Mother Jones
On the morning of January 23, Jean Faulk opened her inbox to find an email labeled “urgent” from her principal at Bayshore High School in Bradenton, Florida. “Based on clarifications from the state in December, teacher-created classroom libraries fall under what the state is defining as library material,” Wendell Butler Jr. wrote to his staff […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A mammoth meatball has been created by a cultivated meat company, resurrecting the flesh of the long-extinct animals. The project aims to demonstrate the potential of meat grown from cells, without the slaughter of animals, and to highlight the link […]
Mother JonesSome three months after New York published its exhaustive guide on the meritocracy-bending phenomenon, nepo babies roared back into the discourse last week with the unexpected arrival of Romy Mars. But some two thousand miles west from where the teenage daughter of Sofia Coppola and Thomas Mars was TikToking her pasta alla vodka prep, another […]
Mother JonesLast Wednesday, less than two weeks before the city’s mayoral election, Denver’s East High School experienced its third shooting of the school year. Almost immediately, Terrance Roberts was getting dozens of texts. The 46-year-old mayoral candidate posted to his Facebook page: “I just heard there was just another shooting at East High School while at Denver […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Two years ago, US Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Jimmy Panetta introduced the Electric Bicycle Incentive Kickstart for the Environment Act, or the EBIKE Act, which proposed giving Americans up to $1,500 off the price of a new e-bike. The bill would’ve […]
Mother JonesA year ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a sharply controversial bill restricting discussion of LGBTQ issues in public schools, claiming it would fight “indoctrination.” The legislation, known as the “Parental Rights in Education Bill” was dubbed by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Its supporters argued that its scope was limited: It banned […]
Mother JonesThe race to fill an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court—and determine ideological control of the highest court in one of the country’s most important swing states—has more than doubled the national record for judicial election spending. Over $31 million has been spent to date on advertising ahead of the April 4 election, whose […]
Mother JonesThe Republican Party has a problem: Individual freedom for women to choose how they handle their reproductive health is wildly popular with voters. In last November’s midterms—the first general election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—supporters of reproductive rights won every abortion-related state ballot measure, even in red states. Concerns over abortion rights […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Making the case that their local government was built on a culture of white supremacy, Black residents of St. James Parish in the heart of Louisiana’s “cancer alley” have filed a federal lawsuit claiming land-use and zoning policies illegally […]
Mother JonesAn Idaho hospital is ending its labor and delivery services in the wake of a Texas-style, near-total abortion ban signed into state law last year. Citing the state’s “legal and political climate,” Bonner General Health plans to stop delivering babies and providing other obstetrical services in mid-May, according to a press release. While the release doesn’t […]
Mother JonesTo an American viewer, the current protests over raising France’s retirement age might look a little quaint: the country that once beheaded members of its aristocracy still gets in a tizzy when its president wears an expensive watch. In January, When President Emmanuel Macron revealed his plan to raise France’s minimum retirement age from a relatively young […]
Mother JonesA powerful tornado ripped through rural Mississippi last night, killing at least 24 people and injuring dozens more. The tornado hit Rolling Fork—a town with a population of less than 2,000, and the supposed birthplace of Muddy Waters—particularly hard when it rolled through at about 8 p.m. local time Friday night. Nearly a third of […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In Utah, protests that hinder the functioning of fossil fuel infrastructure could now lead to at least five years in prison. The new rules make Utah the 19th state in the country to pass legislation with stiffer penalties for protesting […]
Mother JonesOn Saturday, the first rally of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign will take place in Waco, Texas. The significance will not be lost on many of his supporters: The event coincides with the 30th anniversary of the FBI’s disastrous 51-day siege of David Koresh’s Branch Davidian complex. That siege ended on April 19, 1993, when FBI agents filled […]
Mother JonesWhat if the United States government banned every single social media app? Not just TikTok. All of them. Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter–sayonara. It may sound ludicrous, but if you apply the logic behind the kinds of questions posed at Thursday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the data security risks and alleged harm to children posed […]
