On Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals re-sentenced 64-year-old Randall Mays from capital punishment to life in prison without parole, after a state expert agreed that Mays’ intellectual disabilities made his execution unacceptable. In 2019, a judge halted the state’s plan to execute Mays, who was sentenced to death in 2008 for the killings […]
A federal judge on Friday granted a preliminary injunction that will force New Jersey to redo its controversial ballot design, known as the county-line ballot, a move that could fundamentally alter elections in a state long rife with allegations of political corruption. The ruling is a victory for Rep. Andy Kim, who last month sued […]
It’s easy to see the glaring hypocrisy of Brian Pritchard, the Republican official in Georgia and outspoken election denier, who was found guilty this week of voting illegally nine times. After all, voter fraud is an enduring conservative boogeyman despite scant evidence that such rampant fraud exists. Yet any schadenfreude that might be derived from […]
Today marks one year since Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested in Russia on what American officials say are false charges of espionage. He has been held in jail ever since. Members of Russia’s Federal Security Service—the country’s intelligence agency, also known as the FSB—detained Gershkovich while he was on a reporting assignment in the […]
Just when you thought “and” meant “and,” and “or” meant “or,” along comes the Supreme Court to deliver the unsettling news: Your grammar is all wrong. This historic toppling of words’ ordinary meaning comes from a recent ruling in which the court dashed the hopes of thousands of criminal defendants seeking reduced prison time. A […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The world’s fossil-fuel producers are on track to nearly quadruple the amount of extracted oil and gas from newly approved projects by the end of this decade, with the US leading the way in a surge of activity that […]
n the afternoon of January 6, 2021, as election deniers armed with Tasers and tomahawks overran the US Capitol, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) handed his colleague and close friend Eric Swalwell a pen. “Here,” he said to the California Democrat. “Stick this in their neck if they get close to you.” The Marine veteran, who’d […]
n the afternoon of January 6, 2021, as election deniers armed with Tasers and tomahawks overran the US Capitol, Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) handed his colleague and close friend Eric Swalwell a pen. “Here,” he said to the California Democrat. “Stick this in their neck if they get close to you.” The Marine veteran, who’d […]
At the start of a slickly produced 19-minute YouTube video titled “How T.Rex Arms Got Started,” Lucas Botkin, the company’s 30-year-old founder, runs through an obstacle course. A guitar-heavy soundtrack plays as Botkin, decked out in tactical gear and filtered through overwrought video effects, picks off targets with a variety of handguns and rifles. We […]
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Flooding could affect one out of every 50 residents in 24 coastal cities in the United States by 2050, a study led by Virginia Tech researchers suggests. The study, published this month in Nature, shows how the combination of land subsidence—in […]