International underwear model, security guard, and insurrectionist John Strand was finally sentenced to prison today, after being convicted in September on all five criminal counts related to storming the Capitol on January 6. DC District Court Judge Christopher Cooper sentenced Strand to 32 months in prison, plus a $10,000 fine. The fine took into account the […]
If you’re one of more than 43 million people with student loan debt in the United States, you may soon be forced to start repayments once again. On Wednesday, the House passed a deal to raise the debt ceiling, which includes a provision ending the pandemic-era pause on student loan payments. The agreement now heads to […]
In Lorena Roman’s new apartment in Watsonville, California, the walls are bare except for a wooden cross. Boxes are stacked in the small kitchen. Some days she can hear the jingle of an ice cream truck driving by the approximately 80-unit apartment complex in Monterey County. On a recent spring morning, Roman, 47, sits on […]
On a rainy day in late March, a group of American and European public intellectuals gathered in a stone-clad villa in Budapest’s Castle District. They’d been invited by the Danube Institute, a conservative think tank backed by the Hungarian government, to denounce growing threats from the left. The institute’s president, John O’Sullivan, a British octogenarian […]
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Keely Fisher chose to pursue her Ph.D. at Ohio State University because she wanted to learn about climate change from a world-class faculty. Now one year into her program, she wonders if she belongs here. The problem has nothing […]
Ron DeSantis is running for president as the man who took on two magical kingdoms. The first, as my colleague Pema Levy recently documented in a profile for the magazine, is Disney World. The second is Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts that’s a summertime haven for the ultra-wealthy. At a campaign […]
In a move lauded by safe streets advocates, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed a new rule this morning that would require automatic emergency braking (AEB) on new cars and light trucks. AEB uses sensors to detect objects in a car’s path, like pedestrians or other vehicles, and automatically brakes if the driver fails to […]
Guadalupe de la Cruz, director of the Florida chapter of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), wasn’t surprised when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed one of the most restrictive anti-immigration laws in the country this May. After all, DeSantis already championed legislation banning sanctuary cities in the state and engineered political stunts with flights of migrants from […]
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Given America’s penchant for gas-guzzling pickup trucks and SUVs, you might be surprised to learn that the country’s gasoline usage is going down, maybe for good. Even though only about 1 percent of cars on the road today are electric, some […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The deal to raise the US debt ceiling will have significant ramifications for the climate and nature, by fast-tracking a controversial gas pipeline in West Virginia and limiting the scope of environmental reviews for future developments, environmentalists have warned. The agreement struck between Joe Biden […]
If you haven’t ordered your free COVID tests yet, you might want to hurry. US residents are still allowed to order free tests online until 11:59 p.m. PDT on May 31. After that, the federal program will be officially terminated. According to the COVID.gov website, every US household is eligible for up to four at-home testing […]
Last week, Florida Gov. Ronald Dion DeSantis announced his run for president of the United States. In the avalanche of background coverage, one point hasn’t been discussed much: DeSantis’s middle name. “Dion”? According to reporting from NBC News, it’s a tribute to the early rockstar, and Bronx-born heartthrob, Dion DiMucci. When Henry J. Gomez interviewed […]
This story was originally published by the Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The plastics industry has long hyped recycling, even though it is well aware that it’s been a failure. Worldwide, only 9 percent of plastic waste actually gets recycled. In the United States, the rate is now 5 percent. Most used plastic is landfilled, incinerated, or winds […]
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan won reelection on Sunday, cementing his grip on power. First elected in 2003 as prime minister, Erdogan has reshaped Turkey from its secular moderate democratic system to a more religious and increasingly authoritarian power structure. Erdogan’s rule has complicated Turkey’s relationships with Western leaders—he is currently impeding Sweden’s entrance into […]
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said this weekend that they had reached a deal in principle to raise the debt ceiling, but as of Sunday afternoon, lawmakers were still waiting to see the text of the deal to be voted on. The agreement reportedly includes a debt ceiling extension through 2025—sparing the […]
The Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Saturday to impeach Republican Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. Paxton, a conservative star who has made a name as a culture warrior and MAGA firebrand, was impeached on multiple articles including bribery and abuse of public trust. The impeachment vote went through easily—121 to 23—with the […]
This story was originally published by the Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Writing clean energy policies and implementing them is hard. It takes experts. Those people serve on task forces, stay up late writing policy briefs and fret over the details. In an era when many states are making rapid […]
