Mother Jones
This story was originally published by Yale Environment 360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For decades, there have been reports of the deforestation in Africa. And they are true—the continent’s forests are disappearing, lost mainly to expanding agriculture, logging, and charcoal-making. But the trees? Maybe not, according to new satellite data analyzed […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It’s been nearly two years to the day since a freak heat wave obliterated temperature records across the Pacific Northwest. Portland reached a blistering 116 degrees on June 28, 2021, with the heat melting streetcar power cables, buckling pavement, and killing an […]
Mother JonesFor GOP presidential hopefuls, the weekend that marked the anniversary of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade presented an opportunity to demonstrate just how opposed to abortion they were. At the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference on Friday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, […]
Mother JonesMonths of growing tensions between Vladimir Putin, Russia’s military, and the private mercenary Wagner Group fighting for Russia in Ukraine have escalated into a full-fledged crisis. Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the Wagner chief who has become known as “Putin’s chef” over his lucrative catering business deals with the Kremlin, claimed on Friday night that the Russian military had attacked […]
Mother JonesOn Friday, the US Supreme Court delivered a ruling that allows the Biden administration to reinstate a policy that sets priorities for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regarding arrests and deportations. In an 8-1 decision on the United States v. Texas case, the justices concluded that the states challenging the government’s policy didn’t have standing […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. As the United States tries to meet its climate goals and address environmental justice issues, cutting greenhouse gases alone might not help communities of color dealing with air pollution. In some cases, it might even hurt them, according to a new study […]
Mother JonesNo Labels, the political outfit preparing to run a “unity” ticket in 2024 that Democratic strategists and Never-Trump Republican operatives fear will siphon votes from President Joe Biden, is what’s known as a dark-money group. Unlike political parties, political action committees, and House, Senate, and presidential candidates, it is not required to reveal who is […]
Mother JonesGov. Ron DeSantis is, famously, on a crusade to transform Florida’s education system into one that projects his own ideology. What’s taken up fewer national headlines is that one of the institutions standing in the way has been the accrediting body for Florida’s institutions of higher education. On Thursday, DeSantis ratcheted up the power struggle by […]
Mother JonesBefore debris was discovered on Thursday, Titan, the submersible that took tourists to view the wreckage of the Titanic, the looming tragedy was fodder for widely-enjoyed, if often macabre, internet content. Some Twitter users ripped jokes about the rich getting their just desserts. Others intently scanned social media for updates. And bettors saw an opportunity. Since […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Eighteen years ago, discarded plastic was common on the streets of Bengaluru, India. Strong winds carried loose plastic bottles and packaging, which piled up in drains after the rain. Indumathi, who uses only her given name, remembers the scene well, […]
Mother JonesAs a Black teenager growing up in Wilson, North Carolina, in the 1950s, Milton “Toby” Fitch Jr. wanted to swim in the Olympic-sized pool on the prosperous East side of town—a pool that only white people could use. Like so many places in the Jim Crow South, Wilson, a tobacco town of roughly 50,000 people […]
Mother JonesSome of you have powerful memories of Daniel Ellsberg. You remember the incredible impact he had on the way Americans thought about the war in Vietnam when he leaked the Pentagon Papers back in 1971. My memory is different. It’s from just four weeks ago, when—in hospice care, knowing he had only weeks to live—he […]
Mother JonesOn Wednesday, an Atlanta city clerk approved a referendum petition from opponents of the Public Safety Training Center—now perhaps better known as “Cop City”—which is slated to be built on 100 acres of forest in a neighboring part of DeKalb county. If organizers are able to get roughly 75,000 signatures in the next 58 days, […]
Mother JonesIt took more than a month to pin down Megan Jeyifo, the executive director of the Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF), for an interview. She’s been understandably busy, growing CAF from an organization that served roughly 30 Illinois residents monthly in 2016 into one of the largest independent abortion funds in the nation. These days, upwards […]
Mother JonesIn 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 […]
Mother JonesThis 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 […]
Mother JonesFor 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 […]
Mother JonesFor 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 […]
Mother JonesThis 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 […]
Mother JonesRepublicans 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, […]
Mother JonesThe 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 […]
Mother JonesJohn 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 […]
Mother JonesWatching 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 […]
Mother JonesThis 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 […]
Mother JonesThe 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 […]
Mother JonesThis 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 […]
Mother JonesTen 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 […]
Mother JonesHunter 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 […]
Mother JonesThis 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 […]
Mother JonesThis 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 […]