Mother Jones
- It’s Not Just Texas. The Energy Meltdown Can Happen to Your State, Too.
Wednesday - 02/24/2021 - 10:39 AMLast week, during a historic and catastrophic winter storm that brought snow and ice to Texas, the state’s independent and unregulated power grid collapsed. At the height of the storm, more than 4 million people were without electricity and in the ensuing days water supply issues left 14 million people without potable water.
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - 4 States Propose Harsh New Penalties for Climate Protesters
Wednesday - 02/24/2021 - 06:00 AMThis story was originally published by HuffPost and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - Josh Hawley Is Fundraising Off Lies About the Big Lie
Tuesday - 02/23/2021 - 02:12 PMThe GOP’s Ever-Trumpers have got their spin down pat. They didn’t try to overturn the 2020 results. They didn’t try to subvert American democracy by undermining the legitimacy of the election.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- Texas’ Freeze Was One Part of a Long Disaster We’re Still Living Through
Tuesday - 02/23/2021 - 06:00 AMOn the first day, snow and sleet trapped our cars in an inch of ice. We lost power. The temperature inside plunged from 72 to 45 (and in some rooms it went below freezing).More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- The United States Marks Half a Million COVID-19 Deaths
Monday - 02/22/2021 - 05:47 PMThe United States’ COVID-19 death toll has surpassed 500,000, a staggering milestone.
“People decades from now are gonna be talking about this as a terribly historic milestone in the history of this country, to have these many people to have died from a respiratory-borne infection,” Dr.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - Texas Democrats Use Their Organizing Power for Disaster Relief
Sunday - 02/21/2021 - 04:59 PMIn the wake of a devastating winter storm that has left nearly 70 Texans dead and millions without access to clean water, former Democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke has hosted phone banks to make 784,000 wellness
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - America’s Death Toll From COVID-19 Is Staggering—but Vaccines Continue to Bring Hope
Sunday - 02/21/2021 - 02:14 PMAmerica has been battling the coronavirus pandemic for nearly a year, and as of Sunday, nearly half a million Americans have died from COVID-19. But there is good news as well: Vaccines are showing promise in slowing the spread of the virus.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- When the GOP Left Texans to Freeze, Locals Stepped Up With Mutual Aid
Saturday - 02/20/2021 - 06:00 AMAs sweeping power outages and sub-freezing temperatures stripped millions of Texans of fresh food or heat, causing an unknown number of deaths, Marco Lopez, an organizer with South Texas–based community organization La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), thought to call a woman he knew in the Linda Vista colonia, an unincorporated border community.
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - “It’s Terrifying, It’s Almost Crippling”: Texas Jails and Prisons Are Freezing Over
Friday - 02/19/2021 - 05:11 PMOn the seventh floor of the Harris County Jail in downtown Houston, Andrew Garamillo wrapped a blanket around his shoulders as he walked around his pod, trying to stay warm.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- Solitary Confinement Policies Could Make the Prison Pandemic Worse
Friday - 02/19/2021 - 06:00 AMThis article was originally published by Undark. Read the original article.
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- “Power Companies Get Exactly What They Want”: How Texas Repeatedly Failed to Protect its Power Grid Against Extreme Weather
Wednesday - 02/24/2021 - 06:00 AMThis story was originally published by ProPublica.
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In January 2014, power plants owned by Texas’ largest electricity producer buckled under frigid temperatures. Its generators failed more than a dozen times in 12 hours, helping to bring the state’s electric grid to the brink of collapse. - Biden Can’t Make Trump’s Immigration Cruelty Vanish Overnight
Wednesday - 02/24/2021 - 06:00 AMWhen Juan Carlos Perla, his wife, and three young children first arrived in Tijuana in the winter of 2019 after feeling El Salvador, they knew the process of asking for asylum at the border wouldn’t be easy.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- How Does Chuck Schumer Keep Democrats Together? A Flip Phone.
Tuesday - 02/23/2021 - 04:42 PMWhen asked about how he communicates with his Democratic colleagues Tuesday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer whipped a fossil out of his pocket—a flip phone.
Asked how he’s keeping the Democratic caucus united with such a slim 50-50 majority, Leader Schumer confidently held up his flip phone and said: “This is my answer.” pic.twitter.com/x7rHXOCsyR
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - Hey Siri—Why Don’t You Understand More People Like Me?
