Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Welcome to the January issue of The Highlight

America’s political binary — left and right, Democrat and Republican — can feel inescapable. But historically, it’s a relatively new development, and academically, some political scientists argue it’s nonsense: What we think of as immutable political realities are instead artificial alliances of political convenience. In this month’s Highlight cover story, senior correspondent Eric Levitz breaks […]

The Minnesotans trying to stop ICE

When Renee Good was shot by an ICE officer last week in Minnesota, it brought attention to the robust effort to combat US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Twin Cities. Residents of Minneapolis and the surrounding areas are joining decentralized networks of activists who are committed to alerting their neighbors to ICE presence on […]

The Trump administration can’t stop winking at white nationalists

Progressives have long argued that Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is a fundamentally fascistic enterprise. In their telling, the president’s goal is not merely to enforce America’s borders but to purify its blood — and unleash state violence against anyone who resists his campaign of ethnic cleansing. Of course, there’s nothing new about the left deriding […]

Trump’s EPA is setting the value of human health to $0

The Environmental Protection Agency is taking a major step toward changing its math to favor polluters over people: It’s going to stop tallying up the dollar value of lives saved and hospital visits avoided by air pollution regulations.  Instead, the agency will consider the effects of regulations without attaching a price tag to human life.  […]

AI is uncannily good at diagnosis. Its makers just won’t say so.

How often have you asked ChatGPT for health advice? Maybe about a mysterious rash or that tightening in your right calf after a long run. I have, on both counts. ChatGPT even correctly diagnosed that mysterious rash I developed when I first experienced Boston’s winter as cold urticaria, a week before my doctor confirmed it. […]