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RationalWiki:What is going on in the world?
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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. |
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September 2024
   | 14 |   Inflammatory hoaxes being spread (including by Trump at the presidential debate) about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are causing the Haitian families there to feel ostracized and to fear for their safety. |
| 6 |  The IDF is investigating disinformation that was planted in the London-based Jewish Chronicle, on a story that Hamas' leader Yahya Sinwar planned to flee to Iran with some of the Israeli hostages. |
| 1 |  Ministry of Defense official, Alexander Ivanov, claims that Pokémon GO's development team Niantic has been using their game to spy on them. Perhaps Mr. Ivanov has been watching RT too much. |
| 19 |  Mexico's Congress passes controversial judicial reform that will require judges to stand for election. |
| 29 |  Alberto Fujimori, Peru's former dictator who was guilty of corruption, murders, and human rights abuses, has died at age 86. According to his eldest daughter, Fujimori had been planning to run for president in 2026. Lucky miss. |
| 28 |  X Corp. says Twitter should not have to pay fines for failing to adequately respond to questions about their moderation of child sexual abuse content from the Australian government. Their reasoning given in court for why not to pay the fines is "Twitter has ceased to exist." |
| 22 |   The Court of Justice of European Union has ordered Apple to pay the tax authorities in Ireland 13 billion euro (US$14.3 billion) in unpaid corporate taxes, after the court ruled its special tax arrangements with the Republic was illegal state aid. |
| 23 |  The Green Party has done a complete 180 on its opposition to High Speed 2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail, and voted to fully support high-speed rail. |
| -1 |  Emmanuel Macron appoints former EU right-wing bureaucrat and Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as France's new Prime Minister. |
| 14 |   Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González flees to Madrid, and seeks political asylum in Spain. |
| 19 | 
LGB Alliance in desperate attempt to institute trans-erasure by demanding that government publications remove references to T in LGBT. |
| 16 |  CDC reports a human case of bird flu in Missouri without known exposure to infected animals. |
| 16 | NYT investigation: a leading American psychiatric hospital chain trapped people inside when not medically necessary, in order to extract health insurance money. |
| 22 | Reuters reports that hedge fund Starboard is challenging Murdoch's control over News Corporation through the company's dual share ownership, which allows the Murdoch family to control 40% of the company despite only owning 14% of the shares. |
| 62 |  Say it with us, folks: this was the hottest summer on record. |
| 22 |  Sentencing for Donald Trump's felony conviction will be delayed until 26 November, after the presidential election. |
| 10 |  US seizes plane linked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in the Dominican Republic for alleged sanctions violations, with a second one under investigation. |
| 27 |  A new DOJ indictment has accused Tenet Media, a company that produces the shows of Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, and Benny Johnson, of being paid by RT to promote right-wing and pro-Russian talking points. Tenet Media was co-founded by neo-Nazi Lauren Chen, and her husband is president of the company. Update: The New Republic has reported that Tenet Media folded one day after the indictment was unsealed. In addition, Blaze Media has terminated their association with Lauren Chen. |
| 6 | The Internet Archive loses its court appeal against book publishers. |
| 0 |  Former aide to New York governor charged by US Justice Department for allegedly working as an "undisclosed agent of the Chinese government". |
| 26 |  Another day, another mass shooting. This time at a high school in Georgia. 2 students and 2 teachers were killed. The 14 year old perpetrator is already in custody and will be tried as an adult. Update: Colin Gray, the father of the perpetrator, has also been arrested and charged with murder. |
| 19 |  A federal judge has ruled that Illinois' law banning concealed carry on public transport is unconstitutional. |
| 45 |   A major dispute over the Philadelphi corridor, a narrow strip of scrubland and sand dunes along the Gaza-Egypt border, has ground ceasefire talks to a halt. Netanyahu insists on Israeli control of the corridor to stop weapons from entering Gaza, but Egypt angrily denies this ever happened. Some figures in Netanyahu's cabinet want him to back down. |
| 7 |  An Iranian activist has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for posting a single period in reply to a post from the Supreme Leader on X/Twitter. |
| 41 |  Texas cops won't save kids, but they will raid the houses of Latino campaign volunteers as part of a bullshit "election fraud" investigation. |
| 40 |