In a stunning turn of events, the GOP-controlled Texas House of Representatives voted Saturday to impeach the state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. In a 121 to 23 vote, with five others absent or abstaining, the state House approved twenty articles of impeachment against Paxton on grounds including bribery, obstruction of justice, and dereliction of […]
Hours before announcing his 2024 campaign for the presidency on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law allowing him to continue to serve as governor while he pursues the GOP presidential nomination. While that was the headline, the new law contains a series of provisions making it harder to vote in the state, including […]
A South Carolina judge temporarily blocked the state’s new six-week abortion ban on Friday, one day after it was signed by Republican Gov. Henry McMaster. “The status quo should be maintained until the [state] Supreme Court reviews its decision,” said circuit court Judge Clifton Newman. “It’s going to end up there.” The state Supreme Court […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Scientists have discovered more than 5,000 new species living on the seabed in an untouched area of the Pacific Ocean that has been identified as a future hotspot for deep-sea mining, according to a review of the environmental surveys done in the area. […]
Nearly two months ago, a pandemic-era policy that prevented states from dropping ineligible people from Medicaid ended. Now, we’re starting to see the fallout. According to a recent New York Times report, hundreds of thousands of low-income people have already lost their health insurance, including those who may still qualify for coverage but appear to […]
Editor’s note: The below article is a preview of the lead item in the next edition of 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 […]
On Thursday, a Texas house panel voted to recommend impeachment proceedings for Republican attorney general Ken Paxton. Investigators for the committee concluded that the state’s top law enforcement official broke a number of laws—including felony statutes—by using his office to help a friend and political donor named Nate Paul. (You can read more about the […]
The movement to counter the Supreme Court’s rightward lurch has come a long way since 2018, when a small but dogged group of progressive advocates began pushing to expand the nine-member court. In Democratic circles, the idea has gained traction, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the right to abortion, and […]
When Disney announced that the singer and actress Halle Bailey was chosen to play Ariel in the upcoming live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, I was uncharacteristically ecstatic. With her angelic voice and magnetic onscreen presence, even I, as a vocal Disney live-action hater, had to admit that Bailey as Ariel was a match made […]
When Disney announced that the singer and actress Halle Bailey was chosen to play Ariel in the upcoming live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, I was uncharacteristically ecstatic. With her angelic voice and magnetic onscreen presence, even I, as a vocal Disney live-action hater, had to admit that Bailey as Ariel was a match made […]
When Disney announced that the singer and actress Halle Bailey was chosen to play Ariel in the upcoming live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid, I was uncharacteristically ecstatic. With her angelic voice and magnetic onscreen presence, even I, as a vocal Disney live-action hater, had to admit that Bailey as Ariel was a match made […]
Once a month, Adam Ulbricht hosts a lively podcast called The Bison Insider. Ulbricht, who’s also executive director of the Minnesota Bison Association, discusses weaning calves, the pros and cons of small ranches, and field harvesting. A favorite topic: the rebound of the bison market after a brief Covid slump. Between 2021 to 2022, bison […]
Is the federal government helping companies sell surveillance technology to repressive governments? Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wants to know, but a federal subagency has been cagey about the information. In a letter sent on Saturday, Wyden asked the International Trade Administration (ITA), a subagency of the Department of Commerce, for details about its role in […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The scope of a landmark law to protect America’s waterways has been shrunk by the US Supreme Court, which has sided with an Idaho couple who have waged a long-running legal battle to build a house on wetlands near one of the […]
Zooey Zephyr was tired of watching Montana’s Republican-controlled legislature pass laws targeting trans residents, so last year, the 35-year-old Missoula native decided to join the chamber herself. She ran for an open seat and was elected with 79 percent of the vote. “If you wanna make a difference, get in that room,’” Zephyr recalled a […]
Zooey Zephyr was tired of watching Montana’s Republican-controlled legislature pass laws targeting trans residents, so last year, the 35-year-old Missoula native decided to join the chamber herself. She ran for an open seat and was elected with 79 percent of the vote. “If you wanna make a difference, get in that room,’” Zephyr recalled a […]
Earlier this week, seemingly out of the blue, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton issued a statement calling one of the most powerful politicians in the state a drunk. Citing a video that was circulating of Dade Phelan, the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, stumbling over his words while presiding over the chamber, Paxton […]
