Biden Gives Parting Commutation To Prominent Native Activist

On Monday, moments before Donald Trump’s inauguration, President Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of American Indian Movement activist Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison for nearly 50 years, from two life sentences to home confinement. In a press release, Biden said: “This commutation will enable Mr. Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes.” An internal FBI memo from 1972 showed that the agency planned to target AIM activists, referring to them as “violence-prone individuals.” In 1977, Peltier, a member of the Lakota tribe who was a prominent activist for Native American rights, was convicted of killing two FBI agents, Ronald Williams and Jack Coler, and given two life sentences.

The weather in Washington, DC, has plunged into the 20s, with a 40 percent chance of snow showers—and a 100 percent chance of bumping into someone who voted for Donald Trump. Our DC bureau chief, David Corn, bundled up against the chill and braved the slushy queues to speak with ecstatic Trump supporters who began attending a series of celebrations in the capital yesterday.

The American people have spoken. Donald Trump is the 47th president of the United States. At noon Monday, Trump himself spoke, swearing—not especially credibly—that he would “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” A lot of other Americans spoke to get us here, too. More than four years ago, at the very same Capitol where Trump was just sworn in, his supporters spoke.

Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood and a staunch advocate for reproductive rights, died Monday, according to a statement from her family. Since 2023, she battled glioblastoma, a form of terminal brain cancer. She was 67. “This morning our beloved Cecile passed away at home, surrounded by her family and her ever-loyal dog, Ollie,” her family—husband Kirk and kids Lily, Hannah, and Daniel—wrote.

By COLLEEN LONG and ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday pardoned Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, in an extraordinary use of the powers of the presidency in his final hours to guard against potential “revenge” by the incoming Trump administration. The decision by Biden comes after Donald Trump warned of an enemies list filled with those who have crossed him politically or sought to hold him accountable for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and his role in the storming of the U.

This story, first published in January 2022 by the Inside Climate News, is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Terms like “environmental racism” or “environmental justice” were not yet part of the national lexicon when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. And while insider records reveal that the nation’s oil and gas lobby was being briefed that same year on the dangers of rising greenhouse gas emissions, the term “global warming” wasn’t credited with being coined until 1975, seven years after the civil rights leader’s death. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” King wrote.