This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Amazon Rainforest is on fire. Or much of it, at least. On February 28, Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research announced that 2,940 fires had burned in the Brazilian Amazon over the course of that month—a record-breaking number for a February. […]
Much has already been written about Judge Scott McAfee’s ruling Friday allowing Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, to continue overseeing the prosecution of Donald Trump and his co-defendants for allegedly conspiring to steal the 2020 election in Georgia. As my colleague Pema Levy explained, this was a momentous decision—one that means, at least […]
Vladimir Putin’s fifth term as Russian president is guaranteed. Opposition leaders have been imprisoned, exiled, and killed. Criticism of Putin and the war in Ukraine has been outlawed. Only rubber-stamped candidates appear on the ballot. Russia’s presidential election is a farce. But that didn’t stop critics of Putin from showing up at the polls in […]
Two big pieces of news emerged from the world of Wisconsin politics over the past week. Together, they show how Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 presidential contest was stolen will shape the contours of the 2024 election in this key battleground state. On Monday, Trump supporters announced that they had collected enough signatures to […]
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Months in jail and thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees—those are the consequences Alabamians and Arizonans could soon face for selling cell-cultured meat products that could cut into the profits of ranchers, farmers and meatpackers in […]
Noted thumb resembler Tucker Carlson, erstwhile Fox host, defender of white boys’ honor in battle, television’s largest baby, the guy with a fixed look you can only call “constiperplexed”—they say he’s smart. I have things to do, so I don’t watch his vlog, but I’ve read enough YouTube titles like “Tucker Carlson DEMOLISHES Antifa Ukraine […]
What do NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and an Oakland, California, hair braiding salon owner have in common? The answer: Support for psychedelic drugs. On this week’s episode of Reveal, an update of an episode that first ran in October, host Michael Schiller and reporter and producer Jonathan A. Davis investigate […]
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade nearly two years ago, supporters of the right to choose have won every ballot initiative, in every state, in which an abortion-related measure has been put before voters. The trend is as true in red states like Kansas and Kentucky as it is in blue California and Vermont, […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The US has just experienced its hottest-ever winter, with record-breaking temperatures driving away snow and ice and causing the coldest months to feel bizarrely balmy in many parts of the country. Swathes of the lower 48 […]
It was 2018 when Mateo Jaime was admitted to North Star Behavioral Health, a psychiatric hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. He didn’t need acute psychiatric care, he says. Rather, Jaime was a teenager in the foster system, and Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services didn’t have a foster home for him. Jaime would spend two months at […]
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. People living near plants that use ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment have for years pressured regulators to crack down on their toxic emissions. Residents in communities from Laredo, Texas, to Willowbrook, Illinois, have tried to shut these facilities down, challenged them […]
On Wednesday, CNN’s Pamela Brown and Jake Tapper reported that New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers—who is (or at least was) reportedly being considered as independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential running mate—had told at least two people that the 2012 mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, never happened. One […]
On Thursday evening, a Michigan jury found James Crumbley guilty of involuntary manslaughter for failing to stop his teenage son Ethan from killing four of his classmates and wounding seven others at Oxford High School in 2021. The verdict follows the conviction of Jennifer Crumbley, Ethan’s mother, on identical charges early last month, making them the first US […]
On Wednesday, the Dwight D. Opperman Foundation announced the 2024 recipients of the Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Leadership Award. The winners: businessman Elon Musk, right-wing media kingpin Rupert Murdoch, lifestyle guru Martha Stewart, felonious Wall Streeter turned philanthropist Mike Milken, and actor Sylvester Stallone. The Foundation hailed these “iconic individuals” for their “extraordinary achievements.” Veteran […]
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can continue to oversee the Georgia criminal prosecution of Donald Trump, so long as the special prosecutor she hired for the case, Nathan Wade, steps aside, a Georgia judge ruled Friday. If the defendants had succeeded in removing Willis, her disqualification could have seriously delayed or even derailed the […]
In 1999, John Goodrich, an Idaho dentist who was also a bishop with the Mormon church, accompanied his teenage daughter Chelsea on a school field trip to the East Coast. During a stay in colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, he allegedly abused her sexually, as she later claimed he had done since she was at least nine. […]
