Mother Jones
Last Thursday, as wildfires continued to blaze through Los Angeles, firefighters appeared to be no match for the deadly combination of winds and flames. But one entrepreneur in the LA suburb of El Segundo had an idea. Augustus Doricko, a 24-year-old who runs a geoengineering startup called Rainmaker, announced on X his attention to help. […]
Mother JonesOn July 10, 2020, Terry Tamminen wrote a letter to the board chair of Waterkeeper Alliance, the clean-water group founded and led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to say that he wanted out. Tamminen, a veteran, highly-regarded environmentalist and co-founder and longtime board member of the organization, had become concerned about the outfit’s finances—so worried […]
Mother JonesOn Tuesday morning, the Justice Democrats—the group that helped usher in a wave of progressive candidates during the first Trump presidency—announced they’re actively recruiting candidates to primary centrist Democrats. The PAC, which started in 2017, became known for backing “the Squad” and other left-wing Democratic candidates, some of whom ousted incumbents with decades of experience. […]
Mother JonesSamuel Anthony turns his phone camera around to show me the view from his family home in Sierra Leone. He steps out to a veranda overlooking a carpet of lush green trees dotted with houses that merge with the ocean in the distance. “This is how the majority of people live in Sierra Leone,” Anthony […]
Mother JonesThis article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter. A Navy submariner who said she was sexually assaulted multiple times. An Army major who chose to never report her assault. A Marine Corps sexual assault response coordinator who worries she is being discriminated against […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Kristin Crowley was appointed Los Angeles fire chief in 2022 at a time of turmoil in a department consumed by complaints of rampant hazing, harassment, and discrimination among its 3,400-member ranks. She was portrayed by then mayor Eric Garcetti as a stabilizing […]
Mother JonesSamuel Anthony turns his phone camera around to show me the view from his family home in Sierra Leone. He steps out to a veranda overlooking a carpet of lush green trees dotted with houses that merge with the ocean in the distance. “This is how the majority of people live in Sierra Leone,” Anthony […]
Mother JonesIn emergency updates, American Sign Language interpreters are crucial to the safety of Deaf people—close to a million of whom live in the Los Angeles area alone. They’ve also become the latest target of right-wing online influencers like Turning Point USA head Charlie Kirk, who offered a very obnoxious take on his eponymous Charlie Kirk […]
Mother JonesKetan Joshi did not mean to become the manager of all things climate on Bluesky, the fast-growing social media platform that’s trying to compete directly with Twitter. GreenSky was designed to be this overarching, overall thing that encompassed all the communities. I see that emerging through the GreenSky feed, because you see people from very […]
Mother JonesIt wasn’t long ago when a daily glass of wine was considered safe, even healthy. The practice could confer onto someone a sense of sophistication, a realized version of whatever “bon vivant” means. But in recent years, as multiple studies started to dismantle that notion of safety, I tended to mostly ignore what I had […]
Mother JonesIt wasn’t long ago when a daily glass of wine was considered safe, even healthy. The practice could confer onto someone a sense of sophistication, a realized version of whatever “bon vivant” means. But in recent years, as multiple studies started to dismantle that notion of safety, I tended to mostly ignore what I had […]
Mother JonesThe 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. I tend not to get all dewy-eyed about bipartisanship. It was bipartisanship that […]
Mother JonesProject 2025’s stance on the Department of Education is clear: “Federal education policy should be limited and, ultimately, the federal Department of Education should be eliminated.” Donald Trump’s imminent presidency has raised concerns among disabled advocates, kids, their parents, and others about the federal government’s role in making sure disabled students get an equitable education. […]
Mother JonesJD Vance is learning what it’s like to be a target of Trump supporters. Chaos in MAGA world ensued after the Vice President-elect told Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream that not all insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 will receive pardons from Donald Trump. “It’s very simple,” Vance claimed on the […]
Mother JonesWhile Donald Trump rages on Truth Social—sharing memes and baselessly blaming Democratic politicians in California for the devastating LA wildfires—Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) fears he will withhold disaster aid from the state in a bid to score political points. In an interview that aired Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, Newsom told NBC News correspondent […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Atlas Obscura and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Sado Island perches like a butterfly with its wings outstretched just off the curved west coast of Japan. Yet this land mass is better known as the home of another winged creature: the crested ibis, called toki in Japanese. Hop on a shinkansen (a high-speed train) from Tokyo […]
