Mother Jones
One of my favorite recent documents in American politics is Evan Bayh’s schedules from his last year in office as a Democratic senator from Indiana. In the months following his 2010 announcement that he would retire rather than seek re-election, the Associated Press reported, the man who was almost Barack Obama’s running mate “held more […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Thousands gathered at New Jersey’s Point Pleasant beach on Sunday with a united mission: to pause offshore wind projects in response to recent whale deaths along the New York-New Jersey coast. The gathering unfolded even as officials dispute the notion […]
Mother JonesIn November 2015, Nohemi Gonzalez was a 23-year-old California State University-Long Beach student studying abroad in Paris. That’s when a coordinated series of terrorist shootings and bombings in the city killed 130 people. She was one of them. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks—but Gonzalez’s family charges that the massive search engine Google is also partially […]
Mother JonesIn his seemingly never-ending quest to remove “divisive concepts” from Virginia’s schools, Gov. Glenn Youngkin has taken a page right out of Ron DeSantis’s playbook and called for a review Virginia’s AP African-American studies programs. According to a report this weekend from the Washington Post, Youngkin, a Republican, asked state officials to review the curriculum to […]
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 $5 a […]
Mother JonesThis piece was originally published by Capital & Main. Over the last few years, as California has introduced stronger regulations on oil and gas drilling aimed at protecting public health, a pattern of events has started to emerge. Here’s how it typically goes: After years of advocacy, environmentalists successfully push for new oil and gas drilling regulations. Then the […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. During his Thursday visit to the site of a fiery train derailment that may have poisoned a small eastern Ohio town with a range of highly toxic chemicals, the Environmental Protection Agency chief, Michael Regan, told residents: “All families need to know […]
Mother JonesAs the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches, assessing the extent of the enormous toll on lives is impossible. Millions of people have been forced from their homes and tens of thousands have been killed, while cities and towns throughout the country have been destroyed. In the midst of the suffering, remarkable […]
Mother JonesAfter weeks of anticipation, the Biden administration has finally followed through with the plan to revive a policy first proposed during the Trump administration. It would make migrants ineligible for asylum in the United States if they don’t first seek protection in countries they passed through on their way. The proposal for the so-called transit […]
Mother JonesFor a group that constantly complains that Democrats enjoy “making everything about race,” the right’s biggest names are suddenly eager to push the narrative that the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and the Biden administration’s response to the disaster are the result of racism against white people. That’s the big takeaway from Tucker Carlson, […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. American homes in flood zones are overvalued by hundreds of billions of dollars, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change. Low-income homeowners in states controlled by Republicans are especially at risk of seeing their home values deflate […]
Mother JonesAfter the recent shooting at the University of Michigan, staff at Vanderbilt University in Nashville sent an email offering support and comfort to students. “In the wake of the Michigan shootings,” it read, referring to the February 13 attack that left three students dead and five injured, “let us come together as a community to […]
Mother JonesA wealthy executive I interviewed for my book a couple of years ago told me that his kids had attended Lakeside Elementary, the same Seattle school where the Gateses, the Bezoses, and other local tech royalty sent their children. “Someone flew a private jet to one of the soccer games,” he said. That “someone” is […]
Mother JonesThe United States has popped a whole bunch of balloons lately. Earlier this month, famously, an American fighter jet took out a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina with a Sidewinder missile. In the weeks to follow, American jets shot down three more objects floating high above the United States and Canada. […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by WIRED and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Years ago, Christopher Kyba was skeptical about astronomy data collected by citizen scientists—after all, it relies on people making naked-eye assessments of the night sky. But when a student wrote to him with a question about measuring the sky’s brightness, he thought […]
Mother JonesThe water level at Lake Powell, the massive reservoir on the Colorado River whose southern reaches straddle the Utah-Arizona border, hit a record low this week, sinking to just 3,522 feet above sea level. A 23-year megadrought combined with climate change has left the reservoir at just 22 percent of its capacity—so low that it […]
Mother JonesFormer President Jimmy Carter has decided to begin hospice care in his Plains, Georgia home. The news was disclosed on Saturday in a brief statement from the Carter Center: After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive […]
Mother Jones“You’re in!” the email said. “Welcome to the new Bing!” Last Sunday, I joined a small wave of users granted early access to Microsoft’s new chatbot backed search engine, put forward as an “AI-powered copilot for the web.” Given that “multiple millions” across 169 countries were stuck on the waitlist, I felt like Charlie waving […]
Mother JonesOn Friday evening, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted the “breaking” news that father would visit East Palestine, Ohio, next week, in the wake of the train derailment there whose aftermath has cloaked the region in a toxic cloud, killed thousands of fish, and required the evacuation of residents who fear longterm health risks. Breaking News: Trump […]
Mother JonesOn Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris told an international security gathering that the United States has formally determined that Russian forces have committed “crimes against humanity” during their invasion of Ukraine. “There is no doubt: These are crimes against humanity.” “Let us be clear: Russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Kathryn Huff grew up in Bellville, Texas, a city of about 4,200 residents in the rural area west of Houston, and discovered at a young age that she had an aptitude for math. She remembers the moment that she […]
Mother JonesThe New Orleans Police Department on Wednesday pulled a new recruitment video featuring, among many things, rainbows and Big Freedia backup dancers, that had aimed to promote a more diverse workforce after the video instantly attracted a flood of homophobic comments and hate speech. “The immediate reactions were just hate—horrible, slanderous, makes-your-heart-sink type comments, like, […]
Mother JonesTucker Carlson—the Fox News host who has made a wildly successful career out of pushing white nationalism on what is arguably the most racist show on television—is an entertainer, not a reporter. Carlson’s lawyers said as much when he was accused of slander for falsely claiming that Stormy Daniels had extorted President Trump. As NPR […]
Mother JonesOn Friday, a federal judge in Washington, DC sentenced a veteran GOP operative to 18 months in prison for funneling $25,000 from a Russian businessman to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. Jesse Benton, a longtime aide to both Ron and Rand Paul, was convicted in November on six related charges. The court found that he and another GOP […]
Mother JonesThe Torah tells its followers to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,” so that’s what Lisa Sobel, a devout Jewish woman from Louisville, Kentucky, set out to do. It wasn’t easy. First, she endured three years of infertility. Then, she and her husband embarked on a $50,000 In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) journey, during […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Thousands of employees of the Environmental Protection Agency are lobbying this week for Congress to address staffing issues that they say are limiting their ability to meaningfully carry out the Biden administration’s ambitious climate goals. Leaders of AFGE Council 238, a […]
Mother JonesTesla just realized that testing “self-driving” vehicle technology on public roads isn’t such a good idea, after all. Today, the automaker recalled nearly 363,000 cars equipped with its “Full Self-Driving” technology after a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that the Autosteer feature “led to an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety […]
Mother JonesWednesday’s confirmation hearing for Daniel Werfel, President Biden’s nominee for IRS commissioner, though not nearly so contentious as it might have been, hinted at partisan battles to come over America’s most beloved federal agency. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden commenced the hearing by calling out America’s “two-tiered” tax system—one set of rules for most […]
Mother JonesPresident Biden on Thursday, in his most detailed remarks addressing the recent spate of aerial objects that were shot down over North American skies, said that there is no evidence tying the three unidentified objects to foreign surveillance programs. Officials, however, are still working on confirming the exact details of the objects and their provenance. […]
Mother JonesEarlier this month, a train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, triggering a massive fire and forcing everyone within a one-mile radius of the crash to evacuate. To avoid a potential explosion, officials conducted a controlled detonation of five tankers three days later, sending carcinogenic vinyl chloride into the air. Two days later, […]