A prominent election denier who wore multiple hats while aiding GOP efforts to overturn the 2020 election will serve as a top lawyer at the Republican National Committee. Christina Bobb, a former reporter for the fringe pro-Trump broadcaster One America News, will oversee the party’s “election integrity” operations. In Trumpworld, what puts a person in […]
Amid a surge of support for organized labor and the general realization that work sucks, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is leading a renewed push to make the 32-hour workweek, without a loss in wages or benefits, an American reality. The Vermont senator on Thursday unveiled a bill that seeks to establish a four-day workweek over the […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Joe Biden, touted as the first US climate president, is presiding over the quiet weakening of his two most significant plans to slash planet-heating emissions, suggesting that tackling the climate crisis will take a back seat in a febrile election year. […]
Racist pseudo-science is making a comeback thanks to Elon Musk. Recently, the tech billionaire has been retweeting prominent race scientist adherents on his platform X (formally known as Twitter), spreading misinformation about racial minorities’ intelligence and physiology to his audience of 176.3 million followers—a dynamic my colleague Garrison Hayes analyzes in his latest video for […]
Work sucks and everyone knows it. But for House Republicans, it isn’t the lack of labor protections or benefits that fuels discontent. These privileged men and women who enjoy a lifetime of perks, including weak insider trading rules, appear aggrieved over how much they simply can’t stand each other. In fact, CNN reports that animosity […]
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When researchers at the United Nations published a bombshell report in 2006 called “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” the livestock industry soon realized it had a major public relations challenge on its hands. Media outlets around the world covered the report and its […]
At a House committee hearing convened by Republicans on Tuesday, Robert Hur—the former special counsel who investigated President Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents—became a bit of ping pong ball. Republicans used his report, which declared there was insufficient evidence to file criminal charges against Biden, to slam the president as a crook and to […]
The President of the nation’s leading Black civil rights organization has issued a stark warning to voters as the election shapes up to be a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump—framing this year’s fight for the White House as a battle to beat back fascism itself. “We are looking at Nazism part two,” said […]
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s announcement last week that she was deploying 750 National Guard soldiers to patrol the city’s subway system came as something of a shock. Several violent incidents had taken place on the subway in recent weeks. But there were no increased threats of a possible terrorist attack; it had only been […]
In October, Admiral Rachel Levine gave the keynote address at the national convention for the Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, or “PFLAG,” as it’s been known since its founding in the 1970s. Standing before a backdrop patterned with rainbow hearts and queer rights slogans, Levine’s long gray hair was tied back in […]
Today, a conspiracy theory that was hitherto a growing obsession of Twitter sleuths and the Royal-curious blew up into the Global Water Cooler Moment of the week (including here at Mother Jones): Where in the world is Kate Middleton? And if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about because you spent the weekend […]
This story was originally published by Yale360 and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The town of Smackover, Arkansas, was founded a hundred years ago when a sawmill operator got lucky: his wildcat oil well yielded a gusher. For a time in the 1920s, the oil field beneath the clay hills and […]
After a bruising month of media coverage and political attacks focused on Joe Biden’s age, the president’s campaign is finally responding head-on. Following his energetic State of the Union Address on Thursday night, Biden’s reelection campaign raised a record $10 million in 24 hours, reports NBC News. On Saturday, the campaign launched a major ad […]
Whenever Donald Trump speaks, somewhere out there a young lawyer makes partner. During a campaign rally in Rome, Georgia last night, the former president once again claimed that E. Jean Carroll had falsely accused him of raping her. Trump describes E Jean Carroll's claims against him as "false accusations" even after a jury found him […]
Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) gave such a bizarre State of the Union rebuttal on Thursday night that it bordered on satire. But Saturday Night Live turned it up a notch with its own send-up of Britt’s speech, with Scarlett Johansson playing the role of Britt. The monologue explicitly explained what made the original speech so […]
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. One of the most popular internet memes is […]
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. For nearly 200 years, two transformative global forces have grown in tandem: economic activity and carbon emissions. The two have long been paired together, or, in economist-speak, “coupled.” When the economy has gotten bigger, so has our climate footprint. This pairing has […]
For all of the political handwringing about democracy being on the ballot in the 2024 presidential election, civic society experts have found that several states are actively eroding a key pillar of democracy that will undoubtedly come in handy in November: the right to protest. According to a global watchdog that monitors laws that uphold democracy, […]
