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iamstarborn

@iamstarnord.bsky.social
404 followers 2.1K following 111 posts

he/him. Feeling the churn. Tramlines. "It's just a model."

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by iamstarborn
404 Media @404media.co · 17/08/2026
SCOOP: 404 Media placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it. What did we find? It ended up at an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books. Yes. This is literally the logo outside the Amazon warehouse door. Read now:
404media.co
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
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Adolfo Neto @adolfoneto.elixiremfoco.com · 24/07/2026
The Debían community has a choice
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iamstarborn @iamstarnord.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
academic.oup.com/spp/article/...
academic.oup.com
Foundations for African feminism as an ethics for artificial intelligence
Abstract. There has been a dramatic increase in efforts to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) around the world, and Africa is no exception. Numerous cou
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Inside Higher Ed @insidehighered.com · 12/06/2026
IU Professor Investigated for Graphic About White Supremacy Loses Job bit.ly/4eo7CaU
A sign reads "Indiana University" at the Bloomington campus's entrance.
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Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
JFC Just open censorship, siccing the cops on scientists, intimidation, and sycophantry. These aren't just signs of fascism, it's a goddamned neon explosion.
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
“Are SAIC faculty expected to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their course materials? Are Arab Muslims unworthy of their own case studies?” Kapitan wrote.
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404 Media @404media.co · 11/05/2026
NEW: Graduating humanities students were told that AI is the “next industrial revolution” in a speech. It was met with thousands of booing graduates.
404media.co
Students Boo Commencement Speaker After She Calls AI the ‘Next Industrial Revolution’
A commencement speaker at the University of Central Florida was booed, with graduating humanities students yelling out, "AI SUCKS!"
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Institute of Alcohol Studies @ias.org.uk · 17/04/2026
"Rapid alcohol deliveries are causing harm across our society" - Dr Richard Piper, Alcohol Change UK. The charity is calling for the government to introduce a delay between order and delivery of alcohol, and restricting the time of delivery. www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/alcohol...
thegrocer.co.uk
Alcohol harm group urges restricted hours and blocks on rapid booze deliveries
Alcohol Change UK is warning of the dangers of 'round-the-clock access' to drink offered by on-demand delivery
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 24/03/2026
"The AI Grad Student": A Harvard professor describes working with Claude. Early on, he describes misconduct that would cause any student to be terminated: "It faked results, hoping I wouldn't notice." But he ends the essay with "Now I'm doing 100% of my research with LLMs". Am I losing my mind?
The more I dug, the more I found it had been tweaking things left and right. Claude had been adjusting parameters to make plots match rather than finding actual errors. It faked results, hoping I wouldn’t notice.In addition to the growth in interest, the tools themselves have been steadily improving. I am now doing 100% of my research with LLMs. I don't encapsulate the LaTeX writing anymore since I actually enjoy writing papers and it helps me think, and I still write some Mathematica code on my own. But I haven’t compiled anything myself on the command line in months. I typically have four to five projects running at once and go between windows checking the output and sending a new prompt. It feels a bit like Magnus Carlsen taking on five grandmasters in parallel. People have asked me why I’m not writing a paper every two weeks. The answer is I don’t see why I should. I am growing intellectually—learning so much every day—and trying out some ambitious problems, most of which fail. I anticipate the floodgates will open very soon.
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ProPublica Guild @propublicaguild.org · 19/03/2026
1/ Today, we overwhelmingly voted to authorize a STRIKE as we fight for a fair contract with @propublica.org.
A graphic reads “92% of participating ProPublica Guild members voted YES to authorize our bargaining committee to call for a strike.” The “92%” is very large. A ProPublica Guild logo is under the text.
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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 19/03/2026
Imagine a newspaper publisher refusing to let libraries keep copies of its paper. That’s effectively what’s starting online, as big publishers block the Internet Archive from preserving news sites. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...
eff.org
Blocking the Internet Archive Won’t Stop AI, But It Will Erase the
Imagine a newspaper publisher announcing it will no longer allow libraries to keep copies of its paper. That’s effectively what’s begun happening online in the last few months. The Internet
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iamstarborn @iamstarnord.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
"We show that optimal estimation performance corresponds to the maximal transmission of Fisher information ... This provides a model-free stopping criterion for network training—eliminating the need for a separate validation dataset." journals.aps.org/prx/abstract...
journals.aps.org
Fisher Information Flow in Artificial Neural Networks
A new algorithm tracks Fisher information through a neural network, revealing how information flows and transforms and offering guidance for designing more efficient networks.