The leader of the far-right Oath Keepers, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy last year, received an 18-year prison sentence Thursday following a hearing in which he defended his role in the January 6 attack. “I’m a political prisoner,” Stewart Rhodes said at his sentencing. “And like President Trump, my only crime is opposing those […]
Last night, in a Twitter Spaces marred by glitches, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that he was running for president. Within hours, former President Trump took to Instagram with a seemingly AI-generated video so absurd that I had to double-check that it was in fact posted by @realdonaldtrump. The video, laced with homophobic and anti-Semitic […]
On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion that provides liberals, conservatives, and libertarians a rare chance to celebrate the same thing. The court’s decision in Tyler v. Hennepin County will block about a dozen states and the District of Columbia from keeping surplus funds from the homes they sell after residents fail to […]
John Durham’s final report blasts the FBI for using the so-called Steele dossier, a compilation of unconfirmed claims about Donald Trump and Russia, without sufficiently considering Steele’s findings could have contained deliberate Russian falsehoods. But Durham himself relies substantially on a sketchy intelligence product that may be Russian disinformation to push a partisan political narrative. […]
John Durham’s final report blasts the FBI for using the so-called Steele dossier, a compilation of unconfirmed claims about Donald Trump and Russia, without sufficiently considering the chance that Steele’s findings contained deliberate Russian falsehoods. But Durham himself relies substantially on a sketchy intelligence product that may be Russian disinformation to push a partisan political […]
Henry Kissinger is turning 100 this week, and his centennial is prompting assorted hosannas about perhaps the most influential American foreign policymaker of the 20th century. The Economist observed that “his ideas have been circling back into relevancy for the last quarter century.” The Times of London ran an appreciation: “Henry Kissinger at 100: What He Can […]
Three years ago today, George Floyd was murdered, and his death, alongside the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, acted as a catalyst for many news organizations to address their lack of diversity. In 2020, media institutions created diversity and inclusion positions, hired more people of color, and launched programs aimed at reducing racial bias. […]
“Our government is a government of laws, not a government of men,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared last August, standing at a podium in Tampa with a phalanx of armed officers behind him. “That means that we govern ourselves based on a constitutional system.” The occasion was a triumphant press conference announcing his suspension of […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A new investigation into Chevron’s climate pledge has found the fossil-fuel company relies on “junk” carbon offsets and “unviable” technologies, which do little to offset its vast greenhouse gas emissions and in some cases may actually be causing communities harm. Chevron, […]
On Wednesday, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis expected to announce he’s entering the 2024 presidential race in the evening, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) released a damning report on the state of higher education in the potential candidate’s home state. “Academic freedom, tenure, and shared governance in Florida’s public colleges and universities,” the […]
This story was originally published by Yale Environment 360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Off the coast of southeastern China, one particular fish species is booming: the oddly named Bombay duck, a long, slim fish with a distinctive, gaping jaw and a texture like jelly. When research ships trawl the seafloor off that […]
It wasn’t long after Jessica Madison graduated in 2009 that she realized her student loans were a terrible mistake. She had borrowed $21,000 for a paralegal program at Everest College in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the hope of building a more secure life, but instead she spent the next three years looking for a full-time […]
Donald Trump was summoned to appear Tuesday before a Manhattan judge, who warned the former president that he could face additional legal trouble if he publicly rants about the evidence against him in his criminal fraud case—a recurring problem during the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault lawsuit earlier this month. Trump’s virtual appearance was brief, […]
Amid high-wire negotiations over the nation’s debt ceiling and the increasing likelihood of a US default, House Republicans on Tuesday took a moment to turn their attention to a used chapstick belonging to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. That chapstick—which, according to Politico, was a cherry-flavored souvenir from Florida Congressman Aaron Bean’s campaign—was to be auctioned […]
The NAACP is the latest organization to warn Black people and members of marginalized communities against traveling to Florida amid the relentless right-wing bills signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis. The travel advisory, issued on Saturday, condemned Florida as “openly hostile towards African Americans, people of color, and LGBTQ+” people and urged people to […]
This morning, Andrew Yang announced that Krist Novoselic of Nirvana joined Forward—his political party that is “not left,” “not right,” but “FORWARD” (and pretty hard to take seriously). Yang is famous for running unsuccessfully for president and for mayor of New York City. He has staked his claim on the technocratic, centrist dream that problems […]
