Virginia Hughes

The Quiet Unraveling of the Man Who Almost Killed Trump

The @nytimes.com obtained homemade videos of Thomas Crooks, the meek, nerdy young man with a “passion for cooking with my family” — who then began building bombs and nearly killed Donald Trump. @tawnell.bsky.social @virginiahughes.bsky.social 🎁🔗 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/u...

The response is actually *exactly* what I expected.

I’ve worked with Azeen Ghorayshi for more than 10 years. Her reporting is exceptionally thoughtful, fair, searching and empathetic. These are bad-faith personal attacks.

News Outlets Batten Down the Hatches for Trump’s Return Media organizations are taking unusual steps to prepare for what they fear will be a legal and political onslaught from the new administration.

NEW: Media outlets are rushing to prepare for govt subpoenas and investigations under the Trump admin. Protective steps include:
• Switching to encrypted communications
• Conducting internal audits
• Increasing libel insurance
By me & @katierobertson.bsky.social 🎁 🔗 www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/b...

How Mexican Cartels Test Fentanyl on Vulnerable People and Animals A global crackdown on fentanyl has led cartels to innovate production methods and test their risky formulas on people, as well as rabbits and chickens.

“If the rabbits survive beyond 90 seconds, the drug is deemed too weak to be sold to Americans, according to six cooks and two U.S. Embassy officials who monitor cartel activity.” >> How Mexican Cartels Test Fentanyl on Vulnerable People and Animals www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/w...

stunning increases in homelessness released today from HUD

771,480 people experienced homelessness on a single night this past January, an 18 percent increase nationwide over 2023. Among those were 150,000 children, a 33 percent increase over 2023

www.huduser.gov/portal/sites...

🙏

Thank you!!

A Woman With a Rare Gene Mutation Fights to Avoid Her Mother’s Fate A mutant gene is coming to steal Linde Jacobs’s mind. Can she find a way to stop it?

Linde Jacobs’s mother died after a genetic mutation gradually laid waste to her brain. Now the same gene is coming for her own mind. Can she find a way to stop it?

A Woman With a Rare Gene Mutation Fights to Avoid Her Mother’s Fate (Gift Article) A mutant gene is coming to steal Linde Jacobs’s mind. Can she find a way to stop it?

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/22/h...

Linde discovered that not only did she inherit the gene, but her two daughters and two sisters each had a 50% chance of carrying it as well. There is no cure for the disease, or even any treatments. This is a story about Linde staring down a horribly unfair lot in life, and what she did about it.

Linde had watched the disease transform her mother — stripping her of empathy, social boundaries and impulse control — and before that, her grandmother.

I have a story out today about a remarkable woman named Linde Jacobs. Three years ago, at 33 years old, Linde found out that she carried a genetic mutation for a devastating brain disease, frontotemporal dementia, which begins in middle age. (Thread)

Trump Sues The Des Moines Register, Escalating Threats Against the Media President-elect Donald J. Trump has said he would use his power to punish people he claims have wronged him. Those goals are now coming into focus.

Trump’s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register is the latest sign of him experimenting with new legal tactics to attack the media.

Thanks to the First Amendment, defamation suits are hard for public figures to win. So he is turning to state consumer-protection laws. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/17/u...

How RFK Jr’s Longtime Friend Mark Hyman Built a Wellness Empire (Gift Article) Dr. Mark Hyman, a “functional medicine” proponent and longtime friend of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is finding powerful allies in his bid to treat disease with blood tests and supplements.

Fab profile by Brendan Borrell on Dr. Mark Hyman, the famous face of the “functional medicine” wellness/supplement movement, and his adventures with RFK Jr over the years. Don’t miss the kicker. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/h...

Let me tell you a story – one of the more haunting I’ve seen in 20 years of journalism. It’s about greed, death and denial. It took two years to unravel one doctor’s myth, a hospital’s complicity in creating it, and a documented trail of suspicious deaths…🧵

It’s the Perfect Year to Lean Into Gag Gifts From novelty candles to a beer-belly fanny pack.

an honor to edit this incredible guide/ode to gag gifts, sorry to everyone who had to listen to me die laughing at the Slate office slate.com/life/2024/12...

Profits Over Patients How nonprofit hospitals lost their way.

I don’t think it’s so simple. A few of our investigative health reporters spent all of 2022 digging into the harmful practices of nonprofit hospitals www.nytimes.com/series/profi...

Just a gobsmacking story

What if Charity Shouldn’t Be Optimized? (Gift Article) The recent trend in philanthropy has been to look for the most bang for your buck. Maybe you don’t have to.

I wrote an essay for @nytimes.com Ideas about how people decide where to give away money and how the tech industry's obsession with optimization filtered into so many parts of our culture. Here's a gift link www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/b...

Acadia Healthcare’s Methadone Clinics Face Fraud Complaints (Gift Article) Acadia Healthcare falsifies records at its methadone clinics and enrolls patients who aren’t addicted to opioids, a Times investigation found.

The opiod crisis has been good for Acadia, the country’s largest chain of methadone clinics. But that success is built partly on deception: falsifying records and enrolling patients who aren’t addicted to opioids. @bykatiethomas.bsky.social @davidenrich.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/h...

Acadia Healthcare’s Methadone Clinics Face Fraud Complaints (Gift Article) Acadia Healthcare falsifies records at its methadone clinics and enrolls patients who aren’t addicted to opioids, a Times investigation found.

I joined this app just to share this incredible new investigation into the fraud and fakery going on at the country’s largest chain of methadone clinics: www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/h...
By the amazing @bykatiethomas.bsky.social and @jsgatnyt.bsky.social and edited by @davidenrich.bsky.social and me