50th Anniversary of Mathematics of Operations Research (and 50 papers, one for each year)

 MOR is a journal that published its first issue only two years after I finished my Ph.D., and Bob Aumann was the first editor of its Game Theory section. The 50 papers selected to mark its 50th anniversary, one for each year, are something of a history of operations research since 1976.

 The 1981 paper is Roger Myerson's famous paper on auctions.

I submitted my 1982 paper to MOR only after it was rejected by Chicago's Journal of Political Economy, with a letter from the editor, George Stigler, saying that the only economics in the paper was in the title. (He meant that market clearing in the model wasn't achieved by price adjustment.)  Matching markets have become a significant part of economics since then...

Editor’s Comments on the 50th Anniversary of Mathematics of Operations Research
Katya Scheinberg
Published Online:28 Jan 2026https://doi.org/10.1287/moor.2026.50th.v51.n1
 

"As we proudly celebrate the 50th anniversary of the journal Mathematics of Operations Research (MOR), we look back at its history and how it reflects the evolution of the field itself.

"The senior editors have prepared a list of 50 papers—one for each year—to represent this history. These papers are but a very small selection from an outstanding collection of contributions published by the journal over the past five decades. "

Augmented Lagrangians and Applications of the Proximal Point Algorithm in Convex Programming

RT Rockafellar

Mathematics of Operations Research 1976 1(2):97–116

New Finite Pivoting Rules for the Simplex Method

RG Bland

Mathematics of Operations Research 1977 2(2):103–107

Best Algorithms for Approximating the Maximum of a Submodular Set Function

GL Nemhauser, LA Wolsey

Mathematics of Operations Research 1978 3(3):177–188

Mathematical Properties of the Banzhaf Power Index

P Dubey, LS Shapley

Mathematics of Operations Research 1979 4(2):99–131

Some Useful Functions for Functional Limit Theorems

W Whitt

Mathematics of Operations Research 1980 5(1):67–85

Optimal Auction Design

RB Myerson

Mathematics of Operations Research 1981 6(1):58–73

The Economics of Matching: Stability and Incentives

AE Roth

Mathematics of Operations Research 1982 7(4):617–628

Integer Programming with a Fixed Number of Variables

HW Lenstra Jr

Mathematics of Operations Research 1983 8(4):538–548

Lipschitz Behavior of Solutions to Convex Minimization Problems

J-P Aubin

Mathematics of Operations Research 1984 9(1):87–111

Distributional Strategies for Games with Incomplete Information

PR Milgrom, RJ Weber

Mathematics of Operations Research 1985 10(4):619–632

Clique Tree Inequalities and the Symmetric Travelling Salesman Problem

M Grötschel, WR Pulleyblank

Mathematics of Operations Research 1986 11(4):537–569

Minkowski’s Convex Body Theorem and Integer Programming

R Kannan

Mathematics of Operations Research 1987 12(3):415–440

Cooling Schedules for Optimal Annealing

B Hajek

Mathematics of Operations Research 1988 13(2):311–329

Markov Chains with Rare Transitions and Simulated Annealing

JN Tsitsiklis

Mathematics of Operations Research 1989 14(1):70–90

Newton’s Method for B-Differentiable Equations

J-S Pang

Mathematics of Operations Research 1990 15(2):311–341

Scenarios and Policy Aggregation in Optimization Under Uncertainty

RT Rockafellar, RJ-B Wets

Mathematics of Operations Research 1991 16(1):119–147

The Generalized Basis Reduction Algorithm

L Lovász, HE Scarf

Mathematics of Operations Research 1992 17(3):751–764

On Adaptive-Step Primal-Dual Interior-Point Algorithms for Linear Programming

S Mizuno, MJ Todd, Y Ye

Mathematics of Operations Research 1993 18(4):964–981

A Polynomial Time Algorithm for Counting Integral Points in Polyhedra When the Dimension Is Fixed