The Texas legislature passed a series of bills on Monday that amounted to a sweeping power grab giving Republicans more control over how elections are run and administered in the state’s most populous Democratic county, which includes the city of Houston and is home to nearly 5 million people. One bill would allow the secretary […]
One year after a suicidal 18-year-old opened fire with an AR-15 rifle inside Robb Elementary School, most of the public discussion remains focused on how a swarm of law enforcement failed for more than an hour to put an end to the attack. By the time police finally went into the classroom and killed the […]
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. After more than a year of intense negotiations, the states along the Colorado River have reached a deal to solve one of the most complex water crises in US history. The solution to this byzantine conundrum is deceptive in its simplicity: […]
In his first interview since being charged with second-degree manslaughter in the killing of Jordan Neely, Daniel Penny said that he couldn’t be “a white supremacist” because he was, among other things, “planning a road trip through Africa.” In an interview with the New York Post, the ex-Marine said that allegations against him of racism are “a […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The world’s top fossil fuel companies owe at least $209 billion in annual climate reparations to compensate communities most damaged by their polluting business and decades of lies, a new study calculates. BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, Total, Saudi Arabia’s state oil […]
The specifics of Bill Gates’ relationship with Jeffrey Epstein have been an open question since details about their ties were revealed in 2019. In 2022, Gates’ ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, revealed that her then-husband’s relationship with the child predator financier even contributed to their divorce. On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal shed new light on their dynamic, […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. By the end of March, the surface temperature of the world’s oceans was above anything seen in the 40 years that satellites have been measuring it. Records were “headed off the charts” and, as the heat refused to fade for more […]
After Daniel Penny was charged on Friday with manslaughter for choking Jordan Neely to death on the F train, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) tweeted a link to donate to Penny’s legal defense fund. “We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny,” DeSantis wrote. “Let’s show this Marine…America’s got his back.” Other Republicans followed suit. “I […]
Former President Trump is a twice-impeached sexual abuser, who possesses a unique ability to make people laugh—unfortunately or fortunately, to use his verbiage. He made that clear at a CNN town hall last week, when he had an audience of mostly Republicans laughing hysterically over the charming subject of an alleged rape. However odious his behavior, Trump’s charisma—or, […]
First, liberals canceled Christmas. Then, Thanksgiving. Now, they’re throwing Mother’s Day out with the trash. At least, that’s how Fox News sees it. In a recent article, the right-wing site accused “the left” of “trying to erase mothers.” Among the apparent culprits are trans people. “A mother is a woman who by birth or adoption […]
On Saturday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would ban most abortions in the state after 12 weeks. But this is far from the end: The Republican supermajority in the state legislature is poised to overturn the veto and enact an abortion ban. It would be a blow not just […]
This story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On a hot, dry August day in 2002, air tankers swooped over a small wildfire south of Bend, Oregon. The Forest Service hoped to suppress the flames by dropping over a thousand pounds of fire retardant on and around the […]
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For as long as anyone can remember, the lack of a sanitation system in Lowndes County, Alabama, and resulting reliance on piping human waste directly into septic tanks and local creeks, has made life in the community miserable. After years of organizing […]
Just hours before the pandemic-era immigration rule Title 42 was set to lift on Thursday, a Florida judge blocked President Joe Biden’s plan to release some migrants on “parole,” a policy aimed at reducing overcrowding in migrant detention facilities. Late Friday, the Biden administration asked for an emergency stay of the judge’s order, saying it […]
In this week’s New Yorker, JR Moehringer breaks all the rules of ghostwriting by ceasing to be invisible and asserting his hiding-in-plain-sight presence as the writer for Britain’s exiled Prince Harry’s blockbuster memoir Spare. Moehringer offers plenty to satisfy Royal obsessives, providing glimpses into their process, their relationship, and the genuine affection and respect that seems to have […]
On Thursday, the Louisiana House passed a bill to make some juvenile criminal records public in three majority-Black parishes. Sponsors argue that providing the public with these records would offer transparency in crime-afflicted areas. If signed into law, the measure would serve as a two-year pilot program. Critics of the measure, House Bill 321, say the measure […]
This piece was published originally by Capital & Main. Business groups are vigorously opposing Julie Su, President Joe Biden’s nominee for labor secretary, and they are counting on a handful of votes from swing senators to defeat her confirmation. Leading the charge are trade groups representing companies like McDonald’s and Uber that currently are not the employers […]
