The NIH just released a proposal that will apparently hide peer reviewers’ impact scores and percentiles from the research team, their institution, and NIH program officers. All the better to obscure how funding decisions will be made primarily via political review, I’m guessing.

Flight yesterday was canceled due to ATC restrictions and had to stay another night in NYC. Hoping for good travel karma today. #ASA2026

Colin Jost: Can I Leave Saturday Night Live?

ALT: Colin Jost: Can I Leave Saturday Night Live?

static.klipy.com

Headed to #ASA2026. Looking forward to seeing colleagues old and new. Say “hi” when you see me wandering the halls between sessions.

The man beat his daughter and injured his granddaughter but he's fine with it apparently. www.notus.org/ohio/bernie-...

Sen. Bernie Moreno Doesn't 'Know' if Embattled Rep. Max Miller Should Stay on Ballot

The senator’s daughter accused Miller of domestic violence. Miller denies the allegations, but they’re making his reelection race tighter.

notus.org

Well, this article is incredibly depressing for cooking enthusiasts. The short version: private equity has, over the last couple of decades, quietly bought up most of the classic brands you’ve heard of and then traded on their names while drastically cutting quality and closing American factories

@laperry2.bsky.social · last mo.

www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-cookw...

Very important piece by Cerin Lindgrensavage and @davidasuper.bsky.social. This behavior by the administration is not only illegal, it is anti-constitutional. thehill.com/opinion/cong...

Congress rejected some of Trump’s proposed budget cuts. OMB is making them anyway.

President Trump and the Office of Management and Budget are accused of violating the separation of powers by attempting to unilaterally withhold funds that Congress specifically appropriated.

thehill.com

I just submitted my formal comment on the disastrous proposal to transform essentially all U.S. federal grantmaking--affecting every sector of American science, technology, education, & health--into an overtly partisan political process. Full text here: weatherwest.com/wp-c...

A 5-4 ruling on a plain reading of the text of the 14th Amendment. That's not what I would call a vindication.

“Our system is grounded on checks and balances — the entire system — and right now we have a Congress, with a Republican majority, that isn’t really standing up to do its duties. We have a Supreme Court that’s pretty much in line with the executive.”

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2mo ago

New in PN: @jbf1755.bsky.social on why Trump is an affront to the Founders "But now, the president is openly profiting off the office while destroying and misusing the physical WH as though he owns it. I am angry, because what we’re watching right now isn’t what a president is supposed to be."

NIH grants have been under political scrutiny since early 2025. But what does the screening process actually look like? What is being flagged? I spent a month digging into leaked docs and emails. We've published the 235-word list that are being flagged by an internal AI tool. And so much more. 🧵

Inside the new political screening that’s stalling NIH grants

Mandatory reviews by top health officials and checks for 235 disfavoured terms have left hundreds of vetted grant applications in administrative limbo.

nature.com

"Hiring of college grads is down across the board. But certain majors are able to access opportunities in a wider array of industries, new LinkedIn data shows." ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH 69% VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS 68% www.forbes.com/sites/courtn...

Horrifying. Their 4yo kids taken away from them for a couple of days—interviewed without other adults present by people they didn’t know. This was all based on a bizarre accusation that could’ve been easily dismissed w/o involving the children. This is not how these processes are supposed to work.

Pete Buttigieg@petebuttigieg.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This week someone targeted my family for harm with a false report. We’re physically OK, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t harmed. I am beyond furious. Whatever your politics, this is awful, wrong, and can never become normal.

Skip the stupid nyt panic-mongering about phones and babies and read something smart by @lesja.bsky.social instead.

Non-natalism – Spectre Journal A case for being against pronatalism

Leslie Root shows how misguided it is for the left to accept pro-natalist positions. Worry about declining birth rates is based on a misinterpretation of the Total Fertility Rate, and minor social pol...

spectrejournal.com

Of course they start state-mandated pregnancy surveillance among medical cannabis users. Pitch perfect strategy on their part.

Susan Rinkunas@susanrinkunas.com · 2mo ago

Alabama now has medical marijuana, but there’s a huge catch for women ages 11 to 50 “This, I think, is the first sort of mechanism of regular surveillance, regular proving that you’re not pregnant in order to access something that…should be available to everyone.” - @pregnancyjust.bsky.social

1. How common is LLM use in scientific publishing, and how does it vary across field, publisher, journal prestige, author demographics etc.? @kylesiler.bsky.social has new paper in PNAS that addresses this question on a massive scale: 7.3 million papers from Elsevier, PLOS, MDPI, and Frontiers.