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was in Washington DC on Friday. But the controversial autocrat wasn’t making an official state visit. Indeed, President Joe Biden had intentionally declined to extend a White House invitation to a man who has pursued a vision of “illiberal democracy” and cracked down on press freedom since taking power in 2010. […]
Left-leaning states are trying to preserve access to abortion—but Catholic health care mergers often stand in the way. First, we travel with Reveal’s Nina Martin to New Mexico’s rural Otero County, where a recent hospital merger has upended the landscape of reproductive care. Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center used to be where people in […]
Last July, in a win for reproductive justice advocates, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill. This week, the progestin-only pill, Opill, shipped to retailers like CVS and Walgreens. It’s expected to be available for purchase before the end of the month, at a price point of $20 per one-month […]
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. There are three main forces driving the conflict on the Colorado River. The first is an outdated legal system that guarantees more water to seven Western states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming—than is actually available in the river during […]
When I tell people about our package on American oligarchy at Mother Jones, everyone wants to know about the yachts. As I wrote in an essay for the magazine, these gleaming vessels have come to symbolize both the decadence and detachment of Russia’s ultra-wealthy and our own. And they are full of some absolutely ridiculous shit: […]
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisc.) has an obvious problem with anger management. The latest example came on Thursday when the freshman Republican from Wisconsin shouted “lies” at President Joe Biden during the State of the Union. The interruption came after Biden criticized Donald Trump for his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fellow Wisconsin Rep. Mark […]
President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address last night was, in many respects, better than expected. But one moment, when the president went off-script, will be hard to shake off. During the section on immigration, Biden fumbled when mentioning the death of 22-year-old Laken Riley. A nursing student at the University of Georgia, Riley […]
Before she married Eric and became a Trump, Lara Trump was a dabbler. She’d interned at North Carolina TV stations after college, gone to culinary school, and started selling custom cakes. She rescued some animals and became a personal trainer. But then, after six years of dating, in 2014, she married the former president’s younger […]
This story is a collaboration with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Magnum Foundation. We asked photographers to show us the paradox of today’s labor movement. Even as the popularity of unions has grown over the last decade, actual membership has continued to decline. Can new enthusiasm revitalize American labor? Read about this unique moment […]
This story is a collaboration with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Magnum Foundation. We asked photographers to show us the paradox of today’s labor movement. Even as the popularity of unions has grown over the last decade, actual membership has continued to decline. Can new enthusiasm revitalize American labor? Jump to all the photo […]
This story is a collaboration with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Magnum Foundation. We asked photographers to show us the paradox of today’s labor movement. Even as the popularity of unions has grown over the last decade, actual membership has continued to decline. Can new enthusiasm revitalize American labor? Jump to all the […]
This story is a collaboration with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Magnum Foundation. We asked photographers to show us the paradox of today’s labor movement. Even as the popularity of unions has grown over the last decade, actual membership has continued to decline. Can new enthusiasm revitalize American labor? Read about this unique moment […]
This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. A new UN report sheds light on how climate change is driving some climate-vulnerable nations deeper into debt, locking them into unsustainable cycles of economic crisis and hampering their governments’ ability to provide basic services to citizens. Focusing on the […]
Periods are an undeniable part of most women’s lives, but for the bulk of history, science has only really cared about women’s reproductive tracts for one reason: “improving pregnancy outcomes,” writes Jen Gunter in her new book Blood, “rather than improving the lives of those who lived with those reproductive tracts.” Cultures the world over […]
Periods are an undeniable part of most women’s lives, but for the bulk of history, science has only really cared about women’s reproductive tracts for one reason: “improving pregnancy outcomes,” writes Jen Gunter in her new book, Blood, “rather than improving the lives of those who lived with those reproductive tracts.” Cultures the world over […]
This story is a collaboration with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Magnum Foundation. We asked photographers to show us the paradox of today’s labor movement. Even as the popularity of unions has grown over the last decade, actual membership has continued to decline. Can new enthusiasm revitalize American labor? Read about this unique moment […]
