Lauren Royal

Dear Romance Readers: I don’t list Bluesky on my website or anywhere else, and that’s because I’m unmasked here—and by that I don’t mean I’ve stopped wearing N95 masks in public. 😷 What I mean... (1/3)

For Serbians, ousting the Russian-backed Vucic regime after its decade of looting the country is serious business, so serious that some come directly from their own wedding to cast ballots.

Regular reminder that when you go to things while sick, you are giving those germs to people with autoimmune disorders, you’re passing them to someone’s newborn, to someone’s elderly parents. It’s “just a cold” to you but it can and does severely impact countless people.

Interesting. I've been taking LDN for 20+ years (for Crohn's), and I didn't stop when I developed LC, but I've been wondering whether or not it's helping that, too...so hard to know!

Everyone keeps asking me how I’m feeling about early voting so far. I’m feeling like nobody *actually* knows anything, and this is the most important midterm of our lives. I’d rather be us than them, but we can’t get comfortable. We can’t get complacent. Go vote like we’re down 3%.

Just like calling yourself a patriot doesn't make you one.

Folks saying LLM ("AI") training is fair use just because some court said so (in the infamously corrupt US court system, at that) need to realize the courts aren't the moral arbiters of the matter. Artists are, and we've made our feelings ABUNDANTLY clear.

Insane. Actually insane. Let’s make his money this year a waste, shall we?

I’m tired of science taking actual time. WHERE IS THE 80s TRAINING MONTAGE OF EVERYONE DISCOVERING CURES AND GETTING BETTER? KENNY LOGGINS, PLEASE 🙏

THIS 👇 RIGHT HERE.......

At least 70,000 people are currently being held in black box ICE detention centers, Air Force Major Jason Watson has been held in solitary confinement for months, but the media is hyper-focused on riots in France.

The average family that heats their home with oil is going to pay $1500 more this winter because of Donald Trump’s insane Iran War. Some people will go cold. Some may die. This isn’t hyperbole. This is the consequence of having a president who just doesn’t care about you.

JUST POSTED: Today at The NYT we are publishing a major investigation into how President Trump used his executive powers to expose millions of Americans to greater cancer risks. A six month-long investigation built on more than 10,000 pages of FOIA records. Read it www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/c...

To bring a smile to your face, here’s a c. 4,500 year-old clay vase in the shape of a little hedgehog holding a bowl! 🦔 ❤️ From Chalandriani, Syros, Greece. Early Cycladic II period. National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 📷 ArchaiOptix #Archaeology

Doge didn’t save money or make government more efficient It invaded your privacy and gave the data to Musk

📣 Oct 22's #ThreatModelCovid: No-needle mRNA vaxes, US measles ⬆️ 8% in 1wk, POTS in kids ⬆️ 84% from 2019, & more 🦠 Please share & support 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝙈𝙤𝙙𝙚𝙡 newsletters (𝘛𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 #infosec / 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 #covid) & their author, investigative journalist @violetblue.bsky.social www.patreon.com/violetblue/p...

Overall, we are seeing some very odd deal talks that are supposedly a part of ending the war in Ukraine. But in fact evidence shows these deals are structured (in the most recent case secretly until now) to financially benefit Russia or business partners of the Trump and Witkoff families.

Enjoy these sky-high oil prices, America... ...because they may soon *double*. Trump and his crazy Republicans are promising to restart the Iran War the second you leave the voting booth. Only Democrats can stop them. Maybe that’s something to consider while *inside* the booth?

Olivia: Next in my "it's okay to..." series. "Your feelings of grief, loss, anger, frustration and sadness are all valid. It's okay if you're struggling right now, these are difficult times we're living in 🩵" H/T: @o-bel.bsky.social

🛰️🇺🇦🇺🇸 Serhiy "Flash": We are not currently seeing any Starlink restrictions lifted. There are occasional instances where Starlink may be moving slightly faster than the restrictions, but this is likely a result of SpaceX algorithm or specific usage conditions, rather than a restriction being lifted.

