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Mother Jones

A Federal Judge Just Struck Down Obamacare’s Prevention Treatments

A federal district court judge in Texas has gutted a core healthcare protection that Americans have enjoyed for more than a decade: a government mandate guaranteeing cost-free preventative services. Under the ruling, cancer screenings, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for preventing HIV, and care for pregnant people may soon become a lot more expensive. The Biden administration […]

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Mother Jones

My Video Responding to Racist Comments Went Viral. Let’s Talk About It.

The generations-old debate over reparations for the descendants of enslaved Black people has fascinated me for my whole adult life. I’ve been to town halls, film screenings, and public hearings on the topic. Recently, my fascination took me on a trip to San Diego, where I took a front-row seat to one of history’s most […]

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Mother Jones

How the FBI Used ‘Cop City’ Protests to Snoop on Activists in Chicago

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Last summer, a “Chicago Against Cop City” Twitter account was created and began sharing information about a campaign unfolding some 700 miles away. Its first tweet, posted on July 18, promoted a talk at a community bookstore on Chicago’s west side […]

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Republicans Are Trying to Link Mass Shootings to Trans People

Guns don’t kill people. Trans people do. That’s the absurd claim that a wave of conservatives are making following conflicting reports about the gender identity of the Nashville shooter who killed three nine-year-olds and three adults at a private Christian school on Monday. “How much hormones like testosterone and medications for mental illness was the […]

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Howard Schultz Came Out of Retirement to Destroy Starbucks’ Union—and His Legacy

In November 2021, Victoria Conklin, a 23-year-old shift supervisor at a Starbucks near Buffalo, was talking to Rossann Williams, then the company’s president of North American retail. Workers at three nearby stores had recently petitioned to become the chain’s only unionized locations in the United States, but Conklin’s hadn’t. Williams wanted to keep it that […]

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Your Favorite Parlor Games Are Totally Rigged

A version of this article was originally published on the author’s website. In November 2019, not long before the pandemic put the kibosh on indoor socializing, my wife and I had some friends over for dinner and what turned out to be a fateful game of Yahtzee. Monopoly has a bit of strategy, whereas Yahtzee […]

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Mother Jones

Seabed Mining for the Sake of Clean Energy Is a Wicked Trade-Off

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. An investigation by conservationists has found evidence that deep-seabed mining of rare minerals could cause “extensive and irreversible” damage to the planet. The report, published on Monday by the international wildlife charity Fauna & Flora, adds to the growing controversy that surrounds proposals […]

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“Closed by Order of the Governor”: Teachers in the Crossfire of Florida’s War on Public Education

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 […]

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Fries With That Mammoth Burger?

This 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 […]

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Mother Jones

Someone Pull Me Away From Gwyneth Paltrow’s Ski Trial Drama

Some 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 […]

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“I Am the School-to-Prison Pipeline”: How Terrance Roberts Plans to Fight Violence in Denver

Last 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 […]

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The Government Subsidizes Electric Vehicles. Why Not E-Bikes?

This 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 […]

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DeSantis Seeks to Expand “Don’t Say Gay” Rules for All K-12 Students

A 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 […]

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Crucial Supreme Court Race in Wisconsin Shatters Spending Record

The 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 […]

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Anti-Abortion Republicans Are Pushing State Legislation to Undermine Election Results

The 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 […]

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“Cancer Alley” Residents’ Zoning Lawsuit Cites “Racial Cleansing”

This 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 […]

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The Latest Casualties of Idaho’s Abortion Ban: Babies

An 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 […]

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Mother Jones

62 Way Too Young to Retire, Says Only Rich Country With Falling Life Expectancy

To 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 […]

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Extreme Weather Rips Through Mississippi, Killing Dozens

A 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 […]

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Mother Jones

In Utah, Protesting a Pipeline Might Get You Five Years in Prison

This 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 […]

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Mother Jones

Trump Is Holding His First Rally in Waco. That Shouldn’t Surprise You.

On 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 […]

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Congress Might Want a TikTok Ban, But Their Questions Suggest Going Further

What 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 […]

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The Cops Who Raided Afroman’s House Are Suing After Being Featured In His Music Videos

The 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 […]

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He Took Part In a Right-Wing Florida Hospital Protest. Now, He Is Losing His Board Certification for Spreading Covid Disinformation.

Last 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 […]

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Should Your Car Know When You’re Too Drunk to Drive?

When 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 […]

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Supreme Court Hears Navajo Nation Demands in Colorado River Case

This 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 […]

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The Full Stormy Hush-Money Tale Features Plenty of Witnesses Who Could Be Trouble for Trump

With 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, […]

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Cancelling Your Subscriptions May Finally Get a Lot Easier

We’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 […]

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Mother Jones

Rap On Trial Is Now Mainstream

For 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 […]

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Mother Jones

Why Chickens Aren’t Getting Their Flu Shots

This 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 […]

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