Over the last couple of weeks, a flurry of messages have been posted in my neighborhood WhatsApp chats from folks who are horrified by what they are seeing play out in Minnesota. ICE has murdered people, violently kidnapped US citizens and immigrants, and snatched children as young as five, sending them alone to detention centers hundreds of miles away. Many are asking “Is this really us?” but people of color and Indigenous people across the US and world intimately know that this has been the US all along. The tactics and violence perpetrated against people of color in the US and abroad for decades is now spilling over to impact everyone else.

The reckoning is here.

I live in a middle income mostly white neighborhood, with mostly modest houses and modest people. Our active WhatsApp groups usually focus on mundane things (gardening, busted pipes, borrowing a cup of sugar, etc), but over the last weeks, my neighbors are urgently looking to volunteer with trusted organizations to fight ICE and prepare for what we suspect is coming to our community in the near future. My neighborhood is not an exception.

People in the US are feeling helpless, frustrated, and at the same time, activated. Meet your neighborhood resistance. They bring whistles to warn their neighbors. They dispense hand warmers and hot cocoa to lift spirits. They bring groceries. They take shifts patrolling their neighborhoods. They fundraise to help people pay their rent. Their lives change under occupation, focused on protecting their communities from the threat of their increasingly tyrannical government.

There is no amount of training that can reform the fascism out of fascists. More and more people see that ICE cannot be improved and must be abolished. More people are connecting #abolishICE with the broader abolitionist movements.

And that’s the connection between the backslide into totalitarianism and what 500WS has been talking about for years - we cannot separate scientific institutions from the culture and society they operate in. Science both reflects and shapes culture. And science has never been and will never be apolitical. So we cannot look away. Science and scientists are a threat to dictators, the next scapegoats because dictators do not stop. If we do not speak up now, we may not have the opportunity later. Now is the time.

take action

Of immediate relevance in the US, please urge your senators to vote NO on any and all funding for the DHS. You can find your elected officials here. #abolishICE
- If you need some scripts, here is an example.
National Shutdown Friday January 30 - no work, no school, no shopping. Stop funding ICE.
Stand with Minnesota, support their efforts to provide aid on the ground where it's most needed.
- Send a letter of support to folks in Minnesota

bookmark this

ACLU Know Your Rights training relevant for US-based folks.
Nature Record is the resurrection of the US National Nature Assessment, a national initiative bringing together knowledge, storytelling, and public participation to elevate the role of nature in the U.S

weekly wonder

Penguins know whats up when it come to walking on ice. We could all learn a thing or two from penguins.

check it out

What we will lose if we lose NCAR. Here are just some of the ways NCAR helps you and if you need an economic / competitive edge argument, there is that too.
Taking stock and making plans, a year into the new Trump regime.
In just one year, the US scientific enterprise is badly damaged.

around the world

Sudan is the site of the largest human displacement in the world, with 14 million people displaced from their homes.
Tensions between Iran and the US continue to rise, following Iran’s brutal suppression of protests last month. At the same time, Iran has been in a near-total internet blackout and many Iranians abroad have not been able to contact their relatives since the beginning of 2026.
A massive landslide in Indonesia has already claimed more than 30 lives, with many more missing.

more of this please

Italy says “no ICE, thanks” in preparation for the Olympics in Milan.

perennial reads

How the left splinters and how we might leverage different left factions to advance a progressive agenda.

book nook

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement by Angela Y. Davis

all ears

Streets of Minneapolis by Bruce Springsteen #stayfree

watch this!

Watch (or listen on your favorite podcast app) the 404 Media podcast episode on what Palantir is building, connecting AI, digital surveillance, and ICE.
Y’all, seaweed is cool! Watch “Seaweed Stories” a short film that may make you fall in love with green seaweeds… or red?

…by the way

Can AI do science? We think not

🙃 Protesting in a mask needs a doctor’s note but masked ICE goons kidnapping and murdering people is no problem??