Miles MacClure

This photo was taken by @chicagotribune.com photog @mandophotos.bsky.social this past Saturday in Chicago's Little Village neighborhood. Chicago's local news journalists are doing a helluva job capturing the aggressive tactics CPB & ICE are using here.
bsky.app/profile/mand...

GUS-SPLOSIUON

As SNAP Benefits Lapse, Rural Americans Step Up to Meet Their Neighbors’ Needs Food pantries like Project Feed the Kids, local restaurants and cafes have begun offering free meals to those who didn’t receive SNAP benefits.

Across the country, Americans are stepping up to feed their neighbors in the wake of lapsed SNAP benefits.

In some states, recipients received SNAP benefits today, but millions are still without benefits

New words from me for Barn Raiser

Scoop: Inside DHS's vast college football surveillance effort If you go to a college football game, the feds have cameras on you.

"According to documents obtained by FOIAball, the Ole Miss-Georgia matchup was one of at least two games last year where the school used a Department of Homeland Security information-sharing platform to keep a watchful eye on attendees."

Crazy reporting from @foiaball.com:

From September: the USDA cancelled their annual Household Food Security Report, claiming that the study "failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder"

If you work at a rural food bank and are struggling to keep up with demand due to the lapse in SNAP funding, I'd like to talk for a Barn Raiser story

drop me a line at:

email: miles.macclure@gmail.com
signal: milesm.65

breathing exercises is definitely a trending search rn

THE FOOT

Ernesto Jerez on ESPN Latin America:

If an undergrad wrote this in a research grant proposal the application would be rejected lol

DHS still can’t or won’t say what they did with the two U.S. citizens they detained on 9/30 and called CPD to request a vehicle for.

They first sent a statement about the South Shore raid—an entirely different incident—and when I asked again they sent this deeply unserious response.

13 innings is cool but I’d like to go to bed

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Indiana University banned its student newspaper from printing just days before homecoming weekend — after firing the paper’s advisor when he refused to censor critical coverage. That would be bad enough on its own, but FIRE is taking this one personally, as the Indiana Daily Student reported this hostile campaign was due in part to its coverage of FIRE’s ranking Indiana University as the worst public university for free speech. You read that right. The school’s response to the news that they are bad at free speech … is to censor the news. It’s ironic — and not just in the Alanis Morissette sense — that these actions will likely push its overall ranking even lower next year. At least we can’t fault them for consistency.

Why did Indiana University attack and cut its own student newspaper?

Well, in a twist of irony any English professor would call clichéd, it turns out IU did it because they were angry about the students' reporting on a FIRE report naming IU as the worst public university for free speech in the US.

Rural Schools Struggle to Rebuild Fresh Food Programs Cut by Trump Without funding from the USDA, some states are stepping up to fund locally grown produce for rural school districts who could not afford it otherwise.

Some schools are turning back to prepackaged and processed foods because they can't afford fresh, local produce after the Trump admin slashed funding for a popular program in the spring

New from me for @barnraiser.bsky.social

Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead - Consumer Reports CR tests of 23 popular protein powders and shakes found that most contain high levels of lead.

my latest investigation for @consumerreports.org is based on months of reporting and 60+ lab tests of leading protein supplements

we found that most protein powders and shakes have more lead in one serving than our experts say is safe to have in a day (🧵)

www.consumerreports.org/lead/protein...

a banner on the usda website that reads: "Due to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown, this government website will not be updated during the funding lapse. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people."

pretty insane this is on an official government website

You won’t believe what degrading practice the Pope just condemned Communication must be freed from clickbait and misguided thinking, head of Catholic church tells journalists The Pope has condemned clickbait as a “degrading” part of journalism, at a private audience with global newswires. Australian media representatives were among those to hear directly from Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Thursday with about 150 members of newswire alliance MINDS International. Continue reading...

You won’t believe what degrading practice the Pope just condemned

One thing I've wondered: is Trump consciously lying when he says antifa is receiving mystery funding? Or does he truly believe that antifa (famously a singular, coherent organization) is receiving large sums of money?

Here's The Court Document Tyreek Hill Didn't Want Anyone To See | Defector The Miami-Dade Circuit Court clerk released Tuesday a copy of the latest petition for divorce from the estranged wife of Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill. In the document, Lakeeta Vaccaro…

Here's the court document Tyreek Hill didn't want anyone to see: defector.com/heres-the-co...

it's sad that "open exchange of ideas" has become code for "there's one correct line of thought"

go to Eem if you have time, the brisket curry is 🤌

CBS News staffers are ‘literally freaking out’ about Bari Weiss taking over newsroom EXCLUSIVE: ‘People are using words like depressing and doomsday – feels like some sort of doomsday,’ one source told The Independent about the mood inside CBS News right now.

“'The fact that we don't have money to pay journalists, but we have money to pay Bari Weiss between $100 and 200 million is indicative of what the Ellisons' true goal here is,' a network correspondent said. 'And it's not journalism.'"

I live in northern Michigan now - reach out with any tips for agriculture, higher education, or government accountability stories you feel should be covered.

I'll still be writing about other areas, but I'm aiming to transition to more Michigan-centric stories in the coming months.

If anyone needs an old watchdog report and is having trouble accessing it with so many IG websites down, the Payment Integrity Alliance has archived all reports from Oversight. gov from 2010 up through Sept. 26 here: programintegrity.org/search/

US farmers are saying they "just need temporary help, until things get better."

Here's the thing. US farm exports- which are mostly soy- CANNOT get better.

Other countries expanded their soy industries to fill China's demand.

We've walled ourselves out of the global market, folks. This is it.

so true

what time does the rapture happen? do I have time to renew my car registration before it starts?

Good for Prime/Kaylee Hartung for both mentioning the investigation into Hill and actually saying what it’s about

Does adding football help colleges with recruiting? It's complicated Some colleges, seeking to attract more male students, are adding the sport. Research suggests the gains may be short-lived.

this story also ran in NPR

www.npr.org/2025/09/13/n...