On January 8, 2023, a week after Brazil’s former president (turned president again) Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office following the closest presidential election since the end of the country’s over 20-year military dictatorship—begun in 1964 by a coup partially supported by the United States—a mob of supporters of defeated far-right President Jair Bolsonaro […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A picturesque expanse of water along Florida’s space coast is offering a modicum of hope for the state’s embattled manatees as wildlife officials review whether to restore the beloved sea cows to the endangered species list. The recovery of seagrass, the […]
The family of Ashli Babbitt, the January 6 rioter who was shot and killed by a Capitol Police Officer during the attack on the U.S. Capitol, is suing the federal government for wrongful death. The lawsuit, which was filed on the three-year anniversary of the storming of the capitol by Trump supporters aiming to stop the […]
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spent some time last week in the hospital, a fact that staff failed to mention it to the White House, according to numerous reports. Problematic in any job, Austin oversees the 1.4 million members of the U.S. military and is a key player in almost all of President Joe Biden’s top foreign policy […]
Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is surging at just the right time—armed with tens of millions in donor money, she appears to be leaving Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and his New Right adherents, in the dust. With Iowa GOP voters caucusing for their choice in just eight days Haley’s run is well-timed. But it […]
This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For the first time in four centuries, it’s good to be a beaver. Long persecuted for their pelts and reviled as pests, the dam-building rodents are today hailed by scientists as ecological saviors. Their ponds and wetlands store water in the […]
Idaho has among the strictest abortion bans in the country. It’s so strict, in fact, that in 2022, the Biden administration sued the state, arguing that it violates a federal law regulating medical emergencies. The legal battle went all the way up to the Supreme Court, which said on Friday that Idaho’s law could go […]
When Donald Trump’s lawyers head to the Supreme Court next month, they’ll be making their case to some familiar faces: three justices that Trump appointed. On Friday, the court agreed to hear the ex-president’s appeal of a recent Colorado ruling that Trump, due to his role in fomenting the January 6 attack on the US […]
On Friday, ahead of the third anniversary of the January 6 Capitol attack, President Joe Biden delivered an impassioned campaign speech on what he framed as an urgent matter: This year, “democracy is on the ballot.” Much of the 30-minute speech—delivered near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and available to watch in full here—stayed true to Biden’s […]
This story was originally published by High Country News and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In recent years, climate activists, local communities and states have turned to litigation in search of climate justice. The 2023 United States Congress was the decade’s least productive one, and the federal government’s lack of response to the climate crisis has inspired […]