In mid-October, Wesley Bell, St. Louis County’s first-ever Black prosecuting attorney, appeared at a virtual event for Missouri Democratic voters eager to discuss the race he was running against Sen. Josh Hawley. “We’re in a place to get this guy,” Bell boasted. Come Election Day, he said, “I’m going to wake up either as the […]
While Gov. Ron DeSantis traveled the country promoting his state’s effort to ban everything from books to student pronouns in what turned out to be a failed presidential campaign, Black community educators felt swamped by an energized public ready to learn the history their state is intent on denying them. “It has been overwhelming,” says […]
Tania Culver Humphrey has spent most of her life grappling with her father’s secrets. In public, her father, Ellsworth Culver, cultivated a reputation as a globetrotting Christian do-gooder. He taught schoolchildren in Cuba, ran missionary programs in the Philippines, and, in the early 1980s, co-founded the humanitarian nonprofit Mercy Corps with friends from the international […]
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In the early 2000s, as climate denialism was infecting political institutions around the world like a malevolent plague, an Australian epidemiologist named Anthony McMichael took on a peculiar and morbid scientific question: How many people were being killed by climate change? McMichael’s […]
On Tuesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation broadening the state’s definition of rape, eliminating the penile penetration requirement. The bill, “Rape Is Rape,” expands the law to include nonconsensual anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact. Starting in September, New York will be like many other states: The penal code will not limit rape to only forced vaginal […]
On Tuesday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation broadening the state’s definition of rape, eliminating the penile penetration requirement. The bill, “Rape Is Rape,” expands the law to include nonconsensual anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact. Starting in September, New York will be like many other states: The penal code will not limit rape to only forced […]
You probably have noticed all the recent hubbub about Taylor Swift, because we all notice all the hubbub about Taylor Swift. But this spate of hate, though ludicrous, casts a light on an essential feature of right-wing America: It is deeply tied to the world of conspiracy theory. Let’s start with the word on Swift. […]
House Republicans have taken another step towards their unprecedented efforts to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who they blame for a migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border. On Tuesday, the Homeland Security Committee held a hearing to consider two articles of impeachment accusing Mayorkas, the first Latino and immigrant to ever lead DHS, of “willful and […]
The farm bill is one of the most important but least understood pieces of US legislation, and it’s overdue for renewal. The 2023 omnibus law, which costs upwards of $100 billion a year, and which governs food stamps and most aspects of the US agricultural system, was supposed to be in place by October 1. […]
The farm bill is one of the most important but least understood pieces of US legislation, and it’s overdue for renewal. The 2023 omnibus law, which costs upwards of $100 billion a year, and which governs food stamps and most aspects of the US agricultural system, was supposed to be in place by October 1. […]