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Mother Jones

Atlanta City Council Approves Funding for “Cop City”

“I’m begging and pleading that you stand with the people of Atlanta.” “The wrong direction is Cop City and you can’t whitewash it away.” “We need to spend our money on public funds and not our destruction. Stop Cop City.” After more than thirteen hours of testimony from hundreds of protesters, Atlanta’s City Council on Tuesday […]

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Mother Jones

Disabled Mississippians Now Face Even More Hurdles in Voting

This November, Mississippians will elect its next or re-elect the current governor, but new restrictions on absentee ballots may restrict some disabled people from being able to vote. On March 22, incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, approved Senate Bill 2358, under which only an election official, postal worker, family member or caregiver can return […]

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EPA Ends Trump-Era Bid to Kill Pollution Rules for Plastics Recycling

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Reversing its own Trump-era proposal, the US Environmental Protection Agency has spurned a lobbying effort by the chemical industry to relax clean-air regulations on two types of chemical or “advanced” recycling of plastics. The decision, announced by the EPA […]

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Legislatures Passed 550 Anti-Trans Bills So Far This Year

This story is published in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative reporting newsroom. Hundreds of anti-transgender bills proposed in state legislatures are sold as measures to protect minors—such as Idaho’s Vulnerable Child Protection Act and Montana’s Youth Health Protection Act—but advocacy groups and doctors warn that the effect is exactly the […]

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Nikki Haley Blames Trans Kids in Locker Rooms for Teen Suicides

Nikki Haley is once again trying to have it both ways. In response to a question asking her to define “woke” during a CNN town hall on Sunday, the Republican presidential candidate suggested that transgender girls in sports can be blamed for a rise in suicide rates among teens. “How are we supposed to get […]

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US Officials Seek to Curb Turkmenistan’s Colossal Methane Emissions

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The US is in negotiations with Turkmenistan over an agreement to plug the central Asian nation’s colossal methane leaks. Turkmenistan was responsible for 184 “super-emitter” events in which the powerful greenhouse gas was released in 2022, the highest number in the world. One caused […]

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Joe Manchin Isn’t Ruling Out a 2024 Run for President

The list of challengers to President Joe Biden’s bid for reelection keeps growing. On the right, we’ve got former president Donald Trump, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, a bunch of other long-shot candidates, and, in all likelihood, former vice president Mike Pence. On the left, there’s self-help author Marianne Williamson […]

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The New York Times Just Published an Exposé of CNN’s Leadership Drama

CNN can’t catch a break. On Sunday, the New York Times published an investigation into the cable news giant’s leadership woes. It’s the second major article prying open CNN’s inner workings this week after the Atlantic published a 15,000-word piece titled “Inside the Meltdown at CNN” on Friday. The Times‘ article, which it says is based on […]

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Hours After SpaceX Postponed a Liftoff, Elon Musk Boosted a Transphobic Tweet

Just hours after Musk’s space flight company, SpaceX, delayed the launch of a cargo capsule on Saturday morning, the billionaire launched something else: a needlessly bad tweet. At 2:17 am Eastern on Saturday, SpaceX announced on Twitter it had delayed the launch of its CRS-28 mission, which aims to carry supplies from Florida to the […]

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Supreme Court Wetlands Ruling Defies “Scientific Understanding”

This story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Like icebergs and human beings, waterways are made up of more than what’s visible on the surface. Take Lapwai Creek, near Lewiston, Idaho: At a casual glance, it’s a ribbon of cool water, shaded by cottonwood trees and alive […]

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What the Misery of Logan Roy’s Offspring Says About Inherited Wealth

Perhaps the saddest and most telling moment of the Succession finale takes place in a conference room where Kendall Roy, scion of the recently departed media mogul Logan Roy, begs his sister, Shiv, to sink a pending acquisition bid and let him take over their dad’s corporate empire instead. Kendall has lived his entire life […]

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Tennessee’s Ban on Drag Shows Is Unconstitutional, Judge Rules

A federal judge ruled late Friday that Tennessee’s law restricting drag shows is unconstitutional. The decision is a ray of sunshine during Pride month as state bans on drag performances and related bills that exclude and deny care to transgender individuals proliferate across the country. The Tennessee law, the Adult Entertainment Act, bans “adult cabaret […]

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Biden to Sign Debt Ceiling Deal Saturday, Averting Disaster

President Joe Biden will sign a debt ceiling deal on Saturday, averting a default on the nation’s debt predicted for Monday, thereby narrowly avoiding an international economic crisis. The House had approved the bill on Wednesday followed by the Senate on Thursday. Biden, who brokered the deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), is framing […]

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Mother Jones

Fort Bragg Becomes “Fort Liberty,” Ditching Its Confederate Namesake

Fort Bragg, one of the largest military bases in the country, officially became Fort Liberty on Friday, the first of nine military bases in the South that will ditch their confederate namesakes. The renaming effort got underway after the murder of George Floyd sparked a reassessment of and backlash against the country’s memorials to […]

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To Fight Climate Change, We’ve Got to Quit Making So Much Plastic

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. During the second round of negotiations for a global plastics treaty in Paris this week, diplomats have clashed over competing priorities—including the role of recycling and how to address toxic chemicals. But some experts are arguing that one issue in particular should […]