Texas, in addition to blocking legal sex marker changes for trans people, is also blocking detransitioners from reversing their markers to their originally-registered birth sex. Instead, they are all being put on a "list" compiled by the state for "unknown" reasons. |
| -7 |  Hard drugs recriminalized in Oregon. |
August 2024
| 58 | WSJ: "The $13 billion that Elon Musk borrowed to buy Twitter has turned into the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008-09 financial crisis." |
| -61 | 1 in 10 minors say their friends use A.I. to generate nudes of other kids, survey finds. |
| 72 |  X-formerly-Twitter ordered to be blocked in Brazil. |
| 42 | 
Israel's intelligence agencies have been targeting and blackmailing, often by posing as potential partners, queer Palestinians into becoming informants by threatening to expose their sexualities to their friends and families. One man describes being arrested and beaten by Israeli soldiers at an Israeli checkpoint for having Grindr on his phone. |
| 32 |
LGB Alliance has reported a halving in donations this year from last year, leaving them with a deficit of more than £100 000. |
| 29 |  Ahead of the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, supermarket chain Edeka [roughly equivalent to Kroger or Tesco] has posted an anti-AfD advert saying, "Why blue is not an option at Edeka”. |
| 36 | Israel alleges they found documents showing Hamas falsified survey data to make themselves and the Oct. 7 attack appear significantly more popular with Gazans than they really were. The pollster who oversaw the surveys in question denies this, but says he "will investigate all claims". |
| 25 | Kroger executive tells Federal Trade Commission the company gouged prices above general inflation, on some items, with specific examples being milk and eggs. |
| 30 | Some US police departments now using AI (specifically, a version of OpenAI's GPT-4 model) to generate police reports. According to "legal and civil rights experts" and also just the basic common sense of anyone who knows the flaws in these tools, it might just be a horrible idea. |
| 35 | Texas megachurch pastor fired for unspecified "moral issue". In June, the church's founder (Trump's former "faith adviser") resigned after admitting to child molestation. However, the church says there's no connection between the two cases, whatever it is. |
| 11 | Children as young as 13 are being arrested and beaten as dictator Nicolás Maduro continues crackdown after vote fraud. |
| -16 |  The pro-Russian governing Georgian Dream has proposed making the dominate Georgian Orthodox Church the official state church of Georgia. |
| -9 |  Latvia’s defence minister Andris Sprūds wants to expand the draft to women by 2028. |
| 19 | The British government is looking at extending the ban on smoking in public places to include outside areas of pubs and restaurants. |
| 26 |  Trump and his team probably violated federal law by using Arlington National Cemetery for campaign purposes. Also, a US Army spokesperson has confirmed that Trump's aides "pushed aside" one of their employees who tried to inform Trump of this fact. |
| -1 | Macron rejected the left alliance's preferred prime minister Lucie Castets, so France still doesn't have a definitive government. This comes after Macron's centrist coalition lost to a leftist alliance, which secured the most seats in parliament but just fell short of a majority. |
| 24 |  More woes for Musk, as the Brazilian Supreme Court threatens to block Xitter in Brazil unless the platform appoints a local representative, as X closed its office in the country. This is because of an ongoing investigation into fake news and criminal activity on the platform. |
| 20 | Meta (Facebook) hired former Ron DeSantis adviser and Project 2025 employee Dustin Carmack. |
| 28 | A federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., has reindicted Donald Trump on four felony charges related to his effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election. |
| 27 | Zuckerberg says Biden's administration was wrong to pressure Meta née Facebook into removing COVID misinformation, and vows the social media giant will push back if it faces such requests again. |
| 24 | Contemporary historian Anthony Seldon has revealed in his new book that Liz Truss was planning as far as stopping all NHS cancer treatments to plug the funding gap in her Treasury black hole. He also revealed that Jacob Rees-Mogg was wooed to be the chancellor (finance minister) with abolishment of inheritance tax and having a flat tax, but Truss stopped that. |
| 20 |  An outlawed separatist movement called Balochistan Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks in southwestern Pakistan that killed more than 40 civilians and warned that the second phase of the attacks would be “even more intense and widespread.” |
| 33 |  Israel has bombed 40 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in retaliation for rocket attacks. |
| 31 | New type of painkiller developed by a US company, that is not an opioid and thus doesn't bring the same risk of addiction to users. That is Suzetrigine, likely to be useful to people with certain chronic pain conditions, or severe allergic reactions to opioid drugs. |
| 25 | 
