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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June 2025

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7United StatesNew VA rules allow for doctors and other healthcare providers to refuse care based on political beliefs and marriage status.
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8United StatesTrump is shuttering the only federal agency that investigates industrial chemical explosions.
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36United StatesWhile Trump threw a military parade to celebrate his birthday, millions of participants took part in hundreds of protests against him and his regime across the US.
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27United StatesMinnesota. Gunman dressed as a police officer kills one Minnesota state representative and her husband and injures another and his wife. Update: Preliminary reports indicate that the perpetrator, who reportedly moonlighted as a missionary evangelical pastor, had a list of many other targets, which included Democratic politicians, abortion providers, and pro-choice advocates.
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29United Statesthe District of Columbia. Tennessee. CCM star Michael Tait, founder of DC Talk, frontman of Newsboys, and singer of "God's Not Dead", has basically admitted to sexually assaulting numerous men.
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19United KingdomScotlandSir Geoff Palmer, Scotland's first Black professor, a "courageous voice for justice and equality" and winner of the American Society of Brewing Chemists Award of Distinction ("the Nobel prize of the beer world"), dies at age 85.
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28IsraelIranIsrael has engaged in an act of aggression and war and attacked Iran's missile and nuclear sites and assassinated multiple top military officials and countless civilians.
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23United StatesICE has been given the go-ahead to conduct warrantless arrests.
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26United StatesNew York. A retrial of Harvey Weinstein has found him to be guilty of sexual assault.
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17United StatesDisney and Universal are suing the AI image-generation company MidJourney for copyright infringement.
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24the WorldTrans flag.svg Fossil fuel billionaires are bankrolling the global transphobic movement.
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19United KingdomSpainGibraltarEuropean UnionBritain and Spain agree to a post-Brexit deal that would allow for the free travel of goods and people between Gibraltar and the Schengen Area.
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16United StatesUnited KingdomAustralia According to the FT, the Pentagon is considering scrapping AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.
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21United Kingdom A Daily Telegraph hit piece on the application of adding 20% VAT on private schools, has been discovered to be completely false and AI was used to create the profile of the family in question.
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27United StatesRobert F. Kennedy Jr. breaks his confirmation hearing promise to senators and fires all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the CDC on vaccine scheduling. Update: Eight replacements have been named; predictably, this includes the alternative medicine promoting conspiracist Robert W. Malone and the fringe epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff.
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15AustriaGunman kills 9 in Austria school shooting. Update: The tally is now eleven, including the killer himself, a 21-year-old former student, who used his own weapons.
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18IsraelAustraliaUnited KingdomCanadaNew ZealandNorwayAustralia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Norway have jointly sanctioned Israeli cabinet members Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, due to "repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities" and statements made supporting the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
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19the WorldChatGPT is down.
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15United Kingdom The UK's Financial Conduct Authority issues new guidance warning mortgage borrowers about firms pushing freeman on the land defences.
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15United Kingdom Former midwife turned COVID-19 denialist and anti-vax conspiracy theorist Seana Kerr struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
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28United States Protests against ICE raids began in the Los Angeles area and have spread throughout the country after Trump and Pete Hegseth deployed the National Guard. The US Marines have also been deployed. SEIU labor union leader David Huerta was arrested by ICE, now released on $50,000 bail; some solidarity protests in other cities, like the one in Boston, have significant SEIU presence.
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27United Statesthe District of Columbia. Cop who leaked information to the Proud Boys has been sentenced to prison.
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23PalestineIsraelIsrael has intercepted the Freedom Flotilla aid ship that was bound for Gaza. Greta Thunberg and the others onboard have been detained.
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21United KingdomTrans flag.svg Hillary Cass, the doctor behind the infamous Cass Review, is getting sued.
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13United States Court rules in favor of Trump in case brought by the Associated Press, who were compelled to say "Gulf of America" instead of "Gulf of Mexico" if they wanted White House press pool access. The case may be appealed.
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30United Kingdom In a timely development, British scientists have created the world's smallest violin.
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39United States Trump and Musk to have a nasty divorce, fight over kids. Musk claims Trump is in the Epstein files, Trump threatens to sell the sports car scrap SpaceX contracts, and Elon pre-empts him by announcing he will smash it himself the dismantling of the Dragon capsule.
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36RussiaUkraineUkraine launches massive drone strike deep in Russia, damaging Russia's nuclear bomber capabilities
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22BulgariaEuropean UnionRussia And now there are 21 countries. The European Commission has given the green light for Bulgaria to join the single European currency on the 1st January 2026, replacing the lev with the euro. However, it has also been revealed that Russians have been acting as agents provocateurs in anti-euro protests in the country's capital, Sofia.