This story is a collaboration with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Magnum Foundation. We asked photographers to show us the paradox of today’s labor movement. Even as the popularity of unions has grown over the last decade, actual membership has continued to decline. Can new enthusiasm revitalize American labor? Read about this unique moment […]
This story is a collaboration with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Magnum Foundation. We asked photographers to show us the paradox of today’s labor movement. Even as the popularity of unions has grown over the last decade, actual membership has continued to decline. Can new enthusiasm revitalize American labor? Read about this unique moment […]
For over an hour on Thursday night, during the State of the Union address, President Joe Biden energetically presented a vibrant progressive agenda and repeatedly stuck it to Donald Trump. Yes, there were stumbles and linguistic slips, but Biden portrayed a vigor at odds with the caricatures that are constantly promoted by Trump and Biden […]
A president only has a few chances during a reelection campaign to command the attention of the many voters who don’t follow the daily ins and outs of American politics. These moments include the acceptance speech at the nominating convention, the occasional Oval Office address (when world events call for one), and the State of […]
There’s a laundry list of ways air pollution is bad for humans: It’s linked to cardiovascular disease and asthma, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. It likely makes us more susceptible to infections like Covid. It’s even associated with more mistakes by chess players. And now, according to new research, we know it’s messing with moths. In […]
This story was originally published by Hakai Magazine and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In the summer of 2020, Jennifer Pytka spent three and a half hours a day sleuthing the internet for evidence of wildlife trafficking. She’d type กระเบนท้องน้ำ, a Thai word that loosely translates to stingray, into Google, and […]
Over the weekend, the United States and Jordan airdropped 66 bundles of aid containing 38,000 meals into Gaza. Israel’s war on the densely populated strip following the October 7 attack by Hamas has killed over 30,000 and wrought a humanitarian disaster. Basic social systems have vanished and UN officials have been warning that almost a quarter […]
Over the weekend, the United States and Jordan airdropped 66 bundles of aid containing 38,000 meals into Gaza. Israel’s war on the densely populated strip following the October 7 attack by Hamas has killed over 30,000 and wrought a humanitarian disaster—basic social systems have vanished and UN officials have been warning that almost a quarter of the […]
She’s…not running anymore. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has dropped out of the GOP presidential race, ending her increasingly hopeless quest to deny the nomination to Donald Trump. Haley, the last significant Republican candidate running against the former president, announced her decision in Charleston, South Carolina. “The time has now come to suspend my campaign,” […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The Arctic could have summer days with practically no sea ice within the next decade due to emissions from burning fossil fuels, a study has found. This would transform the unique habitat, home to polar bears, seals and walruses, […]
Donald Trump is coasting to victory in Super Tuesday primaries across the country—a decisive, if not unexpected, showing that follows his overwhelming wins in GOP nominating contests in states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan earlier this year. The former president—who tried to overturn the 2020 election and illegally hold on to power—is facing four indictments […]
After switching her party affiliation from Democratic to independent in 2022, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema didn’t really act like someone who was planning on sticking around Washington for the long haul. Her fundraising stagnated and her campaign wasn’t bothering to collect signatures. She was polling a very distant third in a hypothetical general election, behind […]
The Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted 13-2 in favor of forming a union on Tuesday, in a move that could make them the first unionized group of college athletes. The players voted to join SEIU Local 560, which already represents some employees at the college. Their efforts to unionize began in earnest last September, when the […]
In mid-January, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations’ agency responsible for Palestinian refugees—known as UNRWA—received the names of 12 employees who had allegedly participated in the October 7 attack by Hamas. The Israeli diplomat who shared the information provided no evidence to support the claim. Nevertheless, Lazzarini flew to the United States from […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The world is off track to meet its climate goals and the public is to blame, Darren Woods, chief executive of oil giant ExxonMobil, has claimed—prompting a backlash from climate experts. As the world’s largest investor-owned oil company, Exxon is […]
On New Year’s Eve 2021, the federal government launched the Affordable Connectivity Program, which has helped over 20 million American households afford internet access with monthly subsidies of $30 (or up to $75 on some tribal lands). But funding for the program is set to run out in April unless Congress acts by Friday—depriving many […]
