A More Humane Future for Shelter Animals
In May, LA Animal Services Kennel Supervisor Leslie Corea, who had been working in animal welfare for two decades, was attacked by Brie, a 63-pound dog that had been exhibiting signs of fear, anxiety,...
View ArticleHow to Nationalize Minnesota’s Universal Breakfast Bill
In March 2023, when Minnesota Governor Tim Walz walked the halls of Webster Elementary, students stopped to chat with him and give him high fives. Walz was there to sign the Free School Meals for Kids...
View ArticleRebuilding Food Security After a Wildfire
When wildfires swept through southern Oregon in 2020, Maria and her family lost 14 years of hard work almost overnight. Their home, their car, and most of their belongings went up in smoke. In the...
View ArticleMurmurations: A Spell for the Winter Solstice
empire wants to feel safe alonestockpiles stonesaimed at mirror neuronssees danger everywherebut never disarms do you rememberall the times we’ve been right hereknowing exactly enough to thrivebut...
View ArticleWhy Planned Parenthood Workers Revolted Over Gaza
On Dec. 5, 2023, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) released an official statement condemning what they called “atrocities committed by Hamas,” citing violations of bodily autonomy...
View ArticleFarmers Markets Can Be a Form of Climate Action. Here’s How.
For the past four decades or so, the Florin farmers market has been a source for affordable produce for many living in the small suburb in Sacramento, California. According to Sam Greenlee, executive...
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For Siċaŋġu Nation, Taking Food Sovereignty Back Means Eating Climate-Friendly
On a Wednesday summer evening on the Rosebud Reservation, members of the Siċaŋġu Nation arrange 12 tables to form a U around the parking lot of a South Dakota Boys & Girls Club. The tables at the...
View ArticleCan Everyone Eat for the Planet? I Shopped at Dollar Store for a Week to Find...
As a fossil fuels and climate reporter, most of my journalism focuses on the need to radically overhaul the energy system. But the food sector also needs a makeover, as it creates between a quarter...
View ArticleA Crop for a Saltier Future?
In early 2020, a group of Saudi farmers led Vanessa Melino into the desert. Melino, a plant physiologist, was looking for hardy crops that could thrive in harsh, arid conditions. After driving for...
View ArticleBudgeting By and For the People
Melina Abdullah, Ph.D., is a fixture among racial justice activists in Los Angeles, leading Black Lives Matter LA (BLMLA)’s protests and actions from the campus of California State University, Los...
View ArticleCan Free Public Transit Eliminate the Need for Police?
On Sept. 17, 2024, hundreds of protesters swarmed the Sutter Avenue subway station in Brooklyn, New York, calling for an end to police violence on public transit and demanding free fares. Some...
View ArticleWhat It’s Like to Serve a Life Sentence Without Parole
I’ve been incarcerated for the majority of my life, spending more time in prison than in society. It’s where I grew up. I was arrested at the age of 23, and I’m now going on my 35th year of...
View ArticlePlantains in Heaven
This story is part of Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors, a climate-fiction contest produced by Grist Magazine. Imagine 2200 asked writers to imagine the next 180 years of equitable...
View ArticleThe Isle of Beautiful Waters
This story is part of Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors, a climate-fiction contest produced by Grist Magazine. Imagine 2200 asked writers to imagine the next 180 years of equitable...
View ArticleTo Rescue a Self
This story is part of Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors, a climate-fiction contest produced by Grist Magazine. Imagine 2200 asked writers to imagine the next 180 years of equitable...
View ArticleIn Fighting Fascism, We Must Choose Our Battles Wisely
“They’re not trying to impose dictatorship from a position of strength, they’re trying to impose it from a position of weakness and fear.” —Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin “In the midst of discontent, talk,...
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How Restorative Justice Helped One Family Move Forward
In the middle of the room, a couple places objects that are sacred to them: a singing bowl, a trombone. Two shiny, beautiful instruments, full of potential for beautiful sound. The couple rejoins the...
View ArticleInsulin Should Be a Right, Not a Privilege
Even before President Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, he had his eyes on the Inflation Reduction Act. In September 2023, Trump stated his desire to “rescind all unspent funds” for the ambitious...
View ArticleMurmurations: Dawn of a New Beginning
Dear Beloved Murmurations Readers, I am writing with an exciting update about this column. Since we launched “Murmurations” in 2021, we have collectively survived, witnessed, and lost loved ones,...
View ArticleWhat Leonard Peltier’s Freedom Represents for Indigenous Futures
Minutes before leaving office, former President Biden issued executive clemency to Leonard Peltier, commuting the remainder of his life sentence to be served at home. While the most just outcome would...
View ArticleMothering for Justice
On March 10, 2013, Dallas police officer Clark Staller was called to an apartment complex by a resident because Clinton Allen, 25, refused to leave the location. Though the facts of that night are...
View ArticleMemory Crafters Preserve Black Women’s History
The crater from the wrecking ball stood hollow in the center of the home at 2335 Arapahoe Street in the summer of 1983. Concerned community members scrambled to pause the imminent demolition to the...
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A Tale of Two Co-ops
You’d be forgiven if you passed by St. James Towers in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, or Southbridge Towers in Lower Manhattan without noting their exceptional qualities or sensing the tumult within....
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Recovery in San Diego a Year After the Floods
Jessica Calix has tried to make the 33-foot travel trailer she and her son, Chago, share at a north San Diego RV Park feel like their old rental home in the Southcrest neighborhood. She’s set up...
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7 Ways to Rise Up Against Trumpism 2.0
Since Donald Trump’s second term began on Jan. 20, 2025, his administration has aggressively launched a deluge of multipronged attacks on immigrants, transgender people, racial equity initiatives,...