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26Russia Russia lists the video game company that owns World of Tanks as an "extremist organization". (The Taliban was recently de-listed.)
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22the World AI chatbots are suddenly driving a bunch of people crazy in a very specific way, making them think they're a god or they created a god.
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18United States Elon Musk calls Trump's spending bill a "disgusting abomination". One of his main contentions is it would raise the national debt. According to ABC, Musk is privately upset at a number of other recent decisions by the Trump administration and allies in Congress. Rand Paul is with Musk, and Trump isn't happy.
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19IsraelPalestine Israel labels the roads to aid stations "combat zones".
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10United StatesGay Pride Flag.svg Defense Secretary Hegseth orders Navy to strip name of gay rights icon Harvey Milk from ship.
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25United StatesPuerto RicoNon-binary Pride Flag.png Puerto Rico Supreme Court allows people to change the gender marker on their birth certificate to "X".
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38United Kingdom Due to littering and issues with targeting teenagers, single-use vapes such as Elfbars and Lost Marys have been banned in the UK.

May 2025

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38United StatesElon Musk allegedly took loads of illegal drugs while advising Trump.
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30United StatesIllinois. Illinois bans the police from ticketing students for minor infractions in schools.
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12Algeriathe WorldThe transvestigators get their way as ciswoman athlete Imane Khelif has been ordered to undergo mandatory sex testing by World Boxing.
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10United StatesThe State Department will launch the "Office of Remigration," which has its roots in a concept popularized by European Neo-Nazis.
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8United StatesCalifornia. Gruesome Newsom wants to means test low-income and disabled applicants for the Medi-Cal program.
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13the World AIs have sometimes refused to shut down when instructed. I think I've seen how this ends!
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29United States Elon Musk leaves the Trump administration.
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29United States RFK Jr's "MAHA report" cites non-existent, and one might speculate, robo-hallucinated studies. Update: Some links in the HHS's report had "oaicite" tacked onto them, likely meaning the report was made with ChatGPT (since the "oai" would stand for "OpenAI", the company producing ChatGPT).
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8the World xAI, the owner of 𝕏 (formerly known as Twitter) has done a $300 million cash and share deal with the rival social media company Telegram to distribute the company's AI platform, Grok.
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35United Kingdom Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan face multiple charges in the UK including rape, actual bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain.
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23United StatesPoland The GOP Foreign Affairs committee has said that Obama, Soros and globalist left are trying to rig the upcoming Polish presidential elections to install liberal Trzaskowski against nationalist-conservative Nawrocki.
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19United Kingdom The two branch groups of Judaism in the UK, Reform and Liberal, have agreed to merge to form a combined branch called Progressive Judaism. While they are Zionist, they have openly said they are open to criticism and support a pluralistic Jewish state.
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24CanadaUnited States King Charles III gave a patriotic speech at the opening of the Canadian parliament, opening with expressing "pleasure and pride" at being in Canada during a time of renewed "national pride, unity, and hope," and ending with, "As the anthem reminds us: The True North is indeed strong and free!" Later the same day, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that his so-called Golden Dome project would cost Canada $61bn "if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State".
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24United Kingdom Tommy Robinson has been released from prison. His sentence for contempt of court, after repeating false claims about a Syrian refugee who sued him for libel, was reduced. The judge said he'd shown a "change in attitude," but noted his, "absence of contrition or remorse."
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9United States Joe Biden has prostate cancer that has spread to his bones.
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28United States The Trump administration is trying to use polygraph tests, which do not work so well, to catch people leaking information.
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29Italy Gay Pride Flag.svg Good news for Italian LGBT families, after the Constitutional Court in Rome ruled that couples can be recognised as parents of a surrogacy or assisted reproduction, provided that it is performed outside the country. Another case in the central region of Manche recognised the adoption of a child by foreign-born surrogacy.
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31United StatesThe wealth of the 10 richest American billionaires has increased by over 360 billion dollars in the last year.
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36United StatesUtah. Trans flag.svg Utah's Republican legislature commissioned a study on trans medicine to support their ban. The study reportedly came back differently than they expected and concluded: "Overall, there were positive mental health and psychosocial functioning outcomes". The lawmakers then dismissed it as "weak evidence" and said they'll be keeping the ban.
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18United States US defense secretary Pete Hegseth uses the military's broadcast system for some evangelical prayer.
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21United States Supreme Court ties on a religious freedom ruling. This upholds a ruling by a lower court, which decided against allowing Oklahoma to fund a religious charter school using public money.
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11United StatesIsraelEuropean Union Two Israeli embassy staff were shot dead in Washington D.C., and Israel blames Europe.