This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Far North is both a massive carbon sink and a potent environmental time bomb. The region stores a huge amount of CO2 in boreal forests and underlying soils. Organic peat soil, for instance, covers just 3 percent of the Earth’s land area […]
George Santos, the freshman New York Republican who admitted to lying about entire swaths of his personal biography, has surrendered to face federal criminal charges. The Justice Department on Wednesday announced the 13 charges: seven for wire fraud, three for money laundering, two for making false statements on Congressional disclosure forms, and one for theft […]
This story was originally published by Canada’s National Observer and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. American fishing boats catching threatened Canadian salmon was flagged as a top concern for federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray before meeting with the US ambassador to Canada in March. Briefing notes, which Canada’s National Observer obtained through an access-to-information request, […]
On Tuesday, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced that he would be sharing his political views on Twitter—just like the rest of us idiots. Carlson, who was let go by Fox News a few weeks ago, said he would relaunch his show “soon” on the social media website now run by Elon Musk. It […]
On Tuesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) signed a bill banning Chinese nationals from buying land in Florida. He hopes the bill will go toward “counteracting” the “malign influence of the Chinese Communist Party in Florida,” according to a recent press release. “Today, it’s clear that we don’t want CCP in the Sunshine State,” said DeSantis at […]
A federal jury has found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a civil lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, who alleged that Trump raped her in 1996 in the dressing room of a New York City department store. The jury found that Carroll’s attorneys had failed to prove the rape allegation, […]
Donald Trump may have forgotten her birthday in between facing 34 felony charges related to allegedly paying off a porn actress he slept with four months after giving birth to their son. But Melania Trump is once again showcasing an extraordinary ability to ignore all that hideousness, telling Fox News that Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has […]
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Supreme Court could once again hinder the ability of the executive branch to address climate change when it reconsiders the precedent, set almost 40 years ago, upon which many of its efforts rest. The court announced last Monday that it […]
Attorneys for both sides in Donald Trump’s sexual assault and defamation civil lawsuit made their final pleas to the jury Monday, with rival attorneys for Trump and E. Jean Carroll, the writer who says Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in 1996, talking for hours, trying to sum up their cases. Carroll’s […]
The gun rampage at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas, on Saturday that left at least eight people dead, seven injured, and countless others traumatized is the latest in a worsening American phenomenon. The horrific event continues several trends, including some I reported on after the recent mass shootings at a school in Nashville and […]
Amid rising protests calling for justice in the case of Jordan Neely, his family is demanding charges against the man who put their loved one in a chokehold. Daniel Penny, an ex-marine from Long Island, choked Neely, who was reportedly unhoused and asking for food, on a New York subway car on May 3. On […]
On Friday, a man in Cleveland, Texas, killed five of his neighbors after they complained about him firing an AR-15 on his property late at night. On Sunday, with the shooter still at large and “zero leads” as to his whereabouts, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that the victims weren’t so innocent either. Law enforcement […]
The judge in Donald Trump’s civil rape and defamation trial denied a request by the former president’s attorney to grant a mistrial in the case on Monday. The motion, which was filed Sunday night by Trump attorney Joe Tacopina, amounted to a laundry list of complaints that Judge Lewis Kaplan hadn’t been fair to Tacopina, […]
Last week, the Republican-controlled Montana House of Representatives voted to bar Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the state’s first transgender woman lawmaker, from the floor for the rest of the session. Her offense? Telling GOP lawmakers that they had “blood on their hands” for supporting a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors. Zephyr’s expulsion from the […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A leading private equity firm that claims to be an industry climate leader in fact almost doubled its average annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel investments over the past decade, according to new research. The Carlyle Group’s portfolio of […]
President Joe Biden, for those fortunate enough to have missed it, made a “Dark Brandon” joke Saturday night at the White House Correspondent’s dinner. This was no surprise. Biden’s reelection campaign already references this meme through a picture of the president with laser eyeballs. But the 80-year old president’s reference completes a process through which […]
The success of Donald Trump, an asshole who became president, created a fallacy: Americans want an asshole as their president. This misapprehension greatly appeals, of course, to assholes, especially those in public office, who seem happy to drop the traditional practice of politicians pretending to be nicer than they really are in favor of trying […]
