I want “not all scientific papers are created equally” tattooed on me.

This Sunday, we are launching a Sunday edition of our newsletter: “Climate Desk Weekly.” This free dispatch will share week’s worth of need-to-know climate news right in your inbox from our collaboration of 15 award-winning media outlets. Sign up at: www.motherjones.com/newsletters/

We have been working hard on getting this ready in time for NYC Climate Week. Sign up and expect stellar climate reporting in your inbox every Sunday :)

i listened to mtg’s entire weather modification hearing yesterday and tried — for you, dear WIRED readers — to make sense of it:

New approaches to climate modeling reconstruct the past — going back 540 million years across the reign of animals. @peterbrannen.bsky.social's feature is a tour of these many versions of Earth's climate and life, showing how rare our temperate moment is www.quantamagazine.org/climate-extr...

The California State University system now has its first Indigenous food sovereignty lab. www.hcn.org/issues/57-9/...

I highly recommend that you read @leximcmenamin.com's latest: "When the WSJ reporting came out, I knew it didn’t matter if it was true or false; the damage was already done. It’s not about truth or reality. It’s about demonization and easy targets and reaffirming their own rhetoric."

Our story has been updated to reflect that Tyler Robinson, the suspect arrested in connection with the Charlie Kirk killing, lived with a romantic partner who transgender, per Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. Officials have not concluded whether the partner’s gender identity was a factor in the shooting.

I put it in my bio, so I’ll make a post about it too. Next week I’ll be starting a part-time master’s in library and information science at University of Washington (and therefore working fewer hours in journalism). Why? ⬇️

My commitment to facts and sourcing well is a testament to the culture and values of @motherjones.com where I have reported for most of my career. I am so proud that our reporting has been focusing on the very real fallout of this event—rather than speculating based on little to no information.

My story on (some of) the misinformation in the last 48 hours:

My story on the layoffs (from May 2025)

When I was the first to report on layoffs at a national lab, I spoke to three separate sources in three separate departments plus reviewed internal documents. The story noted all of that explicitly and the story was reviewed by two editors. And it was about layoffs, not a shooting. (1/3)

NEW: A timeline of how false “transgender ideology” claims spread in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing. By @hencarnell.bsky.social, @msjpauly.bsky.social, and me: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

When all else fails, make a timeline. How false “gender ideology” claims spread after Charlie Kirk shooting, with @msjpauly.bsky.social and @schuylermitchell.bsky.social

Isn't it nuts that at the same time the Trump administration is actively killing clean-energy projects, they are pushing the creation of massive data centers that locals don't want, and that will suck up huge amounts of energy and water? via @highcountrynews.org & @climatedesk.org

Ireland's peat bogs contain a vast record of archaeological and natural history, and sequester a LOT of carbon, but between resource extraction and climate change, they're at risk. Is there a way to preserve the peat bogs without sacrificing the treasures within? thebulletin.org/2025/09/tick...

"You're taking advantage of people who are still trying to recover.” 20 years after Hurricane Katrina, the US government has proposed a $4.7 billion canal project that many warn could put the Ninth Ward at risk of flooding all over again. [Published in partnership with @capitalb.bsky.social]

As many feared, the logic of Skrmetti is now being applied to trans adults too.

A judge in Massachusetts today issued what I think is the first judgment against the DOJ's attempt to subpoena doctors who treat trans patients. The judge quashed the subpoena the DOJ issued against Boston Children's Hospital, home to the country's first gender clinic for adolescents.

“It seems to me that we are abandoning science now. If we do that, I’m not quite sure how we are going to really keep our kids safe from our changing climate and environmental hazards in general.”

I think about this all!!! the!!! time!!! I genuinely think most people are ambivalent about gender and just go with the flow (their sex assigned at birth & society's associated expectations). Some people, cis and trans alike, just have a stronger tug towards gender(s).

RFK claims he fired CDC director Monarez because he asked her if she's trustworthy and she said no. What's more believable – that, or, as Monarez claims, she was fired because she refused to sign off on his vaccine recommendations?

New: Judge Burroughs rules on the Harvard grant terminations and underlying agency guidance. Takeaways: -Big win for Harvard—$2 billion in grants will be reinstated. -There is a (careful) path for district courts to rule on grant terminations storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Last year, Idaho passed a strict law that forbids anyone from providing to a minor any service that could be construed as medical or psychological in nature without parental consent. Now, minors calling the state's suicide hotline are being forced to have a parent speak for them or hang up

So long, A23a. 🥹

BREAKING: Social Security Administration chief data officer and whistle-blower Charles Borges has resigned after bombshell report that SSA put highly-sensitive data at risk. He sent out an email to colleagues moments ago. Here is the text of his email shared with me:

I've had a Google Alert set on Missouri AG Andrew Bailey for a couple years. His aggressive (and at times extralegal) attacks on abortion, local Democrats, trans people often get slapped down in court. But winning wasn't the point. The point was building a rep. Now he's headed to help run the FBI.