Mother JonesThe law enforcement officials who raided the Ohio home of Afroman during a raid last year are suing the rapper after he used footage from the police search in music videos and on social media. A copy of the complaint, obtained by VICE News, claims that the seven Adams County Sheriff’s officers suffered “emotional distress” from Afroman’s […]
Mother JonesLast week, I wrote about the far-right groups accusing Sarasota Memorial, a public safety-net hospital in Florida, of mistreating Covid patients. Despite a painstaking review showing that the hospital’s Covid outcomes have exceeded national standards, the groups—helmed by former Trump administration national security advisor Mike Flynn, QAnon adherents, and a key orchestrator of the January […]
Mother JonesWhen President Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill in 2021, he committed $1.2 trillion to rebuilding the nation’s roads and bridges. The president spearheaded one of the biggest investments in infrastructure in decades: more than $42 billion for broadband equity, $30 billion for public transportation, and $148 billion for national highways. But as the 2024 […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In 1849 and 1868, the Navajo Nation signed two treaties with the United States. The treaties created a reservation that would serve as a “permanent home” for the Navajo so long as the tribe allowed settlers to live on most of […]
Mother JonesWith a possible indictment of Donald Trump, it’s a good moment to review how the porn-star-hush-money caper may make him the first president or ex-president ever to be charged with a crime. Such a refresher reminds us just how tawdry the Trump world has been, and it provides a cast of characters beyond Michael Cohen, […]
Mother JonesWe’ve all been there. You sign up for a gym membership or online delivery service. You eventually lose interest or start tightening your budget, so you try to cancel. Yet, despite it only taking two clicks to sign up, the company requires you to call a hotline in order to escape. The result could end […]
Mother JonesFor nearly a year, the rapper Young Thug has been behind bars in Fulton County, Georgia. The 31-year-old, born Jeffery Lamar Williams, is facing charges that could send him to prison for twenty years. Widely considered one of the most stylistically innovative rappers of his generation, Williams has been charged, along with 27 others, with […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The wave of avian influenza H5N1—which so far has hit 76 countries, triggered national emergencies, and created the worst animal-disease outbreak in US history—keeps roaring through wild birds and commercial poultry. More than 140 million poultry worldwide have died from the […]
Mother JonesThis would be so much easier if we could make up donors from whole cloth, like George Santos may have done. Or if we impersonated a YouTube executive to sing our praises on a Zoom call, and raked in $83 million (but maybe minus being arrested for fraud in the end). Imagine if a billionaire […]
Mother JonesIn preparation for the likely event that he may soon become the first-ever former president to get indicted, Donald Trump apparently wants to go big. I’m talking handcuffs, a perp walk, the typical hallmarks of a theatrical court appearance. That’s the latest, at least, from new reports on Trump’s frame of mind as the Manhattan […]
Mother JonesGeorge Santos, the first-term Republican representative from New York, may go down as the most famous fabulist in the history of Congress. In the run-up to his election last year from a district that includes parts of Long Island and Queens, he claimed to be a successful businessman, a college volleyball star, and the Jewish […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Undark and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. To jumpstart a paltry market for recycled plastic, governments across the globe are pushing companies to include recycled materials in their products. Last year, the United Kingdom introduced a tax on manufacturers that produce or import plastic packaging containing less than 30 percent recycled […]
Mother JonesLaKeith Smith was 15 years old when he and four other Black teens broke into an empty house in Millbrook, Alabama, to steal an Xbox and other gaming equipment in 2015. The police arrived, and an officer shot and killed Smith’s 16-year-old friend A’Donte Washington, allegedly after Washington ran toward the officer with a weapon. […]
Mother JonesWhen I arrived at Trump Tower on Tuesday afternoon, a man was heckling one of the only Trump supporters who’d shown up to protest a potential indictment of the former president—who had posted on his platform Truth Social to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK” after warning he would be arrested in connection with an investigation of […]
Mother JonesSurveillance footage from the Virginia psychiatric hospital where 28-year-old Irvo Otieno died on March 6 shows a group of sheriff deputies and medical staff piling on top of a handcuffed Otieno in the final moments before his death. According to Otieno’s family, Otieno had been experiencing a mental health crisis. Seven deputies and three hospital employees […]