Marie Holmes

New York’s Librarians Are Feeling the Pressure from Book Bans

Across the country and even here in blue New York, right-wing zealots and extremist groups like Moms for Liberty have been working tirelessly to rid classrooms and library shelves of certain books. Their top targets are often books that are about race or racism, feature people of color, or include LGBTQ+ characters. But officials censor many other books – including long-taught classics – over sex, violence, death, grief, and other frequent topics of great literature. In the 2025-2026 school year...

Why These New York Prison Conditions Bills Should Matter to All of Us

The impact of a person’s incarceration reaches far beyond the confines of their cell. Children lose parents. Families lose a breadwinner and struggle to meet their needs on a reduced income. Businesses lose workers. The number of people impacted by incarceration is larger than most realize. Forty-five percent of the national population has had an immediate family member who was incarcerated. There are over 50,000 incarcerated people in New York State, and their experiences in jail or prison touc...

This Native American Democracy Provided the Model for the U.S. Constitution

Now determined to end the cycle of violence hurting his people, Hiawatha sought to convince all five tribes of the benefits of unification. So he concocted a metaphor: Just as one arrow can be easily snapped in two but a bundle of five arrows cannot be broken, so too would their tribes be stronger and safer as a united group. Tribes would come together for protection and mutual benefit, much like families lived side-by-side in their longhouses. It was the power of a confederation. Hiawatha had J...

Here’s How Medical Aid in Dying Gives Us More Control Over Our Bodies - NYCLU

Almost all of us will experience the loss of a loved one, often watching with a feeling of helplessness as their health declines toward the inevitable. During this time, we want to respect our loved one’s autonomy and minimize their suffering during their final days. Terminally ill people should have the right to some degree of control over the circumstances of their deaths, just as they have the right to refuse life-prolonging treatments. In recognition of this core civil liberty, twelve states...

NY Prisons Are Barring Visitors From Seeing Their Loved Ones – Because They’re Using Tampons

Erica has been visiting her incarcerated husband for years. “Every weekend, faithfully. Rain, sleet, snow, whatever the weather was – as long as the visit was open, I was there,” she told the NYCLU. Erica never had any issues with the metal detectors and body-sniffing dogs that New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) previously used to scan visitors to its state prisons. But then, to meet the demands of correction officers who staged a three-week wildcat strike in...

Police Responses to Mental Health Crises Often Turn Deadly. Here’s a Better Way.

19-year-old Win Rozario called 911 for the same reason anyone would. He was in urgent need of help. The teen never got the assistance he needed. Instead, two police officers responded to the call. Within two minutes of arriving at his home, they tased him and then shot him dead. Body-camera recordings reveal that Rozario’s younger brother met the officers downstairs and explained that Rozario was having an “episode.” “He doesn’t even know what he’s doing, to be honest,” Rozario’s brother told th...

Should I Get A Real ID in New York?

You may have heard about a big rush at Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices earlier this year as people scrambled to get new, Real ID-compliant licenses. While the Real ID law is not new, some of its requirements have recently gone into effect. Here is what you need to know about the Real ID law and the kinds of licenses and ID cards available to New Yorkers. In the wake of the attacks on September 11th, 2001, there was a push to create uniform, nationwide standards for drivers licenses an...

I Made A Secret Promise To My Friend In College. 20 Years Later, I Finally Revealed It To Her.

We inhabited a strange, liminal space between adolescence and adulthood. On the one hand, there were moments of feeling invincible. I smoked cigarettes and didn’t care what they might be doing to my body. We sat out on fire escapes and ledges, not worrying that we might fall. On the other hand, we could see beyond the innocence of childhood to the terror of the world. We were in New York City on September 11, and climbed onto the roof of our dorm and saw the smoke from all the way downtown. We w...

Their Parents May Not Know It, But Most 11- And 12-Year-Olds Are On TikTok

TikTok uses machine learning to predict which videos an individual user is most likely to interact with and then populates their feed with these videos. A “similarity check” replaces videos that look and sound too much like one another to ensure just enough variety so that users don’t get bored. The system also filters videos by region. TikTok says its algorithm won’t recommend videos from users under 16 for the For You feed, but it’s hard to imagine that they are able to effectively implement t...

If So Many People Have ADHD, Is It Really A Disorder?

