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RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?

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Icon wigo world alt tilted.svg Keep up to date with all the interesting world news and current events that relate to RationalWiki's mission here. The most popular entries are found at Best of the world and the older entries are found in the archives.

Voting is meant to reflect the quality and relevance of a news item — not whether said item brings good or bad news.

What is going on?

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Extra! Extra!

December 2024

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17United States San Francisco tech CEO's billboards are 'dystopian.' That's how he wants it. "Stop Hiring Humans: The Era of AI Employees Is Here"… brought to you by bots at Y-Combinator/ThielCo
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20the World Several drugs, including fentanyl, found in bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico.
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21South AfricaPoland The killer of South African anti-apartheid leader Chris Hani is slated to be deported back to Poland now that his parole has ended.
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28IsraelSyria Israel is now stealing more land in Syria
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35Syria Damascus has fallen to the rebel forces. Update: The Syrian military has announced that Assad is no longer in power, and the Syrian prime minister says he will cooperate with the rebels.
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45United States Nick Fuentes arrested after throwing a woman who showed up at his house and rang his doorbell down stairs and pepper spraying her.
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39IsraelPalestine Amnesty International releases report saying Israel is committing intentional and calculated genocide against Palestinians. Israel's Foreign Ministry calls report "entirely false".
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19United States Trump has nominated friend of J. D. Vance Daniel P. Driscoll to be Secretary of the Army and cryptocurrency lobbyist Paul S. Atkins to be chairman of the SEC. Oh, and he also nominated Humpty DumptyWikipedia to be head of the IRS.
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59United States A gunman has killed the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, one of America’s largest health insurance companies, in what appears to have been a targeted attack.
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13United States Donald Trump nominates CEO of Shift4, commercial astronaut and friend of Elon Musk, Jared Isaacman to be the next administrator of NASA.
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19United StatesTrans flag.svg Supreme Court hears arguments in challenge to gender-affirming care ban
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24United States Neo-Nazis, emboldened by Trump's Second Coming, are on the march across the US.
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23United StatesMinnesota. Trans flag.svg A crowd cheered as two transgender women were assaulted at a Minneapolis rail station.
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41South Korea South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declares martial law, claims he will eradicate "shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces", which (to Yoon) includes the opposition Democratic Party, who currently hold the majority in parliament. Update: South Korea's national assembly has voted to block Yoon's martial law decree. Update: Yoon Suk Yeol has declared martial law to be over.
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24MexicoUnited StatesTexas. Trump's tariffs on Mexico would be devastating for Texas, leading to a loss of 370,000 jobs.
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18Syria Syrian rebels retake Aleppo.
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25United States President Biden has pardoned his son Hunter for felony gun and tax-evasion convictions. Biden had previously said he would not do so.
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13United States Nearly a month after the election, the Harris campaign is continuing its fundraising efforts.
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8the World Pokémon Go Data ‘Adding Amplitude to War Is Obviously an Issue,’ Niantic Exec Says regarding their players' data-based AI model
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27United States Trump has picked vehement conspiracy theorist Kash Patel to be Director of the FBI. Kash has previously testified in court that all the classified documents Trump kept in Mar-a-Lago for over a year were declassified when he was still president, and that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen by Joe Biden.
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16United States Trump has picked Jared Kushner's father, felon Charles Kushner, to be Ambassador to France.
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24United StatesBrazilRussiaIndiaChinaSouth AfricaIranEgyptEthiopiaUnited Arab Emirates Donald Trump says he will impose a 100% tariff on the BRICSWikipedia geopolitical coalition of non-Western countries if the group moves away from trading using the U.S. dollar.

November 2024

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15United States Hal Lindsey, end times purveyor and writer of The Late Great Planet Earth, has died at 95.
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20United StatesMexico Don the Dove is poised to order an invasion of Mexico. The only debate is to how the invasion will unfold.