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13United States US government funding for scientific research and education, via the National Science Foundation, has been cut to "its lowest level in decades" for this year.
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27Germany A German Administrative Court has ruled that websites must offer a "Reject all cookies" button, if they offer an "Accept all cookies" button in the cookies box.
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33United States The CDC remains largely muzzled from communicating information about current disease outbreaks, and presumably this has something to do with Captain Brainworm now leading their parent agency.
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21Israel Israeli troops shoot at foreign diplomats in Jenin.
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28United KingdomEngland England is launching the world's first vaccine rollout of a vaccine against the STI gonorrhoea. It will be offered alongside other sex-related vaccines for mpox, hepatitis A & B and genital warts
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9Sweden Sweden has extended its prostitution ban to cover purchasing digital sexual services like OnlyFans and web-camming. Purchasers of such services are liable to up to a year in prison.
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21United States The FDA (under HHS) announced it started using AI to generate "scientific reviews".
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28Norway The election bodies in Norway are investigating a sudden large advertising campaign in Oslo by a new Russian-linked left-wing party Peace and Justice (FOR), which experts say costs NOK 1.4 million (122 000€). In Norway, all parties must declare any donation over NOK 10 000, which the party has only so far declared a NOK 50 000 donation.
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25United Kingdom British neo-Nazis Mark Collett and David Clews have issued a declaration of their intent to infiltrate Reform UK with "tens of thousands" of supporters and "drag Reform to the right".
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27Romania Pro-EU Nicușor Dan wins Romania's presidential election over far right pro-Russian George Simion.
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27United States Trump begs Walmart to stop raising prices.
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32PalestineIsrael The death toll of the Gaza genocide is widely understated according to The Economist. While the Gaza Strip's authorities have reported that around 50 thousand people lost their lives, the actual number is probably between 77,000 and 109,000.
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32United StatesSCOTUS has blocked Trump's attempt to deport people under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
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24SyriaRussiaUnited Arab Emirates The Syrian government has annulled the 49-year Russian lease of the port of Tartus and is instead leasing the port to Emeriti company DP World. The port is important to Russia as it was the country's only access to the Mediterranean and was used a refueling point to its links in Africa.
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27United States Credit ratings agency Moody's has downgraded the rating of the United States from AAA to Aa1, citing a lack of progress in managing the country's large sovereign debt. Now all the big three credit agencies have no longer given the USA top-tier credit worthiness.
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21United StatesFlorida. Florida becomes the second state after Utah to ban water fluoridation.
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41PalestineIsrael Since Israel started an aid blockade in March, 57 children in Gaza died from malnutrition, says WHO
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25United StatesHasan Piker was detained by CBP for over two hours following his return from a trip abroad and questioned over his politics.
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41Vatican CityUnited StatesWho is Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV?
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21IndiaPakistan India bombs Pakistan, killing at least 26 people; Pakistan likely to retaliate
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19United Statesthe World WTF? Kari Lake has said that America's international broadcaster Voice of America is to be supported by Trumpian cable network OAN.
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28IsraelPalestineIsrael Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Gaza to be ‘totally destroyed,’ population ‘concentrated’ in small area
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27United KingdomEnglandGay Pride Flag.svg Ukraine Nigel Farage's Reform UK has said it will ban the flying of flags other than the Union Jack and St. George's Cross over council buildings it controls. This was obviously aimed at the Pride flag, but will also mean some town halls having to take down the Ukrainian one.
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50Australia Call it the Trump effect, but like Canada, Australia has had its own Portillo moment with the conservative leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton losing his seat of Dickson in Queensland.
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24MaltaIsraelPalestineIsraeli drone strikes a ship carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza near the coast of Malta
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21United StatesLesbian Pride Flag 2019.svg Musician Jill Sobule, whose 1995 song "I Kissed a Girl" is widely considered the first with openly gay themes to crack the Billboard Top 20, dies.
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45GermanyAlternative für Deutschland has been designated as right-wing extremist by Germany's federal office for the protection of the constitution. This should make it easier for intelligence agencies to monitor the party and is seen as a possible step towards it being banned.
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23United KingdomEnglandWalesTrans flag.svg The England and Wales Cricket Board bans trans women from playing women's cricket at all levels with immediate effect.
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30Israel Not only having problems with Gaza, the Netanyahu government is now trying to cope with major wildfires in the Jerusalem region. Already, fire departments have said the wildfires are the largest in ten years and are blocking the main highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
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31United KingdomEnglandScotlandTrans flag.svg "We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify," says the English Football Association as it bans trans women from playing women's soccer. The Scottish Football Association is doing the same thing.