Contributing Writers

Advocates in Oklahoma are rallying outside the barricaded governor’s mansion ahead of the planned Thursday execution of prisoner Julius Jones, who was convicted of a 1999 murder but has maintained his innocence.

Republicans are set to claim the House majority in next year’s midterm elections with help from heavily gerrymandered congressional district maps in states nationwide that could shape politics for the next decade, securing Republican wins even as the party’s popular vote shrinks at the national level, says Mother Jones reporter Ari Berman.

Republicans may retake control of the House next year thanks largely to extreme gerrymandering by Republican state legislators, even as Republican opposition in Congress has impeded critical legislation to combat discriminatory voting practices and eliminate barriers to the ballot. As pressure grows for Democrats to pass two key voting rights bills, activists are holding the last in a series of protests at the White House, where nearly 100 have been arrested since August, including Rev.

We speak with Bishop William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign, who was one of the Black pastors who visited the trial of the three white men who hunted down and shot dead Ahmaud Arbery, where last week a defense attorney claimed Black pastors sitting with the Arbery family in the courtroom could be “intimidating” for the jury, which is almost all white.

Among the unprecedented moments for Indigenous participation in the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow were the protests to protect the Amazon rainforest, the largest remaining rainforest on the planet, that activists argue is on the brink of ecological collapse.

President Joe Biden’s virtual summit Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping follows the two countries’ announcement just days earlier they will work together to confront the climate emergency after Xi did not attend the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow. Tension has been mounting between the two superpowers, especially over Taiwan and Hong Kong, with some speculating that a new Cold War is developing.

Humanitarian and economic conditions are rapidly deteriorating in Afghanistan, where the U.N. estimates that more than half of the population suffers from acute hunger. The country has fallen into an economic crisis after the U.S. and other Western countries cut off direct financial assistance to the government following the Taliban takeover in August. Taliban leaders are also unable to access billions of dollars in Afghan national reserves that are held in banks overseas.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre in East Timor, when Indonesian troops armed with U.S. M16s fired on a peaceful memorial procession in the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, killing more than 270 East Timorese. Indonesia had invaded East Timor in 1975 and maintained a brutal occupation until 1999, when East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence in a United Nations referendum.

We speak with Bishop William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign, who was one of the Black pastors who visited the trial of the three white men who hunted down and shot dead Ahmaud Arbery, where last week a defense attorney claimed Black pastors sitting with the Arbery family in the courtroom could be “intimidating” for the jury, which is almost all white.

Among the unprecedented moments for Indigenous participation in the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow were the protests to protect the Amazon rainforest, the largest remaining rainforest on the planet, that activists argue is on the brink of ecological collapse.

The U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, ended Saturday with over 190 nations agreeing to the Glasgow Climate Pact, which calls on governments to return next year in Egypt with stronger plans to curb their emissions and urges wealthy nations to provide more funds to vulnerable countries in the Global South.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Santa Cruz massacre in East Timor, when Indonesian troops armed with U.S. M16s fired on a peaceful memorial procession in the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili, killing more than 270 East Timorese. Indonesia had invaded East Timor in 1975 and maintained a brutal occupation until 1999, when East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence in a United Nations referendum.

As the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow concludes, activists staged a walkout Friday in response to late decisions made by negotiators to severely weaken commitments in the final agreement. While the earlier draft of the unbinding Glasgow Agreement called for “phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels,” the new draft calls for the phaseout of “unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels.

Health leaders are warning governments of “unimaginable” health consequences from the climate crisis if world leaders don’t take decisive action to decarbonize. This week at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, the Global Climate and Health Alliance presented a letter to the COP26 president signed by 46 million health workers who are calling for global climate action on health.

The United States and China made a surprise announcement on Wednesday at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow on a joint pledge to reduce methane emissions and slow deforestation. The United States is the largest historical emitter of carbon emissions, while China has been the largest emitter in recent years.