AI Barvinok

Mathematics of Operations Research 1994 19(4):769–779

Fast Approximation Algorithms for Fractional Packing and Covering Problems

SA Plotkin, DB Shmoys, É Tardos

Mathematics of Operations Research 1995 20(2):257–301

Rounding of Polytopes in the Real Number Model of Computation

LG Khachiyan

Mathematics of Operations Research 1996 21(2):307–320

Self-Scaled Barriers and Interior-Point Methods for Convex Programming

YE Nesterov, MJ Todd

Mathematics of Operations Research 1997 22(1):1–42

Robust Convex Optimization

A Ben-Tal, A Nemirovski

Mathematics of Operations Research 1998 23(4):769–805

The Flatness Theorem for Nonsymmetric Convex Bodies via the Local Theory of Banach Spaces

W Banaszczyk, AE Litvak, A Pajor, SJ Szarek

Mathematics of Operations Research 1999 24(3):728–750

Mathematical Programs with Complementarity Constraints: Stationarity, Optimality, and Sensitivity

H Scheel, S Scholtes

Mathematics of Operations Research 2000 25(1):1–22

A Weak-to-Strong Convergence Principle for Fejér-Monotone Methods in Hilbert Spaces

HH Bauschke, PL Combettes

Mathematics of Operations Research 2001 26(2):248–264

The Complexity of Decentralized Control of Markov Decision Processes

DS Bernstein, R Givan, N Immerman, S Zilberstein

Mathematics of Operations Research 2002 27(4):819–840

A Comparison of the Sherali-Adams, Lovász-Schrijver, and Lasserre Relaxations for 0–1 Programming

M Laurent

Mathematics of Operations Research 2003 28(3):470–496

Selfish Routing in Capacitated Networks

JR Correa, AS Schulz, NE Stier-Moses

Mathematics of Operations Research 2004 29(4):961–976

Robust Dynamic Programming

GN Iyengar

Mathematics of Operations Research 2005 30(2):257–280

Integer Polynomial Optimization in Fixed Dimension

JA De Loera, R Hemmecke, M Köppe, R Weismantel

Mathematics of Operations Research 2006 31(1):147–153

Subsolutions of an Isaacs Equation and Efficient Schemes for Importance Sampling

P Dupuis, H Wang

Mathematics of Operations Research 2007 32(3):723–757

Facets of Two-Dimensional Infinite Group Problems

SS Dey, J-P Richard

Mathematics of Operations Research 2008 33(1):140–166

Minimal Valid Inequalities for Integer Constraints

V Borozan, G Cornuéjols

Mathematics of Operations Research 2009 34(3):538–546

Proximal Alternating Minimization and Projection Methods for Nonconvex Problems: An Approach Based on the Kurdyka-Łojasiewicz Inequality

H Attouch, J Bolte, P Redont, A Soubeyran

Mathematics of Operations Research 2010 35(2):438–457

The Simplex and Policy-Iteration Methods Are Strongly Polynomial for the Markov Decision Problem with a Fixed Discount Rate

Y Ye

Mathematics of Operations Research 2011 36(4):593–603

Online Stochastic Matching: Online Actions Based on Offline Statistics

VH Manshadi, S Oveis Gharan, A Saberi

Mathematics of Operations Research 2012 37(4):559–573

Robust Markov Decision Processes

W Wiesemann, D Kuhn, B Rustem

Mathematics of Operations Research 2013 38(1):153–183

Learning to Optimize via Posterior Sampling

D Russo, B Van Roy

Mathematics of Operations Research 2014 39(4):1221–1243

On the Convergence of Decomposition Methods for Multistage Stochastic Convex Programs

P Girardeau, V Leclere, AB Philpott

Mathematics of Operations Research 2015 40(1):130–145

Learning in Games via Reinforcement and Regularization

P Mertikopoulos, WH Sandholm

Mathematics of Operations Research 2016 41(4):1297–1324

A Descent Lemma Beyond Lipschitz Gradient Continuity: First-Order Methods Revisited and Applications

