Mother Jones
Three weeks after his death at the hands of Memphis police, Tyre Nichols is finally being laid to rest. On Wednesday, friends and family gathered to celebrate Nichols’ life at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, Tennessee. Several lawmakers and civil rights advocates, including the Reverend Al Sharpton and Vice President Kamala Harris, attended […]
Mother JonesIn 2015, Kerry King was arrested in Tulsa, Oklahoma, because she failed to stop her abusive boyfriend from beating her and her young daughter. That’s a slight simplification (read more about her case here), but in essence, prosecutors chose to blame the victim. King, then 28, tried to fight her boyfriend off when she discovered […]
Mother JonesThe College Board released the curriculum for its new AP African American Studies course Wednesday, revealing that the group had stripped the course of the topics that prompted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to ban the course. It will no longer contain certain material that DeSantis, who seeks to erase LGBTQ and Black experiences from school […]
Mother JonesLast week, Mother Jones reported that more than a dozen top donors to Rep. George Santos’ first congressional campaign did not appear to exist. The donations from people whose names or addresses could not be confirmed totaled more than $30,000. This pattern of questionable contributions, Mother Jones has learned, extends to Santos’ successful campaign last year. […]
Mother JonesMost websites aren’t known for having a “kill count.” Kiwi Farms is. Its victims reportedly include Julie Terryberry, who in 2016 took her life after being targeted by users of the site. Two years later, after years of harassment from Kiwi Farms trolls, Chloe Sagal lit herself on fire in a public park. In June […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The difference between the carbon emissions of the rich and the poor within a country is now greater than the differences in emissions between countries, data shows. The finding is further evidence of the growing divide between the “polluting elite” of […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. David Cottrell stood on what used to be a 14-foot-high cliff at the crumbled end of Blue Pacific Drive. Just a few years ago, this was the fastest-eroding shoreline on the US Pacific Coast; locals here in North Cove, […]
Mother JonesShauntae Anderson lived for the weekends. Growing up Black and transgender in a small West Virginia city in the 1990s, she spent a lot of time alone, hiding her self-knowledge from her mom and coping with ridicule from classmates. Yet on Friday and Saturday nights, she could lock herself in her room, put on Whitney […]
Mother JonesThe cuts have come even for the word itself. “Austerity” is a cornerstone of conservatism—a catch-all term for limiting government spending to promote capitalist growth—and yet the expression seems to have disappeared from deficit hawks’ speeches. “I call it balancing the budget,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2013. “Everyone else is using this term […]
Mother JonesFresh off securing convictions against the Trump Organization in a tax fraud case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is reportedly once again investigating Donald Trump over an alleged hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. The New York Times reported on Monday that Bragg’s prosecutors are preparing to present […]
Mother JonesThe parents of Tyre Nichols, the Black man who was fatally beaten by Memphis police officers, have accepted an invitation from the Congressional Black Caucus to attend President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on February 7. The invitation came days after the Memphis Police Department released bodycam footage that, as warned, showed an abuse […]
Mother JonesOn Sunday, Ben Crump, an attorney representing the family of Tyre Nichols, called on Congress to pass police reform legislation in the wake of Nichols’ death at the hands of Memphis police earlier this month. “Shame on us if we don’t use his tragic death to finally get the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act […]
Mother JonesAfter more than 14 hours of debate, the Minnesota Senate passed a bill on Saturday that would establish a “fundamental right” to abortion in the state. Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, has said he will sign the Protect Reproductive Options Act, known as the PRO Act, into law. The move makes Minnesota the first state to […]
Mother JonesThe Memphis Police Department has disbanded the so-called Scorpion Unit whose members abused and fatally beat Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, earlier this month. Those five officers have now been fired and charged with murder. Community leaders and Nichols’ family had called on Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis to eliminate the unit, which worked […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On a chilly recent morning, customers inside a Starbucks in New York City’s midtown were doing what you’d expect: buying coffee, warming up, chatting. But one person was moving through the store with a different purpose: she first approached a woman standing […]