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22United Statesthe World Shen Yun was sued by one of their former dancers, who accused them of forced labor and human trafficking
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11United States Donald Trump appoints Great Barrington Declaration writer Jay Bhattacharya as the next NIH director.
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27IsraelLebanonUnited States Israel and Hezbollah have both agreed to an American-brokered ceasfire deal.
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18IsraelLebanonUnited States Probe shows that Israel used American-supplied bomb kit in likely deliberate attack on journalists in Lebanon.
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17United KingdomTrans flag.svg UK Supreme Court will consider whether trans women with gender-recognition paperwork should be legally considered women under the Equality Act.
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13United States At the request of special counsel Jack Smith, a federal judge has dismissed the criminal charges against Donald Trump for his attempts to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election.
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30United StatesGay Pride Flag.svg Trump's election has seen increasing numbers of women and queer people taking up firearms training and gun ownership in response.
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12United KingdomIsrael Foucault's boomerangWikipedia strikes again: British troops are using Israeli arms technology tested in Gaza.
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22United StatesMassachusetts. Massachusetts electorate votes to allow Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize.
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19United States A Marine Corps poolee has been kicked out of the USMC after admitting to having ties to Neo-Nazi groups.
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18United States Trump is refusing to sign the president-elect ethics agreement, something he is both legally required to do and also signed into law back in 2020.
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11United StatesNew York. New York judge indefinitely delays sentencing for Trump's felony convictions, will allow Trump's legal team to move to dismiss.
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22IsraelPalestine Israel sanctions Haaretz, which was basically the only Israeli news outlet to be remotely critical of Israel's conduct during the ongoing genocide. "Only democracy in the Middle East", people.
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16United StatesTennessee. Christian nationalists are descending on Jackson County, Tennessee with the aim of creating a dominionist Mecca.
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20United States The House has voted 219-184 to pass a bill that would empower the Treasury Department to eliminate the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit it unilaterally deems to be "supporting terrorism." 15 Democrats voted in favor. ACLU statement here.
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21Philippines Vice-president of the Philippines Sara Duterte, daughter of infamous Rodrigo Duterte, says she has contracted an assassin to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son of infamous dictator Ferdinand Marcos,Wikipedia should she herself be killed.
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21United StatesIllinois. An Illinoisan woman faces felony hate crime charges after harassing a man and assaulting his wife for simply wearing a hoodie with "Palestine" on it.
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19United StatesGeorgia (U.S. State). Georgia fires entire maternal morality panel after they report on abortion ban deaths.
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22Germany German Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck has died.
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26United StatesKansas. Trans flag.svg Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) has introduced the the "Defining Male and Female Act of 2024," which seeks to legally erase transgender people. The bill will likely fail due to the Democratic Senate majority, but Marshall can resubmit it next year, when the Democratic majority ends.
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20United StatesIsrael The Senate has rejected Bernie's measure to block arms sales to Israel.
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21United States Trump wants Republicans to "kill" bill that would protect journalists from intimidation.
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10United States Pam Bondi selected as Trump's new presumptive Attorney General (AG) nominee after Matt Gaetz withdrew. Bondi is Florida's former state AG & has ties to (but isn't a member of) the Church of Scientology, particularly the branch in Clearwater, FloridaWikipedia where Scientologists own a large proportion of the downtown area. Update: She also seems to have a history of lobbying for foreign governments, including having registered as a foreign agent of Qatar.
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27Brazil Jair Bolsonaro and aides indicted for their roles in the 2022 coup attempt
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27United States Matt Gaetz withdraws Attorney General nomination.
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17RussiaUkraine Russia fires intercontinental ballistic missile in attack on Ukraine, Kyiv says
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29Israelthe World ICC issues arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged Gaza war crimes. His office also claims "ICC warrant for his arrest over alleged war crimes is "antisemitic" and "absurd""
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16United StatesNorth Carolina. Republican-controlled North Carolina House of Representatives has voted to strip power from incoming Democratic governor and attorney general.