HH Bauschke, J Bolte, M Teboulle

Mathematics of Operations Research 2017 42(2):330–348

Error Bounds, Quadratic Growth, and Linear Convergence of Proximal Methods

D Drusvyatskiy, AS Lewis

Mathematics of Operations Research 2018 43(3):919–948

Quantifying Distributional Model Risk via Optimal Transport

J Blanchet, K Murthy

Mathematics of Operations Research 2019 44(2):565–600

Characterization, Robustness, and Aggregation of Signed Choquet Integrals

RD Wang, YR Wei, GE Willmot

Mathematics of Operations Research 2020 45(3):993–1015

Statistics of Robust Optimization: A Generalized Empirical Likelihood Approach

JC Duchi, PW Glynn, H Namkoong

Mathematics of Operations Research 2021 46(3):946–969

Entropy Regularization for Mean Field Games with Learning

X Guo, R Xu, T Zariphopoulou

Mathematics of Operations Research 2022 47(4):3239–3260

Distributionally Robust Stochastic Optimization with Wasserstein Distance

R Gao, A Kleywegt

Mathematics of Operations Research 2023 48(2):603–655

A Stochastic Sequential Quadratic Optimization Algorithm for Nonlinear-Equality-Constrained Optimization with Rank-Deficient Jacobians

AS Berahas, FE Curtis, MJ O’Neill, DP Robinson

Mathematics of Operations Research 2024 49(4):2212–2248

Stationary Points of a Shallow Neural Network with Quadratic Activations and the Global Optimality of the Gradient Descent Algorithm

D Gamarnik, EC Kizildag, I Zadik

Mathematics of Operations Research 2025 50(1):209–251

 

HT Itai Ashlagi 

Market Design in the Age of AI, this Friday at Stanford

 Market Design in the Age of AI
Friday, February 27, 2026 , 12:00pm - 6:00pm PST
Simonyi Conference Center, CoDa, 389 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

The Market Design in the Age of AI Conference aims to catalyze interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation at the intersection of algorithm design, economics, machine learning, and operations research. As market platforms become increasingly complex and data-driven, this conference brings together leading thinkers from both academia and industry to explore how AI is reshaping the design, analysis, and regulation of modern markets.

Our goal is to foster a vibrant community that bridges research and practice—advancing both the theory and real-world application of intelligent, efficient, and equitable market systems. Over time, we envision the conference serving as a launch pad for novel marketplaces and platform innovations that emerge from these collaborations.

Agenda (draft)

Start Time	End Time	Session	Speaker(s)
12:00 PM	1:00 PM	Lunch & Registration
1:00 PM	1:15 PM	Opening Remarks	Amin Saberi, Professor of Management Science & Engineering, Stanford; Computational Market Design Center Director
1:15 PM	1:45 PM	Economic Mechanisms in the GenAI Era: Advertising Auctions and Marketplaces	Aranyak Mehta, Distinguished Research Scientist, Google
1:45 PM	2:15 PM	Carpooling and the Economics of Self-Driving Cars	Michael Ostrovsky, Professor of Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business
2:15 PM	3:00 PM	GenAI for Markets	Amine Allouah, My Custom AI, Custom AI James Biggs, Sr. Director of Marketplace Ads & Monetization Products, Upwork Yossi Feinberg, Professor of Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business Negin (Nikki) Golrezaei, Theresa Seley Associate Professor in Management Science, MIT Ruben Lobel, Product Data Scientist Lead, Waymo Okke Schrijvers, Research Scientist Manager, Meta
3:00 PM	3:15 PM	Break
3:15 PM	3:45 PM	TBA	Vahab Mirrokni, VP & Fellow, Google Research
3:45 PM	4:15 PM	Fireside Chat: The Economics of AI	Michael Schwarz, Corporate Vice President & Chief Economist, Microsoft Guido Imbens, Professor, Stanford University; Faculty Director, Stanford Data Science Amin Saberi, Professor of Management Science & Engineering, Stanford; Computational Market Design Center Director
4:15 PM	4:45 PM	TBA	Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI Chief Economist; Duke University Professor of Business & Public Policy
4:45 PM	5:00 PM	Closing Remarks
5:00 PM	6:20 PM	Networking Reception & Posters	View the Poster Map

 

Organizers

• Negin (Nikki) Golrezaei, MIT/Stanford
• Amin Saberi, Stanford

Poster Session Committee

• Mohammad Asadi, HAI Graduate Fellow
• Grace Guan, SDS Alumna (PhD in Management Science and Engineering)
• Andy Haupt, HAI Postdoctoral Fellow

A.I. in managemant consulting

 Management consulting seems like a natural use-case for large language models.