Mother JonesOn Saturday, Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox signed legislation banning gender-affirming surgeries for transgender youth and placing an indefinite moratorium on hormone treatment for minors who haven’t yet been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. While Utah is the first state of 2023 to limit gender-affirming care, it is not likely the last: A barrage of state bills […]
Mother JonesAt least three people have been killed and four injured after a shooting early Saturday morning in the upscale Los Angeles neighborhood of Benedict Canyon. Two of those wounded are in critical condition, reports the Los Angeles Times. No suspect has been publicly identified. The shooting took place outside a “gathering” at a short-term rental […]
Mother JonesOn January 8, the Memphis Police Department released a statement about a “confrontation” between police officers and a 29-year-old Black man, Tyre Nichols, that had taken place the previous evening. Body-cam footage released on Friday night shows glaring differences between the police’s version of events and reality: Five officers brutally beat Nichols to his death. The […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The global energy transition has reached a pivot point, in which fossil fuels have likely peaked in their use for producing electricity and are about to enter a period of decline. This is the idea at the heart of a […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by ProPublica. As a climate reporter, I was well aware of the growing concern about the gas stoves in people’s homes leaking dangerous pollutants, like methane, a potent greenhouse gas and explosive hazard; nitrogen dioxide, which worsens asthma; and benzene, which causes cancer. But I was a renter who had no […]
Mother JonesIn an interview with the Associated Press, Pope Francis has become the first Roman Catholic pontiff to denounce laws that criminalize homosexuality. “Being homosexual isn’t a crime,” the 86-year-old pontiff told the AP on Tuesday. Laws that criminalize homosexuality, Francis said, are “unjust,” and the Catholic Church “must” seek to end them. Let’s not get too excited. […]
Mother JonesThis article contains descriptions of graphic violence. Nearly three weeks after Memphis police fatally beat Tyre Nichols during a traffic stop, the city has released body-cam footage to the public, warning that it would show an abuse of power that was “heinous, reckless, and inhumane.” Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, was stopped by multiple officers […]
Mother JonesIn September 2020, George Santos’ congressional campaign reported that Victoria and Jonathan Regor had each contributed $2,800—the maximum amount—to his first bid for a House seat. Their listed address was 45 New Mexico Street in Jackson Township, New Jersey. A search of various databases reveals no one in the United States named Victoria or Jonathan […]
Mother JonesFor years, gay and bisexual men have fought back against what they consider to be outdated restrictions on who can give blood. On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration finally issued a new guideline allowing men who are in monogamous relationships with men to give blood. Men who have sex with men have long faced restrictions […]
Mother JonesTyre Nichols was a “good boy” who spent Sundays doing laundry and preparing for the week, his mother told CNN. “Does that sound like somebody that the police said did all these bad things?” RowVaugh Wells asked. “Nobody’s perfect, okay, but he was damn near.” Among the most gutwrenching details to emerge from the murder […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. At first glance, electric vehicles seem like rolling disasters for the power grid. Surely the ancient, creaky network in the United States can’t handle the demand for charging those massive batteries. But a new analysis suggests that just a fraction of EV owners could […]
Mother JonesWhen Adriana Parizzi sees freshman Congressman George Santos (R-N.Y.) on television these days she barely recognizes the man with whom she once shared an apartment in New York City. Parizzi first met Santos in Brazil years earlier. She remembers Anthony, as he is generally known by his Brazilian acquaintances, as the “playful and smiley one, […]
Mother JonesIn a stunning development, five Memphis, Tennessee, police officers have been charged with second-degree murder in the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols following a traffic stop earlier this month. All five officers were fired last week, the police department announced yesterday. “These officers were found to be directly responsible for the physical abuse of Mr. […]
Mother JonesIn a rare public statement, Elaine Chao, the former transportation secretary and wife of Mitch McConnell, hit back at Donald Trump’s anti-Asian attacks on Wednesday, claiming that the overtly racist insult “Coco Chow” revealed more about her one-time boss than it did about Asian Americans. “When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced […]
Mother JonesIt was a usual day in the offices of the Nation, a collection of cluttered warrens overflowing with stuffed filing cabinets, piles of books, and file folders containing who-knows-what in an undistinguished building below 14th Street on Fifth Avenue. This was four decades ago, and I was an editorial assistant for the liberal political and […]