Over nearly 500 articles, I’ve made plenty of mistakes. Here are five big lessons those blown calls and boneheaded pronouncements have taught me along the way.
Over nearly 500 articles, I’ve made plenty of mistakes. Here are five big lessons those blown calls and boneheaded pronouncements have taught me along the way.
Gold edged higher in early Asian trade, supported by hopes for Fed rate cuts which would enhance the allure of the non-interest-bearing precious metal.
Alphabet's Google in a court filing on Thursday is seeking a non-jury trial in the U.S. Justice Department's lawsuit accusing the advertising and search giant of anticompetitive practices in the online advertising marketplace. The Justice Department, which filed the advertising lawsuit in January 2023, alleged the company has abused its dominance of the digital advertising business and argued that it should be forced to sell its ad manager suite. Google said the Justice Department's request for a jury trial breaks "with all historical precedent" and noted the department itself has said the technical nature might be difficult for a prospective juror to understand.
(Bloomberg) -- Perplexity AI, a startup using artificial intelligence to build a search engine to rival Alphabet Inc.’s Google, is creating an advisory board with several high-profile tech veterans to help the company grow in an increasingly competitive space.Most Read from BloombergUS Inflation Data Was Accidentally Released 30 Minutes EarlyPutin and Xi Vow to Step Up Fight to Counter US ‘Containment’With a BlackRock CEO, $9 Trillion Vanguard Braces for TurbulenceJamie Dimon Sees ‘Lot of Inflat
What a great season for music this is, if you’re someone who has an old-fashioned thing for albums that really feel like albums. And it’s not because of any wave of old-timers ganging up with each other to show off their concept-record chops. It’s a trifecta of megastar divas who really want you to hear […]
There’s a place in the world, and sometimes a vital one, for a movie like "Bird," which recalls the spirit of early Arnold films like "Fish Tank." So forgive me if I say that Arnold isn’t just making a coming-of-age drama of lost lives — she’s mainlining neorealist glumness.
Spoiler Alert: The following interview discusses events from the series finale of “Young Sheldon” — the episodes “Funeral” and “Memoir” — streaming on Paramount+ as of May 17. Bazinga! That’s a wrap on CBS’ “Young Sheldon,” as the hit comedy prequel to “The Big Bang Theory” bid adieu with its final two installments after seven seasons […]
While much attention is paid to the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Panther Party hasn’t been as closely examined in popular culture. Apple TV+’s “The Big Cigar” is adapted from Joshuah Bearman’s 2012 article of the same name. (Bearman also penned the 2007 article that Ben Affleck’s 2012 film, “Argo” was based on.) The series […]
A new entry in the “Insidious” franchise has been set for the theaters. The next installment of the Blumhouse Productions horror property, co-produced by Screen Gems, has been added to Sony’s theatrical slate, with the studio dating the film for an Aug. 29, 2025 release. No further details on the project were disclosed, including whether […]
The publishing industry’s offensive against Spotify continues as the Mechanical Licensing Collective has filed legal action against the streaming giant’s U.S. division over its recent subscription offers that bundle music and audiobooks, resulting in a lower royalty. the MLC seeks “unpaid royalties due under the compulsory mechanical blanket license obtained by Spotify to reproduce and distribute […]
North Carolina Republicans are pushing legislation that would remove the state’s health exemption to laws banning masks in public, citing protestors’ wearing them in pro-Palestine campus rallies. If the state GOP’s “Unmasking Mobs and Criminals” bill passes, North Carolina would become the first in the country to make it illegal to avoid infectious diseases like Covid-19—which people can also get while protesting—by masking in public. The bill passed the state Senate on Wednesday in a 30-15 party-line vote. Due to Senate revisions, it will have to pass the Republican-majority state House again. But even if Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoes the law, the Republican-majority state legislature will have the power to override him.
Covid-19 continues to kill people in the United States, with at least 20,000 confirmed deaths linked to Covid infections since the start of 2024, Millions more are developing Long Covid, the risk of which increases with every subsequent infection. Immunocompromised patients are at particular risk of death: besides their underlying conditions, immunocompromising medications can reduce the efficiency of Covid vaccines and boosters. Masks, specifically N95 and KN95s, are very effective in stopping its spread, and wearing one in a crowd can allow immunocompromised people like recent transplant recipients to participate in civic life and political action. Mask-wearing is more effective in stopping transmission in crowds when more people do it.