Conservative Supreme Court justices padded their salaries and took gigs abroad that one critic likened to “all-expenses-paid vacations, with a little teaching thrown in,” courtesy of a law school that used access to the justices to boost its fundraising and status, the New York Times reported Sunday. The cozy ties of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence […]
This story was originally published by Yale E360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It is being hailed as a sea change in scientific understanding of the global ocean circulation system and how it will respond as the world heats up. A doomsday scenario involving the collapse of the circulation—previously portrayed in both peer-reviewed […]
Could a blossoming kinship, forged in the fire of unceremonious dismissals on the same day, be developing between Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon? Maybe. That’s one of the big takeaways from Brian Stelter, who reports for Vanity Fair that the two men, in addition to retaining the same entertainment lawyer, have reportedly exchanged several texts in […]
On Friday, Montana joined an alarming number of states to ban gender-affirming health care for minors when its Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, signed a bill that had been condemned as “unconscionable” by the state’s first openly transgender lawmaker. Gianforte, who catapulted to the national spotlight in 2017 after body-slamming a Guardian reporter, signed the legislation […]
In a wide-ranging interview with the Wall Street Journal, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito seethed against criticisms of the high court, appeared to mock the abortion pill, and suggested he knew who leaked the draft majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. “I personally have a pretty good idea who is responsible,” Alito said, declining to name […]
This story was originally published by Canada’s National Observer and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In an anodyne gray North Vancouver business park, Gavin Schneider is growing a whitish paste he believes will one day replace meat and feed astronauts on Mars. The paste is mycelium, the so-called “body” of fungi. This long-overlooked organism […]
San Francisco’s public officials and tech execs have been crying for years that the city is becoming more violent: the “reign of criminals who are destroying our city,” Democratic Mayor London Breed said in 2021, ends “when we take the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement.” When Cash App founder Bob Lee was […]
This story was originally published by Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Ever since brutal winter storms blacked out much of Texas and killed hundreds of residents in February 2021, the state’s government has constantly talked a big game about bolstering its grid and shielding Texans from future disasters. There is shockingly little […]
In his opening statement in the ongoing civil sexual assault and defamation trial against former president Donald Trump, his attorney Joe Tacopina was aggressive, scathing and snarling in his attacks on E. Jean Carroll, the writer who has accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in […]
When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis decided to go after Disney last spring for opposing his “Don’t Say Gay” law, he was making it an example. He chose a powerful, high profile target that had disagreed with his policy preferences, and he punished that company for crossing him. In doing so, he sent a clear warning […]
On Wednesday evening, Tucker Carlson broke his silence on his surprise firing from Fox News. After saying he’d taken a moment to step back, Carlson lamented that both political parties had cohered around a set ideology endorsed by cable news. But now, after his dismissal, he foretold an end. “This moment is too inherently ridiculous […]
Fox News on Monday announced that Tucker Carlson, by many measures America’s most-watched cable news star, is leaving. A reason was not immediately provided. “Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st,” a statement read. “Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 PM/ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating FOX […]
In recent years, there has been greater awareness of the need to recast American history by including the stories of this nation’s original inhabitants. Museums have created lesson plans to impart to students a more comprehensive understanding of the erasure of Native peoples and more universities are offering courses on Native history. Ned Blackhawk’s The […]
A version of this essay originally appeared in The London Review of Books. The “Special Military Operation” (the law forbids calling it anything else) got off to bad start – Russian armed forces crossed into Ukraine and found themselves stuck in the mud, low on fuel and provisions, surrounded by a hostile civilian population. Then […]
Tennessee’s Republican lawmakers ended the legislative session early on Friday without taking action on gun control, less than a month after a mass shooter at a Nashville school killed three adults and three 9-year-olds. The state allows 90 days for each legislative session, but lawmakers adjourned after just 27 days, even as thousands of students, parents, […]
The fight over the nation’s debt limit has been brewing in Congress for months and is now ramping up. On Sunday, several Democratic lawmakers called on Republicans to stop using the cap as a bargaining chip for the GOP’s broader efforts to cut social safety net spending, a negotiating strategy that could threaten the US […]