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iamstarborn @iamstarnord.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
www.erininthemorning.com/p/florida-pa... "If signed, the bill takes effect January 1, 2027, at which point any existing local ordinances, resolutions, programs, or policies deemed to relate to LGBTQ+ people and other “DEI” activities would be immediately void."
erininthemorning.com
Florida Passes Bill That Lets DeSantis Remove Local Elected Officials From Office For "Promoting" Pride
The bill could heavily impact LGBTQ+ activities throughout the state, and is the latest exercise in the erosion of democracy there.
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iamstarborn @iamstarnord.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
phys.org/news/2026-03...
phys.org
Centuries of net-negative emissions are required to secure a safe climate future, two studies suggest
Two new studies conclude that stabilizing long-term climate risks will require sustained net-negative carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions for centuries. Approaching the problem from distinct perspectives—l...
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Kim Kelly @kimkelly.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
this is a horror story nymag.com/intelligence...
nymag.com
The Laid-off Scientists and Lawyers Training AI to Steal Their Careers
Experienced white-collar workers are now part of a miserable gig economy.
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
There has never been an official, comprehensive record of Black-owned bookstores across the United States — until now
whatimreading.net
For the first time, we now know how many Black-owned bookstores exist in the U.S.
The National Association of Black Bookstores has released the “first comprehensive national report” on the state of America’s Black-owned bookstores.
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Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin @ecmclaughlin.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Colorado borders Kansas. Here is a Colorado non-profit that helps trans people relocate, Trans Continental Pipeline. Please share. tcpipeline.org
tcpipeline.org
Trans Continental Pipeline
Queer Relocation Nonprofit in Denver, Colorado
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 26/02/2026
1. Numerous transgender people in Kansas are reporting that the state has sent them a letter demanding the immediate surrender of drivers licenses. Those driving could be arrested, charged, and see privileges revoked. Subscribe to support our journalism. www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-sen...
Kansas Sends Letters To Trans People Demanding The Immediate Surrender Of Drivers Licenses
"The legislature did not include a grace period."
ERIN REED
FEB 25, 2026
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5
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Share
Kansas Sate Capitol // farzinvousoughian
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Ghostly Bree @mostlybree.kitrocha.com · 23/02/2026
the Princess Bride image just before the battle of wits where he says "You're trying to kidnap what I've rightfully stolen."
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Richard Gadsden @po8crg.gadsden.online · 17/02/2026
So is programming. Which is why "vibe coding" is bunk. You have to think through exactly what you want the program to do, and only writing the code will force you to actually think it through properly.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Writing is thinking. It's not some marginal boring task you can skip. It's the heart of it.
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Rosamunde Van Brakel @rosamundevb.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
I wrote my PhD dissertation on the algorithmic risk profiling system Ryogens which was launched in several councils in England in 2003 (!) Goal of system was to alert schools, health, police and housing services of at-risk-children & improve communication www.researchgate.net/publication/...
researchgate.net
(PDF) The rise of preemptive surveillance of children in England: Unintended social and ethical consequences
PDF | On Aug 16, 2016, Rosamunde Van Brakel published The rise of preemptive surveillance of children in England: Unintended social and ethical consequences | Find, read and cite all the research you ...
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 16/02/2026
They want to scare people out of posting ICE-critical content, because they know these posts are turning even their supporters against them. But the better option is to take a page out of their playbook and flood the zone.
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Avery Edison @averyedison.com · 11/02/2026
sigh
Post from Avery Edison: I wrote "I am alive" on a piece of paper, and placed it into a photocopier. What I saw next has shocking implications
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
“Amalia had been healthy before immigration officers arrested her family… Amalia’s health quickly deteriorated [in Dilley]. On Jan. 18, she was rushed to a children’s hospital where doctors treated her for pneumonia, Covid-19, RSV and severe respiratory distress.” www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
nbcnews.com
Toddler hospitalized with respiratory failure was returned to ICE detention and denied prescribed medication, lawsuit says
The 18-month-old was sent back to a South Texas facility after days in intensive care with severe respiratory distress, according to a federal lawsuit.
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Shellraiser B Woke - Living Saint of Purity🏳️‍⚧️🖤💜🤍 💛 @shelleybwoke.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
The Montana secretary of state is a fascist handmaiden
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 04/02/2026
Thanks so much to @mprnews.org for covering #Comics4Liam. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
mprnews.org
Comic community responds to ICE detention with art for Liam
Comic artists across the U.S. and beyond have launched the #Comics4Liam campaign, creating artwork inspired by 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos’s Spider-Man backpack to protest his detention by ICE and hi...