The Financial Times has the story: 

Accenture combats AI refuseniks by linking promotions to log-ins
Consulting firms use ‘carrot and stick’ with some senior staff less willing to use technology than junior colleagues     by Ellesheva Kissin and Elizabeth Bratton 

"Accenture has begun monitoring staff use of its AI tools as part of how it decides top-level promotions, as consultancies push reluctant employees to adopt the technology. 

The Dublin-headquartered firm told associate directors and senior managers that promotion to leadership positions would require “regular adoption” of AI, according to people familiar with the matter and an internal email seen by the FT.

This month Accenture started to collect data on individual weekly log-ins to its AI tools for some senior employees."

Fast and slow dissemination of new ideas in medicine and economics (one timeline:)

There are many differences between medicine and economics, but one of the most striking is the speed of publication. 

I publish papers in both fields, so I get to experience very different speeds, of publication and response. Publishing (and therefore also responding--both positively and negatively ) is much slower in economics than in medicine.  I've been noticing this because of recent attention to a paper I coauthored that was published in November, 2025, in the journal Transplantation. (It had been submitted in January, was revised and accepted in March, and was published online in May.)  In December the journal created and distributed to its subscriber list a narrated video abstract of the paper. You can find the video here https://vimeo.com/1146995735/486989e95c?fl=pl&fe=sh

 Our paper suggested ways that information revealed during deceased organ allocation could be used to evaluate organ quality, and expedite (i.e. speed up) the allocation process for organs at risk of being unused.  And the first published response, just three month later, suggests how such information could be used in India.

Early Refusal Pattern Phenotyping as a Surrogate for Organ Quality Assessment in Kidney Allocation
Kashiv, Pranjal MD, DM1,2; Pasari, Amit MD, DM2,3; Balwani, Manish MD, DM2,3; Kute, Vivek MD, DM4
Transplantation ():10.1097/TP.0000000000005664, February 09, 2026. | DOI: 10.1097/TP.0000000000005664

"We read with interest the recent article by Guan et al,1 which provides a comprehensive and methodologically thoughtful assessment of refusal behavior in deceased donor kidney allocation. Their distinction between single-patient and multiple-patient simultaneous refusals, derived through timestamp-based clustering, offers a methodologically robust framework that elevates routine offer-response data into a meaningful surrogate for real-time assessment of organ suitability. This approach is particularly valuable in allocation environments where decisions must be made under substantial time pressure and with incomplete ancillary information.

...

" Their observations offer global relevance and hold potential for strengthening allocation efficiency in India’s evolving deceased donor landscape." 

 ######

Earlier:

Here's the blog post that accompanied the publication online... 

Friday, May 23, 2025  Deceased organ allocation: deciding early when to move fast

French medical residents struggle without a way for couples to match together

 Esther Duflo sent me a link to the story below in Le Monde, describing the difficulty facing married doctors in France who wish to match to first jobs in the same city.

If I understand correctly, the old system ranked students by their exam results on the  épreuves classantes nationales (ECN), after which the students  then chose among the jobs available to them in rank order. A couple could decide to choose jobs at the same time, by waiting till the turn of the worse ranked member of the couple.  In this way they could choose two jobs in the same city.  But a new system ranks doctors differently, by specialties, and resolves itself for everyone at the same time. So couples can now have no way to assure themselves of being matched in the same city. 

Here's the article (which I sense isn't completely clear either in English translation or in the original French): 

"We are pawns to be moved": the geographical conundrum of medical intern couples
Since the last reform of medical studies, the algorithm that distributes future interns in the university hospitals of France no longer guarantees their assignment in the same city as their partner.  By Diane Merveilleux 

" Since 2023, the three-day ECNs giving rise to a single national ranking have been replaced by a sixth year punctuated by tests in the form of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) in October, then oral exams in the spring, which make it possible to establish 13 rankings by specialty groups.

"When summer comes, each student makes up to 80 wishes, a wish corresponding to a specialty in a city. Then an algorithm makes it possible to assign each person an assignment according to the ranking of their wishes. This algorithm will run eight times, each time simulating a final result and allowing students to adapt their wishes and review their ambitions. Their final assignment falls at the same time for everyone, at the end of the last round, in September. They are then hired for four to six years of boarding in the same place, without any possibility of change.

