Mother Jones Politics

The national gossip over Natalie Harp, President Donald Trump’s most devoted aide and “human printer,” has now reached the natural stage to which most stories closely associated with the president land: a glaring, potentially illegal ethics violation. According to financial disclosures released by the Trump administration, Trump gave Harp and two other White House staffers, Margo Martin and Chamberlain Harris, $45,000 as “Cash Gift for Holidays,” a highly unusual

This story was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. When officials in Wyoming conducted a routine test on the water that was being discharged from a massive under-construction Meta data center, it was a shock to find it contained a rare and potentially hazardous bacterium. While the wastewater flushed into sewers in Cheyenne, Wyoming, was never destined for the public drinking supply, the presence of Cupriavidus gilardii bac

Last month, Duane “Keffe D” Davis was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of rapper Tupac Shakur. The verdict came 30 years after Tupac was killed in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas that for decades remained cloaked in conspiracy theory and mystery. jQuery(document).ready(function(){prx("https:\/\/play.prx.org\/e?ge=prx_149_b8cddbdd-c08a-49fc-86fe-72716878f99a&uf=https%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.revealradio.org%2Frevealpodcast", "prx-1", "embed")});Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple

Since 2020, President Donald Trump and his allies have been hinting that they might send federal forces to “protect” polling places—hints that have come more frequently as Trump’s approval ratings crater and the midterms draw closer. In mid-May, Trump made a Mob-boss-like threat: “I would do anything necessary to make sure we have honest elections.” Similarly, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin vaguely told senators he would be willing to send ICE to the polls for a “specific threat

This story was originally published by The Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Almost half of the world’s farmers are poisoned by pesticides every single year, a study has found. Using publicly available data from 2006-2023, the study, which was commissioned by Pesticide Action Network, found there to be an estimated 402 million to 433 million cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning of farmers and

Republican politicians are heading to Texas next week—some of them, anyway. At Donald Trump’s behest, the party is holding a special midterm convention in Dallas to celebrate what the president calls “our Tremendous Victories and Success.” On Saturday, he once again hyped the event, writing on Truth Social: “The Greatest RALLY of them all! I’ll be speaking on night one, and hanging around for an earlier closing, and lots of music, on night two!!! See you in Dallas.”

This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. George Wolff offered a cautious greeting through the window of my rented F-150. He was fresh from tending livestock, which explained the dried mud on his forehead and shirt. His boots and jeans were soiled with barnyard muck, his ballcap tipped back to cool his brow.  It was a warm, breezy May day in Wishek, North Dakota, with wind speeds hovering a

This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Most people decide if it’s safe to eat an old tub of yogurt in the fridge or canned tuna in the back of the cupboard by checking its sell-by date. But no label indicates that pesticides, phthalates, PFAS, or other hazardous chemicals could be seeping from those containers into your food. Of more than 15,000 chemicals that come in contact with

When Mia Farina got seriously ill in 2014, she thought she had a bad case of pneumonia. But it turned out to be far worse: It was the start of chronic lung disease related to the months she spent working in and around ground zero after 9/11.  jQuery(document).ready(function(){prx("https:\/\/play.prx.org\/e?ge=prx_149_e6e73b22-c6d1-44f4-9dc0-b535dfd24df0&uf=https%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.revealradio.org%2Frevealpodcast", "prx-1", "embed")});Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your fav

As of September 3, the official White House website features a page titled “arcade,” where users can play games like Rio Run, in which the player—a pixelated, white, and balding Border Patrol agent—collects “border crossers” and adds them to a line of orange-jumpsuited figures trailing behind him.  It’s a retro-cutesy version of the nightmarish and very real scenes of ICE agents forcing immigrants, chained in a line, onto deportation planes. Other games in the “arcade” include Buil

On her campaign website, Rep. Ashley Hinson, the Republican nominee in Iowa’s toss-up US Senate race, says she’s “laser focused on lowering taxes on working families.” In Washington, she’s tackled a different project: Saving private equity’s favorite tax break. The carried interest loophole, which allows private investment managers to save billions of dollars each year by paying a markedly lower tax on much of their income than many less-affluent Americans, is one of the few things that Barac

On July 4, 2023, Caitlin Ditta had just finished hosting a barbecue with her husband and baby daughter when she felt a strange sensation. Ditta, a 33-year-old school therapist living in Oakland, California, had suffered a hemorrhage after giving birth in the hospital a few weeks earlier. She recovered quickly, but the doctors issued a stark warning: If the bleeding started again, she should seek help immediately. Delaying care could be fatal. Now, breastfeeding her baby on the living room cou

On September 17, prosecutors from the Justice Department are scheduled to appear in a federal courtroom in Pasadena, California, for a rather odd event. They will argue that a mysterious former FBI informant with connections to Russian intelligence—who was convicted of lying to the bureau to spread the false accusation that Joe Biden and his son Hunter each received a $5 million bribe from Ukraine—should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea and get a new trial. That allegation about the Bid

The other day I asked ChatGPT about a political moment I’ll never forget: “What was the 47 percent story about?” Its answer: The “47 percent story” refers to a controversial comment made by Mitt Romney, who was the Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. In a private fundraising event that was secretly recorded and later leaked to the media, Romney stated that 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government support, believe they are victims entitled to

“If you want to get in your car and you want to go down to Buc-ee’s in St. Augustine, it’s really none of the government’s damn business if you’re doing that, right?” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday at a news conference. He announced that Florida will revoke all law enforcement license-plate-recognition camera permits on state highways, with all such cameras to be removed by the end of September.   “What we don’t want in the state of Florida

On Thursday, Nvidia, the tech giant that develops chips that power AI tools like ChatGPT, announced its acquisition of Hugging Face for nearly $13 billion amid an arms race to dominate every level of the industry.  Well, specifically, the cost was $12,930,300,000, with 129,303 apparently being the character encoding for the  emoji, which the startup Nvidia acquired is named after. Hugging Face is the venture that broke into AI safety discussions when OpenAI’s advanced system brea

The 9/11 memorial park that John Feal helped build is not far off exit 59 on the Long Island Expressway, about 50 miles northeast of Ground Zero. It abuts a busy intersection in an unremarkable part of Nesconset, flanked by a gas station, a takeout joint, and a strip mall parking lot.  The memorial itself sits on a cozy acre of grassy land nestled by pear trees, thoughtful flowered landscaping, and custom-built seating courtesy of a local Boy Scout troop.  The park is especially nice i

US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is set to depart the Pentagon in the next few days, following a months-long feud with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the firings of several top officials and allegedly blocking many of his innovation projects like streamlined technology adoption.  The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the news on Monday. Driscoll’s resignation after serving for 18 months leaves the US Army effectively without a senior leader. Hegseth fired Army Chief of St

One judge had to build a safe room at home. Others were so scared they wouldn’t let their children play outside; another stopped grocery shopping and couldn’t attend his grandchild’s recital because of a 24/7 security detail. “I can’t leave my house at the same time or take the same routes” every day, the one with the safe room said, fearing that someone might follow behind. Threats to the federal judiciary have skyrocketed under the second Trump administration, accord

This story was originally published by Vox and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Summer is supposed to be the best time for fresh produce. Corn on the cob at the cookout. Berries plucked right from the vine. Salads on the cafe patio while you take an extra long lunch break because the weather and the food is that good. But this year, summer’s harvest brought something much different than the flavorful dishes we’ve come to expect. Since M