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Mother Jones

The Hell of Providing Health Care in a Post-Dobbs America

In her 32 years as an advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologist, Mary Norine Walsh has seen very sick patients and many deaths. “We’re not like orthopedists who only see one in their entire career,” says Walsh, a physician at a Catholic hospital system in Indianapolis and the former president of the American College of […]

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The Groundbreaking Youth-Led Climate Trial in Montana Is Coming to an End

This story was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A groundbreaking climate trial came to an early close on Tuesday as lawyers on each side presented a very different picture of who can be held responsible for the climate crisis. Attorneys representing the lawsuit’s young challengers […]

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Sen. Patty Murray on the End of Roe and Her Long Fight for Women’s Healthcare

For Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), calling attention to women’s health isn’t new. While campaigning for Senate in 1992, Murray said she would ask all Supreme Court nominees their positions on “personal and civil liberties”—and vote against anyone who didn’t support abortion rights. This was just months after Planned Parenthood v. Casey was decided, which […]

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Mother Jones

Sen. Patty Murray on the End of Roe and Her Long Fight for Women’s Health Care

For Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), calling attention to women’s health isn’t new. While campaigning for Senate in 1992, Murray said she would ask all Supreme Court nominees their positions on “personal and civil liberties”—and vote against anyone who didn’t support abortion rights. This was just months after Planned Parenthood v. Casey was decided, which […]

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Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? Scientists Might Finally Have the Answer.

This just in: The scientists have solved it. After a millennium of taunting young biologists and philosophers as Plutarch pondered: “Which was first, the bird or the egg?” the great chicken and egg debate is perhaps coming to a close. The chicken (or, rather its amniote ancestor) has beat the egg. Obviously, eggs of some form or another […]

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Nation’s Capital Foolishly Assumes It Can Make Its Own Traffic Laws

Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee are waging war on Washington, DC’s traffic laws. In their proposed spending bill for fiscal year 2024, House Republicans tacked on several policy riders that would alter laws in the nation’s capital. Most of the riders are standard conservative fare: repealing DC’s Death with Dignity Act, banning needle exchanges, […]

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Cheaper Housing or More Homelessness? Your Call, California.

The primary reason people become unhoused in California is unaffordable housing, including due to loss of income, according to a study released Tuesday. Around a third of the United States’ unhoused population—some 170,000 people—lives in the state. The University of California, San Francisco, Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative interviewed more than 350 unhoused people about the factors […]

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John Durham Just Made False Statements to Congress

John Durham—the special counsel who was appointed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the FBI’s investigation of the Trump-Russia scandal and who utterly failed to produce evidence it was a hoax—testified before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. In doing so, he made false statements to Congress. He might even have lied. Durham spent […]

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Imagine a Country Where a President Peddling Election Lies May Become Ineligible to Run for Office

Watching the political developments in Brazil from the United States for the past several years has often felt like a kind of Groundhog Day series of parallel events—just with different languages and a two-year gap. Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s rise to power in 2018—he became known as the “Trump of the Tropics”—followed the election of […]

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Roundup Manufacturers Had No Evidence for Claiming Its Weedkillers Were Safe

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The makers of Roundup, the world’s top weedkiller, will pay $6.9 million for violating an agreement with the state of New York to stop making false claims about the safety of its best-selling herbicides. Bayer and Monsanto, which was acquired by […]

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Florida’s New Anti-Immigration Law Is Jeopardizing Access to Health Care

The patients at Juana Duran’s maternity clinic are terrified. Many are undocumented, and, according to Duran—an administrative staffer at the Florida facility—they are worried that a new law championed by Gov. Ron Desantis could put them at risk of deportation when they give birth. “I know my people,” says Duran. “They are scared.” At the […]

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The Weight of Water: Women Mariners Abused at Sea Are Finally Breaking Their Silence

This article was produced in partnership with the nonprofit newsroom Type Investigations, with support from the H.D. Lloyd Fund for Investigative Journalism. Any woman who works in the maritime industry will remember where she was when she read about Midshipman X. This was the pseudonym used by a student at the US Merchant Marine Academy […]

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MAGA Groups Claim Schools Are Too Woke to Teach Reading Correctly

Ten years ago, Marilyn Muller began to suspect that her kindergarten daughter, Lauryn, was struggling with reading. Lauryn, a bright child, seemed mystified by the process of sounding out simple words. Still, the teachers at the top-rated Massachusetts public school reassured Muller that nothing was wrong, and Lauryn would pick up the skill—eventually. Surely they […]

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Hunter Biden Will Plead Guilty to Misdemeanor Tax Charges

Hunter Biden has agreed to a plea deal with federal prosecutors, finally ending a five-year investigation into the 53-year-old’s failure to pay $1 million in federal taxes and his illegal purchase of a firearm, according to news outlets. After a probe overseen by the Trump-appointed US Attorney of Delaware, the current president’s son was charged […]

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Melinda Katz Once Faced Off Against DSA. Now It’s New York’s Police Lobby.