"For young medical couples, this is where the problem lies: those who would like to spend these years in the same city have no way of being sure.

...

"Thus, until 2023, the national ranking led students to choose their assignment one after the other – the first, then the second, and so on. In this configuration, the member of the couple who had obtained the highest score could "downgrade" themselves to join their partner's level so that they could make their decision at the same time. "Today, this downgrading is no longer possible, it's the very principle of the algorithm: we have a system that is totally different," says Philippe Touzy."

########## 

It seems that the couples algorithm that they have abandoned is much more primitive than the Roth-Peranson algorithm* now used in the American medical match, which allows couples to submit much more expressive joint preferences over pairs of jobs.

As it happens, just a few years ago there was a proposal for a two-part match that would have inadvertently disabled the US couples match.  Itai Ashlagi and I were able to convince the American Medical Association (which had sponsored the proposal) that it was a bad idea.  We ran the match under a variety of conditions.  So Itai  has an efficient implementation of the Roth-Peranson algorithm available if it could be helpful in France.

Here’s a blog post about that…

Friday, April 21, 2023

Transition from medical school to residency: defending the parts that work well (namely the NRMP Resident Match)

########

* 

 From     Roth, Alvin E. "What have we learned from market design?" Reprinted with a postscript in The Handbook of Market Design, Nir Vulkan, Alvin E. Roth and Zvika Neeman editors, Oxford University Press, 2013, Chapter 1, 7-50

How to regulate legal marijuana?

 The New York Times editorial board thinks about the current environment for (now legal) marijuana, and calls for more careful regulation, and federal taxation:

It’s Time for America to Admit That It Has a Marijuana Problem 

"Thirteen years ago, no state allowed marijuana for recreational purposes. Today, most Americans live in a state that allows them to buy and smoke a joint. President Trump continued the trend toward legalization in December by loosening federal restrictions.

This editorial board has long supported marijuana legalization. In 2014, we published a six-part series that compared the federal marijuana ban to alcohol prohibition and argued for repeal. Much of what we wrote then holds up — but not all of it does.

At the time, supporters of legalization predicted that it would bring few downsides. In our editorials, we described marijuana addiction and dependence as “relatively minor problems.” Many advocates went further and claimed that marijuana was a harmless drug that might even bring net health benefits. They also said that legalization might not lead to greater use.

 

It is now clear that many of these predictions were wrong. Legalization has led to much more use. Surveys suggest that about 18 million people in the United States have used marijuana almost daily (or about five times a week) in recent years. That was up from around six million in 2012 and less than one million in 1992. More Americans now use marijuana daily than alcohol. 

...

"The unfortunate truth is that the loosening of marijuana policies — especially the decision to legalize pot without adequately regulating it — has led to worse outcomes than many Americans expected. It is time to acknowledge reality and change course." 

 

Magic mushrooms have a role in hospice care

 Pain experienced while dying may be partly spiritual.

 National Geographic has the story: 

These drugs could be a game changer for end-of-life care
Certain psychoactive substances can improve the mental health of terminally ill cancer patients—but few patients can currently access them.  By Meryl Davids Landau

 "Several years ago in Vancouver Island, Canada, a 32-year-old mother with advanced metastatic cancer was so wracked with pain and a fear of dying she constantly wept in bed. Through a targeted Canadian government program, the woman accessed psilocybin, the main psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms. The day after taking a dose of the drug she was pain-free, able to joke with family members and reconnect with old friends before she died the following week.

...
"The drugs can help with “the existential component of pain that is tied in with spiritual and psychological experiences,” something conventional medicine has few tools to address, says Masuda, a physician with SATA Centre for Conscious Living, who has since facilitated dozens of psychedelic sessions for similar patients.

"Some 400 terminal patients in Canada have legally accessed psilocybin in the past five years via its special programs, and several countries already allow for similar uses. Due to federal drug laws, terminally ill people in the U.S. cannot currently take psilocybin outside of a handful of clinical trials.