The Mormon Church has placed new restrictions on transgender members, "grouping them with churchgoers who have committed incest, sexual predatory behavior, sexual violence against children and embezzlement of church funds." |
| 15 | The US and ten Latin American countries “categorically reject” the Venezuelan supreme court's decision to confirm the victory of dictator Nicolás Maduro in a sham election. |
| 33 | Echoing the Islamophobic atmosphere of the post-9/11 era, a Palestinian-American professor of sociology and activist expressed excitement for the protests at the DNC, and rabid K-Hive members called the feds on her for an innocuous tweet. |
| 30 | Yet another diplomat, this time a Brit, resigns to protest Western complicity in the Gazan genocide. |
| -8 | The founder and CEO of the social media app Telegram, the Russian-born, UAE-resident Pavel Durov has been arrested in Paris, France. |
| 34 |  In the land of freedom, a Surprise, AZ activist is given a surprise arrest at a public meeting for violating a city rule that prohibits criticism of city employees during public meetings. Can someone say "violation of First Amendment rights?" We knew you could. |
| 10 |  Federal judge rules that Breonna Taylor's boyfriend was responsible for her death and drops charges against the police officers who killed her |
| 48 | Palestinian voices are ignored at the DNC as no Palestinian-American speakers were given time slots at the convention. |
| 31 | The transphobic lesbian dating app Giggle has lost a case in the Australian Federal Court for breaking the country's Sex Discrimination Act, for refusing a trans woman to use the service. |
| 14 | The Fred Phelps of Ireland, queerphobe Enoch Burke, has continued to defy a High Court contempt of court injunction by refusing to stay away from his old school in County Westmeath, in which he insulted the principal and students at the school over a trans student. |
| 34 |  Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has resigned after a jury found him guilty on 16 counts of bribery. |
| 43 |  More woes for Andrew Tate as a specialist police unit raided his homes in Bucharest, on allegations that he and his brother had sex with and trafficked minors.
|
| 27 |  Canada's railway network looming to grind to a halt due to labor disagreements between workers represented by the Teamsters Union, and the network's two biggest operators. |
| 44 | George Santos faces 2 to 22 years in prison after admitting he filed fraudulent FEC reports, embezzled funds from campaign donors, charged credit cards without authorization, stole identities, obtained unemployment benefits through fraud, and lied in report to the House of Representatives |
| 2 |  Russia has been going to extreme lengths to hunt down deserters to backfill its massive losses. |
| 36 |
According to the charity Index on Censorship, 28 out of 53 school librarians surveyed said they have been asked to remove LGBT+ linked books. It has been said it has been influenced by similar book bans in the United States. |
| 35 |  Tulsa has found 11 sets of remains connected to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, 3 with gunshot wounds, which will be sent to a forensics lab for identification. The ongoing city project has unearthed almost 50 sets of remains from massacre victims over the last 5 years. |
| 38 | Kamala Harris plans to call for the construction of 3 million new housing units and outline new tax incentives for builders that construct properties for first-time home buyers |
| 38 |  Plans to introduce chaplains in a Florida school board have been halted, after The Satanic Temple requested to have "Ministers of Satan" offer chaplaincy. |
| 21 |
US Supreme Court blocks interim enforcement of LGBT anti-discrimination protections in ten states, as the challenge continues in court. |
| 41 | The Biden administration has negotiated reduced pharmaceutical out-of-pocket prices for Medicare recipients for multiple medications, including diabetes drugs Januvia (down 79%) and Farxiga (down 68%), arthritis drug Enbrel (down 67%), blood clot prevention drug Xarelto (down 62%), and blood cancer treatment drug Imbruvica (down 38%). The new prices will be implemented in 2026. |
| 47 | A Haaretz investigation has found that the IDF has used Gazan civilians as human shields to inspect potentially booby-trapped tunnels. |
| 1 | A German-speaking Salafi preacher is engaging in "TikTok radicalization" |
| 43 | Gargantuan data breach may have leaked pretty much every American's Social Security number, paired with other personal information. The Los Angeles Times recommends people do a credit freeze. |
| 29 | Federal Trade Commission bans fake online reviews. |
| 27 |  Bluesky reports huge jumps in interest on the platform from the UK, since Musk’s row with the British government. |
| 61 |  Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif has filed an "aggravated cyber harassment" complaint against Twitter with the French judicial institution responsible for online hate cases (PNLH). Khelif was one of two female Olympic boxers that were bullied and "transvestigated" by online trolls during the 2024 Olympics. Among the trolls directly named in the complaint are J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk. |
