Mother Jones
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, a small black and yellow bird with glossy feathers and a haunting song, was the last surviving member of the Hawaiian honeyeaters. This year, it was officially declared extinct. The ōʻō was one of 21 species […]
Mother JonesClaudine Gay’s resignation from her post as president of Harvard University is a shocking new twist in the ongoing saga over campus free speech. Gay resigned on Tuesday amid new allegations of plagiarism leveled through an unsigned complaint published in the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative outlet that has long criticized Gay. The news, which was broken […]
Mother JonesWorkers across the country are kicking off the new year with bigger paychecks, thanks to minimum wage increases that took effect yesterday in 22 states and 43 cities and counties, according to a report from the National Employment Law Project. Six of those states—California, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Washington—now have a minimum wage that […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Slate and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The winter between 1917 and 1918 was a trying one for the gas industry. That year, household gas leaks had reportedly killed more than 300 New Yorkers—due to their own carelessness, the gas companies argued. But not everyone was convinced. […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The women, mostly in their 70s, strode up the mountain with dogged grace. Clacking their hiking poles against sun-cooked rocks, they set sure feet on shaky stones and held hands to cross slippery streams. They knew the heat and strain were […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For most of July 2019, stifling heat hung over the agricultural fields of California’s Central Valley, as farmworkers like William Salas Jiminez labored under the sun’s searing rays. Temperatures had dipped from 99 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit the […]
Mother JonesAfter more than a year of Gov. Greg Abbott continuously busing as many as 150,000 migrants to US sanctuary cities, leaders in some of these destinations are implementing new measures in an effort to slow down the influx. Mayors in New York, Denver, and Chicago have ordered that bus drivers coordinate migrant arrivals with city […]
Mother JonesAbnormally large waves, some as high as 40 feet, have been pummelling Southern California’s coastal communities since Thursday, plaguing the areas with massive flooding and dangerous rip currents. According to reports from CNN, the extreme conditions have forced beach closures, washed away cars, and flooded seaside businesses and residences. Several of these communities are still […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Dozens of US gas utilities, serving more than 35 million customers, offer builders and contractors incentives to keep fossil fuels in buildings, the Guardian has found. Washington state’s NW Natural offers builders $2,000 for each new single-family home they equip with gas appliances, while Texas’s […]
Mother JonesAt least 22 states have a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youths. But, as of Friday, Ohio is not one of them. In a surprising move, Gov. Mike DeWine, a staunch conservative who once signed a bill allowing teachers to carry firearms in class, vetoed Ohio House Bill 68, a gnarly resolution consisting of […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. To say that 2023 is one for the record books is a vast understatement—the year was so out of the norm that you’re forced to go back at least 125,000 years for a point of reference. The last time anyone experienced a […]
Mother JonesGoing to undergrad hours away from home, in Québec, had its pros and cons: I could practice my French, but I had to leave my Havanese dog, Lucky, at home. Lucky was just under two years old when I left him, and while I knew he’d be fine, I did miss him. My dad tried […]
Mother JonesGoing to undergrad hours away from home, in Québec, had its pros and cons: I could practice my French, but I had to leave my Havanese dog, Lucky, at home. Lucky was just under two years old when I left him, and while I knew he’d be fine, I did miss him. My dad tried […]
Mother JonesCongresswoman Lauren Boebert, the gun-slinging conservative firebrand who was caught on security footage groping her date at a September performance of “Beetlejuice” in Denver, announced Wednesday she will not run for re-election to her current seat in the United States House of Representatives and instead contest the 2024 campaign in Colorado’s 4th congressional district, which […]
Mother JonesA Pennsylvania mom connected to the conservative so-called “parental rights” movement is facing criminal charges of assault, harassment, and furnishing minors with alcohol, according to a case filed in October and reported on by the USA Today Network’s PhillyBurbs. Bucks County’s Clarice Schillinger, a 2022 GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, was charged with punching a […]