"But this may finally change, as government agencies are evaluating whether to allow its use for end-of-life care—thanks to pressure from physicians and years of research. Many palliative care doctors in the U.S. say the change can’t come soon enough." 

Jobs for human "meatspace" workers, assigned by A.I.s

 Robots aren't yet able to replace people: e.g. self-driving taxis (such as Waymo) aren't equipped to close a door left open (or incompletely closed) by a departing passenger.  So artificial agents need a task rabbit to recruit able-bodied (or at least embodied) workers.  

Nature has the story: 

AI agents are hiring human 'meatspace workers' — including some scientists
Biologists, physicists and computer scientists have joined a platform called RentAHuman.ai to advertise their skills. By Jenna Ahart 

"The idea is simple, as the website’s homepage reads: “robots need your body”. Human users can create profiles to advertise their skills for tasks that an AI tool can’t accomplish on its own — go to meetings, conduct experiments, or play instruments, for example — along with how much they expect to be paid. People — or ‘meatspace workers’ as the site calls them — can then apply to jobs posted by AI agents or wait to be contacted by one. The website shows that more than 450,000 people have offered their services on the site." 

Joe Halpern (1953-2026)

 Joseph Halpern was an early explorer of the interface between computer science and game theory.  

Here's his funeral home obit: 

Joseph Y. Halpern
May 29, 1953 — February 13, 2026 

"Joe spent nearly 30 years as a professor of computer science at Cornell, and was considered a pioneer in his field. He was famous for having an impressive influence in a wide variety of topics, working extensively at the intersection of computer science, philosophy, and game theory. His work has reshaped the way we think about topics such as reasoning about knowledge and causality. He is the recipient of prestigious awards such as the Gödel Prize and Dijkstra Prize, the co-author of three highly influential books, six patents, and over 300 papers." 

 

His student Daphne Koller writes:

In Memoriam: Joe Halpern

"Yesterday, my PhD advisor, Joe Halpern, passed away after a long battle with lung cancer. He was a brilliant mathematician, a transformative mentor, and a truly wonderful human being.

"Joe possessed the rare ability to identify unusual, deeply interesting problems and solve them with breathtaking elegance and rigor. He was also a master communicator who could distill the most complex concepts into simple, straightforward truths—a skill I strive to emulate every day." 

 

Here's his Google Scholar Page: Jospeh Halpern 

Eric Schmidt on the future of warfare

 Warfare--the technology by which wars are fought--is changing.

Ukraine’s no man’s land is the future of war
In drone vs drone combat, valuable personnel can be pulled back from the front
Eric Schmidt 

"The writer is former CEO of Google, chair of the Special Competitive Studies Project and an investor in drone technology" 

"Future wars are going to be defined by unmanned weapons. The combination of unblockable satellite communications, cheap spectrum networks and accurate GPS targeting means the only way to fight will be through drone vs drone combat. Drones share data in real time, meaning that many inexpensive platforms can act as a single weapon. They will carry air-to-air missiles to defeat attackers, just like a fighter jet does, but will be cheaper and more abundant.

"The winner of those drone battles will then be able to advance with unmanned ground and maritime vehicles, which move slowly but can carry heavier payloads. These air, land and sea formations will absorb the initial fire and expand what is becoming an increasingly robotic kill zone. Only after the first waves of machines have gone in will human soldiers follow."
 

4th Computational and Experimental Economics Summer School, UPF Barcelona, May31-June 6

Rosemarie Nagel writes from Barcelona:

Dear colleagues and graduate students,

 We invite graduate students, postdocs, and young faculty to the 4th Computational and Experimental Economics Summer School, to be held on May 31 - June 6, 2026, at the BESLab at UPF in Barcelona, Spain.

 The goal of the summer school is to build a foundation for using computational tools, machine learning methods, and large language models to complement and/or explain results from human-subject experiments. In particular, throughout the curriculum, students will learn to implement a variety of agent-based models that have successfully captured regularities observed in experimental and field data.  

 

In addition, the summer school will include a two-day workshop on computational and experimental economics at the BSE summerforum, featuring presentations by leading researchers in experimental and computational economics.

 The deadline for applications is March 7th, 2026, for the summer school. 

