Laila Lalami

Federal judge orders Trump to restore $500 million in frozen UCLA medical research grants A San Francisco-based federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to restore all National Institutes of Health grants to UCLA, roughly $500 million, that the government suspended in July.

BREAKING: A federal judge has ordered Trump to restore $500 million in frozen UCLA NIH grants. The same judge, Rita F. Lin, previously ordered all UCLA NSF grants reinstated. Lin has now nearly entirely reversed Trump's July de-funding of UCLA research: www.latimes.com/california/s...

Wonderful news!

It's a simple equation: it was costlier for the company to lose subscriptions/theme-park/ad revenue than to kowtow to Trump, so it made the decision to bring him back.

Homan would be such a easy target for an actual opposition party—the architect of a deeply unpopular program who is also cartoonishly corrupt.

Tom Homan was investigated for accepting $50,000 from undercover FBI agents. Trump's DOJ shut it down. The FBI and Justice officials closed the investigation, which a Justice Department appointee had called a “deep state” probe in early 2025.

And of course the headline downplays what happened. Tom Homan walked into a meeting with undercover FBI agents posing as business executives and accepted $50,000 in exchange for giving them contracts. www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...

You’re telling me that a man whom the FBI has on tape accepting a 50k bribe was not only not prosecuted, but promoted so he could send masked agents to kidnap day laborers on minimum wage. I feel like I’m going insane.

Thank you for the suggestion!

This is exactly it. Too many people in the Democratic Party are invested in earning the respect of the other side, rather than their own.

Please stop posting pictures of your kids on Instagram. Just stop.

Next weekend!

While we're on the subject of free speech, note that Israel bombed a newspaper complex in Yemen, killing 31 journalists. The pundits who've spent the last few days commenting on political violence will have nothing to say about the wholesale murder of thirty-one of their colleagues.

"But in danger and despair you acquire a faith in miracles; without it you would go under." - Erich Maria Remarque

‘Deserve to die': Texas man indicted over series of violent threats to Mamdani New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani faced threats directly to him and to his campaign in June, according to a senior law enforcement official.

Texas Man Indicted Over Series of Violent Threats to Mamdani

Jeremy Fistel said Mamdani should "return to Uganda" before someone shoots him in the head. And, wished his wife and kids killed in front of him.

Investigators tracked the calls to his personal cell and messages to his email account.

Caving in to censorship will only beget more censorship.

The right-wing is treating Kirk's murder like it's 9/11, and proceeding with the same censorship and purge that they used to silence war critics.

I can’t believe I have to defend Jimmy the Sport Guy. (IYKYK)

yeah he’s [redacted]

257. The Commission recommends that all Member States: (a) Employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent the commission of genocide in the Gaza Strip; (b) Cease the transfer of arms and other equipment or items, including jet fuel, to the State of Israel or third States where there is reason to suspect their use in military operations that have involved or could involve the commission of genocide; (c) Ensure individuals and corporations in their territories and within their jurisdiction are not involved in the commission of genocide, aiding and assisting the commission of genocide or incitement to commit genocide and investigate and prosecute those who may be implicated in these crimes under international law; (d) Facilitate the investigations and domestic proceedings and take action (including imposing sanctions) against the State of Israel and against individuals or corporations that are involved in or facilitating the commission of genocide or incitement to commit genocide; (e) Cooperate with the investigation of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. 258. The Commission recommends that the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court: (a) Examine, within its continuing investigation in the Situation in the State of Palestine, the crime of genocide for amendment to existing arrest warrants and addition to future application for arrest warrants; (b) Examine the involvement of officials mentioned in this report for inclusion as those most responsible for international crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Today, the UN officially designated Israel’s assault on Gaza as a genocide.

As a party to the Genocide Convention, the U.S. has a legal obligation to obey our own laws, stop weapons sales to Israel, and demand a permanent ceasefire.

End the genocide. Ceasefire now.

“Thirty-one Democrats joined Republicans in voting to restrict judges from having discretion to dole out lighter sentences to young people. Eight voted alongside Republicans to allow 14-year-olds to be charged as adults.”

