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Mother Jones

Biden Is Reportedly Considering an Asylum Restriction From the Trump Era

The Biden administration is reportedly considering using executive authority to impose harsh immigration measures, including a push to end asylum for migrants crossing between ports of entry at the US-Mexico border—a move that the Trump administration tried in 2018 and was shot down by the courts. The measures, which NBC News first reported on Wednesday, would mimic […]

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Obsessed: It’s 2024 and Conservatives Still Can’t Stop Worrying About Michelle Obama

The Conservative Political Action Conference, the largest right-wing convention in the country, kicked off this morning’s show with an all-star lineup. There were members of Congress like Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Florida) and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), a Republican lieutenant governor from North Carolina, and a former director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And then […]

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Methane-Spewing Gas and Oil Drillers Owe the US Billions—in Theory

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Inflation Reduction Act, the 2021 US climate law abbreviated IRA, primarily reduces emissions through financial incentives, rather than binding rules. But in addition to all its well-known carrots, lawmakers quietly included a smaller number of sticks—particularly when it comes to the […]

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“What Can I Even Say Without Having to Go to Jail?”

When Heather Williams, an advocate with the Tulsa-based nonprofit Domestic Violence Intervention Services, gets a call from the local hospital, she has to drop whatever she’s doing and go. The call normally comes in when a survivor of sexual assault has arrived at the hospital and is preparing to undergo a sexual assault forensic exam, used […]

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Mother Jones

“What Can I Even Say Without Having to Go to Jail?”

When Heather Williams, an advocate with the Tulsa-based nonprofit Domestic Violence Intervention Services, gets a call from the local hospital, she has to drop whatever she’s doing and go. The call normally comes in when a survivor of sexual assault has arrived at the hospital and is preparing to undergo a sexual assault forensic exam, used […]

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Mother Jones

It’s No Secret Our Tax System Punishes Low-Income People. It Doesn’t Have To.

This story was published in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates inequality. Oregon taxpayers will become some of the first in the nation to have the option to self-identify their race and ethnicity when they file their tax returns this year. The reason is both simple and complex: Especially […]

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Report: After End of Pandemic Aid, Nearly a Quarter of New Yorkers Live in Poverty

One in four kids in New York City live in poverty, according to a sobering report released today that sheds light on the impacts of the end of pandemic-era social policies. That amounts to nearly 420,000 children experiencing poverty in America’s largest city as of 2022, up from 260,000 in 2021—marking an increase of 66 […]

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With Its Top Investor in Jail, a Pro-Trump Social Media Site Suffers Mass Layoffs

A pro-Trump social media site that was launched with great fanfare less than three years ago has now laid off much of its staff and is close to shutting down, current and former employees say. Gettr, which was founded in 2021 as a MAGA-aligned alternative to Twitter, has floundered in the wake of the indictment and […]

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Biden Administration Cancels More Than $1.2 Billion in Student Loans

On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced it would forgive more than 150,000 borrowers’ student loans, totaling a whopping $1.2 billion. Nearly 153,000 folks who’ve enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan, borrowed $12,000 or less, and have been making payments for at least 10 years will receive an email from Biden […]

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Parents Are Suing New York City Over Coercive, Traumatizing Home Searches

In May 2021, investigators from New York City’s child protective services agency showed up at the home of Ebony Gould, a Black mother living in Queens. They were checking on the wellbeing of Gould’s three children—ages 4, 6, and 16—and needed to search the home. The investigation proved to be unfounded. No children were removed, […]

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Anti-Trans Bills Keep Citing the New York Times

New York Times columnist Pamela Paul argued in a 4,500-word op-ed earlier this month that transgender health care procedures amount to “unproven treatments for children,” despite major medical associations’ support for gender-affirming care and the widespread view that it is lifesaving. The piece, which builds upon Paul’s record of espousing anti-trans views in the pages of the country’s […]

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Tribal Nations Are Taking Back Their Food Systems

The farm bill is one of the most important but least understood pieces of US legislation, and it’s overdue for renewal. But Congress couldn’t pass a new version in the fall, reflecting partisan dysfunction and also a contentious debate about what the bill ought to be—a debate that has become ensnared in the nation’s culture […]

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No Vaccine? No Problem! Florida Wants Your Unvaccinated Kids In School During a Measles Outbreak

Amid an ongoing measles outbreak in Florida, public health officials are bending the rules of quarantine for unvaccinated children. At Manatee Bay Elementary School in Broward County, Florida, six children have tested positive for measles, a respiratory virus so contagious that 90 percent of those exposed will contract it. Infection with measles can have serious […]

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SCOTUS Ducks High School Diversity in Admissions Case

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a bombshell case challenging an admissions policy at a magnet high school in Virginia that was designed to increase racial and economic diversity at the school. However, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas issued a strong dissent, signaling their willingness to embrace a radical view of racial […]

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Nikki Haley Refuses to Drop Out, Even as She Prepares to Lose South Carolina

Nikki Haley is…still running. Even if she’s almost certain to lose her home state. That’s essentially the summary of a speech the former South Carolina governor delivered Tuesday in Greenville, South Carolina, ahead of the state’s Republican primary on Saturday, as multiple polls predict a loss to Trump by a margin of anywhere from 20 to […]