This article was produced as a collaboration between Bolts and Mother Jones. On June 25, 2019, in a nightclub in Woodside, Queens, public defender Tiffany Cabán claimed election night victory as the borough’s newest District Attorney. Backed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cabán—a queer Latina woman from Richmond Hill, Queens, who ran on ending mass incarceration and the war on […]

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Trillions in Oil and Farm Subsidies Are Causing “Environmental Havoc”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Trillions of dollars of subsidies for fossil fuels, farming, and fishing are causing “environmental havoc,” according to the World Bank, severely harming people and the planet. Many countries spend more on harmful subsidies than they do […]

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Booting 18-Year-Olds From Disability Rolls Has Lifelong Consequences

In September 2017, the Social Security Administration sent Gabriel Burgos’ family a letter warning that their income would be cut in half. Gabriel—a Brooklyn high schooler who lived with his mother, Marlena, and father, Jorge, in a public housing apartment—had recently turned 18. That meant the end of the monthly check he got because of […]

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How Immigrants Navigate the Complicated Politics of Military Service

Immigrant soldiers have served in every significant US conflict since the Revolutionary War, but their presence in the military is often overlooked. When sociologist Sofya Aptekar went searching for immigrant veterans to interview for her new book, Green Card Soldier: Between Model Immigrant and Security Threat, many workers in veteran support offices told her they […]

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When Wildfire Smoke Shrouds a City, People of Color Are Most at Risk

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Morgen Bromell, a web designer in Brooklyn, had plans to visit their cousin in Los Angeles at the end of the summer, but last week air quality in New York City was so bad they […]

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Emails Show Missouri’s Student Loan Servicer Never Wanted to Be In the Lawsuit to Kill Debt Relief

Newly obtained records from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) show that executives and employees at the student loan servicer are surprised and dismayed at their company’s central role in the lawsuit before the Supreme Court that seeks to undo Biden’s student debt cancellation plan. MOHELA has never been a party to the lawsuit, […]

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Evictions Are Soaring Beyond Pre-Pandemic Numbers

Evictions are rising rapidly as pandemic-era moratoriums have ended nationwide. Citing data from the Eviction Lab, AP reports that some cities have seen eviction filings rise 50 percent higher than they were before Covid. “Across the country, low-income renters are in an even worse situation than before the pandemic due to things like massive increases […]

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Mike Pence Refuses to Defend Women Pastors in Southern Baptist Churches

Former Vice President Mike Pence said on “Meet the Press” Sunday that “Women pastors have had a big impact” on his family—but refused to say any more in their defense as Southern Baptist churches have recently moved to expel churches that include women in church leadership. WATCH: Fmr. VP @Mike_Pence says women ministers "had a […]

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Spirituality, Global Warming, and Grief: How Clergy Can Help Tackle Climate Anxiety

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. This story was co-published with Sojourners, a nonprofit publication covering faith, politics, and social justice. Rabbi Dean Shapiro recalls considering the future as he looked down at a baby’s head while giving her a Hebrew name and welcoming her into the […]

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Minneapolis Is Quietly Trying to Throw Out the Lawsuit Against the Cop Who Killed Amir Locke

The city of Minneapolis is asking a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit against the police officer who killed Amir Locke during a February 2022 raid that sparked protests. Locke, a 22-year-old Black aspiring musician, was sleeping on a couch in his cousin’s Minneapolis home, a handgun at his side, when SWAT officers entered without […]

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Native Americans Are Major Victims of Minneapolis Police Racism: DOJ

After George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Native Americans stood beside Black protesters in Minneapolis and called for changes to policing. Now, the Justice Department is highlighting how the city’s cops have been racist against them, too. On Friday, the department released a blistering report showing that for years, the Minneapolis police have discriminated against Native […]

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A Prisoner Turned Award-Winning Journalist Has Some Big Stories to Tell

Keri Blakinger, a reporter at the Los Angeles Times, hardly owns any furniture. She likes it that way, preferring to sleep on the floor rather than a cushioned mattress, and to keep her clothes permanently in suitcases. It’s not that she can’t afford a bed or dresser: Her career has taken off in the last […]

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The Coolest Library on Earth

This story was originally published by Hakai Magazine and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. This article is also available in audio format. In a narrow aisle of shelves packed with cardboard boxes, Jørgen Peder Steffensen grins like a mischievous child unwrapping a holiday present as he pulls out a plastic-wrapped hunk of ice from […]

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UPS Workers Are on the Verge of a Strike

An overwhelming majority of UPS union workers voted Friday to authorize the right to strike, raising the possibility that the world’s largest package company could cease deliveries in the US as early as August 1. TEAMSTERS AUTHORIZE STRIKE AT UPS pic.twitter.com/AmO2pjKt3v — Alex Press (@alexnpress) June 16, 2023 The Teamsters union, which represents more than […]

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A New DOJ Report Paints a Damning Picture of the Minneapolis Police

After a two-year Department of Justice investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department—that involved a review of thousands of documents, incident files, body-worn camera videos, and department data—Attorney General Merrick Garland revealed his findings today. They were damning. If you look at “MPD as a whole,” Garland said in Minneapolis, there were clear “systemic problems.” The conclusion […]

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Convicted January 6 Rioters Returned to the Scene of the Crime This Week

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) knows that his political theater deploring the alleged abuses of the January 6 prosecutions is incomplete without the presence of a bona fide convict. “I did nothing wrong,” said John Strand in his testimony at a “field hearing” Gaetz staged at the US Capitol Visitor Center on Tuesday—coincidentally the same day […]

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