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Alys Brooks

@alysbrooks.bsky.social
372 followers 393 following 891 posts

Freelance writer, reporter, and developer based in Wisconsin. she/her/hers. @transjournalists.org member. @MarquetteU alumna. Words @rewirenewsgroup.com, @AssignedMedia.org, Door County Knock, CapTimes

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Reposted by Alys Brooks
Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 3h
The Tennessean: Christa Pike still alive after administered drugs, attorneys say www.tennessean.com/story/news/c...
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BREAKING NEWS: Christa Pike still alive after administered lethal injection drugs, attorneys say
• 8:48 pm CT
Christa Pike still alive after administered drugs, attorneys say
Evan Mealins
A lawyer for Christa Pike said executioners have administered two syringes of lethal injection drugs to Pike but that she remains alive and breathing.
Kelly Gleason, an attorney for Pike, said she heard this from another of Pike's attorneys, Randy Spivey. Gleason said Spivey was in the death chamber with Pike but stepped out to call Gleason.
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Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 11h
There is a lot of "oh dear" to go around in the results of this very thorough Pew study on the issues with synthetic samples, but this strikes me as particularly "oh dear" www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/20...
AI polling results can lean on racial or partisan stereotypes

In many cases, our AI poll took beliefs or attitudes that are reasonably common among a particular subgroup and portrayed them as nearly ubiquitous. For example, our AI poll would indicate that:

    97% of Hispanic adults are at least somewhat likely to follow the World Cup (while the actual share is 43%).
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Rachel @rachelneedsanap.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Hearing a non-Jewish public figure cite Talmud respectfully is SO REFRESHING.
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Assigned Media @assignedmedia.org · 29/09/2026
Democrats seem headed for big wins, but one avenue for self-sabotage would be adopting R's framing on trans rights. @billiejsweeney.bsky.social spoke with insiders incl Lanae Erikson of Third Way and Rep. Sarah McBride for this substanial piece of new reporting. assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
assignedmedia.org
Democrats Lose by Punching Down on Trans Issues, Strategists Say - Assigned Media
Insiders, including at centrist think tank Third Way, are cautioning Democratic candidates against echoing Republican talking points on trans rights.
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I Travel Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026
“Three people dying in one day is an amplification of what we’ve already seen,” said Andrew Free, a former immigration attorney and investigative journalist who has for years extensively worked on ICE-related death cases.” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Three deaths, three states, 24 hours: one day in ICE’s quiet but ‘gruesome’ surge
These men in Maine, Georgia and Florida shared no ties – until they became casualties in Trump’s anti-immigration campaign
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I think it‘s safe to assume most people don‘t understand as much about stigmatized and undervalued jobs as they think, but the responses to @tressiemcphd.bsky.social‘s commentary on AI make me wonder if people understand as much about any job as they think, their own included.
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Luke Plunkett @lukeplunkett.com · 28/09/2026
Hi, I'm looking to speak to people who have left games journalism in the last few years and have gone onto do something else. DMs are open, or luke@aftermath.site, thanks!
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Katherine Alejandra Cross @quinnae.com · 27/09/2026
You don't have an inalienable right to be an antisocial dipshit because you're doomscrolling all day and it makes you feel terrible. There are no qualifiers to this. You are not released from the obligation to try to be decent just because Elon Musk is lighting the world on fire.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Campus rape is really widespread; statistics suggest a significant percent of women who go to college will be raped there; feminism opened up a good conversation about it around 2012-13; it's weird when people treated Cornell like an isolated rather than dramatic example of a pervasive problem.
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Hugo Lowell @hugolowell.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
TRUMP will meet Anthropic’s Dario Amodei for one on one dinner tonight, per person familiar and confirming Axios
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Sometimes extremist ideas diffuse through the right wing, other times their advocates are invited in by Trump and his officials, but either way, extremist rhetoric and ideas repeatedly find a home in the White House.
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A small point in favor of the Globe story about The Last Ditch Bar being inspired by Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog's podcast is that the author follows both (but not the podcast) on X. I say a small point because she follows 1,367 other people and doesn't seem terribly active.
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Excellent advice for anyone discussing LLMs and other AI systems, journalist or not.
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Bowiesongs (C. O'Leary) @bowiesongs.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
William Claxton, "Coltrane at the Guggenheim," 1960
JC on the Guggenheim staircaseColtrane in profile
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026
Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵
Martin Kao, CEO of defense contractor Navatek, poses next to Sen. Susan Collins for a photo. Collins is holding a model of a boat in her hands. Behind them is a large sign with the Navatek logo.
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I really liked @evanurquhart.bsky.social's piece today. It was partly about Parker Molloy. But it was really about marginalized voices getting picked off one by one with no system to replace them. (A problem even if you assign some blame to writers themselves.) assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
assignedmedia.org
The Subtraction Game - Assigned Media
We're losing prominent trans writers much faster than we can replace them.
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
A recent poll by the Center for Strategic Politics found Democratic voters tend to oppose the party moving right on trans issues, with 42 percent against, 35 percent in favor, and 23 percent undecided.
"Democrats should move right on transgender issues: -7" Showing 42 percent against and 35 in agreement.
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The condescension in much of the criticism of "stochastic parrots" (the paper and the term) is truly off the charts. The authors are definitely worth a follow if you're interested in the technology, its societal implications, or both.
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WIRED @wired.com · 21/09/2026
You don’t need to listen to a three-hour podcast to find the manosphere; it’s right there in the conference room. 🔗 www.wired.com/story/women-...
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Nancy SF @bulldykechinashop.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
with alt text
Congresswoman Kaptur,