Which would you prefer for your daughters and granddaughters? 1) Possibly playing school sports with a trans girl? or 2) Having their genitals inspected by creepy old men? That's an easy choice to me. And I'll bet they won't end up demanding genital inspections of the boys.

Again: Why does Musk have operational control over any *military grade* version of anything. That’s not how DOD contracts work.

Solid metaphor for the entire administration, honestly

HealthBio researchers studied 10 people with post-treatment Lyme disease and detected bacterial proteins in immune cells years after treatment, without evidence of active infection. The findings suggest leftover antigens may fuel chronic inflammation. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

All Republicans must be voted out of office now. We cannot abide a moment more a fascist, pro-pedophilia, pro-Kremlin political party that appears to be *explicitly* focused on collapsing the American economy, betraying all our friends, and stealing hundreds of billions from us.

Q: There's a report that FEMA is telling states to prepare to handle disasters on their own. Any reaction? OSSOFF: So the Trump administration is telling folks across the country to prepare to fend for themselves while taxpayer dollars are sent to back Don Jr & Eric's mining interest in Kazakhstan?

Chilled and waiting!

My husband was at NIH until last year and what he hears from former colleagues and what we hear from friends absolutely echoes this. Science is being destroyed

If you have a college student planning to vote by mail, now is a good time to nag them about the deadlines for getting their ballot postmarked to be counted.

October 20, 2026

I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on, nobody should support this kind of deception. They created a fake pamphlet to spark trans outrage and sent it to every home in Texas. Then their paid shills continued the outrage on social media. Politics is broken.

If only people lined up to get vaccinated were all wearing masks and in a well ventilated facility. And how many people were already infected but asymptomatic when getting vaccinated? And also wore N95 respirators for at least 2 weeks post vaccinations, so that the vaccines could start working.

University of Toronto researchers found that GLP-1 and GLP-2 drugs reduced T-cell-driven intestinal injury in mice. Together, semaglutide and teduglutide reduced inflammation and protected the gut lining, highlighting a potential treatment strategy. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

THEY ARE NOT POWERLESS TO STOP HIM! Go back to Washington, stand on the steps of the Capitol and demand Johnson and Thune recall the House and Senate, and impeach him. THIS IS HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK! THERE IS LITERALLY AN INSTRUCTION MANUAL! (It's called the Constitution.)

Despite what Heather Cox Richardson starts out saying, this IS a real letter—and an important one!

When your father runs with the Klan and you learn everything about evil and how to accomplish it from your father, this is what that looks like a few decades on Yes, this is antisemitism Yes, he knows that and won't stop using this slur No, what he says about the law is not true He's a monster

Talk about buying the lede. Reinfections are a “fact of life” and infections are “milder,” but “Covid can cause long-term damage to nearly every part of the body and repeated cases can compound those harms.” I hope the relatively few people who bother reading the article will read all of it.

This 👇

You don’t have the luxury to vote ‘independent’ They are going to try to steal this election to continue the fleecing of America. The vote needs to be so overwhelmingly blue that they can’t steal enough ballots to change what the majority wants. A Congress that holds this motherf*cker accountable.

In early 2025, I assumed the Trump regime would delete the Department of Justice’s press releases and other statements related to more than 1,000 Jan. 6 cases. So I downloaded them. We’ve now made them available to the public with a search tool. They can’t erase history. jan6memoryproject.org

One last thing about X tonight: noting X has 10x the number of regular users than Bluesky means jack shit when a) a shitload are bots, b) the algorithm boosts right-wing content over everything else so actual engagement there sucks, c) 10 million active accounts is more than enough to hang out with.

This makes me feel not only furious, but ill. Unbelievable.

At #NoKings in Idaho: Singer/songwriter Carole King with someone who is, clearly, a fan.

LOOK AT TEXAS! 🔥🔥🔥

If you’re advising POTUS to declare martial law, or use other executive powers in an attempt to interfere with a lawful election that you’re expecting to lose, you’re a piece of shit human and an even worse American. Thank you for your attention to this matter.