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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September 2025

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18United StatesShock of all shocks as a new study has found Twitter to be the "go-to platform" for antisemitism.
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28IsraelThe EBU is planning an EGM on whether Israel will be allowed to participate in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, after a number of countries including Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands threaten to quit if Israel isn't expelled due to the situation in Gaza and the country's misbehaviour during the last two contests.
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13Malawi Malawi re-elects former president Peter Mutharika to take back the position he held from 2014-2020. He defeated Lazarus Chakwera, who had won the 2020 election after the 2019 ellection was annulled by the country's supreme court due to irregularities.
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18United States RFK Jr has announced that the FDA is set to conduct a review of abortion pills.
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29France Former President Nicolas Sarkozy has been sentenced to 5 years in prison after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy.
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35United StatesUnited Nations Donald Trump delivered a scathing, rambling speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, amongst which he paraded his climate change denial beliefs, ranted about how London was going to impose Sharia law, peddled the line about how migration was threatening Europe, demanded Europe stop buying Russian fuels, stated that increased recognition of the State of Palestine was a "reward for Hamas" and that the UN basically sucked for not helping him do what he'd like.
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40the World Global investment in renewable energy up 10% on 2024 despite Trump rollback.
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22United StatesAfghanistan Trump wants to retake a US military base in Afghanistan and the Taliban disagrees. Now, Trump says if they don't give it back then "BAD THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN."
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38United States App dedicated to collecting the personal information of Charlie Kirk's critics ("their names, locations and employers") collapses after the app's users themselves had their personal data leaked due to a security flaw.
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28United States Jimmy Kimmel returns to ABC after Disney faces a consumer boycott and protests for caving in to Trump's bullying and threats. However, Sinclair and Nexstar are refusing to carry Kimmel's show, which locks him out of about a third of the ABC network. Update: Both Sinclair and Nexstar brought back Kimmel.
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27MoldovaRussia 74 people arrested in Moldova for attempting to disrupt the country's elections on behalf of the Russian government.
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26United States Trump baselessly links autism with vaccines and the painkiller Tylenol, also says Amish people have no autism. The Amish Heritage Foundation disagrees and says this is an "anti-Amish trope" that "contributes further harm toward Amish children who need medical care and attention". A 2024 sibling control analysis found no evidence for the Tylenol link. It's clear Trump has been listening to RFK Jr.
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33UkraineRussia In a humiliating loss for Russia, Ukraine strikes a massive Russian ammunition depot with over 19,000 drones and ZUBK14 tank missiles in illegally occupied Luhansk.
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17Saudi ArabiaPakistan Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign a defence pact, marking the first time a Gulf state has signed such with a nuclear power.
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36PalestineUnited KingdomCanadaAustraliaPortugal The UK, Canada, Australia, and Portugal recognize Palestine as a state
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27RussiaEstonia Russia has violated Estonia’s airspace
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22United States ICE has obtained access to Israeli-made spyware that can hack phones and encrypted apps.
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18United States Tom Homan was being investigated for taking bribes from undercover FBI agents. After Trump took power, his DOJ shut the investigation down.
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14IrelandCanada The members of the Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap are denied entry to Canada because of their "open endorsement of terrorist organizations."
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-3Ireland In spite of images surfacing of him wearing blackface to dress as Barack Obama for a 2009 Halloween party, Irish MP Eoin Hayes will not be expelled from the Social Democrats party.
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20United Statesthe World The 2025 Ig Nobel Prizes honor research showing alcohol consumption can improve foreign language ability and disguising cows as zebras can protect them from insect bites. The literature prize was awarded posthumously to an Iowa academic for his 35-year record of his toenail growth.
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23United States After RFK Jr. replaced the CDC vaccine advisers, they've now voted against recommending a combined measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (MMRV) vaccine for children under 4 years old. The entire committee was recently purged and replaced with a new committee, which is now at least partly made up of known anti-vaccine activists.
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29United KingdomUnited States Donald Trump arrives in the UK amid protests, including a huge image of Trump with Jeffrey Epstein being projected onto Windsor Castle.
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21Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has been diagnosed with skin cancer.