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International Underwear Model and Insurrectionist Was Just Sentenced to 32 Months in Prison

International underwear model, security guard, and insurrectionist John Strand was finally sentenced to prison today, after being convicted in September on all five criminal counts related to storming the Capitol on January 6. DC District Court Judge Christopher Cooper sentenced Strand to 32 months in prison, plus a $10,000 fine. The fine took into account the […]

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How the Debt Ceiling Deal Could Finally Restart Your Student Loan Payments

If you’re one of more than 43 million people with student loan debt in the United States, you may soon be forced to start repayments once again. On Wednesday, the House passed a deal to raise the debt ceiling, which includes a provision ending the pandemic-era pause on student loan payments. The agreement now heads to […]

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Mother Jones

Parajo’s Quest to Rebuild

In Lorena Roman’s new apartment in Watsonville, California, the walls are bare except for a wooden cross. Boxes are stacked in the small kitchen. Some days she can hear the jingle of an ice cream truck driving by the approximately 80-unit apartment complex in Monterey County. On a recent spring morning, Roman, 47, sits on […]

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Mother Jones

Christopher Rufo Launched the Critical Race Theory Panic. He Isn’t Done.

On a rainy day in late March, a group of American and European public intellectuals gathered in a stone-clad villa in Budapest’s Castle District. They’d been invited by the Danube Institute, a conservative think tank backed by the Hungarian government, to denounce growing threats from the left. The institute’s president, John O’Sullivan, a British octogenarian […]

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Ohio Staters Grapple With Bill That Stifles Climate Speech

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Keely Fisher chose to pursue her Ph.D. at Ohio State University because she wanted to learn about climate change from a world-class faculty. Now one year into her program, she wonders if she belongs here. The problem has nothing […]

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Ron DeSantis Can’t Stop Smearing Asylum Seekers

Ron DeSantis is running for president as the man who took on two magical kingdoms. The first, as my colleague Pema Levy recently documented in a profile for the magazine, is Disney World. The second is Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts that’s a summertime haven for the ultra-wealthy. At a campaign […]

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Automatic Emergency Braking Could Be Coming to a Car Near You

In a move lauded by safe streets advocates, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed a new rule this morning that would require automatic emergency braking (AEB) on new cars and light trucks. AEB uses sensors to detect objects in a car’s path, like pedestrians or other vehicles, and automatically brakes if the driver fails to […]

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All Floridians Should Be Worried About DeSantis’ New Anti-Immigration Law

Guadalupe de la Cruz, director of the Florida chapter of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), wasn’t surprised when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed one of the most restrictive anti-immigration laws in the country this May. After all, DeSantis already championed legislation banning sanctuary cities in the state and engineered political stunts with flights of migrants from […]

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Federal EV Incentives Are Designed All Wrong, Experts Say

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Given America’s penchant for gas-guzzling pickup trucks and SUVs, you might be surprised to learn that the country’s gasoline usage is going down, maybe for good. Even though only about 1 percent of cars on the road today are electric, some […]

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Mother Jones

Environmentalists Are Livid Over Tentative Debt-Ceiling Deal

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The deal to raise the US debt ceiling will have significant ramifications for the climate and nature, by fast-tracking a controversial gas pipeline in West Virginia and limiting the scope of environmental reviews for future developments, environmentalists have warned. The agreement struck between Joe Biden […]

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You Can Still Order Free COVID Tests Online Until May 31

If you haven’t ordered your free COVID tests yet, you might want to hurry. US residents are still allowed to order free tests online until 11:59 p.m. PDT on May 31. After that, the federal program will be officially terminated. According to the COVID.gov website, every US household is eligible for up to four at-home testing […]

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Ron DeSantis’ Namesake Has (Basically) No Comment on His Presidential Run

Last week, Florida Gov. Ronald Dion DeSantis announced his run for president of the United States. In the avalanche of background coverage, one point hasn’t been discussed much: DeSantis’s middle name. “Dion”? According to reporting from NBC News, it’s a tribute to the early rockstar, and Bronx-born heartthrob, Dion DiMucci. When Henry J. Gomez interviewed […]

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Mother Jones

Plastics Recycling Is Far Worse Than We Thought

This story was originally published by the Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The plastics industry has long hyped recycling, even though it is well aware that it’s been a failure. Worldwide, only 9 percent of plastic waste actually gets recycled. In the United States, the rate is now 5 percent. Most used plastic is landfilled, incinerated, or winds […]

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Mother Jones

Erdogan Wins Reelection in Turkey, to Trump’s Delight

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan won reelection on Sunday, cementing his grip on power. First elected in 2003 as prime minister, Erdogan has reshaped Turkey from its secular moderate democratic system to a more religious and increasingly authoritarian power structure. Erdogan’s rule has complicated Turkey’s relationships with Western leaders—he is currently impeding Sweden’s entrance into […]

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Mother Jones

Here’s What’s in the McCarthy-Biden Deal on the Debt Ceiling

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said this weekend that they had reached a deal in principle to raise the debt ceiling, but as of Sunday afternoon, lawmakers were still waiting to see the text of the deal to be voted on. The agreement reportedly includes a debt ceiling extension through 2025—sparing the […]

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