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Mother Jones •

Meet the Mayor of GreenSky

Ketan Joshi did not mean to become the manager of all things climate on Bluesky, the fast-growing social media platform that’s trying to compete directly with Twitter.

The 39-year-old Australian expat who now lives in Oslo, Norway has spent his career writing about green energy as a communications specialist for renewable energy companies and author of Windfall: Unlocking a Fossil-Free Future, but found it especially hard to share climate information on platforms like Instagram and Twitter. Tho...
Mother Jones •

One week in, the Los Angeles fires are still spreading

It has been a week since Los Angeles’ devastating wildfires began, driven by powerful winds that have made the blazes highly difficult to fight.

More than 40,000 acres have already burned, with at least 24 deaths; by comparison, the entirety of Washington, DC, is 43,000 acres. More than 12,300 structures have been destroyed, and at least 90,000 people are without power. Disinformation is skyrocketing as influencers peddle questionable products, right-wing commentators blame the devastation on ‘...
Mother Jones •

New wildfires are breaking out in Los Angeles

It’s been two weeks since the outbreak of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires that have burned more than 40,000 acres and killed at least 28 people.

While significant progress has been made in containing the Palisades and Eaton fires, the two most destructive wildfires to ever hit LA—72 and 95 percent contained, respectively, compared to 17 and 35 percent a week ago, with far less damage since—there has been little time to celebrate the win. On January 22, two other fires around Los Angeles t...
Mother Jones •

"Pure ignorance": Veterans slam Trump's trans military ban

Donald Trump has signed an executive order targeting transgender members of the armed services.

In 2017, President Trump banned transgender Americans from the military, though with an exception for those already serving. His new order, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” goes much further—it bans all transgender service members, stating that the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and...
Mother Jones •

“Dystopian”: Trump issues new order to stamp out trans youth healthcare

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order attempting to sharply curtail access to gender-affirming care for transgender youth, up to and including 18-year-olds.

The executive order does not impose an immediate ban on gender-affirming care. Instead, it directs federal agencies to begin taking steps to end gender-affirming treatments for children. By defining “children” as individuals under the age of 19—including 18-year-olds, who exceed the age of majority—the order goes furt...
Mother Jones •

For scientists studying environmental health, Trump's diktats are a slow-moving disaster

Gabriel Filippelli opened up his email inbox on Monday to encounter some unexpected news: a notice that his $300,000 grant from the State Department was no more.

Filippelli is the Chancellor’s Professor of Earth Sciences and executive director of the Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University. Previously a senior science advisor to the State Department, he has dedicated his career to understanding and improving environmental health. “I work on issues related to pollution and air q...
Mother Jones •

The hidden history of trans health care

As of Saturday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website has scrubbed all mention of LGBTQ folks. The State Department has removed the “TQ” in LGBTQ from its guidance page for LGBTQ international travelers. The White House removed pages honoring Nex Benedict and Matthew Shepard. The CDC also issued an order to rescind and rewrite unpublished research papers by their scientists that include the word “transgender.” (Not to mention curtailing information on climate and vaccines.)

The...
Mother Jones •

Can the rule of law save the IRA?

In 2022, President Biden and Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, securing over $370 billion for climate infrastructure. According to an oversight report from June 2024, only 12 percent—or $4.4 billion—of the funding had been spent. Biden rushed to “Trump-proof” another $96.7 billion in his last days of office by signing between the government and recipients.

But that preparation may have not been successful.

On day one, Trump countered with an executive order that includes halting fed...
Mother Jones •

“Beyond terrifying”: What it is like being the parent of a trans child with Trump in office

Five years ago Minna Zelch and her then-15-year-old daughter, a transgender student, were elated when the state of Ohio granted her permission to play on her high school softball team. Just weeks later, legislation banning transgender athletes from participating in school sports was introduced in the statehouse. As the only transgender athlete who fit this category, Zelch says, her daughter overnight, “became the face of trans athletes in Ohio.” Now a 20-year-old college student out of state, he...
Mother Jones •

"I am not leaving my patients": What it's like to treat trans kids under Trump

On January 28, President Donald Trump signed an executive order attempting to sharply curtail access to gender-affirming care for transgender minors and 18-year-olds. The order has been decried and challenged by the ACLU and three Democratic state attorneys general; 15 others released a statement opposing Trump’s order. But even with the legality and ethics of the order in question, some hospitals are choosing to comply in advance.

Alex T. Dworak, a family medicine physician in Omaha, Nebraska,...
Mother Jones •

The dire consequences of science without DEI

Early medical care during pregnancy can prevent complications, and lead to healthier babies and parents-to-be. In 2022, Evangeline Warren, a sociology PhD student at Ohio State University, received a “diversity supplement” grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study medical mistrust among pregnant people. Over two years, she interviewed dozens of patients across Ohio who’d expressed discomfort about going to the doctor—gathering information which, she hopes, will improve medical...
Mother Jones •

America will pay dearly for the NIH’s mindless war on wokeness and DEI

One Sunday in January, biologist Mark Peifer, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s medical school, got a call from campus police. Rising temperatures in a malfunctioning cold room at his lab had tripped an alarm. Materials he needed for his work—which has furthered the understanding and treatment of colorectal cancer—were in danger of being compromised.

He was able to get the cold room repaired that same day, and had the funding to do so, so the disruption was minimized. But now Pe...
Mother Jones •

Wildfires have engulfed Los Angeles

At least 10 people have been confirmed dead as wildfires continue to torch through Los Angeles County in the region’s most destructive fires in history. Officials warn that strong winds will persist into Thursday, further hampering ongoing firefighting efforts.

