Mother Jones
The afternoon of July 4, 2023, in Edgartown, Massachusetts—one of the six towns that make up the island of Martha’s Vineyard—was muggy and threatening rain. Near the top of Main Street, the participants of the local parade mustered, eying the sky. There was a tractor from Morning Glory, the popular farm stand on the edge […]
Mother JonesLast week, Brittany Watts, a 34-year-old Black medical receptionist from Ohio, made national headlines when she gave her first television interview after being charged with a felony for how she handled miscarrying a pregnancy at home at the end of last year. The case sparked an outcry from reproductive justice advocates, who have long been […]
Mother JonesWhen the US targeted Russia’s oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine, the trail of assets kept leading to our own backyard. Not only had our nation become a haven for shady foreign money, but we were also incubating a familiar class of yacht-owning, industry-dominating, resource-extracting billionaires. In the January + February 2024 issue of our magazine, we […]
Mother Jones“The Federal Government has broad constitutional powers in determining what aliens shall be admitted to the United States, the period they may remain, regulation of their conduct before naturalization, and the terms and conditions of their naturalization…Under the Constitution, the states are granted no such powers.” —Takahashi v. Fish & Game Commission (1948) For decades, the […]
Mother JonesAt a December rally in Reno, Nevada, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump made his regular promise: To treat immigration as if the United States is at war. He accused President Joe Biden of launching a “military invasion” against the United States by allowing “drugs, criminals, gang members, and terrorists” to cross the US-Mexico border. He vowed to […]
Mother JonesIn 2009, when Facebook changed its newsfeed significantly for the first time, there wasn’t much uproar over “the algorithm.” Now we’re all talking about it—whatever “it” is. The algorithm and its ramifications have been the focus of congressional hearings and scholarly debates. In an article on the collapse of Twitter, writer Willy Staley noted “vague […]
Mother JonesAs protesters continue to disrupt Democratic campaign events with calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, Rep. Nancy Pelosi now says the Biden administration should use the FBI to investigate the activists’ “financing,” which she baselessly suggested might be coming from the Russian government. The former speaker of the House made her chilling comments Sunday on […]
Mother JonesAfter appearing to shrug off E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation lawsuits against Donald Trump, Nikki Haley is now suddenly paying attention. On Sunday, the former South Carolina governor said that she “absolutely” trusted the jury’s decision last week to order Trump to pay $83.3 million for defaming Carroll after Carroll accused Trump of having […]
Mother JonesThe United Nations agency that serves Palestinian refugees is in tumult after Israel accused a dozen of its employees of participating in Hamas’ October 7 attack, a stunning claim that has since prompted eight of the agency’s biggest donor countries to halt funding. Those countries include the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Finland, Italy, […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. What a difference a year makes in the Brazilian Amazon. At the start of 2023, I wrote about the green shoots of the rainy season and feelings of hope inspired by the new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who promised to […]
Mother JonesNikki Haley is the latest politician to have been “swatted”—a term used to describe a form of harassment in which a hoax call is made to emergency services to try to spur a SWAT team to show up at a person’s home. The incident occurred last month when a man called 911 and said he had shot a […]
Mother JonesDisgraced and once-imprisoned former West Virginia coal magnate Don Blankenship is hoping to occupy Senator Joe Manchin’s soon-to-be-vacated seat, as the long-time Democratic lawmaker retires in 2024. Having run unsuccessfully in 2018 as the GOP Senate candidate, and in 2020 as a candidate for the Constitution Party, this time, the Appalachian strip-mining baron, who once […]
Mother JonesA group of Muslim and Arab-American voters and community leaders in Michigan have decided to pass on the meeting with President Joe Biden’s campaign that had been planned for Saturday. Leaders say that they’ve canceled the meeting because of the President’s apparent unwillingness to restrain Israel in its months-long attack on Gaza. Following weeks of […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The 85-mile stretch of land along the lower Mississippi River in Louisiana is among the most studied industrial corridors in the country. Over the past several decades, advocates, scholars, and journalists have published numerous reports detailing the dangerous concentrations of toxic chemicals […]
Mother JonesJurors in the defamation case against Donald Trump took less than three hours to decide that Trump should pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her after she claimed Trump raped her in the 1990s in a downtown New York City department store. A jury in a related trial last year determined […]
