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RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?/July 2024
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July 2024[edit]
   | 70 |  NASA Mars rover has found the first "compelling detection" of a potential fossilized biosignature on the Red Planet. |
| 44 |   Israel has killed yet another journalist alongside a cameraman in an attack on a Palestinian refugee camp, bringing the number of journalists killed by Israel to at minimum 111 and likely even higher than that. |
| 20 |  After the 2024 Southport stabbing, misinformation about the perpetrator's nationality and immigration status spread online, aided by high-profile reactionary accounts such as those of Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate. This resulted in a large crowd of far-right anti-Muslim protesters targeting a Southport mosque and clashing with police, reportedly injuring more than 50 police officers. |
| 22 |  Got him: Israel has assassinated Hamas' top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. |
| 25 | 
The British Medical Association (BMA) has voted in favour of a resolution to publicly critique the Cass Review and its poor methodology and lack of understanding of the available research. The BMA also happens to own the BMJ journal Cass's systematic reviews were published in. (BMA press release.) |
| 14 |   Louisiana electric companies pressure the state to let them charge energy-saving customers for lost profits. |
| 13 |  Humza Yousaf has written to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper requesting the English Defence League to be designated as a terrorist organisation after riots outside a mosque following the July 30 stabbing of 11 children in Southport, Merseyside. The Mosque had nothing to do with the stabbings and the 17-year-old Welsh stabber has no known ties to Islam. |
| 13 |  
Insurgent groups in Colombia, including the Marxist-Leninist FARC, are reportedly mass murdering LGBT people and already killed dozens of trans women in particular. |
| 63 | A violent mob of Israeli citizens and elected politicians has stormed an IDF military base holding imprisoned IDF soldiers accused of torturing and raping Palestinian prisoners in an effort to free them. |
| 36 | The director of Project 2025 - a controversial policy blueprint for the next Republican administration - has stepped down from his role at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. Update: The group is reported to be "winding down" under pressure from the Trump campaign and employees are also instructed to claim the project had nothing to do with Trump. |
| -30 | Radical preacher Anjem Choudary has been sentenced to life imprisonment (with parole possible after 28 years) after he was found guilty of directing a banned terror group. Choudary had previously been jailed for encouraging people to support ISIS. |
| 35 | Kevin Roberts, the architect of Project 2025, has close ties to the radical conservative Catholic group Opus Dei |
| 30 | 54 Labour MPs have set-up a YIMBY caucus called the "Labour Growth Group", to push for growth in housing and infrastructure. |
| -31 |    Putin has been threatening to put long-range missiles that would strike throughout the EU, after the US announced their plans to put their missiles in Germany in early 2026. They really want this shit to come back, don't they? |
| 18 | Tommy Robinson vs. the English courts: flouts injunction by showing his 'documentary' during rally in central London.
Update. He has now apparently left the UK the day before he was due to appear at the high court in London and an arrest warrant has been issued for him. |
| 3 |  Ohio Supreme Court rules that "boneless" chicken wings can contain bones. The case came about because someone got a bone from a "boneless" wing stuck in their throat, requiring surgery. According to the ruling, "A diner reading ‘boneless wings’ on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the items than believe that the items were made from chicken wings, just as a person eating ‘chicken fingers’ would know that he had not been served fingers" |
| 10 |  Sky News Australia may be renamed Fox News Australia next year. As according to the local press, Comcast who own the Sky News brand don't want to re-license it to Murdoch's News Corp Australia. |
| 54 |  Venezuela, even though it is one of the biggest oil producing countries in the world, has refining problems and had to import petrol from Iran. Unfortunately the quality of the petrol is so bad due to the low octane, which has led to breaking and even exploding vehicles. This is, in part, the result of years of crippling sanctions imposed by the US, which may be lifted depending on the result of tomorrow's election. |
| 58 |  The UK has quietly dropped its opposition to the planned arrest warrant for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant. |
| 28 | She's back! Kim Davis together with far-right legal firm Liberty Counsel, has petitioned the SCOTUS to overturn Obergefell v Hodges [marriage equality]. |
| 62 |   Xitter has without notice, started to train its Grok AI tool on everyone's data. |
| -21 |  Pentagon finds $2 billion in Ukraine aid accounting errors. This means more aid can now be sent than expected. |
