Lauren Leffer
@laurenleffer.bsky.social
Former Bug Scientist / Current Science Journalist/ Bylines at The Verge, SciAm, PopSci, NatGeo, Gizmodo, etc.../ All views my own
more than a year ago, the lancet put this out, now seemingly lost to the collective memory: www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential
By June 19, 2024, 37 396 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip since the attack by Hamas and the Israeli invasion in October, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as reported by the UN Offi...
thelancet.com
In 2023, @laurenleffer.bsky.social gave us one of those perfect man vs. nature New York City stories, trying to find answers regarding why a raccoon took up residence on her fire escape and, furthermore, why the raccoon would not stop masturbating. hellgatenyc.com/my-horny-rac...
My Horny Raccoon Roommate and Me - Hell Gate
Why did a raccoon take up residence on my fire escape, and then begin masturbating? I went to the experts for some answers.
hellgatenyc.com
A horrifying statement published today by the Editorial Committee of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency. "Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die" Translation from French to English by @cnorristrent.bsky.social:
On Feb. 15, José Manuel Ramos Bastidas called his wife from inside a Texas immigration detention facility. He asked her to record a message, “just in case something happens to me.” Thread 👇
In an essay for VF, Rümeysa Öztürk details what she witnessed in the six and a half weeks she spent being held in a South Louisiana ICE detention center: “Even God cannot hear us here,” said one woman.
“Even God Cannot Hear Us Here”: What I Witnessed Inside an ICE Women’s Prison
Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk opens up about her 45 days in a South Louisiana processing facility—and the generous and compassionate women she met.
vanityfair.com
The UFW can confirm farm workers were critically injured yesterday during chaotic raids in Ventura County, CA. Other workers, including US citizens, remain unaccounted for. UFW staff is on the ground supporting impacted families. Our full statement below. ⬇️ 1/
it's my favorite day of the year, when the entire U.S. "news" industry turns itself into a glorified blogspam affiliate for a single billionaire-owned retailer and nobody in any position of editorial authority thinks that's weird, tasteless, or unethical
With this vote, Congress makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history, with more money per year at its disposal over the next four years than the budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined.
Sahil Kapur@sahilkapur.bsky.social · last yr.🚨🚨 NEW: House passes sprawling domestic policy bill, sending it to Trump's desk Final House vote is 218-214, with TWO Rs voting no (Massie & Fitzpatrick). Senate passed it 51-50. www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...
Huge sleeper issue is how states will (or won’t) be able to absorb huge SNAP cuts in BBB. www.inquirer.com/politics/pen...
Gov. Josh Shapiro said he’s not sure SNAP will be able to exist in Pa. under President Trump’s megabill
Pennsylvania won't be able afford the cost of federal food assistance if Trump's tax and spending plan becomes reality, Shapiro said.
inquirer.com
RFK Jr. is poised to use 'AI' to weaponize the CDC's critical vaccine incident reporting system, in yet another of his assaults on public health.
The Verge@theverge.com · last yr.RFK Jr.’s plan to put ‘AI’ in everything is a disaster
Trump calls for deporting US citizens: "We also have a lot of bad people that have been here for a long time ... many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too, if you want to know the truth. So maybe that'll be the next job."
New #ACIP co-chair signals the new committee will reopen issues core to anti-vax concerns, including the notion that kids are getting too many vaccines. www.statnews.com/2025/06/25/c...
CDC vaccine advisory committee to review long-approved immunizations
A leader of the CDC's reconstituted vaccine advisory committee said the panel would start a review of long-approved shots.
statnews.com
Antivaxxers have long branded their movement as about "choice" but soon, most may not have the choice to get lifesaving immunizations for their children or themselves.
The Verge@theverge.com · last yr.Last November, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that, as secretary of health and human services, he would not “take away anybody’s vaccines.” If you believed him, you were duped. Read more from @laurenleffer.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/health/68850...
Alleging Israel has committed ‘war crimes’ suggests a recognizable event: that there is a war happening and there are some crimes in it. Gaza is different.
Israel’s Crimes of the Century
Alleging Israel has committed ‘war crimes’ suggests a recognizable event: that there is a war happening and there are some crimes in it. Gaza is different.
nymag.com
This is the kind of sweeping, truth-telling journalism we need more of. Good job, AP.
Deep cuts erode the foundations of US public health system, end progress, threaten worse to come
Americans are losing an array of people and programs dedicated to keeping them healthy.
apnews.com
New: Not only would Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” ban gender-affirming care via Medicaid, it would ban insurance under the Obamacare exchanges from covering it as an essential health benefit www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...
Trump’s ‘One, big, beautiful bill’ would transgender care on Medicaid and Obamacare
‘It's one more example of health care that they're trying to rip away,’ Rep. Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of Congress, tells The Independent
independent.co.uk
“This is the Theranos of the energy industry.” heimildin.is/grein/24581/...
Climeworks’ capture fails to cover its own emissions
The carbon capture company Climeworks only captures a fraction of the CO2 it promises its machines can capture. The company is failing to carbon offset the emissions resulting from its operations – wh...
heimildin.is
Ashamed to hold a degree from an institution that responds this way to condemnation of genocide. Withholding an academic diploma for telling a basic truth is craven and absurd.
Prem Thakker ツ@premthakker.bsky.social · last yr.Here is the grad speech that NYU is now withholding the student's diploma for: "As I search my heart today in addressing you all…the only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine."
In only two years, ChatGPT and the surge of AI-generated cheating from college students it has created have unraveled the entire academic project.
Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
In only two years, ChatGPT and the surge of AI-generated cheating from college students it has created have unraveled the entire academic project.
nymag.com
Yikes.
Arthur Holland Michel@writearthur.bsky.social · last yr.After watching the AI video of the deceased victim, the judge told the family, "I loved that AI, thank you for that. As angry as you are, as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness...I feel that that was genuine.” I am speechless. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
I look at close to 100 stories a week and even more outside of work. I’ve done this ten years. This is among the most horrific things I’ve ever read — testimony from dying children whose access to medicine has been cut off by the Trump administration. www.npr.org/sections/goa...
Haunted by hopelessness: 12 Zambians share their stories as HIV drugs run out
Mothers and children, husbands and wives, doctors, truck drivers and religious leaders are all grappling with the fallout from the sudden U.S. cuts in aid.
npr.org
Leavitt confirmed that the WH is working on deporting US citizens to El Salvador
Amazing when federal agencies suddenly have no communications staff. Love it when there is no way for the public to learn about the work of their government.
"It can be hard to describe or visualize exactly what kind of country you want to live in, but it is not so hard to recognize the one you don't." defector.com/it-is-what-i...
It Is What It Looks Like | Defector
On Tuesday night, a Tufts University graduate student named Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by agents from the Department Of Homeland Security while walking down the sidewalk outside an off-campus apartme...
defector.com
We polled Nature readers to ask if they were thinking of leaving the US for jobs abroad. Three-quarters of them (who said they were US-based scientists) said yes. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
75% of US scientists who answered Nature poll consider leaving
More than 1,600 readers answered our poll; many said they were looking for jobs in Europe and Canada.
nature.com