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RFK Jr. Super PAC Puts Promoters of Conspiracy Theories on the Payroll

A songwriter who produces rap songs with conspiracy theories about Covid; an academic who has championed debunked and bizarre notions about 9/11, the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, the 2020 election, and other public events; a polygraph examiner who wrote a novel tying Russian mobsters and sexual predators who exploit disabled children to a government […]

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Mother Jones

RFK Jr. Super-PAC Puts Promoters of Conspiracy Theories on the Payroll

A songwriter who produces rap songs with conspiracy theories about Covid; an academic who has championed debunked and bizarre notions about 9/11, the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, the 2020 election, and other public events; a polygraph examiner who wrote a novel tying Russian mobsters and sexual predators who exploit disabled children to a government […]

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Mother Jones

At the UN, the US Vetoes a Ceasefire Resolution—and Proposes Another One

After being the only member of the UN Security Council to twice veto resolutions calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, the Biden administration is preparing a ceasefire proposal of its own. Al Jazeera on Monday reported that the US-authored resolution would fall considerably short of what many critics of Israeli and American policy […]

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The Long Era of Republican Gerrymandering in Wisconsin May Finally Be Over

The long era of Republican gerrymandering in Wisconsin may finally be coming to an end. Last week, the Republican-controlled legislature approved new maps submitted by Democratic Governor Tony Evers that will significantly reduce GOP majorities in both chambers. Evers signed the legislation on Monday. “It is a new day in Wisconsin, and today is a […]

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Leslie Jamison on Finding “Infinitude” in Motherhood

Midway through Leslie Jamison’s new memoir, Splinters, the writer takes her infant daughter to see a Garry Winogrand exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. In Winogrand’s photos, which depict patrons at the New York Aquarium and Coney Island, Jamison finds “a church of regular life,” as she calls it. “Instead of showing saints, or biblical scenes, or stations of […]

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Another Big Question About AI: Its Carbon Footprint

This story was originally published by Yale E360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Two months after its release in November 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT had 100 million active users, and suddenly tech corporations were racing to offer the public more “generative AI” Pundits compared the new technology’s impact to the Internet, or electrification, or the […]

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Report: Trump-Branded NYC Real Estate Plummeted in Value Since 2016

Trump brags about pretty much everything—but particularly his wealth and his real estate. That was the basis of the civil fraud trial brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, which culminated on Friday when a judge ruled Trump must pay $355 million—or $453.5 million with interest, according to NBC News—after finding him liable of fraudulently […]

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Reagan’s Daughter: Cognitive Tests For Presidential Candidates Would Be ‘A Good Idea’

The daughter of the once-oldest president, Ronald Reagan, who was 77 when he took office, thinks cognitive tests for presidential candidates would be “a good idea,” she said in an interview that aired Sunday. “Just what we know about what age can do, it doesn’t always do that, but it would probably be a good […]

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Trump Supporters Are Donating to a GoFundMe To Pay His $355 Million Legal Fine

How will Trump pay his mounting legal bills? It’s a fair question, considering that a New York judge ruled on Friday that he owes $355 million for inflating his net worth to banks and insurance companies, as my colleague Russ Choma reported. The total amount comes to more than $453 million with interest, according to […]

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Why Trump’s Sleaziest Criminal Case Is So Important

Editor’s note: The below article first appeared in David Corn’s newsletter, Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month—but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of Our Land here. Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s indictment-o-rama, the […]

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Here’s How Ski Resorts Are Adapting to Climate Change

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Trudging across the top of Bromley Mountain Ski Resort on a sunny afternoon in January, Matt Folts checks his smartwatch and smiles: 14 degrees Fahrenheit. That is very nearly his favorite temperature for making snow. It’s cold enough for water to quickly […]

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This Week’s Episode of Reveal: Journalism and Protest at the Dawn of AIDS

This week’s episode of Reveal features WNYC’s Kai Wright and the Nation‘s Lizzy Ratner, hosts of New York Public Radio and the History Channel’s Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows. Wright and Ratner take on the history and politics of the early AIDS crisis, surveying contemporary media coverage, community responses, and the enduring waves of activism […]

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Ohio Law Requires a Transgender Man to Use His Deadname on State Legislature Ballot

A Democratic candidate for the Ohio Senate is a transgender man who has long gone by the name Ari Faber, but a 1995 law will require the state’s upcoming March primary ballots to use the name he was given at birth: Iva Faber. Title 35, Section 3513.271 of Ohio Revised Code requires that “[i]f any […]

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Shoebox Lady Is Not Alone—Americans Got Scammed For More Than $10 Billion in 2023

Who among us has not handed $50,000 cash in a shoebox to a purported undercover CIA agent in an SUV with tinted windows because a fake FTC investigator told us to? Well, I haven’t. Nor do I have a stray $50,000 to give. Still, a February 9 report from the real Federal Trade Commission reveals […]

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Biden Blames Putin for Aleksei Navalny’s Death, Urges Ukraine Funding

At a televised White House press conference Friday, President Joe Biden rebuked the Kremlin for insisting that leading Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny simply lost consciousness and died after taking a stroll in prison. “Make no mistake: [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is responsible for Navalny’s death,” Biden said. “Putin is responsible. What has happened to Navalny […]

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