Mother Jones
This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It took only a split second after the climate activists strode into the busy Berlin intersection for drivers on their morning commute to realize what was happening. Several leaped from their vehicles to wrestle the activists off the road, but two […]
Mother JonesShortly before Election Day in 2020, Steve Bannon was bragging about his success with the “laptop from hell.” He and his allies had been spreading damaging rumors about Hunter Biden—including outright lies—and Joe Biden’s campaign had failed to refute them. “Nobody came out and said anything you’re saying’s not true,” Bannon asserted in an October 31 meeting […]
Mother JonesI’m in my elf pajamas, and one hand holds spiced coffee while the other unwraps my husband’s Christmas gift to me on this bright, bitter cold, bracing morning. It’s a copy of Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook, by Illyanna Maisonet, and naturally, I’m immediately offended. I have the punchiest sofrito in my family and my […]
Mother JonesThe average cost of day care in the US exceeds $10,000 annually for one child, according to national nonprofit Childcare Aware. More than half of US parents say the cost exceeds 20 percent of their household income, and nearly three-quarters of families say child care expenses eat up more than 10 percent of their earnings, […]
Mother JonesSounding a note of unremitting economic populism, President Biden put unleashing domestic economic might at the heart of his third State of the Union address on Tuesday night. Heralding several of his administration’s landmark legislative wins as “blue-collar blueprint” for American growth, Biden detailed an agenda that included going after the tax-evading rich, pandemic profiteers, […]
Mother JonesYou don’t have to look far to find people who have been ticketed for jaywalking in American cities. Two of my colleagues eagerly shared their stories of being hit with fines during their morning commutes to Mother Jones’ offices. In 2012, when she was an assistant editor, investigations editor Hannah Levintova was fined $200 for “violating […]
Mother JonesEver since its acquisition 15 years ago by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan, a powerful member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, Manchester City Football Club has been the Future. City has spent billions of dollars to become one of the world’s biggest soccer clubs, but its greatest innovations have come off the […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Caleb Blair entered the Circle K gas station in Phoenix asking for help. “I can’t breathe, I’m hot, I need to sit down. I can’t breathe,” he told the male cashier. He was sweaty, panting heavily, and struggling to stand up straight. […]
Mother JonesWhether you call it “tattleware,” “bossware,” or “surveillance capitalism,” Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) has had enough of exploitative workplace monitoring technologies. Late last week, Casey and a handful of other Senate Democrats introduced the Stop Spying Bosses Act, which would help protect workers from intrusive employer surveillance both on and off the clock. The legislation would require “timely and […]
Mother JonesOn January 9, in an interview with Bloomberg, an agency commissioner at the US Consumer Product Safety Commission floated the idea of regulations, or a potential ban, on new gas stoves—citing the “hidden hazard” of natural gas pollutants. As Mother Jones reported in 2021, this is not a new finding. Gas stoves, and the pollutants […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Chess experts make more mistakes when air pollution is high, a study has found. Experts used computer models to analyze the quality of games played and found that with a modest increase in fine particulate matter, the probability that chess […]
Mother JonesA US military fighter jet shot down the Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday, but the Biden administration has a different kind of foe that has yet to be neutralized: attacks coming from Republicans trying to score political points over the floating white orb that appeared in America’s skies. The […]
Mother JonesAs President Joe Biden prepares to launch his re-election campaign in the coming months, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll on Sunday showed that Biden must overcome a lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy and a feeling that voters’ financial situation has worsened since he took office. Biden has not officially announced his campaign, though he is […]
Mother JonesKoch world is over Donald Trump. Americans for Prosperity Action, the group that spends millions on conservative candidates in American elections, backed by the billionaire Charles Koch, announced Sunday that it would take sides in the GOP presidential primary after sitting out the last few cycles—vowing to support a candidate who is not Trump. “The […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It’s late October in the northeast corner of Wisconsin. Trees have started to change colors and a colder wind whips across Lake Michigan. Gas station marquees welcome back fall hunters on their annual pilgrimage. Tucked away at a technical college, citizens of […]