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33United States Donald Trump pretends to designate "Antifa" as a "terrorist organization", after previously promising to do this in 2020. Antifa is not an actual organization and the Trump White House admitted in 2018 they had no legal mechanism for designating domestic groups as terrorist organizations.
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30United States Busybody FCC chair Brendan Carr demands talk show host Jimmy Kimmel's cable hosts "change conduct, on Kimmel" because he disagreed about the motives of Charlie Kirk's killer. The pathetic media companies immediately obeyed and took Kimmel off the air. Carr, by the way, wrote Project 2025's chapter on the FCC, which Donald Trump knew nothing about, but he knew to appoint Carr as the FCC chair this year anyway.
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20United KingdomScotlandScottish Borders Council moves to evict the self-styled Kingdom of Kubala that is camping on its land. The three members of the Kingdom, a Ghanaian, a Zimbabwean and an American, claim to be descendants of Black people that lived in Scotland 400 years ago and whose land there was stolen from them. They follow the laws of their god Yahowah and do not recognize local governments or eviction notices.
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16United StatesIsraelA Democrat-linked PR firm has been hired to run a pro-Zionist bot army. Update: They dropped Israel as a client.
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26PolandRussia A few days after drone incursion, Russian hackers now target Polish hospitals and city water supply
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26IsraelPalestine Israel launches ground invasion of Gaza City
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26United StatesMinnesota. Eight people shot in mass shooting in Minneapolis, the same day five people were shot in a separate mass shooting in Minneapolis.
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29United NationsIsraelPalestine UN commission says Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
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28United StatesSouth Korea South Korea is outraged at the United States after hundreds of South Korean foreign workers were treated repulsively in immigration detention. TIME: "South Korean daily newspaper Hankyoreh reported that the detainees’ waists and hands were tied, which forced them to bend down and lick in order to drink water." South Korean companies are now questioning whether they should continue to invest in the United States.
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23United StatesIllinois. Silvero Villegas-Gonzalez, an immigrant and father who was killed by ICE, had no criminal record other than minor traffic violations, according to his lawyer.
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21United StatesGeorgia (U.S. State). The National Center for Civil and Human Rights expands its exhibits in Georgia. The museum is privately-funded, unlike the public museums and national parks where exhibits discussing slavery are being censored by the Trump government.
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24RussiaUkraine Russian support for continuing the Ukraine war is at its lowest-ever point. People in Russia want peace talks, and many say they lost a relative, friend, or acquaintance in the war, or otherwise have one in the trenches. This is according to the Levada Center. Notably, the sentiment is similar on the Ukrainian side. Both want the war to end soon. Ukraine has centered its request for Russia to return kidnapped Ukrainian children in any peace talks, and a new Yale report discusses the scale of those kidnappings.
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15United States Trump sues The New York Times newspaper for $15,000,000,000. As a reason, he cited the endorsement the paper's board of opinion/editorial writers gave to Kamala Harris in 2024. According to Sky News, he also previously threatened to sue the paper for their coverage of his past friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
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16United StatesUnited Kingdom ... Meanwhile, the Trump administration is concerned Britain doesn't have enough free speech, and intends to confront the British government about it in high-level talks.
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19United States Trump administration crackdown on free speech worries 1st Amendment groups. US War Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened to pursue members of the military who post things he disagrees with on social media. Attorney General Pam Bondi: "There's free speech and then there's hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society...We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech." A website was created to call people "murderers" for saying things like, "I genuinely do not know how any person could be saying Charlie Kirk was a good man. Of course, it's awful he was shot." The website has now been rebranded.
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24RomaniaRussia Russia violates Romania's airspace.
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27United KingdomEnglandTommy Robinson led a massive Unite the Kingdom rally in London. 26 police officers were injured and 25 people were arrested. Elon Musk appeared via video link, called for the UK's parliament to be dissolved and its government changed and told protesters they had to "either fight back or die."
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42European UnionThe European Parliament declined to hold a "moment of prayer and reflection" for Charlie Kirk; the request for such a moment was made by a right-wing Swedish member of that parliament.