On New Year’s Eve 2021, the federal government launched the Affordable Connectivity Program, which has helped over 20 million American households afford internet access with monthly subsidies of $30 (or up to $75 on some tribal lands). But funding for the program is set to run out in April unless Congress acts by Friday—depriving many […]
A United Nations inquiry found that Hamas perpetrated sexual violence against Israelis in its attacks on October 7, as well as against its Israeli hostages, according to a report released today, following a group of experts’ weeks-long trip to the region. The experts—led by UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, […]
The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Donald Trump to appear on every state’s ballot, despite a constitutional provision barring from office insurrectionists who had previously sworn to support the Constitution. All nine justices agreed that states have no power to bar presidential candidates under Section 3 of the 14th amendment. But five of the six […]
Since its founding in 2021, the conservative organization Moms for Liberty has billed itself as a champion for “parents’ rights,” pushing campaigns across the country to ban books and the use of pronouns in schools. Their crusade, as my colleague Kiera Butler has reported, often alleges that educators, specifically in public education, are out to […]
Donald Trump will appear on voters’ ballots in Colorado—and every other state. The Supreme Court sided with the former president on Monday, finding that the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on insurrectionists holding office, known as Section 3, does not allow states to keep Trump from participating in the election. In an unsigned opinion, the court stated […]
When Ethan Block heard that Andy Kim was running for Senate, he got to work. Over winter break, the Rutgers University senior launched a campus group to spread the word about the low-profile congressman taking on Bob Mendendez, the longtime Democratic senator who’d just been indicted for allegedly accepting bribes of gold bars and cash-stuffed envelopes. […]
This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Roads, roads, and more roads. The US is continuing to spend billions of dollars on expanding enormous highways rather than fund public transport, with a landmark infrastructure bill lauded by Joe Biden only further accelerating the dominance of […]
GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley just won the Washington, DC, primary, beating former president Donald Trump by almost 30 points, with nearly 63 percent of the vote. It’s her first success in a primary that has so far been an uphill battle for the former South Carolina governor. Haley made something of a power move […]
Ohio Republican J.R. Majewski dropped out (again) on Saturday, after he used a slur for intellectually disabled people on a podcast last week. Majewiski was running for the GOP nomination to fight Democratic incumbent Rep. Marcy Kaptur in November. Kaptur’s seat in Ohio’s Ninth Congressional district is one of just five nationwide where a Democrat […]
Former president Donald Trump easily swept to victory in a handful of additional Republican caucuses this weekend, looking ever more imperious in his bid for the GOP nomination. But new data from the Associated Press suggests his easy victories are hiding a serious potential problem: Never Trumpers aren’t changing their minds. The AP reported on […]
This story was originally published by Undark and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. It all started when Christopher Mason’s 3-year-old daughter licked a subway pole. Like any parent, he was horrified, but also keenly curious: What types of microbes might be clinging to a metal pipe gripped by countless commuters every day? Mason, a […]
On Friday, a YouTube Music contractor named Jack Benedict took the podium before Austin’s City Council. He was there to urge the council members to encourage Google to negotiate with the Alphabet Worker’s Union-CWA Local 9009. Instead, mid-testimony, he learned that he and 42 of his colleagues had been laid off. The jaw-dropping moment, captured […]
Philadelphia Police Detective Philip Nordo was an unusually lone wolf. In the tightly regimented bureaucracy that is big city policing, he was rarely supervised and often worked alone. The upside? He got results. Nordo was known throughout the department for having a hand in efficiently convicting more than 100 people. He was a third generation […]
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Education announced an investigation into an Oklahoma school district for allegedly failing to respond to reports of sex-based harassment after the death of Nex Benedict, a trans teen who died the day after an altercation with three girls inside a high school bathroom. The DOE dropped the news in […]
This story was originally published by Wired and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Your city is a scab on the landscape: sidewalks, roads, parking lots, rooftops—the built environment repels water into sewers and then into the environment. Urban planners have been doing it for centuries, treating stormwater as a nuisance to be diverted away as quickly […]
On Friday, Walgreens and CVS announced they would begin selling the abortion pill mifepristone in their pharmacies in select states, part of a plan to eventually expand access to about half of US states where abortion is still legal. The announcement is notable ahead of arguments in a Supreme Court case that could further restrict […]
Just a week after saying that “embryos, to me, are babies,” Nikki Haley is now joining other Republicans in suddenly claiming to support IVF access in the wake of rising abortion restrictions and the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos can now be considered children under state law. “I think there should be federal […]