| 35 |  Texas sues the federal government to stop provision of birth control to teenagers without need for parental consent. |
| 37 |  Michigan is latest to ban criminal defense of "gay panic" and "trans panic". Here's a non-WaPo and therefore non-paywall version |
| 21 | Gateway Pundit bankruptcy filing dismissed by a judge, ruling that it was filed in bad faith |
| 45 |  Protests in Poland against the country's restrictive abortion law and the government coalition's failure to repeal it due to center-right parties in the coalition. |
| 19 |  Crackdowns on anti-government protests in Bangladesh result in Internet blackout and leave at least 150 dead. |
| 11 |   Iraq bans the Kurdistan Workers’ Party as they strengthen their relations with Turkey. |
| 23 | VDARE possibly closing due to legal pressure from alleged abuse of nonprofit status |
| 19 | US Congressional Budget Office: "An increase in immigration over the 2021–2026 period … lower(s) deficits, on net, by $0.9 trillion over the 2024–2034 period." However, "CBO's estimates of the effects of the immigration surge on the federal budget and the economy are very uncertain." They explain immigration can boost revenues by increasing overall economic activity and via immigrants paying taxes. |
| 53 | Hamas and Fatah agree to form a future government together, in a reconciliation attempt arranged by China between the two major Palestinian factions. |
| 14 | Labour suspends 7 MPs for voting to abolish the two-child benefit cap. The Independent: "The two-child benefit cap prevents parents from claiming universal credit or tax credit for their third child. It was introduced by the Conservatives and came into place in April 2017." |
| 15 | Kim Cheatle resigns as Secret Service Director following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. |
| 12 |   Thousands flee Jasper National Park due to surging wildfires |
| 0 | Mattel has launched a visually impaired Barbie. |
| 24 | After a disastrous election, the Conservatives are now facing a disastrous summer party conference with a number of businesses staying away which is not good for party finances. |
| 76 | Biden announces he is dropping out of the presidential race, and has endorsed Kamala Harris to replace him. |
| 16 | The US claims that the ICJ ruling may complicate the peace process between Israel and Palestine. |
| 54 |
UK's Labour reportedly intends to ban conversion therapy. |
| 14 |  Leader of the Vietnamese Communist Party dies. |
| 61 | A faulty antivirus update distributed by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has caused the largest IT outage in history, causing billions in damages in the travel, banking, and healthcare industries with no clear end in sight. The issue specifically affects Windows systems, which need to be brought in order manually. |
| -19 |  Ukraine has decided to stop oil flows through the Druzhba pipeline from Russia to Central Europe, which goes through Ukraine. This has sparked outrage from Hungary’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, as it gets much of its oil through this pipeline. |
| 25 | Teamsters union VP John Palmer announces he will try to replace Sean O'Brien as the union's President, after O'Brien gave a speech at the RNC. |
| 19 | Massive British doctors' union, the British Medical Association, debates response to the Cass report, and one denied report claimed they may be considering disavowing it. Cass relied heavily on systematic reviews that were published in the BMA union's own BMJ journals, and which have since been criticized for their methodology. |
| 41 | Israel to begin drafting Haredi Jews into the military on 21 July, amidst war with Gaza. Resistance to the draft could topple Netanyahu's government coalition since it relies on cooperation with Haredi parties. |
| 52 | UN top court says Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal. |
| 16 | Five Just Stop Oil campaigners have been sentenced to 4–5 years in prison for blocking the M25 in November 2022, the longest sentences ever given for peaceful protests since the Conservative government put legal restrictions on protests. As the sentencing notes, their decision to block the highway led to multiple people suffering severe medical events and endangered the lives and health of people for who the delays resulted in being unable to receive necessary medical care. |
| 13 |  Sue Mi Terry, wife of Max Boot, has been charged with espionage and working as a foreign agent for South Korea by the DOJ. |
| 15 | Ex-CNN anchor and Trump fanboy Lou Dobbs has died. |
| 19 |  Key Largo tree cactus becomes first US species extinct due to rising sea levels |
| 28 | South Korea's supreme court rules that same-sex couples are eligible to receive the same health insurance benefits as heterosexual couples. The ruling is final and cannot be appealed. |
| 33 |  Federal jury finds Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) guilty on all counts in his criminal bribery and obstruction case. |
| 30 |   A Kenyan court has found that the death of acclaimed Pakistani journalist Arshad Sharif was an assassination possibly sponsored by the Pakistani government, and that he was tortured before his death at the hands of the Kenyan police. |