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30United StatesUtah. The murderer of Charlie Kirk has been identified as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, whose parents are registered Republicans. Although he is registered to vote in Utah, the Washington County Clerk said that he never voted in any election.
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28United NationsIsraelPalestine The United Nations overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution that outlines "tangible, timebound, and irreversible steps" toward a two-state solution between Palestine and Israel, the latter of which, along with the U.S., boycotted the event. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed that "there will be no Palestinian state" for as long as he lives.
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19United StatesArizona. Illinois. Maine. North Carolina. The Arizona, Illinois, Maine, and North Carolina governors have all signed orders that are intended to make COVID-19 vaccines available in pharmacies for people without individual prescriptions.
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19Nepal New leader of Nepal nominated by student protesters in a Discord chatroom, supervised by the Nepali military.
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20United StatesIraq U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers vote to repeal Iraq war authorizations.
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23United States President Trump asked by Fox News host how to achieve national unity after the murder of Charlie Kirk, and in light of extremist violence. His response: "I couldn't care less." The Guardian contrasted this with past US presidents, like Abraham Lincoln saying "malice toward none, with charity for all".
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40IrelandIcelandSloveniaSpainNetherlandsIsraelThe next Eurovision Song Contest will be boycotted by Ireland, Iceland, Slovenia, Spain and the Netherlands if Israel is allowed to participate.
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25IranUnited StatesThe Shah of Iran's alleged chief torturer, living in the US under an assumed name for 25 years, was accidentally (or "accidentally") outed by one of his daughters, and subsequently sued by three of his victims.
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51Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil, found guilty by the Supreme Court of Brazil for plotting a military coup. Update he’s been sentenced to 27 years in prison.
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30United StatesFlorida. Former Republican Congressman, Russian propagandist and criminal Madison Cawthorn has been arrested for failing to appear in court.
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27United KingdomUnited StatesDue to mounting scrutiny over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Keir Starmer has removed Peter Mandelson from his post as British ambassador to the US.
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92United StatesUtah. Charlie Kirk has been shot and killed at a campus event in Utah.
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33United StatesTexas. Trans flag.svg The Soy Right strikes again as a Texas A&M University professor has been fired for teaching that trans people exist. The DOJ has also expressed an "interest" in the incident.
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30PolandRussiaNATO Poland and other NATO forces down Russian drones.
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19AustraliaUnited States Rupert Murdoch cuts off three of his heirs from inheriting his news empire in order to ensure that it will stay far right.
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18CanadaOntario. Second Sons Canada, definitely not a Neo-Nazi group, hold a rally in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.
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29IsraelQatar Israel carries an airstrike on Doha
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31Nepal Nepal's parliament set on fire after PM Sharma Oli resigns over anti-corruption protests. Ex-PM Jhala Nath Khanal's wife was killed during the incident after the protesters set her house on fire and was unable to escape the flames.
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21United StatesCalifornia. SCOTUS has given ICE the go-ahead to racially profile Hispanic people in LA.
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26United States The Wall Street Journal published another article on a Trump letter to Jeffrey Epstein for Epstein's birthday. The article shows the letter itself, which was previously only described in text, though some people online created mock-ups. The same letter was reportedly obtained by the House of Representatives' Oversight Committee, via Epstein's estate (who are tasked with managing his remaining assets), and released by the Democrats on that committee. Update: The House Committee released the full "birthday book". It was put on Google Docs here.
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25SpainIsraelPalestine Spain imposes weapons embargo on Israel. Ships carrying fuel to Israel's military are also banned from docking in Spain. Planes carrying military material to Israel are banned from entering Spain's airspace. The government of Spain says these measures are aimed at "stopping the genocide" in Gaza.
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16France French government collapses after failed confidence vote.
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20United Kingdom Boris Johnson revealed to be thoroughly corrupt from leaked documents
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25United States Trump orders US Department of Defense be renamed to Department of War. Pentagon officials said the rebrand will "cost millions of dollars".