Mother JonesA Pennsylvania mom connected to the conservative so-called “parental rights” movement is facing criminal charges of assault, harassment, and furnishing minors with alcohol, according to a case filed in October and reported on by the USA Today Network’s PhillyBurbs. Bucks County’s Clarice Schillinger, a 2022 GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, was charged with punching a […]
Mother JonesEver since Elon Musk took over Twitter, people have occasionally asked themselves a question: “Is it okay for me to keep using this thing?” For many users, Musk has made Twitter—or as it is now technically known, X—a moral question by committing increasingly irresponsible missteps. There was the time he was publicly duped by a […]
Mother JonesOn December 22, President Joe Biden signed a $886 billion defense bill that renewed one of the US government’s most controversial spy programs. Tucked in the 3,000-page legislation is an extension of the administration’s power to warrantlessly surveil foreigners overseas, and snoop on Americans in the process. The authority, known as Section 702 of the […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Inside Climate News and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Anyone feeling compelled to look into a bill passed recently by the House of Representatives will see some familiar language. It may seem wonky—the concern of agriculture or climate policy geeks. But the language relates to one of the country’s […]
Mother JonesThe New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement—a major development in the ongoing, nationwide legal struggle between content creators and artificial intelligence firms. The paper warns AI firms face “billions of dollars” in damages. While previous lawsuits claiming intellectual property violations by AI companies have come from artists and writers, the Times […]
Mother JonesDonald Trump will remain on Michigan’s ballot for the 2024 presidential election. On Wednesday, Michigan’s Supreme Court rejected the latest appeal to strike the indicted former president from the state’s GOP primary ticket. The state’s top court ruled that the secretary of state has no authority to remove a candidate from the rolls under Section 3 […]
Mother JonesThe arrival of more than 150,000 migrants in New York City since the spring of 2022 has made the Big Apple the epicenter of a so-called migrant crisis. It spurred protests from Staten Island to Queens, became a useful talking point for conservatives, and created a political challenge for Mayor Eric Adams. After saying the humanitarian […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A climate protest group backed by a cadre of Hollywood filmmakers is preparing to take action against “cowards” and “criminals” of all political stripes as the 2024 election approaches. Climate Defiance, which disrupted events featuring a string of Biden administration officials […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In 1995, a leading group of scientists convened by the United Nations declared that they had detected a “human influence” on global temperatures with “effectively irreversible” consequences. In the coming decades, 99.9 percent of scientists would come to agree that burning fossil […]
Mother JonesA new conspiracy theory rising on the right is being deployed to help Donald Trump. It claims that Jack Smith, the special counsel who is prosecuting Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election and for his alleged swiping of classified documents, was part of a multimillion dollar extortion scheme when he was the […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Flowers are “giving up on” pollinators and evolving to be less attractive to them as insect numbers decline, researchers have said. A study has found the flowers of field pansies growing near Paris are 10 percent smaller and produce 20 percent less nectar […]
Mother JonesLast month, a reporter asked President Joe Biden about the chances for a ceasefire in Gaza. More than 10,000 people had already been killed there, most of them women and children. Food, water, and medical supplies were scarce. Still, the president did not hesitate in assessing the odds of a ceasefire that he had more […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by High Country News and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Perhaps no single Christmas custom is more ubiquitous than putting up the Christmas tree. It originated in Eastern Europe more than 500 years ago, when people decorated evergreen trees with roses or apples as symbols of Eve and the Garden […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Have you heard about the miracle quick fix for our climate ills? The greenhouse gas methane is responsible for roughly 30 percent of the increase in global temperature since the Industrial Revolution and is often described as 80 […]
Mother JonesRudy Giuliani filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, a step he said was unavoidable after he was ordered to pay $148 million to two former Georgia election workers he defamed by falsely accusing them of election fraud. The former New York mayor’s Chapter 11 filing was no surprise. It came the day after federal district court judge Beryl Howell […]