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. In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published […]
Trump is considering Texas Gov. Greg Abbott as a potential running mate, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday…even though Abbott has said that he doesn’t want the job. When Hannity asked Trump if Abbott was on his short list during a joint interview with the two politicians in Eagle Pass, Texas—the epicenter […]
Trans teen Nex Benedict died after an altercation in the girl’s bathroom of his public high school in Owasso, Oklahoma a bathroom he was required to use because of the state’s 2023 legislation forcing students at public and charter schools to use bathroom and changing facilities that match their biological, sex rather than their identity. The exact […]
Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll are urging the judge in her defamation case against Donald Trump to reject the former president’s last-minute request to avoid paying the $83.3 million Carroll had been awarded as he appeals the ruling. In a new filing on Thursday, Carroll’s lawyers blasted the request, arguing that it amounted to little […]
A few months before the 2012 elections, Todd Akin, the Republicans’ Senate candidate in Missouri, sent his party scrambling when he explained his opposition to abortion even in cases of rape with a now infamous line: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Republicans […]
This story was reported by Floodlight, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action. At a press conference last month, flanked by sheriffs and attorneys, Ohio Attorney General David Yost announced the indictments of two utility executives who allegedly tried to “hijack” state electricity policy for their own corrupt ends by paying […]
Washington state’s largest labor union has followed Michigan voters‘ lead, urging its 50,000 members to vote “uncommitted” rather than for Joe Biden in its March 12 primary. The news, first reported by NBC today, comes as Biden faces growing protests from voters on the left about his support for Israel in its war in Gaza, and concerns about […]
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Ariana Tibon was in college at the University of Hawaiʻi in 2017 when she saw the photo online: a black-and-white picture of a man holding a baby. The caption said: “Nelson Anjain getting his baby monitored on March 2, 1954, by an […]
Telehealth abortions continue to grow in popularity, even in states where anti-abortion activists try to ban them, according to new data published today. Abortions obtained through virtual providers accounted for 15 to 16 percent of all abortions conducted between July and September of last year—amounting to about 14,000 abortions each month—up from 11 percent of […]
The Supreme Court on Wednesday paused the federal criminal case against Donald Trump over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election—handing Trump a major victory in his attempt to delay his trial until after the November election. The justices halted the case, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith in August, while they consider Trump’s claim that […]
In 2012, voters in Michigan’s Democratic primary had two choices: Barack Obama and uncommitted. In Dearborn, the first city in the United States with an Arab-American majority, 87 percent voted for Obama, while 13 percent went uncommitted. In this year’s primary, which was held Tuesday amid protests of Joe Biden’s response to the war in […]
The last big thing Mitch McConnell did as the Senate Republican leader will likely be remembered as one of his most consequential—his decision in early 2021 not to hold Donald Trump accountable for the January 6 insurrection. At the time, McConnell was in a unique position to end Trump’s political career. But McConnell, who announced Wednesday […]
On Monday evening, three activists connected with the effort to stall construction of a vast police training facility just outside of Atlanta were arrested 1,700 miles away in Arizona as organizers target insurance companies connected to the project. Scottsdale Insurance Co., a subsidiary of Nationwide Insurance, is one of the primary insurers of the Atlanta […]
In ruling that frozen embryos should be legally considered the same as children under a wrongful death law, the Alabama Supreme Court furthered a growing movement hoping to enshrine “fetal personhood”—the idea that a fetus or embryo should have the same rights as a child—into law. In Alabama, one consequence of such a doctrine became […]
Ohio Republican Congressional candidate J.R. Majewski considered dropping out of his race (again) after backlash for saying that Democrats, like disabled people participating in the Special Olympics, are “retarded” in a podcast episode that aired earlier this month. Majewski, who apologized after backlash, told Politico that he would consider dropping out if his “comments put me […]
In a landmark ruling last week, Alabama’s Supreme Court declared that embryos created through in vitro fertilization were children, and therefore subject to the state’s abortion ban. The effects of the ruling are already apparent: Three IVF clinics have paused their services, and it’s unclear whether patients in the state will be able to decide […]
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When reports emerged in late December that the Israeli military planned to pump seawater into the underground tunnel networks used by Hamas fighters in Gaza, scientists and advocates around the world raised alarm over the prospect of an environmental disaster. Flooding […]