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15BrazilUnited States Supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro protested the Supreme Court of Brazil, where the final stages of a trial against Bolsonaro are taking place for his alleged involvement in a 2022 auto-coup against the election results, not too unlike J6 in the US. Trump applied 50% tariffs to Brazilian goods to pressure the court not to convict Bolsonaro, with the two being political allies.
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17Burkina FasoGay Pride Flag.svg Left-wing Military junta in Burkina Faso is now formally criminalizing homosexuality.[1][2]
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20United States Americans face biggest increase in health insurance costs in 15 years, the Financial Times reports. Just like many other problems, you can blame tariffs for that.
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32United States James O'Keefe, not a Democrat as you can tell by the RW page about him, took it on himself to publish a video where a Department of Justice official said the Trump administration would "redact every Republican or conservative person" from the Epstein files before releasing them. (DOJ's response here.)
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22United States Tech CEOs invited to the White House for a big dinner with Trump. They take turns praising him. Elon Musk is notably absent, presumably busy being offered a trillion dollars by Tesla's board.
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20Argentina Congress of Argentina overrides Javier Milei's veto for the first time. This result will protect funding for services to disabled people.
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23United StatesFlorida. Gay Pride Flag.svg The government of Florida paved over a rainbow crosswalk that was part of a memorial for gay and bisexual men who were mass shooting victims at the Pulse nightclub in 2016. The issue has since become a "political lightning rod" and half a dozen people were arrested trying to restore the crosswalk and other memorials or murals in Florida, including a black history mural.
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24United StatesNorth Korea A military leak claims that in 2019, Trump approved a botched operation to send the U.S. Navy SEALs into North Korea "to plant a listening device". This resulted in the SEALs murdering a number of North Korean civilian fishermen so the SEALs could abort the mission without being noticed.
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16United Kingdom Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner resigns after it emerges that she didn’t pay enough tax on her flat.
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24the WorldWeird development in biology. Scientists discover that the Iberian Harvester Ant births another species as part of its lifecycle. They coined a new word to describe this; "Xenoparous".
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21United StatesTrans flag.svg The Trump regime is reportedly looking for ways to ban transgender firearm ownership. Update: Gun lobby groups (NRA, GOA, etc.) break with the Trump administration, oppose any gun bans.
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25RussiaUkraine Drivers queue as Ukraine’s drones take out 20% of Russia's refining capacity
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15IrelandUnited KingdomTrans flag.svg Graham Linehan has gone on trial in London on charges of harassment and criminal damage against a trans woman. The trial is not connected to his much-publicized arrest at Heathrow Airport on Monday 1 September.
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23United States Newsmax sues Fox for "anticompetitive behaviors".
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22United States Epstein victims hold press conference calling for Trump administration to release the rest of the Epstein files. (Full livestream here.) House Republican leaders are urging members not to vote for a measure by Thomas Massie (R) and Ro Khanna (D) to release the files. However, MTG, Boebert, and Nancy Mace have now signed on along with all Democratic members of the House of Representatives. Trump responded to a question about Epstein at his event the same day as the victims' conference, calling it a "Democrat hoax that never ends".
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16Burkina FasoGay Pride Flag.svg Burkina Faso becomes the latest country to outlaw homosexuality, with president Ibrahim Traoré announcing the law on state TV. The law goes into effect immediately, and punishments will include fines and two to five years in prison.
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35IrelandUnited KingdomTrans flag.svg Graham Linehan has been arrested at Heathrow Airport for inciting violence with transphobic tweets.
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32PortugalUnited StatesRussia “The top leader of the world’s foremost superpower is objectively a Russian asset,” says Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the president of Portugal
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35the WorldIsraelPalestine The International Association of Genocide Scholars issued a statement that Israel's actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of a genocide. The association has 500 members, and 86% of those who voted agreed with the statement. Note: The association didn't state how many of their members voted.
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21United StatesPalestine Trump administration further restricts Palestinian people from access to US passports. Trump seems to be doing this due to pressure from Laura Loomer, who never sleeps.
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21Vatican CityGay Pride Flag.svg Pope Leo XIV met with a Jesuit priest who is an LGBT advocate, who says Leo told him he'd continue Pope Francis's stance of welcoming LGBT people in the Church more compared to his predecessors.