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29United StatesPalestineIsrael One of the largest unions in the US has backed Bernie's bid to block Israel arms deal.
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20the World Documents obtained and released by Greenpeace suggest the Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), which includes membership of companies ExxonMobil and Shell, was setup with the implicit goal to “change the conversation” away from plastic bans and productions caps to just recycling; the viability and effectiveness of plastic recycling has been called into serious question by environmental advocates.
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29India New Delhi declares a state of emergency due to extreme air pollution. India's National Air Quality IndexWikipedia gives a general AQI score of 50-100 as satisfactory for public health and 400-500 as severe; in the past two days the AQI score for New Delhi was at 1785.
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13United States Trump has picked Mehmet Öz as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
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24United States Trump's Secretary of Defense pick, Pete Hegseth, had been flagged as an "insider threat" by fellow service members. Hegseth has a tattoo of the phrase "Deus Vult" on his inner bicep; the phrase has significant use among far-right, Christian-nationalist, and white-supremacist groups.
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23PalestineIsrael A Gaza school burned to the ground hours after aid arrived. Witnesses say IDF soldiers were responsible for the arson.
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11United States Trump nominates Fox host Sean Duffy to serve as Secretary of Transportation.
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12Hong KongChina Hong Kong sentences 45 pro-democracy leaders to prison terms of up to 10 years
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18United States Matt Gaetz, Trump's announced nominee to lead the US Department of Justice, did reportedly pay for sex with two women, according to a lawyer representing two women who testified for the House Ethics Committee investigation. Additionally, one of the women said she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a minor, but that he learned she was underaged then stopped having sex with her. The new Senate Majority Leader supports Trump's proposed use of recess appointments in case this proves controversial.
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-17GermanyHungaryItaly Germany reiterates the country's refusal to supply long-range missiles to Ukraine. Italy and Hungary are also opposed, with the latter stating "This is not only undemocratic, but also extremely dangerous".
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-2United StatesUkraineRussiaFranceUnited KingdomSwedenFinlandNorway President Biden has authorized Ukraine to use US-supplied long-range missiles to strike military targets further within Russian territory. Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer agree with the decision and will send some of their missiles to Ukraine as well. Putin responded by saying that he will "take the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face". Sweden, Norway & Finland have issued pamphlets discussing what citizens should do if the war escalates to their countries.
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16United StatesAfghanistan Trump is compiling list of military officers involved in US withdrawal from Afghanistan, despite the fact that Trump was the one who negotiated the withdrawal in the first place.
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20GermanyRussiaUkraine After 2 years of silence, German Chancellor Scholz has started negotiations with Putin about Ukraine, telling him that he "should be open to negotiating with Ukraine". Putin, on the other hand, demanded that "any peace deal should acknowledge Russia's territorial gains" and that that "Kiev should renounce joining the NATO".
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25United States Mike Johnson wants to keep "potentially damaging" Ethics Panel report about Matt Gaetz a secret.
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20United States Trump-appointed judge blocks new Biden rule that would have expanded overtime protections for millions of workers.
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21IsraelPalestineUnited Nations The UNGA votes in favour to affirm Palestinian's right to self determination. Among those voting against are the usual suspects and Argentina.
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25the World Since Musk became part of Trump presidency, several companies and organisations have left 𝕏 due to the site's toxicity and disinformation; including newspapers The Guardian and La Vanguardia, German football club St Pauli, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, Austrian Airlines & Clifton Suspension Bridge.
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6United States Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
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27United StatesPalestineIsrael Bernie Sanders has announced that a vote to block "certain offensive weapons sales" to Israel is in the works.
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29United States Dennis Prager, the founder of PragerU, has been hospitalized because of a back injury.
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61United States The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars site out of bankruptcy, plans to turn it into a parody of itself
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5United States Trump has picked Florida Sen. Marco Rubio as Secretary of State.