| 56 | As a result of the genocidal war in Gaza, Israel's economy is in freefall. |
| 3 | Ukraine claims to have taken control of ~386 square miles in one of Russia's own regions, Kursk. Reportedly this led the Kremlin to redirect a small amount of troops from Ukraine to Kursk. |
| 57 | The Workplace Relations Commission has ordered X/Twitter to pay €550 000 compensation for illegally sacking a senior executive at their Irish operations. |
| 54 | The European Commission’s Thierry Breton has warned X/Twitter that they must follow The Digital Service Act, or they would face serious consequences including substantial fines. |
| 9 | According to Bloomberg, the CEO of the parent company behind the online dollar store Temu, Colin Huang, is now China's richest person with a personal wealth of $48 billion. |
| 10 |  Joost Klein, the Dutch entry into the Eurovision Song Contest 2024 who was disqualified for allegedly assaulting a camerawoman, has his case dropped by the Swedish Prosecution Authority for a lack of evidence. The broadcaster who brought him AVOSTROS, is now in discussions with the organisers, the EBU. |
| 46 | Israel's latest war crime: bombing a school, killing over 100 Palestinians, mostly children, according to the Gaza health ministry. |
| 18 | Amid a strike by environmental workers, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rises for the first time in 15 months. |
| -3 |  Lula expels Nicaraguan ambassador amid dispute with Ortega. This comes as Brazil reconsiders its links with left-wing authoritarians in the region. |
| 47 | The US will continue to funnel aid to IDF unit guilty of human rights violations in the West Bank, Blinken rules. |
| 20 |  Thailand's Constitutional Court has banned the popular liberal Move Forward Party. It has been suggested a trigger was the party's support to reforming the country's lèse majesté laws. |
| 10 | The FBI raids the house of the prominent pedophile and Russian asset Scott Ritter. |
| -1 |  Russia has completely blocked YouTube both on the desktop and through the app, and locals reports the only way to watch it is via a VPN.
|
| 56 | The UK is quietly reviewing arms export licences to Israel. |
| 65 | X is suing a number of major multinational companies including; Unilever, Mars, CVS and Ørstad, for boycotting any form of advertising on its platform. |
| 56 | The city of Tulsa has created a commission to recommend how reparations can be made to survivors (but mostly their descendants as only 2 remain) of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. |
| 30 |  American startup company completes the first fully automated dental surgery. The procedure was tested in Colombia. |
| 47 | Nassau County, New York, has, on a 12-0 (7 abstentions) vote, passed a mask ban which makes wearing a mask in public a misdemeanour. If you wear a mask in Nassau County, the police can now fine you up to $1,000 and can sentence you to jail time. |
| 2 |  The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has fired 9 staffers after an internal investigation concluded there was sufficient evidence that the staffers had been involved in the October 7th attacks. Israel has long accused the UNRWA of collaborating with Hamas terrorists. For perspective, UNRWA employs 13,000 in Gaza, which means 0.07% of said workers are believed to have aided Hamas. |
| 61 | A US District Judge has ruled that Google is maintaining an illegal monopoly. Google plans to appeal. |
| 44 |  Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina has resigned and fled the country amidst widespread protests. Anti-corruption protests had started peacefully, but a brutal government crackdown killed 95 people. |
| 3 | Despite claiming an election win, incumbent Nicolás Maduro lost election, tallies collected by Venezuela’s opposition show Based on evidence, both The Washington Post and Associated Press independently confirmed Maduro's massive electoral loss. Of course, Maduro doesn't care, and he continues to break the law by refusing to release the tallies. Instead, he hopes he can "prove" he won by silencing the opposition. |
| 59 | The deliberate destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza by Israel has led to a polio epidemic in the territory. |
| 10 | Kamala Harris came within 20 feet of a pipe bomb on January 6th. |
| 57 | Elon Musk creates a PAC that steals personal information from voters in swing states by tricking them into thinking they have registered to vote, seemingly to help Donald Trump get re-elected. And which party is the one that cries "fraud!!!!" all the time? |
| 35 | More far-right violence across multiple British cities following Southport stabbing incident. Reportedly the original riot in Southport, targeting a mosque, was partly fueled by algorithm-amplified misinformation on X (also known as Twitter's reanimated corpse). |
| 65 |  Public figures including JK Rowling and Elon Musk falsely suggest two Olympics athletes from Algeria and Taiwan are "male". This fed a "witch hunt" against athletes, and led to backlash in Taiwan, with government officials denouncing Rowling's comments and citizens calling to boycott Harry Potter products. |
