Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Felon voting in Florida, backed by the people, is curtailed by the elected

One of last fall's most consequential referendum results, Floridians' lopsided decision to restore voting rights to as many as 1.5 million felons, has been partially reversed at the state capital.

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will soon sign a measure creating an unsurmountable obstacle to the ballot box for thousands of convicts who have completed their sentences: They will be required to pay back fines and fees to the courts before heading to the polls.


"Basically, they're telling you, 'If you have money, you can vote. If you don't have money, you can't,'" Patrick Penn, who spent 15 years in prison for robbery and burglary, told The New York Times. "That's not what the people voted for."

The GOP-controlled state House cleared a compromise version of the proposal along party lines Friday. Under the final version, convicted felons could ask a judge to waive the financial obligations or repay them through community service.

The Republicans who dominate power in Tallahassee say some restrictions are needed to clarify implementation of the ballot measure, dubbed Amendment 4 and approved with 65 percent support in November. Civil rights organizations say the legislators are taking far too strict a view of what was meant by the language of the referendum, which said rights would be restored for felons "after they complete all terms of their sentence."

Florida says it has the largest number of people disenfranchised by their criminal records, and a disproportionate share are African-American and therefore mostly Democrats. But "political scientists who study voter registration in Florida have said that re-engaging previously disenfranchised felons into the democratic process takes time and effort, and that any increase in the state's voter rolls would be gradual and would probably follow existing trends in which most new voters in the state register without party affiliation," the Times noted.

Now Iowa and Kentucky are the only two states that forever bar people with a felony record from voting. Iowa's GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds proposed a constitutional amendment to give the franchise back to ex-cons but the idea died in this legislative session.

Read More

Connecting Early Childhood Development to Climate Change

The Connecting Early Childhood Development to Climate Change report offers practical guidance for advocates, researchers, organizers, and other communicators who can help shape conversations about climate change and child development.

FrameWorks Institute

Connecting Early Childhood Development to Climate Change

Summary

Climate change is typically framed as a future problem, but it’s already reshaping the environments where children live, grow, play, and learn. Despite that reality, public attention is rarely focused on how climate change affects children’s development—or what we can do about it.

This report, produced in partnership with the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University and Harvard Chan C-CHANGE, offers practical guidance for advocates, researchers, organizers, and other communicators who can help shape conversations about climate change and child development. It includes:

Keep ReadingShow less
The Ivory Tower is a Persisting Legacy of White Supremacy

Conservative attacks on higher education and DEI reveal a deeper fear of diversity—and the racial roots of America’s “ivory tower.”

Getty Images, izusek

The Ivory Tower is a Persisting Legacy of White Supremacy

The Trump administration and conservative politicians have launched a broad-reaching and effective campaign against higher education and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts in particular. These attacks, often amplified by neo-conservative influencers, are not simply critiques of policy or spending. At their core, they reflect anxiety over the growing presence and visibility of marginalized students and scholars within institutions that were not historically designed for them.

The phrase ivory tower has become shorthand for everything critics dislike about higher education. It evokes images of professors lost in abstract theorizing, and administrators detached from real-world problems. But there is a deeper meaning, one rooted in the racial history of academia. Whether consciously or not, the term reinforces the idea that universities are–and should remain–spaces that uphold whiteness.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Critical Value of Indigenous Climate Stewardship

As the COP 30 nears, Indigenous-led conservation offers the best hope to protect the Amazon rainforest and stabilize the global climate system.

Getty Images, photography by Ulrich Hollmann

The Critical Value of Indigenous Climate Stewardship

In August, I traveled by bus, small plane, and canoe to the sacred headwaters of the Amazon, in Ecuador. It’s a place with very few roads, yet like many areas in the rainforest, foreign business interests have made contact with its peoples and in just the last decade have rapidly changed the landscape, scarring it with mines or clearcutting for cattle ranching.

The Amazon Rainforest is rightly called the “lungs of the planet.” It stores approximately 56.8 billion metric tons of carbon, equivalent to nearly twice the world’s yearly carbon emissions. With more than 2,500 tree species that account for roughly one-third of all tropical trees on earth, the Amazon stores the equivalent to 10–15 years of all global fossil fuel emissions. The "flying rivers" generated by the forest affect precipitation patterns in the United States, as well our food supply chains, and scientists are warning that in the face of accelerating climate change, deforestation, drought, and fire, the Amazon stands at a perilous tipping point.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. President Donald Trump greeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

U.S. President Donald Trump (2R) is welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) at Ben Gurion International Airport on October 13, 2025 in Tel Aviv, Israel. President Trump is visiting the country hours after Hamas released the remaining Israeli hostages captured on Oct. 7, 2023, part of a US-brokered ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza.

Getty Imges, Chip Somodevilla

The Ceasefire That Shattered a Myth

And then suddenly, there was a ceasefire — as if by divine miracle!

Was the ceasefire declared because Israel had finally accomplished its declared goals?

Keep ReadingShow less