Wendy Walker

F.D.A. Refuses to Review Moderna Flu Vaccine

Being in New Zealand has been glorious, and I’ve been trying to bring joy to our world that needs more joy and less rage posting.

But this is a rage post. You need to read this gift article because you need to be enraged.

Minneapolis Community Defense Is “Riding on the Learning Edge of a Whirlwind” “We are becoming the people that we always knew that we needed to be,” says Minneapolis organizer Andrew Fahlstrom.

I talked with three Minneapolis organizers, including Andrew Fahlstrom and Susan Raffo, about community defense in Minneapolis, the social fabric of collective care under federal occupation, and how people around the country should be gearing up for the long struggle ahead. Audio + transcript:

Support Independent Journalism | GF

Georgia Fort's is chilling, and it's being overshadowed by the equally chilling arrest of Don Lemon.

A GoFundMe is being set up for Fort. In the meantime, you can support her work directly – without paying massive fundraising platform fees – through her website:

www.georgiafort.com/support

On the Media The Peabody Award-winning On the Media podcast is your guide to examining how the media sausage is made. Hosts Brooke Gladstone and Micah Loewinger examine threats to free speech and government transparency, cast a skeptical eye on media coverage of the week’s big stories and unravel hidden political narratives in everything we read, watch and hear.

Far-right influencers are flooding the streets of Minneapolis, framing the anti-ICE protests as “domestic terrorism.” @brandyzadrozny.bsky.social on why this narrative is quickly losing steam: on-the-media.visitlink.me/Ojyhej

Introducing addabook! At long last, we're ready to share this book journaling and tracking platform. It's designed for readers who want to slow down and reflect on what they read.

We’re just getting started. Please follow along, explore, and tell us what you think! #slowreading #booksky

Videos show federal agents killing Minneapolis man Some details of federal government’s account of the shooting aren’t supported by footage captured by bystanders.

Filming ICE is an act of journalism. Cell phone footage is vital source material for reporters who can’t be everywhere at once.

Shooting, killing and other targeting of those documenting news is an attack on press freedom and all else that's good in the world.

You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.

Thousands of Minnesotans marched in downtown Minneapolis to protest ICE. The wind chill was 30 below during the march.

Hundreds of businesses closed their doors Friday in support of the protest as activists urged Minnesotans to abstain from economic activity.

National media should really be covering the fact thay every major school, museum, and arts institution in the Twin Cities, and hundreds of local businesses are closed tomorrow to protest federal occupation.

Nothing like this at this scale has happened anywhere in America anytime in living memory.

Two things you can do RIGHT NOW, like literally as you read this:

1) Call your reps and leave voice mails telling them NO DHS FUNDING and ABOLISH ICE and they better do it for Liam.

2) Donate what you can for www.standwithminnesota.com (a list of orgs, campaigns, and funds on the ground)

I'm worried that we're living under a government that learned from US history and the people who taught the Na**s in the first place. This is just this decade's version.

Pow Wow Grounds

My friends local to Minnesota, whom I trust a great deal, would like to share the following resources that could use support.

PowWowGrounds - Native American Coffee Shop doing direct food and supply aid to their communities-

Venmo @powwowgrounds

www.powwowgrounds.com

Support Calvary Food Shelf: Emergency Response Fundraiser on GiveMN Help us respond to urgent community needs

Hey folks Calvary Food Shelf has been helping out people in Minneapolis for 30 years, and now they’re ramping up to meet the crisis, including doing home deliveries so people don’t have to risk going out.

They’re just over halfway to their current goal—let’s get them all the way, shall we?