The 2025 American Book Award Winners Kaveh Akbar Martyr!: A Novel (Knopf) Amy M. Alvarez Makeshift Altar: Poems (The University Press of Kentucky) Marie-Helene Bertino Beautyland: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Percival Everett James: A Novel (Doubleday) Marcela Fuentes Malas: A Novel (Penguin Books) Fady Joudah [...] Poems (Milkweed Editions) Stacey Levine Mice 1961 (Verse Chorus Press) Sarah Lewis The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America (Harvard University Press)

Tomiko and Ryokuyo Matsumoto, and Nancy Matsumoto, Editor By the Shore of Lake Michigan (UCLA Asian American Studies Center) Sharon McMahon The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement (Thesis) Claire Messud This Strange Eventful History: A Novel (W. W. Norton & Company) Maceo Montoya and Javier O. Huerta Imaginative Possibilities: Conversations with Twenty-First-Century Latinx Writers (University of Pittsburgh Press) m.s. RedCherries mother (Penguin Books) Danzy Senna Colored Television: A Novel (Riverhead Books) A.B. Spellman, and Lauri Scheyer, Editor Between the Night and Its Music: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press)

Congratulations to the winners of this year's American Book Awards! 🎉 🎉 🎉 www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com

Flyer says: National Book Foundation Presents Dystopian Realities Saturday, September 27, 12:15 pm EDT Winston-Salem, NC Laila Lalami, 2019 Fiction Finalist. Deborah Jackson Taffa, 2024 Nonfiction Finalist Ruth Dickey, Moderator

Next up! If you find yourself in Winston-Salem, come on out to the Bookmarks Festival, where I'll be appearing alongside Deborah Jackson Taffa to discuss 'Dystopian Realities' on Saturday, September 27, 12.15 pm!

According to the groups, the Trump administration’s demands include restricting campus protest rights as well as: unfettered government access to faculty, student and staff data an official statement that the UC does not recognize transgender identity a ban on gender inclusive restrooms and locker rooms the cessation of gender affirming care for minors an end to diversity scholarships cooperation with immigration enforcement, which appears to include giving ICE access to UC hospitals the creation of viewpoint policies for the admission of international students

Here is what the Trump administration has asked of UCLA. None of this has anything to do with combating antisemitism. It is all about control of the campus and capture of its culture. www.kqed.org/news/1205611...

I've been on the UC faculty for 18 years and can't recall a time when our campuses were under graver threat than now. I'm happy that our faculty associations (across all ten campuses) joined in this suit.

The Lost Souls of the Internet In Searches, Vauhini Vara probes the ways that we rely on the Internet and how we periodically attempt to free ourselves from its grip.

"Big Tech’s ambition is to create an archive of everything we do and everything we are—an aspiration that is unprecedented in human history. The only thing that comes close can be found in religion." I wrote about Vauhini Vara's Searches @thenation.com (free link!) www.thenation.com/article/soci...

If you find yourself in Twentynine Palms this Saturday (9/13), come listen to me talk about The Dream Hotel at Desert General. Details here: www.29pbf.com/events/event...

Israeli settlers are attacking Palestinians and their homes in the West Bank, unchecked and with impunity.
These acts of violence are thuggish and inhumane.
The silence of the international community is a disgrace.
Shame on this world.

Infuriating that for 48 hours much of the media went with narratives that had no relationship to facts and now that the facts are starting to trickle in, there’s zero retraction or reflection.

‘Radicalized’ Evergreen High School shooter appeared to hold antisemitic, violent views in online accounts Social media accounts that appear to be connected to the 16-year-old shooter are littered with references to mass shootings and antisemitic views, The Denver Post found.

An antisemite shot two kids in Colorado, at least one of whom is Jewish.

The White House “fighting antisemitism” doesn’t care, because the shooter was a student radicalized online into far right beliefs, which the regime is cool with, rather than a student verbally criticizing Israeli govt policy.