninstitute.bsky.social shows this approach would produce a massive redistribution of transportation funding to rich, car-dependent, high white population areas.

www.urban.org/urban-wire/d...