| 57 | After years of negotiation, Joe Biden has secured the release of 16 hostages from Russia: 4 from the United States, and others from Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway and Turkey. Russia also released some of its own political prisoners into Germany as part of the deal. In exchange, Russia will receive 8 of its people imprisoned by Western nations. This is the largest hostage exchange deal since the Cold War. |
July 2024
| 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. |
| 25 | Another one bites the dust: Israel has killed Fouad Shukur, a top Hezbollah commander, in an airstrike on Beirut. Shukur was responsible for a recent deadly rocket attack on Israel as well as an infamous 1983 terrorist bombing that killed 241 American and 58 French soldiers. |
| 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. |
| 23 | 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. |
| 62 | 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. |
| -31 | 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. |
| 4 | 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. |
| 53 | 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. |
| 61 | 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. |
| -22 | 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. |
| -21 |  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. |
| -26 | 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. |
| -33 | 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. |
June 2024
| 21 | 
Toronto's 2SLGBTIQA+ Pride parade along city's main street, Yonge Street, was stopped midway and cancelled by Pro-Palestinian protesters. |
| 22 |
In what is considered a normatively homophobic country, Poland has just opened its first LGBT+ museum, QueerMuzeum in Warsaw. |
| 9 | Another SCOTUS case: the court sides with January 6 Capitol rioters by narrowing how obstruction charges can be applied. One "defection" both ways: Ketanji Brown Jackson sided with the conservative justices and Amy Coney Barrett with the liberals. Remaining major cases to be decided this term: Trump's "presidential immunity" case and two cases on social media regulation. |
| 6 | Supreme Court allows cities to criminalize homeless people sleeping in public places, even when there's no space remaining in nearby homeless shelters. The court ruled this ban doesn't count as "cruel and unusual punishment". |
| -14 | Supreme Court overturns 40-year precedent that allowed federal agencies to interpret unclear laws to regulate "the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections". The court argued the precedent incorrectly took interpretive power from judges and gave it to agency experts. |
| 13 | In an action sure to help Oklahoma maintain its rock-bottom (49 out of 50) education rank, superintendent Ryan Walters orders Oklahoma school districts to teach from the Bible in grades 5 to 12. Part of Walters' justification was his contentious belief that the Bible had "substantial influence on our nation’s founders and the foundational principles of our Constitution." |
| 10 | The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strip the Securities and Exchange Commission of its ability to punish instances of fraud by imposing civil penalties through administrative proceedings. The ruling will also likely impact agencies that use similar enforcement mechanisms, such as those overseeing workplace safety. |
| 14 |  West Virginia couple criminally charged for using their adopted black children as modern slaves. |
| 17 | The US Supreme Court for now blocks enforcement of an Environmental Protection Agency rule against air pollution. |
| 25 |  North Korea has agreed to send its soldiers to assist the Russians in the frontline in Ukraine from next month. |
| 20 |  Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug crimes by a US Court. |
| 36 |  Soldiers storm Bolivian presidential palace in apparent coup attempt Update: the coup quickly failed. |
| 26 | In a 6-3 ruling (and a blow to attornies general in Louisiana and Mississippi along with the fake news site Gateway Pundit), the Supreme Court threw out claims that the Biden administration unlawfully coerced social media companies into removing contentious content. According to the majority ruling, the plaintiffs both lacked standing and also failed to demonstrate how the government's communications with social media platforms violated the First Amendment. |
| 37 | Israel's Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that the IDF must begin drafting Ultra-Orthodox men, who have previously been exempt. The ruling came on the basis that the draft exemptions represented "invalid selective enforcement, which represents a serious violation of the rule of law." |
| 36 | Tommy Robinson has been arrested in Canada for being an illegal immigrant there. |
| 34 | Julian Assange has been freed from Belmarsh in London after reaching a plea deal with the U.S. that'll see him plead guilty to at least some charges and go free. He will now return to Australia. |
| 25 | Brazilian conservatives propose bill that would give harsher maximum criminal penalties to rape victims who have an abortion after week 22 than the maximum penalty given to rapists. A massive protest was staged in response to the bill. |