 You can find more information and details on how to participate in the summer school here: https://www.upf.edu/web/beslab/comp-2026

 Organizers,

 Herbert Dawid (Bielefeld University)

Mikhail Anufriev (University of Technology Sydney)

Rosemarie Nagel (ICREA-UPF, and BSE)

Valentyn Panchenko (University of New South Wales)

Yaroslav Rosokha (Purdue University)

Trump Administration Removes Pride Flag From Stonewall National Monument (but the Stonewall Inn is still in private hands)

 When a national monument is designated around a private business in a liberal state, the ability of the President to alter its message is  at least partially circumscribed.

Trump Administration Removes Pride Flag From Stonewall National Monument  The enduring symbol of LGBTQ+ liberation has been taken down from the historic site.
By James Factora and Quispe López  February 10, 2026 

 

 

 "Manhattan borough president Brad Hoylman-Sigal told the New York Times that the directive to remove the Pride flag came from the Trump administration. The monument itself was designated in 2016 to honor the origin of Pride in the United States, and was also the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGTBTQ+ rights.

"But like the 1969 rebellion that cemented Stonewall into history books, queer and trans people are not taking it without a fight. While the park and monument across from the original Stonewall Inn is now a federal park, the business itself is private property.

“Bad news for the Trump Administration: these colors don’t run,” Human Rights Campaign Press Secretary Brandon Wolf said in a statement. “The Stonewall Inn & Visitor’s Center is still privately owned, their flags are still flying high, and that community is just as queer as it was yesterday. While their policy agenda throws the country into chaos, the Trump administration is obsessed with trying to suffocate the joy and pride that Americans have for their communities.”

##########

N.Y.C. Officials Reinstate Pride Flag at Stonewall After Federal Removal   By Liam Stack and Olivia BensimonUpdated Feb. 13, 2026, 2:40 a.m. ET

"A group of New York elected officials gathered on Thursday to replace the Pride flag that was removed from the Stonewall National Monument after a directive from the Trump administration, mounting a defiant response to the government’s assault on diversity initiatives at a federal site honoring the L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement.

"The plan to re-raise the flag in the center of the small park outside the historic Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village had been widely publicized on social media, and hundreds of spectators cheered as its rainbow colors made their way back up the flagpole under a cloudy winter sky."

Moral Economics: Book cover and jackets

 Getting a book out involves some tedium (e.g. trying to proofread the index) as well as many small excitements: here's the full book cover and jackets for Moral Economics:) 

 

 

 

Blurb I recently wrote (for a How-to on a familiar but surprising subject)

Like everything else in life, blurbs have editors, so not everything you write gets published.   

Some of the books I've read and blurbed might surprise you, such as this one (on a familiar subject, but a surprising one for a book):

You've Been Pooping All Wrong  by Dr. Trisha Pasricha (who I first encountered some years ago).

 Here's my blurb as it appears on the book's web page: 
“An entertaining and instructive book.”

  Here's the full blurb that I wrote

"Dr. Trisha Pasricha has written an entertaining and instructive book, in very plain language, about how our bodies turn inputs into outputs, along with tips on managing that. Along the way she writes equally clearly about the emerging, polysyllabic field of neurogastroenterology, which studies the lifelong, two-way conversation between brains and guts." 

 ##########

"My needs in life are simple, I want three things maybe four...a little love, just enough to eat, a warm place to sleep, and everything I write should be published"

Before I forget, coffee lowers risk of dementia

 Here's the good news, published yesterday in JAMA:

Coffee and Tea Intake, Dementia Risk, and Cognitive Function
Yu Zhang, MBBS1,2,3; Yuxi Liu, PhD2,3,4; Yanping Li, PhD1,2 et al,

JAMA, Published Online: February 9, 2026
doi: 10.1001/jama.2025.27259 

"Findings  In this prospective cohort study of 131 821 individuals from 2 cohorts with up to 43 years of follow-up, 11 033 dementia cases were documented. Higher caffeinated coffee intake was significantly associated with lower risk of dementia. Decaffeinated coffee intake was not significantly associated with dementia risk.

"Meaning  Higher caffeinated coffee intake was associated with more favorable cognitive outcomes. "

######

I figured I'd better pass along the news before I forget...