barryyeoman.com - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

This Pride weekend, I am reupping my 2017 article about the LGBTQ+ generation that was born before Stonewall. As I interviewed Boomers, I saw how the struggles of discrimination and the HIV epidemic made them — made us — more adaptive, more resilient, and better skilled at demanding respect.

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Have a new piece in @techpolicypress.bsky.social that looks at how the FCC is using its seldom-used "news distortion" rules to attack news organizations. www.techpolicy.press/news-distort...

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For years, an iconic Mississippi restaurant passed off cheap imported fish as premium Gulf seafood, defrauding more than 55,000 customers. Many of those customers remained loyal, even after the feds raided. For Gravy podcast, @boyceupholt.bsky.social explored what the local catch means for a place.

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The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (@thebulletin.org) is publishing a lot about Iran, written by knowledgeable experts.

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The Trump administration is gutting the agency that owns the Voice of America. Its non-US journalists fear what will happen when their J-1 visas expire at the end of June. They say if they return home, they could be prevented from working, imprisoned, or worse. @davidfolkenflik.bsky.social @npr.org

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Writer @alistairkitchen.bsky.social was interrogated, detained at US Customs for 12 hours, then sent back to Australia because of his student-journalism. "The horror of the thing was that no one knew where we were, and we had no way of telling them." @newyorker.com H/T @thesundaylongread.bsky.social

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🐟🧵

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. @johnwoodrowcox.bsky.social consistently writes humanizing narrative, but this article is next-level good. It's about a farmer who was promised a federal grant to hire a Guatemalan worker—only to have the Trump administration freeze the funds as "DEI." With Sarah Blakely; photos by Matt McClain.

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"When I asked them whose birthday they were there to celebrate they pointed to the word 'ARMY' printed on their backs. 'But also, you know, all of it,' one said." —Linda Kinstler for @nybooks.com

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Of the many independent media popping up, the one delighting me most is The Flytrap, a boisterous, worker-owned, feminist newsletter whose self-stated mission is "to unfuck your algorithm." There's a free level, but really, the full version is worth the subscription fee. Recent favorites: (1/2)

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"Hundreds of drugs have been approved by the FDA over the last several decades on the basis of flimsy or nonexistent evidence. [Often there are] clear signs that they pose a risk of serious, often irreparable harm." A two-year investigation by Jeanne Lenzer and Shannon Brownlee for @levernews.com.

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It's been 12 days since the meltdown of the relationship between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, but it seems like much longer because of how much has happened. @dgraham.bsky.social reviews the tape. @theatlantic.com

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"The soldiers who paraded past the presidential reviewing stand on Constitution Avenue walked with a loose-limbed gait, disciplined but not robotic... The announcer often sounded as if he were narrating a fashion show for machines rather than a military parade."

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Five years ago, I wrote about a groundbreaking consortium, led by Duke University researchers, that has worked since 2005 to develop an HIV vaccine: medschool.duke.edu/stories/bold.... Now the feds are pulling the funding plug. “It's really starting to pay off, and now, boom, it’s just stopped.”

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Here's one reason I don't let my students use Generative AI. A delicious read by @guinz.bsky.social. (Hat tip: @tommytomlinson.bsky.social.)

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With Juneteenth approaching, please read Hanif Abdurraqib's profile of Opal Lee, who is sometimes described as the grandmother of the national holiday. From @texasmonthly.bsky.social.

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Not only did @writingthings.bsky.social write this story I've wanted to read a version of for years, she made much more of it than I could have imagined indyweek.com/culture/duke...

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Two accomplished journalists, Phoebe Zerwick and Natalie Jennings, have launched a newsletter that will explain how decisions in Washington, D.C. filter downstream to North Carolina. The first issue is substantive, fact-based, and very readable. Also, it's free. downfromdc.substack.com. #ncpol

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Communities across North Carolina prepared to greet refugees this year. Then the door slammed shut. By my brilliant former student Hope Zhu in @theassemblync.bsky.social.

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In 2023, librarians in Yancey County’s NC noticed something strange: Certain LGBTQ+ books could not be found in their Dewey decimal-designated location. Of course, books can be accidentally misshelved. But this was no mistake. By @jessicawakeman.bsky.social in @theassemblync.bsky.social. #ncpol

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How can you resist a story with this lead? "A little while back, I met a capybara, the world’s largest rodent, for a coffee-and-carrot date at a café in Tokyo." By @shteyngart.bsky.social.

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A fascinating first-person account of the relationship between a dissident author and a government censor in China. By @murongxuecun.bsky.social.

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Isaac Villegas is a North Carolina pastor who, for two years, helped to shelter an undocumented woman after the Trump administration sought to separate her from her family. I really enjoyed telling his story. Link in the thread! Sign-up for The Living South is 100% free.

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A Memorial Day story I wrote 11 years ago about two best friends buried side-by-side at Arlington National Cemetery. Published in Parade Magazine.

