I wrote about the 'Compact 2.0' that the government offered yesterday: www.chronicle.com/article/for-.... I got: • A Dept. of Ed official to talk about goals ("radical reform") • AAU's president to respond to reports that AAU collaborated with the Trump administration on this Hope you'll read!

For Higher Ed, Trump’s Compact 2.0 Is Either an Olive Branch or a Gloved Fist

The White House has promised there will be no direct penalties — or rewards — for making the statements asked for, but some are skeptical.

chronicle.com

"What we did not anticipate was that the organization would apparently interpret 'policing their literature' as involving actual police to prevent people from reading opinion pieces." "We once praised the American Diabetes Association’s courage. How things have changed." In @statnews.com

We once praised the American Diabetes Association’s courage. How things have changed

“The ADA is no longer what we’d call a profile in courage,” write Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky of Retraction Watch.

statnews.com

New paper (led by Xiangji Ying) showing LLMs can achieve high accuracy in detecting changes in outcomes across registrations versions. Thrilled to have been a small part of this great work. Check it out below!

Colby Vorland@colbyvorland.bsky.social · 7d ago

We show that LLMs are good at detecting outcome definition changes between registration versions: An automated approach to improve clinical trial registration and to identify outcome changes on ClinicalTrials.gov rdcu.be/fwHWo @ndevito1.bsky.social @mjpages.bsky.social @jamiecummins.bsky.social

Scoop: DeSantisworld went all-out to install UF’s new president—including privately threatening to Chris Rufo and tapping Nick Saban to rein in White House critics. Here’s how the GOP governor clashed with the conservative reform movement he helped build: www.chronicle.com/article/flor...

Florida’s Great Conservative Crack-Up

In the behind-the-scenes effort to install Stuart Bell as the flagship’s new president, Gov. Ron DeSantis played a starring role — to the chagrin of his onetime allies.

chronicle.com

A couple paid more than $800,000 for a gene-editing therapy for their daughter. She died, and it wasn’t made public. An exclusive from us and @science.org.

Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public

Parents want accountability after study went disastrously wrong, Science and Retraction Watch investigation reveals

science.org

Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California admitted that they used keywords related to diversity to screen for projects. It’s an admission that lawyers for the researchers say is proof the agencies illegally cancelled nearly $2b in grants.

DEI keyword search led to billions in cancelled California university grants

The Trump administration cancelled $2 billion of research grants to UC professors. Their legal team says it has proof that was unconstitutional.

calmatters.org

EXCLUSIVE: Internal CDC emails + meeting notes reveal how Dr. Jay Bhattacharya ordered 1AM Friday detention of over a dozen U.S. citizens returning from DRC + considered low Ebola risk, sparking chaos and concern at CDC. My latest for Rolling Stone: www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Trump's CDC Is Detaining Americans in Response to Ebola: A 'Wild Misuse' of Power

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is needlessly detaining Americans as part of a chaotic Ebola response led by Jay Bhattacharya.

rollingstone.com

One of my favorite stories I wrote as a science reporter at BuzzFeed News was about CrossFit's crusade against scientific misconduct. It is now in a BOOK, out today! Thank you @theopennotebook.bsky.social for including me among so many outstanding journalists! www.theopennotebook.com/the-best-sci...

The Best Science Stories and How They Work: A Collection with Commentary - The Open Notebook

An invitation to engage with some of today’s most respected science journalists as they take readers beneath the surface to tell the stories behind eleven of the best science stories.

theopennotebook.com

“Do you have a conscious mind?” a mother once asked her Amazon Echo. “I think, therefore I—probably am something,” it replied. newyorkermag.visitlink.me/SldlHS

When A.I. Is a Member of the Family

A single mom, her two daughters, and the chatbots that fill in the gaps.

newyorkermag.visitlink.me

New from me: The University of Houston is proposing cutting 100 courses from its core curriculum to comply with SB 37, but faculty critics say the university's interpreting the law "in ways that go well beyond" what its text says. #HigherEd #AcademicSky

U. of Houston is Planning Big Cuts to Its Core Curriculum. Faculty Aren’t Happy.

The university is moving to cut 40 percent of classes from its core curriculum in response to a state law. Professors say administrators’ interpretation of the law is too broad, and that they should h...