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7United States Trump has picked Matt Gaetz (who had been under investigation for alleged sexual misconduct) as Attorney General and Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.
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19United States Trump announces his Secretary of Defense will be Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who previously refused to wash his hands for ten years and denied germs exist since he can't see them.
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23IsraelPalestineUnited States Israel has failed to comply with the US' humanitarian access demands in Gaza, Refugee International reports
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35United States The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is seeking to take over party leadership amid the fallout of the Harris campaign's electoral loss.
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6United States Trump has picked dog killer and South Dakota governor Kristi Noem to be Secretary of Homeland Security.
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9United States Trump has picked ex-Arkansas governor and evangelical theocrat Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel.
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7United States Trump has picked Elise Stefanik as Ambassador to the U.N. under his administration, and Lee Zeldin as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Good grief.
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29United States Trump's plans for day one of his new presidency include mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, pardoning January 6th coup participants, rolling back protections for transgender youth in schools, and ending the criminal cases against him.
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31United Nationsthe World Lead executive for COP29 climate change conference caught on camera facilitating oil and gas deals for event. This is the second year in a row that event officials have been found striking fossil fuel deals.
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28Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz's fragile coalition government has collapsed after he fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the Free Democratic Party. Scholz says there will be a confidence vote on 15 January and elections in March.
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17United States It appears that for the second time, Trump has prevented the US from having their first female President. Unlike Trump, his opponent will concede the race.
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17United Statesthe World "You can’t hide, because we’re constantly looking" says the director of the National Reconnaissance Office, which is working with SpaceX to create a network of at least 100 satellites to monitor American adversaries around the world.
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27United StatesTennessee. Tennessee Neo-Nazi has been caught attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction to destroy an energy facility.
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46Palestine The situation in north Gaza is "apocalyptic" as the whole population is at risk of imminent death, warns the UN.
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41United States As data centers for AI strain the power grid, bills rise for everyday customers: The huge demand for electricity from data centers driving the AI boom has fallout for everyday ratepayers. Regulators are concerned.
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23United Kingdom A Polish man living in the UK, has been sentenced for 2½ years under the Terrorism Act for claiming to be part of the Wagner Group, and wearing its insignia during a Viking re-enactment.

October 2024

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31the WorldUnited States Comparing Deaths from Gun Violence in the U.S. with Other Countries: Several US states have higher incidences of gun deaths than countries with active armed gangs, e.g. each of Mississippi, Alabama, New Mexico, Missouri, Alaska, Wyoming, Kentucky, Indiana, Colorado, Idaho, North Dakota > Haiti
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42the World 𝕏 has become such a dumpster fire that AP reports that investment firm Fidelity has just valued it at $9.4 billion, lower than Trump's TruthSocial valued at $10 billion. Update: TruthSocial stocks, which in the past few weeks have been traded on perceived results for the upcoming election, have just tumbled in value by 41%.
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35United KingdomEnglandWales It becomes a criminal offence to provoke, harass or try to influence people seeking to terminate pregnancies within a radius of 150 metres (492 feet) outside of abortion clinics in England and Wales.
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18Spain At least 95 killed and dozens missing in Spain’s flash floods (Update: A week later, at least 217 dead, 89 missing.)
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19France Health minister Geneviève Darrieussecq says she is planning to ban snus-like nicotine pouches, as they are causing a growing unnecessary nicotine addiction among teenagers.
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32IsraelPalestineUnited Nations The Israeli parliament votes to ban UNRWA from operating within Israeli-controlled territory or cooperating with its officials, effectively attempting to destroy what is left of the Palestinian welfare provision and humanitarian aid.
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27IsraelPalestineUnited StatesUnited Nations The US presses Israel for answers after a strike in a residential block in Gaza kills at least 93. According to Gaza health ministry, the death toll of the genocide has surpassed 43,000.
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37Russia A Russian court has ordered a fine of 2 undecillion Russian rubles (2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ₽, US$22.1 decillion) against Google because it blocked 17 Russian state propaganda outlets including RT and Rossiya-1 on YouTube.