“These patients have active reasons to want extra layers of protection,” Dr. Cameron R. Wolfe, an infectious disease specialist with Duke University Health System in North Carolina, told Mother Jones. “If my lung transplant recipient wants to be able to keep him or herself protected in the act of a protest, they must be allowed the freedom to do that.”
Lucky Tran, a science communicator with Columbia University and health equity organizer, said that folks encouraging others to wear masks that protect against the spread of Covid-19 is good community care.
“By providing and encouraging people to wear masks at protests, activists are demonstrating community care and public health leadership, which by contrast, most governments and institutions are failing to do,” Tran said.
Most transplant recipients are advised to wear masks, guidance that predates the Covid pandemic. Research has shown that even the common cold can be dangerous or deadly for transplant recipients. Not being able to wear a mask in public could limit their participation in society—from participating in protest to going to the grocery store. The CDC also reports that getting an infection during chemotherapy for cancer can also lead to hospitalization.
At a hearing on the legislation, Democratic State Sen. Sydney Batch, a cancer survivor, said the bill goes too far: “There are people that are walking around every single day that are immunocompromised…It is meaningful to them. They could die.”
Dr. Diana Cejas, a University of North Carolina pediatric neurologist who survived cancer and a stroke, told Mother Jones that “it has been an incredibly difficult time to be a North Carolinian who actually cares about public health and safety.” Cejas asserts that it is her “right to protect myself” against Covid by wearing a mask—and her duty to protect the medically complex, vulnerable children she works with every day.
Cejas is also doubtful of claims from some North Carolina Republican officials that people won’t be arrested for wearing a mask in their daily lives for health concerns.
“Some of our legislators have made the argument that this ban won’t apply to those of us who mask for medical reasons, but I think that we all know that won’t be true,” Cejas said. “We already face scrutiny and outright harassment at times for the ‘crime’ of trying to protect ourselves from illness, particularly us disabled and chronically ill people of color and those with other marginalized identities.”
North Carolina is not the only state to move to crack down on protestors wearing masks. Earlier this month, Republican Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said that pro-Palestinian student protestors wearing masks could face felony charges under a law that was originally created to go after the Ku Klux Klan.
Though villainized and potentially criminalized, masks continue to be an effective way to limit the spread of infections. “We would see a lot less disease if masks were accepted as a socially reasonable thing to wear in public for at-risk individuals,” Wolfe said, “or anyone worried about illness.”
A Columbia protester detained as part of the city’s crackdown against the Gaza Solidarity Encampment says that during her arrest and processing she was forced to take off her hijab—a violation of a New York Police Department policy and another instance of a high-profile problem for the department.
The account of the protester, a Columbia studentwho wished to remain anonymous out of concern for her security and safety, was corroborated in part by two witnesses. The NYPD did not respond to requests for comment.
The removal of hijabs during arrests has been a years-long problem for New York City law enforcement. On April 5, 2024, the city settled a class-action lawsuit for $17.5 million brought by two women who had been forced to take off their hijabs for a mugshot in 2017. The case, originally filed in 2018, led to changes in policy, when, in 2020, the New York Police Department altered its rules, saying people could wear a “religious head covering,” as long as it did not cover their faces for photos.
According to the NYPD’s Patrol Guide, in some circumstances, an arresting officer can request that a head covering be “temporarily removed and searched.” But this is to be done in “private” and the religious head covering, the guide says, should be returned. Officers only are permitted the “safekeeping” of a religious head covering if there is a danger of violence or self-harm.
The hijabi protester, and others present, say that when the NYPD arrested an autonomous group that had taken over Hamilton Hall at the university these rules were not consistently followed.
The protester said the problems began even before she got to the station. She wears her hijab loosely, and it began to fall off as she was zip-tied and walked to a police van. She asked an officer to fix it—or to let her take off the zip-ties for a moment to adjust it herself. But the police officer refused, and then, following continual requests, relented but according to the protester adjusted and replaced the head covering inadequately, so that it continued to fall off.
“He would tell me it’s because I’m moving around so much or talking,” she recalls. (She had chanted at officers during the arrests.) But despite “exact instructions,” to place the covering upon her head, she says, “He would put it very, very lightly right behind my ear—so immediately it would fall back, like only on half my head.”
During that time, Aidan Parisi, a protester who was arrested inside the building that was occupied, said they saw the hijabi protester’s scarf falling off. “We were standing in line waiting for them to process us and I noticed her hijab had fallen,” Aidan told Mother Jones on the phone, days after the arrest. “There were numerous times I saw her where her hijab kept falling and they were refusing to fix it.”
