Mother Jones
For nearly 30 years, federal law has banned people who have domestic-violence restraining orders from possessing guns. It’s a sensible policy reflecting a set of stark statistics: Women whose abusers have access to guns are 5 times more likely to be killed than those whose partners don’t have guns available. About a third of female […]
Mother JonesEarlier this year, Abby Grossberg, a producer for Fox News, filed a pair of explosive lawsuits against the network, Tucker Carlson, and a group of other producers. Grossberg, who worked for Carlson’s show, claimed that Fox’s lawyers coerced her to give false testimony in the now-settled defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox. She […]
Mother JonesOn Friday, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3, along the usual lines, that a one-woman graphic design business in Colorado could not, theoretically, be forced to make a wedding website for a same-sex couple. The designer in question, Lorie Smith, wanted to put a statement on her website stating that she would not create websites “promoting and […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The reporting was supported by a grant from the Pulitzer Center. Comau Fjord is a sliver of sea framed by thickly forested mountain slopes. Melting glaciers peek between the crags. Waterfalls tumble down mountainsides, […]
Mother JonesToday, the New York Times released a damning investigation under the headline: “Everyone Knew the Migrant Ship Was Doomed. No One Helped.” It reveals the extent to which Greek authorities ignored the plight of the Adriana, the ship whose sinking last month led to the deaths of more than 600 people. The Times found that dozens […]
Mother JonesOn Saturday afternoon, Teamsters president Sean O’Brien delivered an update on the UPS contract negotiations that could lead to the company’s workers striking next month. O’Brien stressed at a press conference that if UPS doesn’t concede to the union’s demands “we will put 340,000 strong Teamsters on the streets until we get what we want.” […]
Mother JonesThis week, former Vice President Mike Pence made a surprise trip to Ukraine, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The trip draws a contrast between himself and fellow presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, who’ve been skeptical of the United States’ involvement in Ukraine. Pence is the first Republican presidential candidate to meet […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A global increase of extreme precipitation, well outside the range of natural variability, has been well-documented by scientists. It’s one of the hallmarks of human-caused global warming, and new research published this week in Nature shows that high-elevation areas, including most […]
Mother JonesAfter the Supreme Court threw out his debt relief plan earlier in the day, President Joe Biden promised in a White House speech Friday afternoon to pursue a different legal strategy for canceling student debt. “I believe the court’s decision to strike down my student debt relief program was a mistake, was wrong,” he said. […]
Mother JonesWithin 24 hours, two rulings from the nation’s highest court—one striking down the use of race-conscious college admissions, and the second gutting Biden’s student debt cancellation plan—rolled back years of progress towards greater economic justice and educational opportunity for students of color. In these rulings, the Supreme Court has all but ensured the deepening of racial […]
Mother JonesNorth Carolina, once an “abortion destination” for women throughout the South, will prohibit abortion after 12 weeks’ gestation starting July 1. On Thursday, a federal judge allowed most of the law to go into effect as the court considers the measure. The ruling did temporarily block a provision requiring abortion doctors to document the existence […]
Mother JonesPerhaps it was foolish of me to assume that Aaron Rodgers’ keynote talk at last week’s Psychedelic Science 2023 conference in Denver—titled “How Psychedelics Can Unlock Elite Performance”—would touch on any actual neurological mechanisms at play. I had guessed that it might delve into the complex, controversial, but real science of how psychedelics can help […]
Mother JonesThe Supreme Court struck down on Friday the Biden administration’s plan to wipe out more than $400 billion in student loans for about 40 million Americans. The plan, announced last August, would have canceled up to $10,000 in debt for low- and middle-income borrowers, and double that amount for borrowers from the poorest backgrounds. The […]
Mother JonesThe Supreme Court on Friday allowed certain businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ people, creating a large loophole in federal and state civil rights laws that have protected Americans for decades. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the opinion for the court’s conservative justices, who made up the 6 vote majority. The court’s three Democratic-appointed justices dissented. The […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Small island nations would rather fight than flee, but rising sea levels have prompted apocalyptic legal discussions about whether a state is still a state if its land disappears below the waves. The Pacific Islands Forum, which represents many of […]