Tuesday - 02/23/2021 - 06:00 AMEvery evening last summer, after I’d shut down my work laptop, my 3-year-old daughter and I would approach our Google Home smart speaker and yell, “Hey Google, can you play ‘Aankh Marey’ from the movie Simmba?” We’d hold our breaths and wait for a response.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- The Supreme Court Says Manhattan DA Can Have Trump’s Tax Records
Monday - 02/22/2021 - 12:53 PMOn Monday, the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s years-long effort to block one of his accounting firms from handing over his financial records—including his tax returns—to Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- Merrick Garland Vows to Battle “Extremist Attacks on Our Democratic Institutions”
Sunday - 02/21/2021 - 07:47 PMMerrick Garland will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday for his confirmation hearing as President Joe Biden’s nominee for Attorney General. According to his prepared opening statement, released over the weekend by the Justice Department, Garland will signal that his departure from the federal bench to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement official will be in part to work on restoring a justice system left battered by the Trump administration.
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - Human Destruction of Nature Is “Senseless and Suicidal”
Saturday - 02/20/2021 - 06:00 AMThis story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
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Humanity is waging a “senseless and suicidal” war on nature that is causing human suffering and enormous economic losses while accelerating the destruction of life on Earth, the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, has said. - Texas Is Finally Starting to Thaw. Millions Still Don’t Have Water.
Saturday - 02/20/2021 - 10:25 AMDays after a historic winter storm in Texas brought snow, ice, below-freezing temperatures, and a catastrophic power grid failure, the state is finally starting to thaw—but millions of people still don’t have access to water.
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - The Tipped Minimum Wage Didn’t Help Restaurants and Hotels Survive the Pandemic, Says a New Report
Friday - 02/19/2021 - 06:00 AMAs the debate over raising the minimum wage heats up, there has been renewed attention on the subminimum wage that restaurant servers make in many states, also called the tipped minimum wage.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- As Legal Troubles Pile Up, Trump Has an Easy Way to Get Out of Paying the Bills Himself
Friday - 02/19/2021 - 06:00 AMFormer President Donald Trump avoided conviction in his second impeachment trial, but his legal troubles are, of course, far from over.
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- Republicans Are Taking Their Voter Suppression Efforts to New Extremes
Wednesday - 02/24/2021 - 11:07 AMAfter record turnout in 2020, Republican-controlled states appear to be in a race to the bottom to see who can pass the most egregious new barriers to voting.
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - It’s Official: A Former Dairy Exec Now Runs Biden’s Agriculture Department
Tuesday - 02/23/2021 - 07:57 PMAfter a 92-7 vote in the US Senate, it’s official: A dairy industry executive will serve as agriculture secretary under President Biden. Tom Vilsack, who also served as held the post during the entire Obama presidency, returns to the US Department of Agriculture after a four-year stint as president and CEO of the Dairy Export Council, an industry trade group.
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - The FBI Warned Congress of Right-Wing Violence Before Jan. 6. Capitol Police Leaders Never Saw the Report.
Tuesday - 02/23/2021 - 02:40 PMDuring a Senate hearing on Tuesday examining the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, former security and law enforcement officials largely blamed a lack of proper intelligence for being unprepared.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- After the Capitol Insurrection, Telegram Moved to Ban White Nationalists. Today, It’s a Different Story.
Tuesday - 02/23/2021 - 06:01 AMFor a moment last month, it looked like Telegram was finally doing something about its neo-Nazi problem. The secure messaging app, whose largely untraceable platform has laudably provided a safe haven of communication for people in autocratic countries even under government pressure, has also proven popular among racists who have been kicked off other platforms.
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - Nevada Lithium Mine Kicks Off a New Era of US Extraction
Monday - 02/22/2021 - 06:00 AMThis story was originally published by High Country News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
More | Talk | Read It Later | Share - Antarctic Stunner: Mysterious Creatures Discovered Under a Half Mile of Ice
Sunday - 02/21/2021 - 06:00 AMBivouacked in the middle of the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf—a five-hour flight from the nearest Antarctic station—nothing comes easy. Even though it was the southern summer, geologist James Smith of the British Antarctic Survey endured nearly three months of freezing temperatures, sleeping in a tent, and eating dehydrated food.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- AOC Flies to Texas to Help at a Food Bank
Saturday - 02/20/2021 - 04:11 PMIn the aftermath of the historic winter storm that knocked out Texas’ power grid and hobbled its water supply, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) flew to Texas to join her house colleagues Reps.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- Biden Declares Major Disaster In Texas
Saturday - 02/20/2021 - 12:14 PMPresident Joe Biden has declared a major disaster in Texas after a severe winter storm caused the power grid to fail, leaving millions in the dark and without access to potable water.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- We’re Doing Disaster Planning All Wrong
Friday - 02/19/2021 - 01:40 PMOne of the many reasons millions of Texans were stranded without power in freezing temperatures this week was a fairly common, but faulty, assumption that the future will look a lot like the past.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share
- Georgia Republicans Are Doubling Down on Racist Voter Suppression
Friday - 02/19/2021 - 06:00 AMAfter Donald Trump failed to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, Republicans in the state’s legislature are doing everything they can to make it more difficult for Democrats to win the next one.
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