Mother Jones
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Governments meeting for vital climate talks have been accused of making positive commitments in public but denying them later in the privacy of the negotiating rooms by the Egyptian hosts of the summit. Wael Aboulmagd, the Egyptian diplomat in charge […]
Mother JonesThis piece was published originally by Capital & Main. They say everything is bigger in Texas—and that includes the scale and brazenness of voter suppression efforts. The 2020 election saw record turnout in the Lone Star State, an 8% increase from 2016 overall and a 9% increase among nonwhite Texans. In a healthy democracy, such a […]
Mother JonesSea levels are rising twice as fast as they were 30 years ago. Persistent drought in East Africa has plunged about 19 million people into crisis levels of food insecurity. Floods from record-breaking rainfall killed 1,700 people in Pakistan. And yet global greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing, according to the United Nations’ climate agency. […]
Mother JonesAbsentee ballot processing is kicking off today in Michigan, and the Trump-backed candidate running to become the state’s top election official is already trying to throw out tens of thousands votes—specifically in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit, which is 78 percent Black. Kristine Karamo, an election denier whose Secretary of State campaign is supported by the […]
Mother JonesRussian trolls and bots are coming back online ahead of the midterms—this time, amplifying right-wing vitriol on Gab, Parler, Gettr, and other minor social media platforms serving far-right audiences. Cybersecurity researchers have identified the reactivation of inflammatory accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, a propaganda group associated with the Kremlin that has interfered in US […]
Mother JonesIn the final days of former mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, he honored a pledge made in his 2021 State of the City address: the creation of a commission to revise the city’s governing charter through amendments, in the form of ballot measures, to “uncover and attack” institutional racism in New York City. On Tuesday, voters will […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Most plastics marketed as “home compostable” don’t actually work, with as much as 60% failing to disintegrate after six months, according to research. An estimated 10 percent of people can effectively compost at home, but for the remaining 90 […]
Mother JonesAn already messy battle in Pennsylvania over mail-in ballots stepped up on Friday, with the NAACP and an alliance of other voting rights group filing a lawsuit to insist certain votes should be counted. The issue at hand is whether a state law says that mail-in votes can be counted if they have a valid date […]
Mother JonesRep. Liz Cheney used to be one of the standard-bearers of the Republican party—she’s literally the heir to one of the most prominent Republicans in modern history. But since she broke with former president Donald Trump, she’s strayed far from the party and is now not just campaigning against pro-Trump Republicans, she’s endorsing Democrats. After […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Countries’ climate pledges rely on “unrealistic” and “extensive” amounts of land for carbon removal projects like tree planting schemes, a new report from the University of Melbourne said. A landmass larger than the entire United States, about […]
Mother JonesShoe company Nike has paused its relationship with NBA star Kyrie Irving after he promoted an anti-semitic film on Twitter—and then subsequently refused to apologize for it. Irving, who plays for the New Jersey Nets, was also suspended for at least five games. On Oct. 27, Irving tweeted a link to an Amazon listing for […]
Mother JonesIf there’s one thing Dr. Mehmet Oz wants you to believe, it’s that his opponent Lt. Gov. John Fetterman is soft on crime. Oz, a celebrity talk-show host turned Republican politician, has hit this point over and over again as he attempts to close the gap in an increasingly tight race in Pennsylvania that could determine […]
Mother JonesAfter a lengthy period of “will he or won’t he,” that’s gone on since last April, Elon Musk finally bought Twitter for the hilarious price of $54.20 per share—$44 billion total—a much higher price than what many analysts consider the company to be worth. Following the acquisition, Musk started telling people that he planned to […]
Mother JonesTom Barrack, a fund manager and adviser to former President Donald Trump, was acquitted Friday of charges that he acted as an unregistered agent of the United Arab Emirates. The verdict was the latest in a string of recent blows to the Justice Department’s efforts to crack down on foreign lobbying. After deliberating for two days, […]
Mother JonesIf Mark Finchem, the Republican candidate for secretary of state in Arizona and a QAnon-friendly election denialist who was recently accused of antisemitism and who days ago attended a conference with conspiracy theorist extremists, wins on Tuesday, he will soon oversee all the state’s elections, including the upcoming 2024 presidential contest. That possibility has long […]