Let us be clear and direct regarding your recent television ad this election cycle: Shame on you and your campaign staff for pushing this incredibly harmful anti-Trans rhetoric that now unfortunately plays in countless homes and businesses across our beautifully diverse District Nine.
Every election cycle, the LGBTQIA+ community is often faced with two choices at the ballot box. The overly zealous Republican, who gladly pushes a homophobic and Transphobic narrative for votes, and the silent Democrat, who now fears to stand up for all the constituents they represent.

Too often, our community votes for the silent candidate, as we're told it would be "much worse" if the other person were in office.
However, your direct words stating, "I voted with Republicans to keep Transgender ideology out of our schools... as if this is even happening, and "boys should not play in girls' sports..." give us great clarity this November. We now know one thing to be true: There is no difference between whether Marcy Kaptur orDerek Merrin serves as our next Congressperson - you are both united against the LGBTQIA+ community.

Not only do your words create deep emotional harm and place an unnecessary spotlight on our Trans community members, putting them in more danger than they already are given the current climate, but you have also now engaged in a race to the bottom with Republicans. Your rhetoric, coupled with the onslaught of anti-Trans laws that plague our country, has resulted in a 72% increase in suicidal attempts by Trans and non-binary youth (Trevor News, 2024). Such words, like yours, come with a real impact.
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Katelyn Burns @katelynburns.com · 22/09/2026
Kaptur loses the support of a local LGBTQ group
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
AI detectors, including Pangram, are not perfect, but I think the student journalists at the Dartmouth did a good job validating their work and describing what we know about the accuracy of such tests.
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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 21/09/2026
Holy smokes they actually did it www.cnbc.com/2026/09/21/t...
cnbc.com
White House TV press pool won't cover Trump after CNN ban
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Elise Gould @elisegould.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
New data alert 🚨 - CEO pay surged in 2025, rising 14% to an average $27.9 million - CEOs are paid 325 times as much as the typical worker in their industry - Between 1978 and 2025, top CEO pay rose 1,316% compared to only a 28% increase for typical workers www.epi.org/blog/ceo-pay... #EconSky
epi.org
CEO pay surged in 2025: CEOs are paid 325 times as much as the typical worker
Key findings: CEO pay at the top 350 U.S. firms rose 14.0% in 2025 to an average of $27.9 million. CEOs made 325 times as much as the typical worker in 2025. It hasn’t always been this way. In 1965, C...
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Assigned Media @assignedmedia.org · 16/09/2026
@rikiwilchins.bsky.social 2026 Sep Thomas More Society sends letter to Wake County NC school system demanding Middle Creek Elementary Christian kids be allowed to out of a trans music teacher’s class and requirement that use their correct pronouns.
newsobserver.com
Parents threaten lawsuit unless Wake lets them opt out of trans teacher’s class
The conservative law firm representing the parents is giving Wake 15 days to respond or face legal action.
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Will Stancil has been saying a lot about AI, but suffice it to say, the idea that "reasoning" traces reflect what the model is doing internally is simply incorrect. The "reasoning" probably correlates to what it's doing and leads to better results but it's certainly not its thought process.
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Maanvi Singh @maanvisingh.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
NEW: ICE is arresting and detaining a record number of pregnant women and teens. At the same time, it has lost count of how many had miscarriages, according to a Guardian review of internal ICE documents. w/ @amyqin.bsky.social, @wcraft.bsky.social and Flávio Pessoa
theguardian.com
Revealed: ICE lost count of miscarriages, while detaining a record number of pregnant women
ICE says it has no updated information on the number of miscarriages after 3 October 2025. Lawmakers, advocates and immigration attorneys have raised alarms that pregnant detainees are not receiving b...
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Transgender World @transgenderreport.com · 15/09/2026
Governor Abigail Spanberger quietly ended a rulemaking process initiated in the waning days of former-governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration. The rule would have limited transgender students' ability to play sports and use facilities. www.wvtf.org/news/20... #transgender
wvtf.org
Spanberger quietly kills Youngkin-era transgender rulemaking effort
“There’s no legal authority to move forward with rulemaking and prior administrations may have tried to create lanes and we’re not doing that,” Gov. Abigail Spanberger said.
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Stephanie Harkin @saharkin.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Come chat with me about feminine computer creativity :) Did you make experimental hobbyist games? Did you mod the sims? Did you make Neopets fan sites? Are you Australian and over 18yo?
A participant recruitment flyer for a research project on feminine computer creativity. An image of a Sims house and a Neopets character are included on the poster.

The callout reads:
"I am looking to talk with people who used computers for hobbyist non- commercial feminine creativity relevant to games. All interpretations