Mother JonesAfter months of legal battles, including a last-minute petition on the day of the execution, Alabama has executed Kenneth Eugene Smith, a man convicted in a 1988 murder-for-hire plot, via nitrogen gas—making him the first man in the United States to be killed by that untested and highly controversial method. On Thursday, at 8:25 p.m., Smith, who […]
Mother JonesLast night, former president Donald Trump inserted himself into the showdown between the federal government and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, encouraging states to send troops to the southern border to try to curb illegal immigration. On Truth Social, Trump pushed for “all willing States to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Joe Biden’s administration has hit the brakes on the US’s surging exports of gas, effectively pausing a string of planned projects that have been decried by environmentalists as carbon “mega bombs” that risk pushing the world further towards climate breakdown. On Friday, […]
Mother JonesThe United Nations’ top court ruled Friday that a case brought by South Africa alleging Israel is committing genocide in Gaza will go forward. While the legal battle will play out for years, the court said Israel must take steps now to prevent genocide and get more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The order from the […]
Mother JonesOn March 5, Californians will vote on Proposition 1. The ballot measure, if passed, will allow the state to divert funds raised for non-coercive mental health care to housing and other behavioral health programs—including involuntary confinement. Through a bond, the proposition would also raise some $6.4 billion (over 30 years) for behavioral health and housing. But […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Groundwater supplies are dwindling in aquifers around the world, a groundbreaking new study found, with the rates of decline accelerating over the past four decades in nearly a third of aquifers studied. Many agricultural centers face an uncertain […]
Mother JonesAnti-abortion Wisconsin Republicans say the darndest things. While debating a bill in the state legislature that would allow a public vote on a 14-week abortion ban—which passed today, but which Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has pledged to veto before it can reach voters in April—they compared women to animals and biblical figures, and said that […]
Mother JonesAfter passing what was, at the time, the strictest abortion ban in the country, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sought to fend off critics by pledging to work to “eliminate rape” in the state. But a new study published yesterday shows the extent to which Abbott has failed to do so—even after a stricter abortion ban […]
Mother JonesToday, Alabama will attempt to kill 58-year-old Kenneth Eugene Smith with nitrogen gas—an untested execution method that experts warn could cause Smith unnecessary suffering while potentially putting others in the vicinity in harm’s way. The state attempted to kill Smith, who was convicted of a murder-for-hire plot, in 2022 using lethal injection and failed. According to […]
Mother JonesA federal judge on Thursday sentenced former Donald Trump adviser Peter Navarro to four months in prison for contempt of Congress, while tearing into Navarro’s claims that he was unfairly targeted by the Justice Department. “Mr. Navarro, you’re not a victim,” US District Court Judge Amit Mehta said. “You’re not the object of a political […]
Mother JonesIn any given month, about 1.63 million women, 1.71 million infants, and 3.52 million children under the age of 5 receive federal food assistance from a program colloquially known as WIC. Among the recipients of that aid is the 3-year-old daughter of Emily Church in Athens County, Ohio. Three years ago, when her daughter was […]
Mother JonesWhen the US targeted Russia’s oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine, the trail of assets kept leading to our own backyard. Not only had our nation become a haven for shady foreign money, but we were also incubating a familiar class of yacht-owning, industry-dominating, resource-extracting billionaires. In the January + February 2024 issue of our magazine, […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Over the past several years, US cities and states have passed hundreds of policies restricting the sale and distribution of single-use plastic bags. A new report says these laws have largely succeeded in their goal of reducing plastic bag use. The report—copublished […]
Mother JonesAfter winning the Republican primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, Donald Trump took the stage at his victory celebration and delivered a rambling speech in which he repeatedly denigrated Nikki Haley, who he had hired to be his UN ambassador when he was president. He did not offer thanks to any specific person. He […]
Mother JonesThe Biden administration says that it has being trying to prevent the ongoing war in Gaza from spreading to other parts of the region. Yet despite these efforts, Israel’s massive bombing campaign, which has claimed tens of thousands of civilian lives, has spurred fighting between Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Israel, attacks from Iran at targets in […]