Mother JonesThe giant white, aerial blob that US officials described as a Chinese spy balloon was seen plummeting towards the Atlantic Ocean near Surfside Beach, South Carolina, on Saturday afternoon, having been shot down by a US military fighter jet. “I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down on Wednesday, as soon as possible,” President Biden […]
Mother JonesBucking decades of political tradition, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted for a new line-up of early primary dates in the 2024 presidential cycle. It was a-long awaited move that top Democrats, including President Joe Biden, have championed for years in hopes of making the country’s nominating process more representative of the party’s voters. The […]
Mother JonesNineteen minutes is basically enough time to watch a sitcom without commercials, cook a frozen pizza in the oven at 400 degrees, or walk one mile at a leisurely pace. But somehow within the first 19 minutes that EMTs Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge were on the scene after 29-year-old Tyre Nichols was severely beaten […]
Mother JonesOne time, I accidentally put a personal medical appointment on the public work calendar. Years ago, I tweeted something (very innocuous) from a brand account, intended for my own followers. The modern workplace requires vigilance (and numerous browsers and devices) to demarcate the strictly professional from the private. For you and me, co-mingling can feel […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Deep in the confines of the hulking, brutalist headquarters of the US Department of Energy, down one of its long, starkly lit corridors, sits a small, unheralded office that is poised to play a pivotal role in America’s shift away […]
Mother JonesWe’re only three days into Black History Month, and people are already cutting up. Within the first two days of February, police departments in both Miami, Florida, and Columbus, Ohio, unveiled their own separate police cruisers commemorating the month, complete with Kente cloth patterns, raised “Black Power” fists, and Martin Luther King Jr. quotes. And, […]
Mother JonesPresident Joe Biden seems to be pretty unhappy about the suspected Chinese spy balloon flying over Montana. His administration signaled this by postponing Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing—less than a day before Blinken was supposed to depart. Donald Trump apparently prefers a different response. “SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON!” the former commander-in-chief Truthed […]
Mother JonesThe past two weeks have marked a significant escalation in the years-long struggle over the proposed construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center (PSTC), a $90 million project that would be built on nearly 100 acres of city-owned land in an unincorporated section of DeKalb County—Georgia’s fourth largest county that encompasses a sliver of […]
Mother JonesIllustration by Shira Inbar On January 5th, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) tweeted about the unexpected passing of Quentin Williams, a Democratic member of the Connecticut House of Representatives. “Terrible news today of Q Williams sudden death,” he wrote. “I’m sending every good thought I have to his family and friends today.” Most of the replies […]
Mother JonesA decade ago, with school shootings on the rise across the country, Virginia passed a law requiring all K-12 districts to adopt a violence-prevention method called threat assessment. The method—which relies on trained teams of administrators, counselors, police officers, and others to evaluate and manage alarming behavior—is designed to help avert tragedies like the one […]
Mother JonesAt first I figured the Republicans would be all over this. I guess I figured wrong. I’m referring to the bombshell working paper that made headlines earlier this week, in which a team of academic and Treasury Department economists found that the IRS audits Black taxpayers at roughly three to five times the rate of […]
Mother JonesHouse Republicans removed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday because she is a Black, Muslim woman. Officially, that’s not the reason. But the facts speak for themselves: The removal is the culmination of years of targeting Omar by Donald Trump, the rightwing media, and Republican lawmakers who attacked her religion, […]
Mother JonesMisdirection, an essential tool for magicians, is not usually a component of media criticism. But in a lengthy critique of the coverage of the Trump-Russia scandal published this week by the Columbia Journalism Review, veteran investigative reporter Jeff Gerth deflects attention from the core components of Russiagate, mirroring Donald Trump’s own efforts of the past six years […]
Mother JonesThis piece was published originally by Capital & Main. The writer Upton Sinclair once famously said, upon the reaction to his classic exposé of the slaughterhouse industry, The Jungle, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” He thought he was writing a book exposing the horrendous conditions for workers, and instead ignited […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. After months of tense negotiation, a half-dozen states have reached an agreement to drastically cut their water usage and stabilize the drought-stricken Colorado River—as long as California doesn’t blow up the deal. The plan, which was developed without the input of […]