chronicle.com

I wrote about Texas A&M's fall course-review process @chronicle.com. Some top-line results: Rhetoric and Film? OK, as long as discussion of critical race theory is removed. Contemporary Sociological Theory? Don't advocate while teaching. LGBTQ Literatures? Not allowed. #HigherEd

What Texas A&M Will — and Won’t — Let You Teach

Newly obtained records reveal that two courses for the fall were canceled outright, while administrators demanded changes to others. Instructors say the deliberative process is a black box.

chronicle.com

The Trump administration has proposed giving itself broad discretion to terminate grants if political appointees find that the work does not align with the administration’s priorities. "Every scientist can understand the threat that this poses." www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

The Government Tried to Cancel Colleges’ Grants. Now It’s Rewriting the Rules for Awarding Them.

As the Trump administration looks to further reshape American research, higher ed has entered a new battle.

chronicle.com

"CrossFit's 'Holy War': The Rise and Fall of Its Science Crusader" by @stephaniemlee.bsky.social, first in @buzzfeed.com News, is featured in our new book alongside annotations by @elaberwarren.bsky.social. Pre-order: www.theopennotebook.com/the-best-sci...

New Q&A: Is anthropology hopelessly politicized, more than any other humanistic field? That's the charge that's been flying around this summer, so I wanted to hear from Carolyn Rouse, the president of the American Anthropological Association. She had a lot to say. www.chronicle.com/article/is-a...

Is Anthropology Hopelessly Politicized?

We asked Carolyn M. Rouse, head of the American Anthropological Association. She had a lot to say.

chronicle.com

howard bunsis has accused dozens of universities of falsely claiming financial precarity to justify cutting budgets. administrators accuse him of just telling professors what they want to hear. @mzahneis.bsky.social and i dug into the disagreement www.theassemblync.com/news/educati...

The Faculty’s Numbers Man

The accounting professor has conducted analyses of more than 100 colleges’ finances. He often concludes that campuses are on more stable ground than administrators claim.

theassemblync.com

“We expect doctors to disclose, we expect politicians to disclose, and of course scientists and researchers too. Why not philosophers?” www.science.org/content/arti...

Philosophers call for their journals to require conflict of interest disclosures

A new petition urges greater transparency amid growing ties to AI and other companies

science.org

NEW: Should scholars be activists? My latest @chronicle.com story is on the debate fracturing the American Sociological Association, as told through one professor's effort to chart a path forward. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...

The War for Sociology

A contest to lead the American Sociological Association distilled the field’s many conflicts. One was foremost: Should scholars be activists?

chronicle.com

My colleague @ngluckman.bsky.social and I wrote a profile of Jennifer Mnookin, the incoming president of Columbia University. Fairly or not, Columbia has become a chaotic poster child for everything wrong with higher ed. Can Mnookin repair the community, and how? www.chronicle.com/article/can-...

Can Jennifer Mnookin Heal Columbia?

One of higher ed’s most skilled negotiators arrives at one of its most fractured campuses.

chronicle.com

NEW: This is the story of how one of the most influential climate papers in history came to exist thanks to one of the companies most responsible for causing the climate crisis — and one with a financial stake in the technologies described in the paper. w/ @drilledmedia.bsky.social

Beyond Denial: How Oil Execs Shaped a Landmark Climate Study

BP sponsored an elite Princeton research center to address the climate problem without getting off fossil fuels. Its key work, a paper known as “Wedges,” guided climate discourse for a generation.

propublica.org

The university began a review after Santiago Slabodsky, director of Hofstra's Jewish-studies program, filed a complaint arguing that a political-science professor violated Title VII by allegedly describing his explanations of academic proposals as “word salad.” www.chronicle.com/article/a-fa...

A Faculty Dispute Over ‘Word Salad’ Gets Messy

At Hofstra University, a routine meeting about course approvals morphed into discrimination allegations. Now a free-speech group has gotten involved.

chronicle.com

Inside the Report That’s Divided the Academy: K. Anthony Appiah, Paul Boghossian, Katherine Fleming, and Sean Wilentz on what’s gone wrong in the humanities. www.chronicle.com/article/insi...

Is a New Report About the Humanities ‘Diabolically Evil’? We Questioned Its Authors.

