Sophie Gilbert

Can San Francisco Be Saved? Introducing No Easy Fix, a new three-part miniseries from Radio Atlantic, about the widespread addiction and homelessness that threaten the city’s future

Listened to the first episode of this yesterday and it's brilliant: compassionate, insightful, compelling. www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/arc...

A picture of Trump in the Oval Office that he's painted top to bottom in gilt

Guys

It was such a good one!

YouTube video by Senator Chris Van Hollen WATCH: U.S. Army veteran gives first-hand account of suffering, starvation in Gaza

As starvation worsens by the day in Gaza, the Netanyahu government has been using food as a weapon of war — with complicity from Trump and U.S. taxpayer dollars.

This is painful to listen to but here’s what a U.S. Army veteran and Green Beret who witnessed it first-hand recounted to me:

For women, the increase of AI use in the workplace may affect their careers: Harvard study Women are using AI significantly less then men and it’s going to have a major impact on their careers, according to extensive research on the topic.

Every. Single. Story. about women not using AI as much as men portray it as bad for their future career prospects (without a shred of evidence) and a result of women being fearful little ladies rather than looking at AI's output and saying "this sucks, it's not going to help me."

The most important story in the world right now.

A detail I hadn't seen before: "Harth alleges in her complaint that Trump 'directed that any Black female contestants be excluded' from his Mar-a-Lago party."

Mass starvation spreading across Gaza, aid agencies warn, as pressure on Israel grows – Middle East crisis live More than 100 aid agencies, including Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children and Oxfam, say ‘our colleagues and those we serve are wasting away’ Palestine Red Crescent says the situation in Gaza is “only getting worse”, with spokesperson Nebal Farsakh calling it an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”. Farsakh said in a video posted to X on Tuesday that there has been no food, clean water or medicine entering the Gaza Strip for more than four months. This has resulted in a catastrophe where people are literally starving to death. More people are being admitted to hospitals with malnutrition especially among children, pregnant women and the elderly. Continue reading...

Mass starvation spreading across Gaza, aid agencies warn, as pressure on Israel grows – Middle East crisis live

It's really giving Turkmenistan chic

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this fascinating exchange Colbert had with Dua Lipa, when she asked him about the role his faith plays in his comedy.

Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions and projecting the effects of defunding on mortality up to 2030: a retrospective impact evaluation and forecasting analysis USAID funding has significantly contributed to the reduction in adult and child mortality across low-income and middle-income countries over the past two decades. Our estimates show that, unless the a...

Elon Musk casually, and illegally, dismantled USAID. According to a new study in the Lancet, that action will lead to *14 million* premature deaths between 2025 and 2030.

Again: Elon Musk is directly responsible for 14 million coming deaths. 4.5 million will be children.

The Big, Beautiful Bill assigns each American a billionaire who will live the American dream for you. You can check in on your billionaire at intervals and see how he is using your money. Maybe he's building a 19th pool. Maybe he's buying himself some formerly public land! Maybe he's taking a Supreme Court justice on a dream vacation! Maybe he is reupholstering the Statue of Liberty to hide the poem.

www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

In Sudan, where children clung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal The Trump administration’s cuts to USAID had an immediate and deadly impact in war-ravaged Sudan, according to civilians, doctors and aid officials.

I couldn't make it through this story yesterday, but everyone needs to read it.

Should humanity exist? Let’s ask a man who cofounded an online payment-processing platform 27 years ago

A.I. Is Homogenizing Our Thoughts Recent studies suggest that tools such as ChatGPT make our brains less active and our writing less original.

my @newyorker.com column this week goes in depth on how using AI makes us less original, unique, and creative as writers, thinkers, and communicators. Various new studies are proving that AI is a rampant force of homogenization: www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...

Detained immigrant's pregnancy fails while in ICE custody - Nashville Banner ICE's treatment of undocumented immigrants raises concerns as a woman's experience highlights what she described as inadequate medical care while in detention.

In Nashville, an undocumented woman who was detained by ICE while pregnant had a stillbirth after allegedly being denied medical care in ICE custody.

“I had him inside here for three days, in this Louisiana facility, my baby dead in my stomach," Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus said.

I could scream www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Screenshot of a Bluesky post Lauren Follow @laurenkayes.bsky.social It's so cool that cities are like "oweeease only turn your AC on if you're actively dying and don't go below 79 " while the Al nobody asked for is slurping up the power grid to make 1 image of a girl with 5 tits Jun 22, 2024 at 5:58 PM

Got a ConEd alert telling me to use less energy during the heat wave and this is all I can think about.

Not an original point but worth saying again - there is not a single element in this picture that identifies any of these folks as law enforcement agents. No badges, no uniforms, no vests. Out of context it just looks like a bunch of random guys are kidnapping a mayoral candidate.

Thank you so much, Ann!

The Collapse of Feminism Spice Girls slogans and reality-TV aesthetics: A new book traces how feminism morphed into clickable objectification.

I also really loved this one with @jerusalem.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/arc...

How 2000s Culture Messed Us Up And taught us to hate women (including ourselves)

I usually can't bear to revisit interviews when they're over but I've listened to this one w/ Anne Helen Petersen twice over because it was so much fun and she was really the dream person to talk to about GIRL ON GIRL culturestudypod.substack.com/cp/165193014

Visit this link to see how many additional deaths Musk's destruction of USAID is costing in real time, particularly from diarrhoea and malnutrition:

www.impactcounter.com/dashboard?vi...

This ticker should follow him wherever he goes.

About 3 dozen LAPD officers in full riot gear, standing around looking confused, bored, aimless. A waste of taxpayer money, a threatening show of force without morality or purpose. Behind them, the north wall of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, covered with Barbara Kruger's "Untitled (Questions)" mural: against a field of stark red, white letters that read, in part, WHO IS BEYOND THE LAW? WHO IS BOUGHT AND SOLD? WHO DOES THE TIME? WHO SALUTES LONGEST? WHO DIES FIRST? WHO LAUGHS LAST

Pulitzer prize for this Jay L. Clenendin image of LAPD stormtroopers in front of Barbara Kruger's "Untitled (Questions)"

The art is nice though.

Obviously this is not my dream review; it's thoughtful but seems to insist cultural criticism by itself is pointless.

There's a lot of inhumanity at play in all of this but the callousness it takes to inflict this sort of pain on kids in particular is simply incomprehensible to me.

Trump is coming for the ‘enemy within’ Sending the National Guard into LA is the administration’s clearest step yet towards authoritarianism

"Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” has $185bn for ICE, which is more than the annual military budgets of the UK and France combined. Wherever ICE raids trigger protests, Trump can send in the troops." My column.
www.ft.com/content/3d6c...

Despicable www.npr.org/2025/06/03/g...