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One morning, sitting in an immigration office in Memphis, Kasper Eriksen found himself transformed. A day before, he was a welding foreman, a husband and father of four. Now, he was a detainee, bound and shackled in a detention shuttle in Tennessee. www.mississippifreepress.org/ice-arrests-...

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More than 75% of 1,608 scientists who responded to a poll were considering leaving the U.S. Other countries sense opportunity: France’s Aix-Marseilles University launched a Safe Place for Science campaign with three years of funding—and got almost 300 applicants for 20 spots. By Michael Fitzgerald.

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My latest Unabridged newsletter is out. It include links to a searing personal essay by Hanif Abdurraqib, poems of joyful accumulation by Ross Gay and Aracelis Girmay, a sensitively conducted interview, and two performances set in the 1960s. There are many ways to consider this moment.

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A methodical debunking of President Trump's claims about "dead white farmers" in South Africa, complete with historic context. By Tim Cocks and Nellie Peyton at @reuters.com.

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North Carolina domestic violence programs, already stretched thin, are being decimated by federal funding cuts. “Our members have exhausted cushions and rainy-day funds,” said a coalition policy director. “They’re already at a skeletal level.” By Janine Latus for @theassemblync.bsky.social.

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Good article by @damonberes.com and @cwarzel.bsky.social about the race to the bottom with syndicated articles like the one we saw earlier today www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

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"I realized writing was not writing a respectable email to get a job. It was a medium of understanding suffering. That’s when it changed," Ocean Vuong. David Marchese @nytimes.com calls it "one of the most emotionally intense interviews I’ve ever done." #theinterview www.nytimes.com/2025/05/03/m...

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I lied to a guy on national TV. So I decided to track him down and say I was sorry. This is the story of my search. www.cjr.org/analysis/pol...

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#ncpol

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This week, two congressional chairs asked Duke University to end its partnership with China's Wuhan University. Their letter referenced Jacqueline Cole's article in @theassemblync.bsky.social. Cole was one of 70 students invited to China for what became an eight-day state-controlled photo op.

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Leonardo Baez, a father of 7, wakes up hours before sunrise to mix bread dough in the border city of Los Fresnos, Texas. Punishing and laborious work, yes, but owning a beloved bakery has been a lifelong dream of his. It is now in jeopardy." Edgar Sandoval on the arrest of two legal U.S. residents.

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Jordan Salama's reporting on South American immigrant communities has been blowing me away. For this @newyorker.com article, he embedded in a two-family row house in East Elmhurst, Queens, where 12 Ecuadoran immigrants live on the first floor. Art: @mdlcomics.bsky.social.

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My latest @niemanstoryboard.org newsletter, featuring Ira Glass, @nadiareiman.bsky.social, @samfragoso.bsky.social, @barryyeoman.com, and more... niemanstoryboard.org/2025/05/16/i... #podcasts #longreads #journalism

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Investigation: Kroger stores show a pattern of overcharging customers by listing expired sale prices on the shelves and then ringing up the regular prices at checkout. @theguardian.com @thefern.org @consumerreports.org @michaelwhudson.bsky.social @genoways.bsky.social @derekrkravitz.bsky.social

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Today is the 40th anniversary of the MOVE bombing, an aerial attack that killed five children and six adults in a Philadelphia neighborhood. If you haven't done so, now is a good time to read Bronwen Dickey's 2022 story about how the bones of one of the victims ended up at a museum.

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In today's Unabridged newsletter, I shared outstanding narrative and investigative journalism, including @nadiareiman.bsky.social @rumblestrip.bsky.social @karinaelwood.bsky.social @ericumansky.bsky.social @vernalcoleman.bsky.social @andreasuozzo.com @coreygjohnson.bsky.social @livaaben.bsky.social

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Jefferson Griffin’s challenge to the North Carolina Supreme Court race results did more than rekindle long-simmering partisan debates over election administration. It also raised questions about the credibility of the state’s judiciary. @jeffreybillman.bsky.social @theassemblync.bsky.social #ncpol

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“’College is just how well I can use ChatGPT at this point,’ a student in Utah recently captioned a video of herself copy-and-pasting a chapter from her Genocide and Mass Atrocity textbook into ChatGPT.” James D. Walsh: archive.ph/qIXd0 Also, this essay by Duke Professor @orin-starn.bsky.social.

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Really love this piece by @barryyeoman.com & Vibhav Nandagiri abt the immigration crackdown in Durham, NC. (Yes, I know I'm almost a month behind) But the piece still holds up — I like the way it charts the slow drip of incremental blows against the community. www.theassemblync.com/politics/law...

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“I think [Trump's] team made a strategic move to say, ‘We have the Lumbee here, they’ve been fighting for this, they are sort of purple now, when they used to be hardcore blue.’ And I think they made a strategic decision to...be for Lumbee recognition.” @theassemblync.bsky.social #ncpol

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