Parisi also brought the scarf falling off to the officer’s attention. “The police officer said something along the lines of, ‘What do you mean? I keep fixing it. I keep picking it up for you, don’t lie,” Parisi recalls. “And [the hijabi protester] says: ‘Well why was it still down?’”
More importantly, the hijabi protester said, “A man should not be placing his hands on me—period.”
When she got to the jail, the issues continued. Before taking those who were apprehended to their cells, officers pat them down to search for weapons or other contraband. During this process, the protester was asked to remove her hijab to check her hair and head covering. This is consistent with the NYPD’s Patrol Guide’s policy to temporarily ask those arrested who are wearing religious head coverings to remove the item in private for a search.
After this check, the protester asked for her hijab back. The officer, she says, refused to return it. The protester objected but, eventually, she acquiesced. “Even though it made me very uncomfortable,” she said. “I [felt] like I didn’t really have a lot of fight left in me.” She assumed the cell she was entering was all female. (Rules vary, but wearing the hijab is typically observed in front of men.)
“I didn’t know that this was my right,” she said of keeping on her hijab. “[The idea that] this [hijab] is part of my identity [so I] get to keep this one—I didn’t even process that.”
Then she saw another woman enter the same area wearing her hijab. Once more, the protester began to ask the officers to return her hijab: “I was like: give me my hijab back, give me my hijab back.” Allie Wong, a graduate student who served as a “human barricade” in front of Hamilton Hall and was arrested, saw this occur in the jail.
Wong remembers the hijabi protester saying: “This is from my religion and this is my religious and constitutional rights…. And it didn’t matter. They said she had to remove it. She kept protesting and saying it’s her right.” (Despite this occurring in a female section of the jail, male officers were walking in and out, according to both Wong and the protester with whom Mother Jones spoke about the incident.)
After this interaction happened, all three protesters interviewed by Mother Jones recall that the protesters crammed into cells began chanting: “Give her back her hijab.” The protester whose hijab was removed remembers people banging on the walls, too, causing the room to shake. The protester said she did not receive the head covering back until she left the jail several hours later.
She told Mother Jones she could not help but think of a news report she read about women in Gaza who slept with their hijabs on—because they do not know when a bomb will drop and if it happens in their sleep they want to die with dignity.
“I should have put up more of a fight,” she told me. “I wish I knew more of my rights—so I could stand up for myself [but] this has been what has been normalized from the state when protesting.”
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court allowed a lower court decision requiring a second majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana to move forward for the 2024 elections, handing down a rare victory for minority representation that also boosts Democrats chances of retaking the House of Representatives.
The case, Landry v. Callais, took a convoluted path to the high court. In June 2022, a federal district court ruled that, under the Voting Rights Act, Louisiana must create a new majority-Black district in a state where Black voters were a third of the population but held a majority in only one of the state’s six congressional districts. The Supreme Court temporarily blocked that ruling for the 2022 election, but following the Court’s decision in Allen v. Milligan in June 2023 that Alabama had to create a second majority-Black congressional district, Louisiana was ordered to do the same. The state’s Republican-controlled legislature reluctantly held a special session in January 2024 to create a new majority-Black district that favored Democrats.
A group of “non-African American” voters then challenged that map and in April a federal district court panel, with two Trump-appointed judges writing for the majority, struck it down, arguing that race was the predominant factor in drawing the district—even though Louisiana had been specifically ordered by another federal court to create the majority-Black district.
Civil rights groups and the state of Louisiana then appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court. It represented an unlikely instance when Black voters and a Republican-controlled Southern state were more or less on the same side, and also a rare example of the Supreme Court delivering a victory for minority representation, given the Court’s well-documented hostility to voting rights. That includes gutting the Voting Rights Act on multiple occasions and holding that partisan gerrymandering can’t be challenged in federal court.
However, the 6-3 decision on Wednesday was not without internal controversy. The three liberal justices dissented, not because they disagreed with the finding, but how the court reached it. The conservative supermajority invoked the Purcell principle—the idea that changes to voting rules should not be made too close to an election—to reinstate Louisiana’s map with two majority-Black districts. But the liberal justices thought the case should be decided without relying on Purcell, which has often been used by the conservative justices to overrule lower court rulings that struck down discriminatory voting laws and gerrymandered maps because they allegedly occurred too close to an election date.
As University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck put it, “it’s a short-term win for Black voters in Louisiana, but a long-term expansion of a controversial principle for how federal courts handle election-year voting cases going forward.”
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