As of this writing, 180,000 people are under mandatory evacuation orders. Thousands of structures and entire neighborhoods have been destroyed. While fire officials are still investigating the causes, the fires have undeniably been fuele...
Quanta Magazine •

The Physicist Decoding the Nonbinary Nature of the Subatomic World | Quanta Magazine

Many discoveries in physics flow from theory to experiment. Albert Einstein theorized that mass bends the fabric of space-time, and then Arthur Eddington observed the effects of this bending during a solar eclipse. Likewise, Peter Higgs first proposed the existence of the Higgs boson; nearly 50 years later, the particle was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider.
Hadronization is different. It’s the process by which elementary particles called quarks and gluons join together to form protons and...
OSU Extension Service •

With focus on community, Open Campus and Juntos create opportunities

CORVALLIS, Ore. — Oregon State University Extension Service operates as a bridge from the university to the community and professional spaces. Historically, that bridge started as a way to support agriculture and natural resources, and that support continues today.

At the same time, as OSU Extension has modernized to serve the broader public, new questions have arisen:

Can Extension help community members seeking higher education or trade schools in other growing industries? How can Extension...
Washington Blade •

Aime Wichtendahl becomes Iowa's first trans legislator

Aime Wichtendahl first made history as the first openly trans woman to be elected to government in the state of Iowa when elected to the Hiawatha City Council. She made history again this Election Day, becoming Iowa’s first trans legislator.

Wichtendahl kept the seat blue by beating Republican opponent John Thompson 52 to 48. She will succeed Art Staed (D), who ran successfully for a state Senate seat, with unanimous support from the Democratic base.
Washington Blade •

More than 35 trans, genderqueer candidates running across U.S.

When Jennifer Williams was collecting signatures for her first political campaign in 2022, people told her, a transgender woman, “I think you would do an awesome job, but you got no chance to win.”


Their hesitancy was not unfounded. Williams won her seat on Trenton, N.J.’s City Council by a single vote.


This round she is running unopposed with broad community support. She attributes this to the fact that she got her job done. “Things have gone so well,” she says, “I think I delivered on ev...
LGBTQ Nation •

Parents across the political spectrum are banding together to save their trans children

Eric Childs says he joined the army because “serving my country was a defense of freedom.” 
“I live in a small town in South Carolina,” he declares in a video while at a shooting range with his son. “I absolutely believe in protecting my rights. And I absolutely love my trans child.”
The video is the first in a series by GRACE – Gender Research Advisory Council and Education – a non-profit founded by trans veteran Alaina Kupec with the goal of reaching across the aisle on transgender rights. The...
Washington Blade •

LGBTQ aid workers reflect on a year in Gaza, working with queer Palestinians

Editor’s note: International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Israel from Oct. 4-14.
JERUSALEM — LGBTQ Israelis and the groups that advocate for their rights continue to struggle with the aftermath of Oct. 7.
Hadas Kerem Bloemendal is the chair of Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance, a group that organizes the city’s annual Pride parade. The therapist and former Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer who is raising twins with her wife spoke with the Washington Blad...
Washington Blade •

Lesbian software developer seeks to preserve lost LGBTQ history

Up until the early 2010s, if you searched “Babe Ruth” in the Baseball Hall of Fame, nothing would pop up. To find information on the greatest baseball player of all time, you would have to search “Ruth, George Herman.” 
That is the way online archival systems were set up and there was a clear problem with it. Kristen Gwinn-Becker was uniquely able to solve it. “I’m a super tech geek, history geek,” she says, “I love any opportunity to create this aha moment with people through history.” 
Gwinn-B...
Washington Blade •

Trans experiences with the internet range from ‘harrowing’ to ‘powerful’

Alex, 29, would not have met their friends without the internet. While living in a small city surrounded by farmland, finding community was not always easy.
Alex tried out one of those apps for adults seeking to make friends. It turned out to be a remarkable success. “I’ve made my friend group as a direct result of using the internet,” they said, explaining that even though all the friends are trans, due to their diverse interests, “we would have been hard-pressed to have ever really run into ea...
Washington Blade •

Mass. startup streamlining name changes for trans, non-binary residents

A guy in America wants to buy a truck. They save money. They have built up good credit. They find a truck in their price range. They go to the dealership to buy it, but when the dealership puts the guy’s name through the system no credit shows up.

The problem? That guy is trans and had recently changed their name. “Due to the name change, I was credit invisible,” Luke Lennon explained. “This can happen often for trans and non-binary folks who change their name.” The kicker? “That piece is not t
Washington Blade •

From LGBTQ book bans to internet bans: A bipartisan attack on knowledge

“They had LGBTQ-inclusive books in every single classroom and school library,” Maxx Fenning says of his high school experience. “They were even working on LGBTQ-specific course codes to get approved by the state,” he said, describing courses on queer studies and LGBTQ Black history.

No, Fenning didn’t grow up in Portland or a Boston suburb. Fenning graduated from a South Florida high school in 2020. Florida’s transformation from mostly affirming to “Don’t Say Gay” has been swift, he says. “It feels like a parallel universe.”
Mother Jones •

Colonialism's link to the Maui wildfires

Fires have been raging across Hawaii’s Maui Island since Tuesday night. It is already the second deadliest wildfire in United States history, with 270 structures and 2,000 acres burned, 55 people dead, and 11,000 people without power. More than 11,000 people were evacuated on Wednesday, says Hawaii Department of Transportation director Ed Sniffen. The population of Maui is 164,000.

The fires are especially horrifying because Hawaii is not a natural fire ecosystem and has not evolved to rebound
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