The diffusion of large language models in published academic articles | PNAS

Large language models (LLMs) are rapidly changing academic research, raising questions of who is adopting these tools and under what conditions. Th...

pnas.org

"The thing about semi-authoritarian states that many Americans don’t grasp, even though they’ve been living in one for nine years. Life goes on, collapsing in pieces instead of dramatic sweeps, acclimatizing you to horrors and destroying your expectations until survival becomes an aspiration."

Sarah Kendzior@sarahkendzior.bsky.social · 3mo ago

"The most important thing about the election is not that Trump was proclaimed the winner, but that he was allowed to run." I wrote that in 2024. I'm disgusted by those who ignore the institutional rot that enabled Trump and blame everyday voters instead. sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/the-end-of...

Kevin M. Levin@civilwarmemory.bsky.social · 3mo ago

A state accused of deliberately drawing maps to diminish Black political power is unable to fight for those maps in court today because it is honoring a man who fought a war to deny Black Americans any political standing at all. #CivilWarMemory open.substack.com/pub/kevinmle...

I need folks to understand that this proposed OMB rule change isn't just about science, or research. This is about asserting control. I see quotes that "at least it still allows indirect at expected amounts". First - this presumes you're getting grants which 👀 UNTIL WHEN YOU FOOLS. OVERTON WINDOW.

Quick takes: 1. Share this widely. 2. Not sharing scores REDUCES transparency. 3. Whatever the merits of a plan (on paper), it is imperative to recognize who is making the decisions. This is not a good-faith negotiation w/good-faith actors. We need more transparency & expert input, not less.

Jeremy Berg@jeremymberg.bsky.social · 3mo ago

So... I got more information about this plan. The most important points follow on the next posts. 1/3

I’ve said it before and will say it a few more times. When Trump 2.0 came for accreditation I knew we had crossed into a different era of white reclamation. Precise, focused, stealth. Anyway, you probably don’t want these reforms.

AAUP@aaup.org · 3mo ago

The US Department of Education is currently overhauling federal accreditation rules for colleges & universities. The April 6, 2026, Proposed Changes to Initial Draft Regulations unacceptably seek to narrow & control what can be taught, learned, & researched on college & university campuses. 🧵 1

40 percent of Mississippi residents are Black and overwhelmingly prefer Democratic candidates and there are *checks notes* zero districts that represent their interests. But sure, the VRA isn’t needed.

The Upshot@upshot.nytimes.com · 3mo ago

Our simulations show that the act isn’t needed for minority representation in the South, if partisan gerrymandering were checked. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/17/u...

Thanks to @popassocamerica.bsky.social for a successful #PAA2026! Looking for a #demography conference in Fall 2026? Submit your work to the Southern Demographic Association conference! We'll meet October 7-9 in Austin, TX! Abstract submission portal opens next week.

It's almost like it was all part of an a-factual ideological project!

Expected but still outrageous. Clearly Purcell is no longer in effect. The only principle this SCOTUS appears to follow is chaos.

Joyce White Vance@joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

SCOTUS, which ordered Alabama to create a second Black opportunity district just 3 years ago, has lifted that order a week before the primary. The Purcell principle says courts shouldn't permit chaos too close to an election—it's now an open question whether there will even be a primary on schedule.

They buried the lede. *One of the Americans en route home has tested positive for the Andes Hantavirus* Fortunately, the receiving facility is equipped to handle this. But whoever wrote that someone tested “mildly positive” is an idiot. They are PCR positive. They have it.

What a pill to swallow after presenting in the “Public Policy & Population Health” session yesterday at #paa2026. One of the biggest challenges of doing work in this area has always been that institutions rarely provide researchers with evidence of their harms. Now they won’t fund it, either.

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield.bsky.social · 4mo ago

…For those who weren’t there, something I didn’t post about (because we pivoted from policy to pop centers and I wanted to listen closely) was Bhattacharya’s absolutely astonishing claim that research evaluating the health effects of public policy is out of scope for NIH-funded research.

In STL for #PAA2026. Demographer friends say “hi” when you see me wandering around, most likely looking for another cup of coffee.

a man in a suit and tie is standing in a room holding his jacket

Alt: a man in a suit and tie is standing in a room holding his jacket, looking lost

media.tenor.com

This is appalling and alarming, and the Supreme Court is not only largely to blame, but all but blessed it last night.

Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 4mo ago

42,000 Louisianians voted absentee before Gov. Jeff Landry suspended primaries for the state’s six U.S. House races

Justice Thurgood Marshall, dissenting in Mobile v. Alabama, which gave us the 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the Supreme Court just nullified in Louisiana v. Callais. Every word applies to the current majority: tile.loc.gov/storage-serv...