| -10 | Federal judge dismisses classified documents mishandling case against Trump. The judge didn't rule on whether the handling of documents was proper or not. Update: Dismissal will be appealed. |
| 17 | Pakistani government intends to ban the largest opposition party. |
| 62 | Assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania; the ex-President/candidate only grazed on ear, but one bystander killed and three injured. The shooter was registered Republican Thomas Matthew Crooks. |
| 51 | A preserved woolly mammoth genome is reported in Cell and some people want to use it to revive the mammoths. Maybe we can hunt them to extinction a second time. |
| 54 | The UN projects that the global human population will peak at 10.3 billion in the 2080s and then begin to decrease. Meanwhile, global life expectancy has begun to climb again for the first time since the COVID pandemic. |
| 62 | Rabies is all but eliminated in every part of the world but Africa and Asia, which still suffer tens of thousands of fatalities. An international vaccination effort now seeks to eliminate cases of this lethal disease in humans by 2030. |
| 8 | 
Burkina Faso's military junta has criminalised homosexual acts. |
| -29 | FBI disrupts an online, AI-driven disinformation campaign backed by the Russian government. It involved around 1,000 X/Twitter accounts and other than the US, "spread disinformation to countries including Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine and Israel." |
| 55 |  The Green Party has made a formal complaint about the BBC’s lack of coverage of the party during its elections coverage and results. |
| 27 |  New Zealand anti-fluoride groups ordered to pay NZ$40,000 in costs after an attempt to prevent a local council reintroducing fluoride is lost. |
| 56 |  Brazilian police indict former president Jair Bolsonaro for embezzling $1.2 million worth of Saudi jewelry. |
| 58 | "Gay furry hackers" (SiegedSec) claim to have hacked the Heritage Foundation for making Project 2025. Update: Director of the Heritage Foundation's "Oversight Project" contacted one of the hackers and called him a pervert, then said he'll get "pounded in the ass" in prison. Then SiegedSec disbanded. |
| 24 | How batshit insane are the rich in 2024? Here's a Bloomberg article (archive) on the estate law aspects of cryonically freezing your head and trying to keep all your money in the process. |
| 55 |
The Polish government has introduced a bill to its agenda that would allow same-sex civil partnerships. |
| 45 | A U.S. study has found lead, arsenic, mercury, nickel, copper, iron, and other toxic metals in tampons. We do not know what 13 brands the study examined. |
| 57 | Things are getting better with news that the Tate Brothers Andrew and Tristan, are now under investigation by Devon & Cornwall police for tax evasion |
| 61 | Ed Miliband, the energy security secretary, has lifted the nine-year moratorium on building on-shore wind turbines. |
| -32 | Russia has executed one of the largest missile strikes on several cities in Ukraine to date. One of them striking a major children’s hospital, causing the deaths of at least 29 people, and a maternity hospital in central Kyiv killing seven. |
| 50 |   Massive floods in Indian subcontinent; monsoon season is too early and heavier than usual. Climate change is to be suspected as a culprit. |
| 54 | The experiment of a 'four day week' at South Cambridgeshire Council is a significant success - reducing costs and improving service metrics. Even better; due to the early general election, the ideologically-based attacks on it from the Conservative controlled central government are most likely to be at an end. |
| 23 |   Japan and the Philippines sign a defense pact amid tensions with China. |
| 24 |  Pope Francis excommunicates a conservative bishop who promoted conspiracy theories and called the Pope a "servant of Satan". |
| 17 | AI-powered, bullet-dispensing vending machines. Because 'Murica. |
| 10 |  Matteo Salvini has formally renamed one of Italy’s major airports as Silvio Berlusconi Milan Malpensa airport. Personality cult? |
| -26 |  Putin: the Taliban are "our allies in the fight against terrorism". |
| 40 | Keir Starmer officially takes office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. |
| 33 | After the SCOTUS ruling granting Trump partial immunity, AOC has released plans indicating she intends to impeach Supreme Court justices. UPDATE: Articles of impeachment have officially been filed against Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. |
| 21 | It has been revealed that one of the biggest backers of George Galloway is none other than Tristan Tate, brother of Andrew Tate.
|
| 24 | Transcripts from 2006 in the Jeffrey Epstein case were released on 1 July and show what prosecutors knew before cutting a deal with him. |
| 10 |  Ecotricity founder and chief executive Dale Vince is suing Paul Staines of Guido Fawkes for libel, after the website's owner accused Vince of supporting Hamas during a radio interview. |
| 3 | Supreme Court asked if Trump had immunity from the law as President. They said he is immune, but this only applies to official acts. Decision is 6-3 on ideological lines. |