20 years ago, when I was just 11 years old, my family hunkered down for Hurricane Katrina in a trailer in south Mobile County, just a few miles from the Gulf. Read my latest, a #HurricaneKatrina remembrance, in @insideclimatenews.org. insideclimatenews.org/news/2808202...

Today marks 20 years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Here is some of our coverage about the tragedy and it's lasting impact ⬇️

New: The NIH cancelled more than a half dozen grants focused on suicide prevention for LGBTQ youth. Turns out that's indicative of Trump's broader mental health plan—defund research, incarcerate people, & disappear the workforce. Took a deep dive w/ @juliametraux.bsky.social for @motherjones.com:

Filed under this *really* happened: Following a week of strife at the disaster relief agency, Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem told FEMA employees to "be vocal" about their positive experiences with the Trump administration. @mollytaft.com on the chaos at FEMA:

"To blame the unnerving prevalence of mass shootings in America on the existence of trans people here isn’t just a dangerously stigmatizing, politically motivated take. It’s also bad math." - @abbyvesoulis.bsky.social

Dr. Deb Houry (resigned from CDC yesterday) is giving live media interviews now outside the CDC. From what I can hear, she's speaking forcefully in favor of public health and against the nonsense the CDC is facing. Understand: She is a very cautious person. This means a lot! #USAnotRFK

I have never seen so many public servants protest the mismanagement of a government. Trumpists will point to this as proof of the deep state, but the reality is that these are professionals who are desperately trying to get the public to understand how bad things are.

Brief 🧵, as someone who has studied mass shootings for 13 years: -gender does not cause them -SSRIs, no -mental illness, no -internet/gaming, no Above can be compounding factors—but motive is complex, often very. The most fundamental combo: suicidality + rage + isolation + easy access to guns

I sound insane when I say this but I truly believe a big part of the Trump admin’s approach to energy policy is driven by gender anxiety. They think coal and oil are manly and renewables are effeminate.

Of yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, which allows hundreds of NIH grant terminations to proceed, @scott-delaney.bsky.social says: “I see no viable, no reasonably likely scenario where that research comes back. I think it’s gone.” www.chronicle.com/article/trac...

Yesterday the Supreme Court issued a convoluted, 36-page emergency order about NIH grant terminations. Two main takeaways: -$2 billion (not the government # of $780 million) in NIH grants will likely be re-terminated -future legal challenges will be much harder w/ @maxkozlov.bsky.social:

Mike's really getting to the heart of things with this. Heck, I run a trans news site and, other than cisgender, I use the rest of these rarely if at all.

ok so the times witnessed reporters receiving cash from Adams people three times at mayoral events and sat on it for over a month but couldn’t pass up a hot tip from a neonazi about Mamdani’s unsuccessful college application for long enough to check if the neonazi had already been identified

@samveep.bsky.social killed it with this video

There is no solace for NIH funded researchers in this Supreme Court decision. Grants that were ripped away on dubious grounds, restored by a reasonable judge are now again terminated by an out-of-control Supreme Court. Labs will shutter, people will lose jobs. www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

By now, most people have seen the latest Williams Institute report on the number of trans people in the U.S. But I wanted to add one important piece of context on where that data comes from, because it is disappearing under the Trump admin. In Morning Rounds: www.statnews.com/2025/08/21/h...

last week, I reported on a proposed NIH policy to ban researchers from collecting data about gender: www.chronicle.com/article/gend... @katherinejwu.com has an update: it's been "shot down by NIH leadership," a spokesperson says — but the timing/details are fuzzy www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

I started my work day editing a video about a doctor with livesaving aid denied access to Gaza. I ended it editing a video about the erosion of voting rights in the US. And now that I'm off, my phone buzzes with a watch duty notification that there is a wildfire in my city. 😀😀😀

“This is racial gerrymandering at its worst.” Rep. Al Green told Mother Jones during the Texas House proceedings, where they passed a redistricting plan that could give the GOP five additional seats in the US House.

Though scientists hedge their words more than queer teens, this is also what the (peer-reviewed!!!) research says.