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A Feminism for the Many
On that hazy June day in 2022 when the Supreme Court ruled that there was no constitutional right to abortion, one thing was clear: This had been a long time coming. Feminists needed to roll up our...
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A Violence-Prevention Helpline for Those Who Want to Change
Jacquie Marroquin spent much of her childhood living in fear of her father. A child of undocumented immigrants from Guatemala, Marroquin—who grew up in Los Angeles in the 1970s—worried that speaking...
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The Queer Organizations Protecting and Supporting Trans People
As Donald Trump’s second presidency gets underway, grassroots organizers are steeling themselves to protect their communities from anti-trans policies and rhetoric. There is already work to be done....
View ArticleMurmurations: Climate Solutions Require Black Ecology
The dominant narrative of the climate crisis goes something like this: “The burning of fossil fuels has produced so much carbon dioxide that our atmosphere is being damaged, our climate is changing,...
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Immigrant Farmworkers Keep Each Other Safe from the Avian Flu
Every month, around 50 dairy farmworkers filter into a church basement in western New York after a grueling day of work. They order dinner from a local Mexican or Puerto Rican restaurant and settle in...
View ArticleA Beautifully “Wicked” Approach to Disability
When I went to see Wicked, which is up for 10 Academy Awards on Sunday, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Of course, the film’s inescapable buzz piqued my interest, but I was mostly driven to the theater...
View ArticleSafe Havens for Trans Migrants on the U.S.-Mexico Border
If Indi Tisoy has a single dream, it is to reach the United States. Her desire is so strong, in fact, that she waits at the border because it makes her feel closer to that dream. Tisoy, who is a...
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Why Is It So Hard to Watch this Oscar-Winning Documentary?
For many low-budget, independent films, an Oscar win is a golden ticket. The publicity can translate into theatrical releases or rereleases, along with more on-demand rentals and sales. However, for...
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What Frogs Teach Us About Queerphobia in Science
My favorite meme about so-called gay frogs—feared to be feminized by toxic chemicals—is captioned “You have to be male or female!” Directly beneath this exclamation is a cartoon drawing of a...
View ArticleAbove and Beyond Restoring Roe
Taylor Young has never wanted to be a mom. From the time the now 27-year-old began dating, she experienced persistent anxiety around the thought of getting pregnant in Ohio, a Republican-controlled...
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A Prison-Based Program Interrupts the Cycle of Violence
When Cecilia Gonzalez told family members she had volunteered to share her life story with men in prison, they were shocked. Gonzalez, 56, had spent most of her adult life recovering from the pain and...
View ArticleThe World We Owe Gaza
Organizers of the Palestinian liberation movement welcomed news of a tenuous ceasefire agreement in Gaza in January 2025, but it did not signal the end of their ongoing campaigns. The ceasefire came...
View ArticleApocalypse Chow: Don’t Let Corporations Define Vegetables
YES! Media is excited to present a new column, Apocalypse Chow, by Arun Gupta, investigative reporter, French-trained chef, food tour guide, and author of the forthcoming eponymous book, Apocalypse...
View ArticleSelf-Determined: Climate Resilience Is Sacred
As a tidal wave of authoritarianism crashes across the U.S., it may seem as if nothing is sacred. But in these moments of uncertainty, it is the sacred to which we must return. For the Indigenous...
View ArticleImmigrants Fight ICE Raids
One day a week, 70-year-old Javier Gastelum sits beneath a shade tree outside a bakery near his home to chat with old friends and sell a few pounds of fresh Mexican cheese. For...
View ArticleMurmurations: A Dream for Trans Belonging
Here we are in 2025 navigating rising oligarchy. This last month, I kept trying to understand why thoughts were coming to my mind, like, “Why am I even here? Should I be here?” It felt jarring and...
View ArticleActivists Take Back the Climate
Since Donald Trump and his unelected billionaire advisor, Elon Musk, came to power in January, the pair have followed the old Silicon Valley tech motto to “move fast and break things.” That’s bad news...
View ArticleThe Humanizing Power of Critical Race Theory
What is Critical Race Theory? This resounding question is asked by U.S. senators at Supreme Court justice confirmation hearings, concerned parents at local school board meetings, and liberal and...
View ArticleThe Revolution Will Not Be Commercialized
Someone is going to read this and think I wrote it because I hate football. Another person will read this piece and think I have a deeply ingrained dislike for Black men and rap music. Others will see...
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Seed Banks Buffer Central American Farmers Against Climate Change
Growing up in the mountains of western Guatemala, Feliciano Perez Tomas cultivated the same type of native maize his family had for generations. The breed of corn was central to his Indigenous K’iche’...
View ArticleReckoning: No Bodily Autonomy Without Gender Liberation
On Sept. 14, 2024, two months before the U.S. presidential election, I helped organize nearly 2,000 people in the streets of Washington, D.C. This was the birth of the Gender Liberation Movement...
View ArticleBoycotting Chevron for Fueling Genocide
Every summer in Portland, Oregon, thousands of people participate in the city’s famous World Naked Bike Ride. In the two decades since its launch, the event has become something of a tourist...
View Article10 Organizing Principles for Defeating Trumpism 2.0
As soon as President Donald Trump began his shock-and-awe assault on the federal government in January 2025, lists began bouncing around the internet with titles like “How to Survive the Trump Years.”...
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The Makah Tribe is Calling Back the Whales
A single road provides access to the town of Neah Bay, Washington, on the Makah Reservation—a narrow ribbon of asphalt that skirts the lush cloak of evergreen skyscrapers called the Olympic...
View ArticleInside the Student Protests that Shook Columbia University
On Mar. 28, 2025, New York City’s Angelika Film Center filled quickly as person after person—many of whom wore a keffiyeh—claimed their seats for the opening-night sold-out screening of The...
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