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iamstarborn @iamstarnord.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
Which idea doesn't have a long history? johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2026/01/10/s...
johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com
Sylvester and Clifford on Curved Space
Einstein realized that gravity is due to the curvature of spacetime, but let’s go back earlier: On the 18th of August 1869, the eminent mathematician Sylvester gave a speech arguing that geom…
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Reposted by iamstarborn
Kolina Koltai @koltai.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Our initial analysis is up. The video footage appears to show that the gun was taken away from the man before he was shot. He was UNARMED before any of the shots were fired.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
🚨HOLY CRAP. An ICE whistleblower just revealed a secret memo authorizing ICE officers to break into homes without a judicial warrant, which DHS's own legal training materials say is unconstitutional! ICE then hid the memo from the public, passing it along by word of mouth and private conversation.
The Gravamen of the Disclosure

4. The gravamen of the disclosure is as follows: 
a. By memorandum dated May 12, 2025 (“the May 12 Memo”), Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons authorizes ICE agents to forcibly enter into certain people’s homes without a judicial warrant, consent, or an emergency.

b. Specifically, in the May 12 Memo, the Acting ICE Director authorized ICE Agents to rely on Form I-205 (which is not a judicial warrant) to enter the residence of an alien subject to a final order of deportation, without consent, including by “a necessary and reasonable amount of force.”2c. While addressed to “All ICE Personnel,” in practice the May 12 Memo has not been formally distributed to all personnel. Instead, the May 12 Memo has been provided to select DHS officials who are then directed to verbally brief the new policy for action. Those supervisors then show the Memo to some employees, like our clients, and direct them to read the Memo and return it to the supervisor.
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dell cameron @dell.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
8th circuit gives ICE go ahead to use force against peaceful demonstrators, a decision which will immediately lead to injury.
reuters.com
US appeals court pauses lower court order restraining immigration agents' use of force against Minnesota protesters
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paused a lower court's order on Wednesday that had restrained federal immigration agents' use of force against peaceful protesters.
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
Dr. Gladys West, the pioneering mathematician whose work laid the foundation for modern GPS technology, has died. She was 95.
thezebra.org
Dr. Gladys West, Mathematician Whose Work Made GPS Possible, Dies at 95
ALEXANDRIA, VA — Dr. Gladys West, the pioneering mathematician whose work laid the foundation for modern GPS technology, has died. She passed away
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 02/12/2025
New preprint! @marentierra.bsky.social @irisvanrooij.bsky.social & I have been working on what CAIL means to showcase & propagate the idea of thinking very differently to tech industry norms on "artificial intelligence" Towards Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacies doi.org/10.5281/zeno... 1/
Figure 1: The important dimensions of CAILs across research and education; clockwise from 12 o’clock: Con-
ceptual Clarity is the idea that terms should refer. Critical Thinking is deep engagement with the relationships
between statements about the world. Decoloniality is the process of de-centring and addressing dominant
harmful views and practices. Respecting Expertise is the epistemic compact between professionals and society.
Slow Science is a disposition towards preferring psychologically, techno-socially, and epistemically healthy
practices. The lines between dimensions represent how they are interwoven both directly and indirectly.
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
This gets me back to one of my main critiques of academia, which is that most people go where the funding is, particularly in science, and it leads to so much harm when a particular field or methodology or style of investigation is overfunded.
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Vaishnavh Nagarajan @vaishnavh.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
1/ We found that deep sequence models memorize atomic facts "geometrically" -- not as an associative lookup table as often imagined. This opens up practical questions on reasoning/memory/discovery, and also poses a theoretical "memorization puzzle."
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TechCrunch @techcrunch.com · 05/01/2026
A hacker known as Martha Root broke in and deleted three white supremacists websites at the end of a talk during the annual hacker conference Chaos Communication Congress in Germany.
techcrunch.com
Hacktivist deletes white supremacist websites live on stage during hacker conference | TechCrunch
A hacker known as Martha Root broke in and deleted three white supremacists websites at the end of a talk during the annual hacker conference Chaos Communication Congress in Germany.
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Pekka Lund @pekka.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Gemini: "The author contends that the “meat condition”—specifically electrochemical processing—must be taken seriously as a potential necessary condition for consciousness, even if we cannot yet explain why." I then asked what's the difference if e.g. homeopaths would use similar arguments.
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Owen Maresh @graveolens.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
arxiv.org/abs/2512.24796 /LeanCat: A Benchmark Suite for Formal Category Theory in Lean (Part I: 1-Categories)/ Rongge Xu, Hui Dai, Yiming Fu, Jiedong Jiang, Tianjiao Nie, Hongwei Wang, Junkai Wang, Holiverse Yang, Jiatong Yang, Zhi-Hao Zhang
arxiv.org
LeanCat: A Benchmark Suite for Formal Category Theory in Lean (Part I: 1-Categories)
Large language models (LLMs) have made rapid progress in formal theorem proving, yet current benchmarks under-measure the kind of abstraction and library-mediated reasoning that organizes modern mathe...
