A new study shows 95% of young men used at least one tactic to persuade or coerce a woman into sex. On average, men used 8 different tactics. Primarily persistent verbal pressure, isolation, and using friends to manipulate were most common

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Mayor Mamdani and President Obama read a picture book to a group of children.

Mayor Mamdani and President Obama chat and laugh with a group of children.

Mayor Mamdani and President Obama chat and laugh.

Children hug Mayor Mamdani.

Today, President Barack Obama and I read to a group of toddlers at Learning Through Play Pre-K Center in the South Bronx. 

In between singing wheels on the bus, we discussed our administration’s vision for this City — one where New York’s Cutest have the strongest start possible.

All the Ways Palantir is Assisting Trump’s Abusive Removal Campaign | ACLU How culpable is the company for the constitutional and human rights violations of the deportation drive?

In the midst of Trump's harrowing campaign against immigrants, Palantir has been at the forefront, collaborating with ICE-- an entity complicit in killing, torture, and disappearance--to increase their number of targets.

The ACLU explains more here: www.aclu.org/news/privacy...

At a time when mass surveillance and autonomous weapons companies like Palantir are openly announcing their plans for violent world domination, it is crucial that our attempts at “big tech reform” don’t actually give them more power—ie via government mandated age verification/identity software

It's been so interesting to watch this unfold. Barnes & Noble and other big book chains shut indies down in the the 1990s (and on) and then Amazon came along and ate up all the book market share. Now people tired of big corporations are creating demand for more indies

It's a rare gift, to know where you need to be, before you've been to all the places you don't need to be.

Ursula Le Guin

THE SENATE IS VOTING ON THE BOUNDARY WATERS RIGHT NOW!

Tonight, while most people are watching TV or putting their kids to bed, the U.S. Senate is taking a vote that could permanently end protections for one of the most beloved wilderness areas in America.

no one is inheriting anything, stop lying, we're only one shitty republican omnibus spending bill away from the majority of millennials and gen xers inheriting their parents end-of-life medical debt after it wipes out all their property savings and investments

Genuinely depressing to me that your partner has to Doordash to raise money for your cancer treatment when you get old. What happens if you don't have a partner? Are we just working to pay a landlord and save up for a medical emergency when we're elderly?

So at the risk of maybe overreading this and making an educated guess, I think I can guess what specifically Wyden is talking about.

I think it's about use of AI (LLMs) by FBI to surveil American communications without a warrant

I notice the Fake News Media refuse to report on Trump’s plan to settle all future geopolitical disputes through the power of dance

SUPPORT THESE DATA CENTERS SCHOOLS LIBRARIES BOOKSTORES

Laura Horak, a white woman with wavy brown hair to her jaw and glasses, holds up two books: TRANS CINEMA and MELODRAMA AS PROVOCATEUR.

My new books - TRANS CINEMA and MELODRAMA AS PROVOCATEUR - are both out today!

www.ucpress.edu/books/trans-... (30% off UCPSAVE30)

www.dukeupress.edu/melodrama-as... (30% of E26MELOD)

@transmediaportl.bsky.social @ucpress.bsky.social @dukepress.bsky.social @carletonfass.bsky.social @carleton.ca

AI learns language from skewed sources. That could change how we humans speak – and think | Bruce Schneier Large language models aren’t trained on real-life conversations. As we encounter their language, it could affect our own

Oh:

A 2022 study found that children in households that used voice commands with tools like Siri and Alexa became curt when speaking with humans, often calling out “Hey, do X” and expecting obedience, especially from anyone whose voice resembled the default-female electronic voices.

Drop your crime fighting Catholics

(Badass nuns from The Sound of Music fighting big N*zi crime via committing small vehicle disassembly crime.)

A handy clue to the many, many, people I know who've felt like this:
Neurotypicals never say "I'm really not sure if I'm actually neurodivergent though".
Basically, if you've considered it long enough to ask the question, you've got the answer.

A movie couple that would definitely have a podcast.

Job Interview with a Cat    Tell me, what is it about this position that interests you?  The warmth, perhaps? The security?  Or the power you must feel by rendering me useless?  Feel free to expand if you wish.    I see you have had experience of similar positions.  Can you talk about a time when you got somebody’s tongue?  Or were set amongst the pigeons?  Tell me about a time you’ve had to deal with a difficult situation – for instance, have you ever found yourself in a bag? If so, how were you let out of it?     How would you feel if you had to walk on hot bricks?   What about a tin roof of similar temperature?   With reference to any of your past lives,   has curiosity ever killed you?    Finally, where do you see yourself in five years’ time?  In the same position? Or higher up to catch the sunlight?  What’s that? You would like to be where I am now?  Oh, it appears you already are.  Brian Bilston

Today’s poem is called ‘Job Interview with a Cat’.

A view of the back of the Museum of Science and Industry with its lagoon, and cherry blossom branches overhead, with people milling about

A closeup on some pink cherry blossoms

A small crowd of people under the canopy of beautiful white cherry blossom trees

Two corgis under the cherry blossoms

I loved seeing the cherry blossoms yesterday, but I also loved seeing so many Chicagoans out seeing the cherry blossoms 🥺

And all accessible by multiple CTA bus lines!

books: the rectangle that can’t send you push notifications. Try: books.

Chicago Turns All Public School IDs Into Library Cards To Boost Student Access Chicago Public Library and CPS announced the expansion of The 81 Club, building on a pilot launched in 2022 to give students access to the library system's vast collection and databases.

This is such a good idea. We should do this in NYC.

"All Chicago Public Schools students now have access to nearly everything the city’s libraries have to offer — including physical items like books as well as extensive digital resources."

blockclubchicago.org/2026/04/08/c...

@catsofyore.bsky.social

due to a rift in the space-time continuum, you can send exactly five words to 2016

CHICAGO POPE NETFLIX HAS ADS

[Bloomsbury bookshop by H. W. Fincham (ca. 1926)]

Second-hand books are wild books, homeless books; they have come together in vast flocks of variegated feather, and have a charm which the domesticated volumes of the library lack.

~Virginia Woolf (Street Haunting)

Next week, a little-known law that allows the government to sidestep the Constitution and spy on US citizens is set to expire.

Congress should let FISA’s Section 702 die, but we fear some Democrats could join Republicans in reauthorizing this civil liberties disaster.

Friends! Tell me what trad pub SFF/H books by/about marginalized identities - adult or YA - you're excited for that are coming up for this year! And if you are the author/editor/publicist for it, reach out to me for potential coverage.
bookjockeyalex.com/contact/

Hello, I made you a feed of your cats watching the Artemis II splashdown bsky.app/profile/did:...

A message from Tuna Acisu asking for help maintaining cherry blossom record in Kyoto Japan.

A figure showing the cherry tree record since 812 from world in data.

A 1200+ year climate record is at risk. Do you know know anyone in Japan who could help? See below.

#TodayInQueerHistory
April 10 (1984)
Bookshops are a cornerstone of the queer community. They help us find our voices.
#OTD, Gay's the Word in London was raided as part of Operation Tiger. £000s of stock was confiscated as "obscene". Writers, publishers and book lovers came to the shops defence.