of femininity are welcome. This project aims to learn more about feminine tech-competency and feminine game cultures that have
been overlooked in games histories."
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I'm looking to interview LGBTQ people who’ve participated in surveys administered by their state or federal government, especially Household Pulse or the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (either the youth or adult version).
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
With the caveat I'm not a security expert (although I do have expertise in software development), this matches what I've seen when I looked into the Anthropic hack.
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Terence Tao @teorth.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...
mathandai.org
Declaration — Math and AI
Read the declaration and add your name.
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Democrats' disavowal of gender-affirming care, trans rights, or trans people is often framed as a political necessary. However, in a piece I wrote last October, opinion polls on the topic are often read selectively and without considering their limitations: assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
assignedmedia.org
Polls on Trans Issues Ignite a Debate That Ignores Their Many Limitations - Assigned Media
The surveys, and the political stances pundits build from them, lack essential context on how firmly Americans hold their beliefs and how knowledgeable they are.
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
AI safety is a big topic on X (formerly Twitter) today. To get ahead of the discourse, my read is that the risks of large-scale harm from AI have less to do with speculative scenarios of it "getting out of control" and more to do with the enormous amount of capital that's been poured into it.
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lucaswaldron.bsky.social @lucaswaldron.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
New analysis from @propublica.org: Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It’s Worse in States With Abortion Bans. www.propublica.org/article/ecto...
A chart showing the rate of deaths after an ectopic pregnancy, comparing states that banned abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 with those that did not. At the start of the chart, in 2014, the rate is higher in states with abortion bans, but the rates in the two groups of states are not far apart. The rate increases in both groups of states, but the climb is much steeper in states that banned abortion.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 09/09/2026
Talarico says he would vote in favor of a national ban for transgender surgeries for minors
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Steve Bowen @stevebowen.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Summer 2026 (Jun-Aug) has set the new record for warmest in the Continental US dating to the late 1800s; surpassing 1936. NOAA data confirms what consensus climate change scientific literature tells us: Yes, max highs are getting hotter. But MUCH warmer min lows are driving temperature trends.
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rudetuesday @rudetuesday.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I have several addicts in my family and close friends circle. We've been talking about ChatGPT and the like, warning people against its use. It pushes all the same buttons. Don't start. Anyone can become an addict. Anyone. Article: www.404media.co/austin-gordo... ALT text:
The family of a 23-year-old claimed their son died by suicide after being encouraged toward it by ChatGPT. The wife of a 48-year-old who used ChatGPT for years suddenly became convinced — one month following 4o's launch — that the chatbot was sentient before dying by suicide four months later. In December 2025, the estate of a woman whose son killed her then himself sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that their chatbots goaded him into it. Dozens of families and victims have accused AI companies of developing products that encouraged users to harm themselves or others in recent years. An untold number of people experience what's colloquially come to be called "AI psychosis," with their friends and families grieving who they were or would have been, in the blast radius of big tech companies’ sycophantic conversational chatbots.
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Ciarán @ciaransaunders.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
The worst video I've seen this week on the cybercab, and it comes from Tesla themselves. So errm, what if they need to use mobility aids to get into the Car Elon? Who then puts the mobility aid in the boot afterwards Elon?
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 04/09/2026
When I say that critics of Black Studies readily show that they don't understand it I mean things like Ben Ryan, who is not qualified to evaluate a dissertation in any topic, writing a whole *substack* (which means no editorial guardrails) purporting to analyze the quality of one
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Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · 03/09/2026
to my knowledge, Gloria Steinem never went back on her opposition to sex workers' rights—such as when she urged Amnesty International to not support decriminalization, despite all the evidence that criminalization harms sex workers
theguardian.com
Actors call on Amnesty to reject plans backing decriminalisation of sex trade
Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson and Lena Dunham among signatories of letter arguing that policy change would ‘legalise pimping’
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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 03/09/2026
ok I had to force down a tear with this one reskeeting with alt text
Image of a page in a book with text reading as follows


THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO:

Dr. John Sharpe of London, who in 1957. a decade before physicians in England could legally perform an abortion for any reason other than the health of the woman, took the considerable risk of referring for an abortion a twenty-two-year-old American on her way to India.

Knowing only that she had broken an engagement at home to seek an unknown fate, he said, "You must promise me two things. First, you will not tell anyone my name. Second, you will do what you want to do with your life."

Dear Dr. Sharpe, I believe you, who knew the law was unjust, would not mind if I say this so long after your death:

I've done the best I could with my life.

This book is for you.
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
This is a flagrant violation of Sion Jewell's dignity and the trust they put in the BBC and the reporter.
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s. e. smith @sesmith.lol · 26/08/2026
Self publishing and hybrid publishing comrades! I'm working on a piece about market shifts around self publishing, how self pub is influencing trab pub, and so much more. I would LOVE to talk to you. sesmith at realsesmith dot com
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Lupita Nihongo @otsumamiboy.blacksky.app · 01/09/2026
The value of Graham Platner is that right up until all his red flags came toppling down upon him is that he is the most naked example of the amount of grace & credibility Simply Being White grants you. Compared to Abdul El-Sayed, who has to re-earn every ounce of credibility he has on a daily basis.
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Baffler United @bafflerunited.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Later this month, we’ll mark one year since we first sat down at the bargaining table with management. We’d like to share an update on how things are going (1/4):
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Alys Brooks @alysbrooks.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I'm looking to interview LGBTQ people who’ve participated in surveys administered by their state or federal government, especially Household Pulse or the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (either the youth or adult version).
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Matt Baume 🏳️‍🌈 @mattbaume.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Looking for stories about how Tim Curry's work affected you, to use in an upcoming video. If you have a story or memory to share, please reply below!
Tim Curry as Franknfurter looking awfully saucy
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Sahil Bajaj will BRB (for real this time) @sahilbajaj.dev · 31/08/2026
Hey y'all, My buddy at WIRED Middle East is looking to comission a games journalist familiar with the Middle East for a particular story and I was wondering if any of y'all would be open to covering this or know someone who would? If so, DM me and I can tell you more about this.
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Emily Mullin @emilymullin.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I'm a staff writer at @wired.com and I'm looking to speak with parents of immunocompromised kids, especially those in areas with measles outbreaks, and how you're dealing with back to school with rising cases. emily_mullin@wired.com
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