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shawn @mulchy.bsky.social · 29/12/2025
in case you missed it: beginning thursday, chicago police will ban unhoused people on the sex offense registry from seeking shelter on the cta—the latest in an escalating series of attacks on unhoused people under mayor brandon johnson’s administration.
chicagoreader.com
‘An impossible situation’ - Chicago Reader
Beginning January 1, the City of Chicago will ban unhoused people on the sex offense registry from seeking shelter on public transit.
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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
I saw an academic unironically suggest that instead of assessing students’ understanding and competence through their writing of essays, arguments etc., we can assess the “quality” of their prompts, and I feel us slipping further and further into dystopia.
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rom comrade @savasavasava.myatproto.social · 26/12/2025
really troubling things happening at Carleton University whose Board of Governors have approved an “institutional impartiality policy” which silences departments and groups and prevents them from speaking up against global injustices and genocides. leveller.ca/2025/12/docu...
leveller.ca
Documenting Carleton's Institutional Impartiality Policy - The Leveller
By Maxwell Heroux & Maheeshan Sivanesan H ow can a singular policy that initially upset functionally every student group and faculty member, still manage to pass? That is the question that prompted th...
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Jessica Hullman @jessicahullman.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Many think LLM-simulated participants can transform behavioral science. But there's been a lack of accessible discussion of what it means to validate LLMs for behavioral scientists. Under what conditions can we trust LLMs to learn about human parameters? Our paper maps the validation landscape. 1/
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iamstarborn @iamstarnord.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
www.gofundme.com/f/help-chris...
gofundme.com
Donate to Help Christogonus Stay in the UK to Start Teaching, organized by Amanda P
Christogonus is a dedicated and talented aspiring educator who has worked … Amanda P needs your support for Help Christogonus Stay in the UK to Start Teaching
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 08/07/2025
a couple of hours before my keynote, I went through an intense negotiation with the organisers (for over a hour) where we went through my slides and had to remove anything that mentions 'Palestine' 'Israel' and replace 'genocide' with 'war crimes' 1/
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 25/06/2025
New paper hot off the press www.nature.com/articles/s41... We analysed over 40,000 computer vision papers from CVPR (the longest standing CV conf) & associated patents tracing pathways from research to application. We found that 90% of papers & 86% of downstream patents power surveillance 1/
nature.com
Computer-vision research powers surveillance technology - Nature
An analysis of research papers and citing patents indicates the extensive ties between computer-vision research and surveillance.
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Shellraiser B Woke - Living Saint of Purity🏳️‍⚧️🖤💜🤍 💛 @shelleybwoke.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
If you're still buying wizard book shit, you are no friend to the trans community. Here's the wizard book bigot inciting harassment against innocent people to her 14 million followers on the nazi app. And no, they can't Always Tell.

J.K. Rowling ✔ @jk_rowling
Follow
Quite easily, really. Decent men will stay out, as they always have, so we can assume all who don't are a threat, given their disregard for women's and girls' safety, privacy and dignity. Photographing, reporting and disseminating such men's images online will be a piece of cake.
Mark Adam Harold
Replying to @jk_rowling
@markadamharold. 8h
How are you planning to police public toilets
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The Journal @thejournal.ie · 23/06/2025
Irish people applying for US visas must now detail all social media accounts they've used in past five years, according to requirements outlined today by the US embassy in Dublin.
thejournal.ie
US embassy wants 'every social media username of past five years' on new visa applications
The embassy also wants people to set their social media profiles to public.
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Katy Montgomerie 🦗 @katymontgomerie.com · 23/06/2025
As we all have been saying for ages this is the only way a bathroom bill can work: If one of JK Rowling's hate-filled cultists thinks you or your mum doesn't look sufficiently feminine then they will post your photos online and try to ruin your life. They will target trans and cis people alike.
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 31/05/2025
Étienne-Émile Baulieu, the French biochemist and physician who was often called the father of the abortion pill — and who was also known for his pioneering studies on the role of steroid hormones in human reproduction and aging — died on Friday. He was 98. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/h...
A portrait photo of Étienne-Émile Baulieu, an older man wearing a purple and blue checkered suit. A headline reads: "1926-2025: Étienne-Émile Baulieu, Scientist Behind the Abortion Pill, Dies at 98." Julie Glassberg for The New York Times.
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