Mother JonesAdvice columnist E. Jean Carroll’s yearslong court battle to hold the man who sexually abused her legally accountable has been extraordinary in many ways. First, because that abuser is former President Donald Trump, who used all the power of his office, from the Secret Service to the Department of Justice, in various attempts to shrug off […]
Mother JonesOn Thursday morning, the decades-long conservative crusade to upend affirmative action proved successful. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of race-conscious admissions, finding such programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University to be in violation of 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts railed […]
Mother JonesThe Supreme Court’s conservative majority banned race-conscious admissions policies at colleges and universities on Thursday, ruling that using race as an admissions factor violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause. The decision invalidates the University of North Carolina and Harvard’s systems for making up their student body, and will, more broadly, make higher education whiter and […]
Mother JonesThe Supreme Court on Thursday rejected the use of race in college admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, dealing a potentially lethal blow to affirmative action programs in colleges throughout the country. The decision, which civil rights groups say effectively bans affirmative action, a policy widely viewed as an “irreplaceable tool” […]
Mother JonesThe Supreme Court ruled today in a 6-3 decision that the use of race in college admissions violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and thus is unconstitutional, dealing a serious blow to affirmative action measures used by colleges to create diverse student bodies and remedy past discrimination against minorities. “Many universities have […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When Dulce Ortiz wants to enjoy the beauty of Lake Michigan, walk in a green space, or see and touch the water, she has to leave her neighborhood, even though the second-largest of the Great Lakes is in her backyard. Ortiz lives […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Between 2015 and 2020, Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, along with small, local communities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, gained legal recognition to more than 247 million acres of land—an 85 percent increase. That’s according to a new report from Rights […]
Mother JonesOn Tuesday, Breitbart published a long report exposing racist and anti-semitic text messages from Pedro Gonzalez, a somewhat well-known writer who contributes to Newsweek and is an editor at Chronicles magazine—a paleoconservative publication loosely on the New Right. From afar, that might seem odd. Breitbart? Calling someone else (and specifically another figure on the right) racist? The publication […]
Mother JonesA group of American influencers is in hot water for attempting to frame the controversial fast fashion giant Shein, which has been plagued by accusations of using forced labor, as an ethical brand during a recent sponsored trip to the company’s Guangzhou, China factory. “They only invited people with zero critical thinking,” one critic sounded […]
Mother JonesI get the sense that former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, along with other candidates of her ilk, find themselves most relevant when they’re sparking outrage. One of her recent nuggets of outrage-bait? Taking aim at Barack Obama, a president who hasn’t been on a ballot in over a decade. Last week, in an op-ed […]
Mother JonesWhen Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced his bid for the presidency at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel on April 19, 2023, he pledged to a cheering crowd to “end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country; to commoditize our […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Hakai Magazine and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Around the world, communities are bracing for sea level rise: the Netherlands is stabilizing its dikes, Senegal is relocating neighborhoods, and Indonesia is moving its entire capital city. These projects are hefty, expensive, and slow. But they may need to pick up the […]
Mother JonesIf you’re like me, you associate pork with the deliciousness of bacon. But lurking behind the pleasure lies something much less savory to think about: the risk of another pandemic. That’s because humans and pigs easily swap influenza viruses. Worse still, pigs can also pick up influenza strains that circulate among birds, whose viruses aren’t […]
Mother JonesIn a hugely significant opinion on Tuesday, the Supreme Court rejected the “independent state legislature” theory pushed by Republicans that would have given state legislatures virtually unchecked power to draw new redistricting maps and pass restrictive voting laws with little to no review by state courts or other entities. “The Elections Clause does not vest […]
Mother JonesEditor’s note: This essay is anonymous in order to protect the writer from potential reprisals. Тhe coup that didn’t happen began on Friday night and ended by Saturday night. Various Telegram channels reported 15 Russian servicemen dead; a plane, a few helicopters, and an oil storage facility destroyed, bridges dismantled, roads dug up…and the only […]