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30the World The IMF says global fight against inflation is "almost won", projecting that prices will rise by about 3,5% in 2025, below than the 2000-2019 average. Not everything looks good though, especially in the longer term, with trade wars, global conflicts, a sluggish China and deteriorating conditions in Europe and Latin America resulting in a much murkier scenario by the end of the decade.
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41United Kingdom Tommy Robinson has been jailed for 18 months.
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54New Zealand Over 50% of Kiwis now have no identifiable religious beliefs according to the latest census data.
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38United Kingdom A man has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for using AI to turn innocent photographs of real children into paedophilic child abuse images. This is the first conviction of using artificial intelligence to create child pornography.
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35United StatesRussia The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reports that Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin for the past two years.
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25Australia Candace Owens has been refused an Australian Visa, and thus entry to Australia, ahead of her national speaking tour.
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15IsraelIran Israel says it launched 'targeted' air strikes on Iran.
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25United States Investigative website ProPublica revealed that firearm rebate and warranty cards have been used since the 1970s, have been potential illegally used by gun manufacturers to help lobby for more liberal gun laws.
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35the WorldUnited Nations The UN has warned that the 1.5° C warming goal set by the Paris Climate Agreement is already out of reach.
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17United StatesTexas. Trans flag.svg West Texas city enacts total transgender bathroom ban.
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26IsraelPalestine A public opinion survey poll released by the Israeli Democracy Institute on the anniversary of October 7th has found that only 6% of Israelis support ending the "war" in Gaza because of its great humanitarian costs.
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25New Zealand Over 60 New Zealand followers of the "sovereign citizens" movement lose their firearms licences for no longer meeting the requirements of NZ Firearms legislation - mostly due to no longer being "fit and proper persons". Predictably, US-based pro-gun lobbyists see it as a warning against firearms registration.
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35North KoreaSouth KoreaUkraineRussia After North Korea has sent some of its troops to Russia as mercenaries for the Russian government, the South Korean government is considering sending some of its technical staff to Ukraine.
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29the WorldThe Internet Archive is back up as read-only. Unfortunately, it appears that the hacker still has access to the Archive's systems. UPDATE: And it's down again.
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25IsraelPalestine "That land belongs to us." Far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir has demanded the resettlement of Gaza and the transfer of all Gazan citizens to other countries.
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28United StatesFlorida. Top attorneys for Ron DeSantis threatened to criminally prosecute local TV stations over the airing of an abortion rights ad. One DeSantis lawyer has already quit over the matter. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the DeSantis administration from intimidating and coercing television stations, stating in his restraining order that "it's the First Amendment, stupid"
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30Cuba Fuel shortages, rapidly aging infrastructure, and the failure of a key power plant causes Cuba's electrical grid to go offline, plunging the island into darkness. Radio Habana Cuba reports that a comprehensive plan is underway to fix this crisis, and emphasizes "the need to involve the non-state sector in the collective effort to save, even with the collection of non-subsidized rates according to their profit levels", whatever the fuck that means.
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35United States Independent journalist Ken Klippenstein has received a visit from the FBI for his publishing of the Trump campaign's internal JD Vance evaluation.
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41United States Teen smoking in the US, including of electronic cigarettes, dropped 20% from last year and has hit an all-time low.
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18United StatesFlorida. Ron DeSantis has remade New College of Florida, causing "nearly 40% of the faculty" to resign. Now the college is inviting a white supremacist and eugenicist as a guest speaker.
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26IsraelPalestine Israel says it can confirm that its forces killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Israeli troops apparently encountered him unknowingly in a shootout and then only realized who it was after examining the corpses left after the battle. Update: Hamas confirms Sinwar's death, pledges to fight on.
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21United States Boffins are looking into whether the wonder drug du jour semaglutide, also known as Ozempic or Wegovy, could be used to assist the treatment those with alcohol and drug addiction after a study found those who took the drug had reduction of up 50% in alcohol and drug overdoses.