Mother JonesA New York judge on Thursday evening ordered that an independent financial monitor be appointed to keep tabs on Donald Trump’s business empire while state Attorney General Letitia James pursues her $250 million civil fraud lawsuit against the former president. The judge ordered the unusual move after James’ office argued that the Trumps couldn’t be […]
Mother JonesSince the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, President Joe Biden has been telling voters the solution is the polls. “Vote, vote vote,” he implored them a week after the court decided there was no constitutional right to abortion, after all. “Vote, vote, vote,” he repeated in July, signing an executive order that took some […]
Mother JonesContent warning: This story contains descriptions of child sexual abuse. The two girls at the sleepover huddled together on the bed, passing the cell phone around. They took turns glancing at the screen, fascinated and unsettled by what they saw but unable to look away. Their other friend wanted no part of what was going […]
Mother JonesWhen a draft of the Supreme Court ruling that would strike down the federal right to abortion leaked earlier this year, Christine Marsh, a Democratic state senator who is running for re-election in one of Arizona’s most competitive districts, noticed a shift in the conversations she was having with voters. “It changed everything at the […]
Mother JonesOliver Wenditz, who goes by Ollie, catches me up on the goings-on at my old school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Though we’re separated by close to 20 years, we adore the same art teacher, love printmaking, and do theater. But I had no hand-eye coordination, and Ollie, an eighth-grader, hopes to play basketball in the […]
Mother JonesDr. Mobeen Rathore has spent the better part of his career trying to protect the children in his practice from contracting deadly diseases like measles, whooping cough, and polio. As chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine, Rathore remembers a time—just a few decades […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Food companies and governments must come together immediately to change the world’s agricultural practices or risk “destroying the planet,” according to the sponsors of a report by some of the largest food and farming businesses released on Thursday. The report, […]
Mother JonesOn a cloudy day in September, Eric Toney, the Republican candidate for Wisconsin Attorney General, called a press conference. Flanked by local police brass, Toney was in Milwaukee—a city he said is descending into a “shooting gallery”—to announce a signature campaign policy: Taking power away from the local district attorney John Chisholm. “I refuse to […]
Mother JonesIn 1987, Oliver Stone released Wall Street. The film, in theory, was an indictment of the rapacious excess wrought by rising financialization. At the center was Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas. “The personification of heartless 1980s excess,” according to the Washington Post, Gekko is calm and venal; suave but loathsome. Yet the film’s screenwriter, […]
Mother JonesOn Wednesday, both President Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama warned that if the current far-right extremist candidates win their elections next week, the country’s democratic foundations would be at risk. The dueling speeches came as Democrats scramble to urge voters in the final stretch before next week’s elections to reject election deniers on […]
Mother JonesMore than any election in recent memory, the fight for control of state legislatures in this November’s midterms looms large. State legislatures are a major source of power in American politics—from education to housing to redistricting and much more—and they are typically much more productive than Congress. But this year, the US Supreme Court has put […]
Mother JonesOn a bright, crisp Saturday morning in late October, Stacey Abrams’ purple campaign bus arrived in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The city of 6,700 outside of Atlanta is best known for its nearby state park, where the Ku Klux Klan was reborn in 1915 and a 1,700-foot-high relief sculpture of the Confederate leaders Robert E. Lee, […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The top 1 percent of earners in the UK are responsible for the same amount of carbon dioxide emissions in a single year as the bottom 10 percent emit over more than two decades, new data has shown. The […]
Mother JonesIn mid-October, the actor Mark Hamill, a.k.a. Luke Skywalker, turned his star power on Evan McMullin, who is running a surprisingly competitive race for Senate in Utah. First came the tweet: “I like @EvanMcMullin SO much, it makes me wish I lived in Utah so I could vote for him!*” Then a Zoom call, cheering […]
Mother JonesEditor’s note: The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter is written by David twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories about politics and media; his unvarnished take on the events of the day; film, book, television, podcast, and music recommendations; interactive audience features; and more. Subscribing costs just […]