Mother JonesPresident Joe Biden has issued a flurry of pardons during his final days in office, beginning with his grant of clemency to his son Hunter and continuing with a mid-December announcement that he had pardoned or commuted the sentences of nearly 1,500 Americans. This week, Biden told reporters that he was still considering issuing preemptive […]
Mother JonesFormer New York City mayor and Trump hanger-on Rudy Giuliani was found in contempt of court on Friday—for the second time in a week. Giuliani faces two different federal lawsuits against him stemming from his comments about a pair of Georgia elections workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, whom he falsely accused of helping rig […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by Vox.com and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Multiple major wildfires, fanned by unusually strong seasonal winds, have been burning through the Los Angeles area, leaving devastation in their wake. Thus far, those fires have led to at least 11 fatalities, massive evacuations, and the destruction of […]
Mother JonesThe Supreme Court on Friday heard oral arguments on the future of TikTok—whether to let the platform go dark on January 19 according to a bipartisan law passed by Congress, or to intervene and spare the platform. The case pits the First Amendment free speech rights of TikTok and its users against the government’s assertions […]
Mother JonesLos Angeles has been hit with its worst-ever wildfires, which continue to blaze, already claiming at least ten lives and devastating air quality—just as a spate of mask bans have been enacted or proposed around the country, including in LA itself. Since authorities began issuing evacuation orders across the area, Joaquín Beltrán, a community organizer […]
Mother JonesJanuary 10, 2025, marks the second anniversary of the death of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man who was restrained and fatally beaten by five now-former Memphis police officers during a traffic stop. After countless marches, talks with politicians, and pending court cases, his family are still fighting for justice for their loved one. “This […]
Mother JonesLynn Levin-Guzman spent her Tuesday night within spitting distance of SUV-sized flames, trying to salvage her 90-year-old parents’ home with a mere garden hose. As the Eaton Fire devastated the Hastings Ranch neighborhood in Pasadena, California, the family seemed especially screwed: Their insurance provider had recently canceled their fire coverage. “I know I’m not supposed […]
Mother JonesDonald Trump’s criminal case ended with a sputter on Friday morning as a New York City judge sentenced him to no jail time and discharged his case. While the incoming president received no actual punishment for his 34 convictions for concealing hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, the sentencing did formalize his […]
Mother JonesWith Donald Trump less than two weeks away from taking office and promising an agenda of mass deportations, Democrats are poised to hand Republicans major new powers over immigration policy. Why? Still shell-shocked from the November results, they apparently fear their reelection prospects if they don’t. The Laken Riley Act—named for the 22-year-old Georgia woman […]
Mother JonesThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The sun glared red as it sank into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, casting an orange hue over the carnage smoldering on the southern Californian coast. It will be a day not soon forgotten in Los Angeles, which by evening was […]
Mother JonesCountless words have been spilled—including in Mother Jones—on the topic of medical care for transgender youth. The attention, in part, comes from a steep jump in the number of teens who self-identify as transgender in surveys—and, even more significantly, by the massive, coordinated, right-wing campaign designed to politically weaponize transgender kids’ very existence. At least […]
Mother JonesThe Supreme Court on Thursday narrowly denied President-elect Donald Trump’s last ditch effort to delay his sentencing in the New York hush money case in which he was convicted of 34 felony counts in May. That sentencing will now proceed tomorrow, January 10. Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records to cover up payments […]
Mother JonesThe ongoing Los Angeles wildfires have reportedly killed at least 5 people and destroyed thousands of structures, leaving entire neighborhoods in heaps of ashes. With stately homes burned to the ground, or too damaged to imminently return to, wealthy Angelenos reportedly fled to hotels or other cities: Those who could afford the nightly rate of […]
Mother JonesFor the last two mornings, I’ve woken up from broken sleep in my house on Los Angeles’ east side in a blind panic, the smell of smoke permeating the air. The light slanting in is a horrible, eerie orange, illuminating the white kitchen cabinets like a nightmare projection screen. When I climb onto the roof, […]