Melissa Lewis

TIL: The 2000s piracy PSA used a font designed by the fantastic Just van Rossum, whose brother Guido created the Python programming language.

In case you’re curious, as this critter is one of a few with a street name of “purple sea urchin” (though the only one you’ll find along the Calif. coast, I think). Collecting it like this is even encoded in state law: nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler....

So I've been reading the Motif-Index of Folk Literature, Vol. 1 via Internet Archive, and: 1. I'm surprised that "Man created after series of unsuccessful experiments" has only one sub-entry. 2. I love that it's "Creator makes man out of butter first; it would not stand up and melted."

Calley Means, top MAHA advisor to RFK Jr, just quit the administration over frustration that the movement has been ignored and co-opted. Which is the subject of the current cover package I edited, along w/ @thefern.org www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Oh well if the *Hoover Institution* thinks it's wrong to tax billionaires, well, I guess we should check in with the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers and the California Chamber of Commerce for independent confir www.sfchronicle.com/california/a...

If you're a reporter, you should know that Miéville's The Rouse is a dangerous book to read; I just considered spending $65 on a request for the (closed!) military service record of a Malayan Scout who died 75 years ago.

I haven’t worked in a grocery store in more than a decade and seeing “4011” this morning activated a vivid image of bananas in my mind like I’m the world’s most boring sleeper agent

girl dinner

The treatment for a fatal cat disease wasn’t legally available. So cat lovers created an international black market. The cat drug black market, and why we needed it in the first place, on the next Reveal.

Last month, a jury found Duane “Keffe D” Davis guilty in the 1996 fatal shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur. Author Jeff Pearlman calls Tupac’s killing “the dumbest death ever.” Hear why on this week’s “More To The Story.” Listen here: tinyurl.com/3u9svyuz

i’m dying. i’m dead

Is there a “Black Mirror with Tim Robinson” bingo card nobody told me about?

Zach Lahn is running for Iowa governor on MAHA-backed promises to bust up Big Ag and hold pesticide companies accountable. But some farmers wonder if he’s for real. Our collab w/ @thefern.org www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Bellingcat's @godin.bsky.social spoke with NPR about Google's now paused new feature that allowed users to create AI-generated satellite images.

Nothing says summer blockbuster like Lars von Trier at the helm of “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota”

It is rare for the public to see such a large list of ICE’s technology capabilities in a single document. 404 Media has published the whole document, called “ICE Wide Analytical Tools," here: www.404media.co/leaked-docum... @josephcox.bsky.social reports:

Man, I wish I saw this more often on news websites, but of course I simply wish more news organizations had a data desk. That said, sadly, the most recent version of the HTML cookbook it mentions was archived June 2019. 😢 web.archive.org/web/20190606...

Federal lawyers say anti-mask laws would endanger immigration agents, citing an ICE face-recognition art project that doesn’t actually work. www.wired.com/story/states...

Least expected outcome of finally starting Something Wicked This Way Comes: Learning Paul Giamatti has a beautiful singing voice?? I got the audiobook so I can continue it even during chores and, ~12 chapters in, it seems it was a very good call.

NEW: SFPD exposed its live police drone feeds to the open internet. Color + thermal, 5,000 GPS points over 44 miles + pilots’ names and emails. No authentication. Found by a routine scrape of the manufacturer’s domain.

Ruth Talbot works on the news apps team at ProPublica: “I work with absolutely incredible, driven, dedicated, talented people here, who I trust to get their work done wherever works best for them.” Support our fight for an RTO policy that preserves flexibility: www.propublicaguild.org

Older lady peeped the rainbow flag on my bike, asked in a thick Russian accent “It’s your Pride?” She told me her youngest grandchild is “not she berry or he berry but no berry.” I said “Nonbinary?” She got so excited. Yes! Yes! And “Is a secret, but they are my“ *looks around, whispers* “favorite.”

The mail still gets delivered

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association received >$7 million 2017–2022 (when Dobbs was decided) from funders we tracked. From the amicus brief it filed in that case: "Like a seven-year-old, the unborn person has *life*, and that is what is expressly protected by [the Constitution]."

“.. Claims about Hormuz reopening are exactly why we built this: If ships start moving through the Strait with AIS transponders on, you’ll see it in the index — updated every 30 minutes ..” @bloomberg.com

I've reported on Musk for around 8 years. I've co-authored a book on him. I don't think folks understand the rate of his wealth accumulation. Shortly after he helped elect Donald Trump in Nov 2024, his net worth was around $350 billion. That net worth has nearly tripled in less than two years.

"We are deeply concerned by the alleged use of the herbicide and lack of information,” two lawmakers wrote to the Forest Service, demanding answers about Roundup use on public lands after our investigation revealed widespread spraying. www.motherjones.com/environment/...

Prefatory to this harrowing litany by @cjcmichel.bsky.social: "Despite Kushner’s insistence during the 2024 campaign that he would have little involvement in a second Trump term, he is once more at the center of almost every major geopolitical event."

Local newsrooms are drying up across the country, making it harder for people to stay informed and exacerbating a crisis of trust in the news media. How American journalism got here and what can be done about it, on this week’s Reveal.

Fun feature of workplace harassment training: The state-level note stating "Please see the January 2025 Executive Order that may contradict legal protections in some states, in which case the protection exists at the state level but not at the federal level."

I’m a climate scientist. Let me fix this headline. “Nearly a century ago, scientists showed that burning fossil fuels warms the planet. Today, we know human emissions account for over 100% of the warming. Yet dark money and disinformation still work to keep Americans addicted to fossil fuels.”

Being an American during the 250th Aniversary of the United States feels a lot like if the terrorists in Die Hard demanded that the hostages continue having their Christmas party.

NEW: Trump's gross Aliens.gov site claims to map where immigrants have been taken into custody, but it includes more 83 spots where Americans alone were arrested. Over 700 locations include citizen arrests. The counter is fake. The music was ripped. And Puerto Rico is listed as a foreign country.

Many autistic adults have spoken about how traumatic they've found ABA therapy to be. What sucks is it often the only type of early intervention that's covered by insurance for autistic kids.

Just an annotation relevant to the headline on this piece: all of my devices have had (variously) DuckDuckGo or Kagi as their default search for literally *years*. And I’m not an amateur internet user. A better internet is possible.

The relative index is important not just because the original index exaggerates current El Niños, but it also minimized La Niña.