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18Canada Trudeau testifies during an inquiry that multiple Conservative Party politicians, as well as a few politicians from all other parties, are actively involved in or at high risk of foreign interference. Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre calls the testimony an outright lie; Poilievre notably refuses to go through the federal security clearance process, as other party leaders have, to view the intelligence information being reported, saying that doing so would prevent him from questioning or challenging it.
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26IsraelLebanonUnited Nations The IDF has fired on UN peacekeepers in Lebanon.
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33Palestine The Palestinian man photographed burning alive in his own tent as a result of the Israeli Tent Massacre has been identified as the 19 year old software engineer Sha'ban al-Dalou.
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18United StatesIsrael Biden envoy reportedly told aid groups that Israel was "too close an ally" to impose an arms embargo on.
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36United StatesTrans flag.svg Anti-trans woman with no hair devastated when she faced anti-trans harassment herself in a Chicago airport restroom.
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32UkraineRussiaNorth Korea Ukraine's President Zelensky has said that North Korea has actually joined the Ukrainian War by suppling personnel in battle line in Russia's Kursk region. However in the last 24 hours, Ukrainian intelligence has reported eighteen defections of North Koreans.
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25United States Liftoff! NASA’s Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter
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23United States ICE is giving civilians firearms training to cosplay as anti-immigrant vigilantes. This training includes how to conduct surveillance and use lethal force. All of this is a propaganda stunt to counter ICE's bad press.
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11SpainItaly DNA tests show that Christopher Columbus was probably a Sephardi Jew
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29PalestineIsrael The genocide in Gaza has left over 50,000 children orphaned or separated from their parents.
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12United States Europa ClipperWikipedia launch delayed by Hurricane Milton.
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28United States Retired US army general and former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, calls Trump "fascist to the core" and "the most dangerous person to the country", according to a soon-to-be released book by prominent journalist Bob Woodward.
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28Russia In a spectacular example of "totalitarian regime fails to think a new censorship policy through", Russia has decided to ban Discord... even though the Russian military uses it to coordinate communications. Milbloggers predictably aren't especially pleased with Roskomnadzor, since this genius decision threatens to throw Russian military communications in Ukraine into disarray.
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46the World The Editors Protecting Wikipedia from AI Hoaxes: WikiProject AI Cleanup is protecting Wikipedia from the same kind of misleading AI-generated information that has plagued the rest of the internet. Wikipedia editors are fighting against its enshittification
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5Russia Putin demolishes Black Sea retreat amid drone fears This was the palace that Putin built on the Black Sea and that was doxxed by the late Alexei Navalny.
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22United States McDonald's sues the top meat-packing companies in the United States, alleging they colluded to artificially inflate the price of beef.
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43FranceIsrael Macron calls for halting of arms shipments to Israel.
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11the World Researchers have taught AI to exhibit pareidolia.
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36IrelandLebanonIsrael The IDF is using Irish peacekeepers in Lebanon as human shields.
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21United StatesFlorida. Hurricane Milton quickly became one of the strongest hurricanes in history. It's likely to cause especially severe damage in the Tampa area, which for a long time was flagged as one of the "most at-risk areas on the globe." It had at least one meteorologist crying on TV!
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17United StatesMissouri. Trans flag.svg Missouri called J. Michael Bailey as an expert witness to defend the state's trans medicine ban. Things went a bit off-topic as on the stand he started defending convicted serial child molester Jerry Sandusky, citing a podcast he listened to as evidence Sandusky's accusers were lying. The court also examined Bailey's research history which included Reddit threads as scientific evidence. According to LGBTQ Nation the US Supreme Court will rule on the topic this autumn.
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34United StatesIsraelIran The US bribes Israel not to strike certain targets in Iran.
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5United StatesGeorgia (U.S. State). The Georgia Supreme Court has temporarily restored the state's near-total ban on abortions while it considers the constitutionality of the ban.