K. Anthony Appiah, Paul Boghossian, Katherine Fleming, and Sean Wilentz on what’s gone wrong in the humanities.

chronicle.com

Has the left ruined the humanities? In a provocative report commissioned by two university chancellors, a group of scholars study that question and find “a deterioration in scholarly standards” in some fields. First on @chronicle.com from me & @andyandy.bsky.social www.chronicle.com/article/has-...

Has the Left Ruined the Humanities?

A group of well-known scholars convened by two prominent campus leaders studied the question and found “a deterioration in scholarly standards” across several disciplines.

chronicle.com

Tough times at The New School, which just handed layoff notices to about 15% of its employees to address a $48 million deficit — on top of a 7% workforce reduction via buyouts. It's also restructuring four colleges into two in a major reorg. #HigherEd #AcademicSky www.chronicle.com/article/its-...

‘It’s Just Been Agony’: Facing a Big Deficit, the New School Begins Layoffs

One of New York’s most prominent universities has handed layoff notices to about 15 percent of its employees, marking its latest measure to rectify a $48-million budget deficit.

chronicle.com

American Heart Association decries OMB proposal of federal financial grant oversight regs “The Heart Association opposes efforts that undermine science or weaken independent, expert review" newsroom.heart.org/news/strong-... see www.scientificamerican.com/article/whit...

Strong, independent science is critical to advancing public health and saving lives

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 2, 2026 — The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed a rule on federal financial assistance, which would dramatically change how federally funded research and other ...

newsroom.heart.org

New Businessweek feature: A landmark case was unearthing new revelations about Amazon's intimate, intensive regulation of drivers it claims aren't its employees. Then Trump put Amazon's former lawyer in charge www.bloomberg.com/news/feature... Based on 1000s of pages of records and 50+ interviews

What Trump Delivered for Amazon

The feds were pushing a landmark case about Amazon’s control of its contract drivers. Then the president put Amazon’s former lawyer in charge.

bloomberg.com

“We fell off the cliff,” said Mina Aganagic, a professor of math and physics at Berkeley. In order to avoid losing a large portion of her Calculus 1 classes, she says, “I had to teach basic algebra and fractions, which we never had to do before.” www.chronicle.com/article/test...

Test-Blind Policy Resulted in Severely Underprepared STEM Students, UC Faculty Say

Now the faculty members want more oversight of the admissions process.

chronicle.com

The stories behind the numbers: highly reviewed grants are being left unfunded, reducing America's medical research portfolio in the near-term and risking the loss of creative and capable researchers at all stages of careers. Fiscal cliffs are coming if not already here. 👇

Stephanie M. Lee@stephaniemlee.bsky.social · 3mo ago

NEW: They Got the Best NIH Scores of Their Careers. A Year Later, They Still Don’t Have Funding. As the NIH bankrolls new research at a significantly slower-than-usual pace, I talked to scientists left in the lurch about the toll on their research and careers: www.chronicle.com/article/they...

NEW: They Got the Best NIH Scores of Their Careers. A Year Later, They Still Don’t Have Funding. As the NIH bankrolls new research at a significantly slower-than-usual pace, I talked to scientists left in the lurch about the toll on their research and careers: www.chronicle.com/article/they...

They Got the Best NIH Scores of Their Careers. A Year Later, They Still Don’t Have Funding.

The NIH’s spending on new medical research is significantly slower than in previous years, leaving confused scientists in the lurch.

chronicle.com

NEW: They Got the Best NIH Scores of Their Careers. A Year Later, They Still Don’t Have Funding. As the NIH bankrolls new research at a significantly slower-than-usual pace, I talked to scientists left in the lurch about the toll on their research and careers: www.chronicle.com/article/they...

They Got the Best NIH Scores of Their Careers. A Year Later, They Still Don’t Have Funding.

The NIH’s spending on new medical research is significantly slower than in previous years, leaving confused scientists in the lurch.

chronicle.com

@jackstripling.bsky.social interviews Dan Ariely about his years-long correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein www.chronicle.com/podcast/coll...

Dan Ariely Emailed With Epstein for Years. He Has (Mostly) No Regrets.

The noted behavioral economist and Duke U. professor is facing a backlash over his years of interactions with the notorious sex offender.

chronicle.com