ANDING ROCK Standing Rock Sioux Tribe The Office of Chairman Sitting Bear P.O. BOx D Fort Yates, ND 58538 CHAIRMAN SITTING BEAR'S STATEMENT REGARDING SRST PUBLIC SAFETY JANUARY 9, 2026 I have been receiving reports and evidence of First Nations people being racially targeted, assaulted, and detained by the federal agency Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE). We want to remind our members to be safe and proactive by carrying with you at a minimum your tribal identification cards or a copy of your degree of Indian Blood. Our tribal identification affirms our citizenship and political status. Our Nation is a sovereign government and our members are not immigrants. We are not subject to immigration enforcement on our own lands. Any federal activity within our boundaries must recognize and respect our tribal sovereignty, treaty obligations, and established jurisdictional boundaries. Any ICE presence or activity within our lands is not authorized, not welcome, and will be addressed. Unauthorized personnel will be escorted off our lands.

Looks like ICE is now cracking down on … Native Americans.

This letter was just posted by the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North/South Dakota:

“Our Nation is a sovereign government and our members are not immigrants. We are not subject to immigration enforcement on our own lands.”

Rioters? Agitators? Immigration agents’ claims against US citizens mostly fall apart in court. Time and again, Donald Trump’s immigration agents claimed horrific crimes at the hands of protesters in Chicago. Those allegations of abuse did not withstand the scrutiny of judicial review.

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/30/c... - an important read. (gift article)

The family across the street from my childhood home in Ohio did this. I believe they also had a rabbi come from Cleveland to bless the water first? My 10-year-old self may remember details wrong. I was fascinated watching the fish swim in the tub!

That's what I'm hoping! Appreciate the response.

A bird with a pale underside and a very long tail is perched overhead on a wire. The photographer (me) very much hopes this is a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Spotted in San Diego, CA, USA on December 20.

A bird with a pale underside and a very long tail is perched overhead on a wire. In this photo its head is turned over its back. The photographer (me) very much hopes this is a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Spotted in San Diego, CA, USA on December 20.

Are there any birders out there who can help ID this bird from semi-helpful photos? These were taken with a cellphone through binoculars. San Diego, CA on Dec. 20. If it is what I think it is, it seems unusual for the area, and a lifer for me. Help? #birds #SanDiego

The ethnic cleansing of the US will destroy it | Heba Gowayed Trump’s racist remarks on Ilhan Omar and Somali immigrants reveals his vision for the US as a white Christian nation

The goal of the Trump administration is an ethnic cleansing that is actively being enacted, and that promises to destroy the diversity & freedoms that were ever the strength of this imperfect nation.

My latest in @theguardian.com.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I honestly think that many people don't know what their public libraries offer besides books. I think that everyone should go on a public library treasure hunt in 2026. Go explore what your library systems offer at no cost to you. Report back to me :)

If she happens to fix the editorial board while she's there, it seems like a win all around.

Journalists’ cameras become targets at Oregon protests Federal agents in Portland are waging war on the press

Every journalist hit with a stinger grenade or pepper ball by law enforcement while covering a protest is a message from the government: Stop showing the truth.

Journalists must speak out.

My undying admiration.

Truly grasp what Typhoon Halong did to western Alaska - High Country News This is not only a climate emergency. It is a cultural one.

This is not only a climate emergency. It is a cultural one.

If you don't think kids should have food, what broke you?

UPDATE: COLOMBIA’s President says 🇺🇸 government (Trump) “committed murder” and bombed a fisherman with no ties to drugs

“The boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure”

America! Your expats and your friends are *always* with you! Sending you love and courage and #NoKings solidarity and frog costumes from Melbourne, Australia. Make fascism history again!

What really is antifa? - High Country News Effie Baum, an ‘everyday anti-fascist,’ talks about President Trump’s threat to designate the movement as a terrorist organization, and corrects the record.

"When we were at war with fascists in Europe, everyday people, everyone would have been an anti-fascist. Being an anti-fascist should not be a controversial thing. It should be controversial to be a fascist."

Wrote this five years ago. It shouldn't hold up this well.

www.hcn.org/articles/nor...

ICE agents raid South Shore apartments; Trump says Chicago could become military training ground ICE agents raided a South Shore apartment building overnight as the city braces for a possible military deployment.

“They had a big, 15-inch chainsaw with round blade on it, cutting this fence down. We're under siege. We're being invaded by our own military."

The worst of what we feared when Trump’s spending bill gave ICE a blank check is happening.