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21United States FEMA refutes rumors surrounding its Hurricane Helene response. (Another rumor that FEMA wasn't offering over $750 in aid was also refuted elsewhere.) The hurricane has been the most deadly for the mainland United States since Hurricane Katrina, and a second is coming right on its heels.
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22United KingdomTrans flag.svg NHS trans care officials speak at anti-trans hate group SEGM's conference
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19United StatesTexas. Trans flag.svg The Texas Department of Public Safety may begin reverting trans people's valid drivers licenses.
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12United States The anti-extremist Institute for Strategic DialogueWikipedia reports that American neo-Nazis like the Atomwaffen Division are moving away from Telegram to another platform SimpleX, due to the fact it allows completely anonymous communications.
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25United StatesColorado. Election-denier Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk, was sentenced to 9 years in prison for helping a man associated with Mike Lindell (the MyPillow guy) hack into voting machines after the 2020 election.
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29European UnionTrans flag.svg European court strengthens trans rights by making document changes simplified and compatible between nations that are European Union member states.
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14United States American documentarian Cullen Hoback claims to have identified the creator of Bitcoin, the pseudonymous "Satoshi Nakamoto". The alleged findings are to be presented in a new HBO documentary he produced. (Another one he made, Q Into the Storm,Wikipedia had an interview where Ron Watkins seemed to inadvertently admit to being 8chan's QAnon.)
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21United StatesUtah. Book ban activists in Utah, not satisfied with purging school libraries, now target "Little Free Libraries", free-standing outdoor cabinets for book-sharing. They would like the owners of these installations arrested for "distributing pornography".
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-16MoldovaRussia Moldova claims Russia is spending tens of millions of dollars worth to sway a referendum on whether Moldova joins the European Union. (Russia would prefer if they didn't, obviously.)
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44LebanonIsrael Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah agreed to temporary ceasefire days before assassination, according to the foreign minister of Lebanon.
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19United StatesTexas. Texas's power grid will finally connect to the rest of the US. The fact that it wasn't was a big part of the reason why the 2021 Texas power crisisWikipedia was such a disaster.
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23United StatesOklahoma. The MAGA grift continues: The criteria for Oklahoma's "Bible in all classrooms" mandate has been specifically designed so that only Donald Trump's expensive $60 or $90 "Bible" versionsWikipedia qualify.
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29United States The US port strike has ended, at least temporarily. The International Longshoremen’s Association has agreed to have its workers return to their jobs on October 4 after a tentative deal was reached.
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30United States Federal judge allows temporary restraining order to expire, possibly allowing tens of millions of people's student loan debt to be relieved by the Biden administration.
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28United KingdomMauritius United Kingdom cedes the Indian Ocean territory of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. The deal retains the UK-US military base on the islands. Previously the UK ethnically cleansed the indigenous residents in the expulsion of the Chagossians.Wikipedia In 2019, the International Court of Justice and United Nations ruled the UK had no sovereignty over the islands and should transfer their control to Mauritius.
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45IsraelUnited Nations Israel bans UN chief Guterres from entering the country
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32Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's first female president, took office on October 1, 2024.
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49LebanonIsrael Israeli settlers are already planning to colonize southern Lebanon, and have shared ads for properties to that effect.
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54IranIsrael Iran launches major missile attack on Israel
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14United StatesMontana. Montana man sentenced to six months in prison for cloning hybrid sheep
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62United StatesCalifornia. More ghoulishness from California as California cities crack down on homelessness. Santa Monica is seeking to ban sleeping bags. Fresno has banned camping anywhere within city limits, even when no shelter is available. Multiple other localities are either dusting off old camping bans that haven't been enforced in years, or adding more punitive measures to camping regulations even in localities where camping hasn't been explicitly prohibited.
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45United StatesGeorgia (U.S. State). Jimmy Carter is still alive at 100 years old, making him the first ex-president to reach triple digits