Over the past few years, an increasing number of adults are getting ADHD diagnoses. Some seek out diagnosis and treatment for themselves after helping a child through the process. Others start to wonder about the possibility after seeing themselves reflected in stories shared on social media. In many cases, an official diagnosis comes as a relief after years of feeling like they just couldn’t keep up, no matter how hard they tried. It offers an explanation for this struggle and opens the door to...

Are Audio Players The Answer To Keeping Kids Off Screens?

New technologies between my Raffi tapes and now have fundamentally transformed the way we consume music and all other audiovisual content. With a few taps on my phone, I can find a recording of almost any song I’ve ever heard — usually for free. But this unfettered access comes at a cost. The apps we use to access entertainment of all kinds are designed to keep us coming back for more, creating a loyal audience for advertisers. New technologies between my Raffi tapes and now have fundamentally...

Women Are Being Ad-Targeted For Minoxidil Like Crazy — But Just How Safe Is It?

For most of my life, my hair has been long, dark, wavy and thick. So thick that when I was growing up, the neighborhood salon charged extra for my cuts because they involved such a great quantity of hair. Blow-drying took ages as the poor stylist worked through layer after layer of my locks. At home, I always left a plentiful accumulation of coiled hair atop the drain in the shower. For most of my life, my hair has been long, dark, wavy and thick. So thick that when I was growing up, the neighb...

This Viral Video Captures The Kind Of Moment Young Boys Need More Of

In the video, a group of boys who appear to be around 10 years old surrounds one of their peers. The blond boy in the middle of the circle anxiously shifts his weight. You might think some cruel mockery or another kind of bullying behavior is about to ensue — but then the music starts, and the boy cautiously launches into a verse of “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims. In the video, a group of boys who appear to be around 10 years old surrounds one of their peers. The blond boy in the middle of the c...

I Lied To My Pediatrician About Where My Baby Slept At Night — And I’m Not The Only One

What Your Child Should Know If You Have A Family History Of Substance Use Disorder

The truth is that the biggest mistake we can make is to say nothing. Research shows that when it comes to substance abuse, parents’ actions (like allowing kids to drink at home) matter — and so do their words. Studies have found that teens who believe their parents have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to alcohol are less likely to drink in college. The truth is that the biggest mistake we can make is to say nothing. Research shows that when it comes to substance abuse, parents’ actions (l...

Should You Let Your Teen Drink Alcohol As Long As It’s Under Your Roof? Experts Weigh In.

“A kid who has their first drink in eighth grade, they have an almost 50% lifelong risk of developing substance use disorder. If it’s pushed by two years, into 10th grade, it drops by half, and if it’s pushed by another two years until they’re 18, it drops again by half — and at that point, we’re down to just about the national average for people with substance use disorder,” Lahey said. “A kid who has their first drink in eighth grade, they have an almost 50% lifelong risk of developing substa...

The 1 Thing That Child Therapists Say Harms Kids' Happiness The Most

Jennifer Wallace is a journalist and author of the forthcoming book “Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic ― And What We Can Do About It.” From a survey she conducted on the topic, and an extensive series of interviews with kids, families, teachers and psychologists, Wallace concluded that “too many kids today perceive their value and worth to be contingent on their achievements — their GPAs, the number of likes they get on a post — not for who they are as people, deep at their co...

My Loved One Donated Their Body To Science. This Is What It Meant For My Grief.

A rite of passage for generations, this course requires aspiring doctors to work in small groups to learn the mysterious architecture of the human body through meticulous dissection. For many students, the class is a series of firsts: first encounter with a dead body, first time cutting into human flesh. Technology has brought a huge number of advances to the field of medicine, but the awe and the power of working with that “first patient” remain. There is no virtual experience that can replicat...

Black Midwives Are Pillars Of Pregnancy Care. Here’s What We Can Learn From Them.

The first birth I attended as a home birth midwife was in Brooklyn. It was a religious Jewish family. My business partner Karen was the primary midwife for that first birth. It was just the woman and her husband in this little apartment. He was praying in one room, she was doing her thing in the other room. He was explaining all things Jewish religion to me. It was just wonderful — that feeling of there’s something really special, magical, knowing that you’re a participant in something so import...

What Is Child Endangerment? When Leaving Your Child Alone Becomes A Crime.