Mother Jones
This story was originally published by Canada’s National Observer and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. One sunny Saturday morning in Newmarket, Ontario, about an hour’s drive north of Toronto, a wok of pork bones and water slowly rises to a boil on the shiny black range of Rebecca Cui’s electric stovetop. When the […]
Mother JonesOn a warm Friday afternoon in February, Bianca Austin waits in her Airbnb in Gulfport, Mississippi, for a new friend to come by. “Hey, girl!” she says, jumping up from her chair as Katrina Mateen walks through the front door in a trenchcoat, her face framed by big sunglasses and a sparkly baseball hat. They […]
Mother JonesLast fall, many union railroad workers in the United States did not have paid sick days. Now, more than sixty percent of them do, Reuters reports. It has been a process of slow, piecemeal wins over many months—and a testament to the continued push of high-profile politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). Last December, railroad workers […]
Mother JonesAfter signing one of the most draconian anti-immigrant laws in the country last month, 2024 presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has turned his attention back to the US-Mexico border. Over the weekend, DeSantis joined Fox News’ Bill Melugin for a boat tour and helicopter ride over the Rio Grande in Texas for a […]
Mother JonesThis was a historic week for climate litigation. Tuesday marked the closing arguments in Held v. Montana, a lawsuit brought by sixteen young people arguing that the state’s fossil fuel friendly legislation is at odds with an environmental rights clause in the Montana constitution. It’s only the third climate-related lawsuit to go to trial, and the first lawsuit focusing […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Amid a dangerous heatwave that has brought blistering temperatures across Texas, the state’s governor signed a law last week eliminating local rules requiring water breaks for workers. The measure, which will take effect later this year, will nullify ordinances enacted […]
Mother JonesAs the international community sorts through the fallout of the short-lived rebellion by Russia’s powerful Wagner Group mercenary force—the most significant challenge to Vladimir Putin’s regime in more than two decades—some are apparently unimpressed by the stunning events. In fact, according to Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, the White House and the State Department have collaborated in […]
Mother JonesDonald Trump, a twice-impeached (for now!), twice-arrested former president, remains the GOP voters’ top choice to be commander-in-chief. They do not appear bothered by the fact that Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse, nor do they seem to care that he faces 37 federal charges related to his tendency to store classified documents […]
Mother JonesAs my colleague Isabela Dias observed yesterday, Republican presidential hopefuls spent the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade kowtowing to the religious right, attempting to outdo one another with deeply anti-abortion rhetoric. But as the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s keynote speaker, it was Donald Trump who took center stage. The […]
Mother JonesThis 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 […]