| 12 |
Keir Starmer says he'll not allow "gender ideology" to be taught at schools. |
| 32 | Democrats try to repeal the largely-unenforced Comstock Act of 1873 because anti-abortion groups want to use it to ban materials used to perform abortions. |
| 8 | Last orders! Rumours are going around that Starmer's chief of staff and former pub landlady Sue Gray, wants to see all three bars in the Houses of Parliament closed. The aim is stop Parliament's drinking culture, which includes 'intimidating behaviour'. |
| 12 | Florida governor DeSantis cuts all funding for arts and culture. Finally, the state will be a dry place. |
| 36 | Large trial of HIV prevention shots finds them incredibly effective. This treatment involves just two shots a year compared to earlier forms of PrEP that required more frequency (e.g. pills or other PrEP shots). |
| 24 |
NHS whistleblowers allege to Good Law Project (GLP) that NHS management suppressed knowledge of a surge in suicides among transgender youth interfacing with NHS clinics, after restrictions placed on care in 2020. Jolyon Maugham and GLP add this is corroborated by Tavistock documents (see here). Update: Partial corroboration. |
| 23 |
Sotomayor has warned that same-sex marriage is next on the chopping block, after SCOTUS ruled that non-citizen spouses don't have the automatic right to enter the United States. |
| 58 | The Supreme Court has upheld the law that bans those convicted of domestic violence from owning guns in a 8-1 ruling. Only Clarence Thomas dissented. |
| -40 | Nigel Farage: 'Russia was provoked into Ukraine war by the West' |
| 47 |  Four members of one of the richest families in the world, the Hindujas, have been sentenced by a Swiss court for between 4 and 4½ years in jail for exploiting domestic staff. |
| 23 | Trump Media (DJT) is in share free-fall, and has lost half of its value in the last three weeks. |
| 40 |  Armenia recognizes Palestine |
| 55 | 
Namibian high court strikes down two colonial-era laws banning gay sex. |
| 21 | Low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations may be jeopardizing the recovery of the ozone layer, due to aluminum oxide particles that get released as old satellites fall back to Earth and burn up. |
| 28 | Senate Democrats launch probe into the business dealings of Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with foreign governments (including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar). The probe is said to be due to "significant conflicts of interest and potential counterintelligence risks." In 2018, while Kushner worked in the White House, the Saudi Crown Prince reportedly said Kushner was "in his pocket." |
| 26 |  Temperatures reach a record 51°C (124 °F) in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. This had led to over 500 pilgrims dead over heat related issues as they perform the hajj. Update: The death toll now is at least 1301, with thousands more needing treatment for heat exhaustion. |
| 31 | Louisiana now requires the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms; expect lawsuits immediately. |
| 13 | Trouble on the horizon? Apple scraps its “Buy Now Pay Later” feature on Apple Wallet and New Zealand BNPL company Laybuy has gone bankrupt. |
| 55 |
Thailand approves equal marriage rights for gay people. |
| 32 | Nick Fuentes's neo-Nazi rally shut down in Detroit. The venue company says it was shut down "due to fraudulent, knowing misrepresentation of the true nature of the event". The venue added they were "baffled" by the group's location choice, since it's "a performance and arts complex, not a political rally hall." Former KKK leader David Duke was there, and Fuentes's buddy Sneako got punched in the face. Fuentes claims 2,000 of his fans, who are known to roleplay as cartoon toads on the internet, would have attended (only 100 did). |
| 19 | Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has been convicted for contempt of court over libel against Jamal Hajazi, and faces up to two years in prison. |
| 23 | Birmingham, Britain's second-largest city, is being forced to turn the lights off and cut sanitations services due to bankruptcy. The city is in heavy debt, with childhood poverty near 50 per cent. |
| 31 | LessWrong called out for the parade of racialist speakers they've been funding. |
| 28 | Robert Morris, the founding pastor of Gateway Church and a member of Donald Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board, has admitted that in the 1980s he sexually abused a girl over a period of five years, beginning when she was 12-years-old. Update: He has resigned. |
| 23 |  Police station in Zimbabwe abandoned because of "goblins". CITEZW helpfully clarifies they were lady goblins. |
| 23 | .svg){kind=small} YouTube is trialling Twitter-like viewer-led “helpful notes” on its platform to prevent disinformation. |
| 32 |  Governor of Maryland to issue 175,000 pardons to people convicted for marijuana possession. |
| 30 |  US designates Nordic neo-Nazi group as terrorists. Founded in Sweden, the "Nordic Resistance Movement" operates in all the Nordic countries. |
| 23 | The Nation: The integrity of a YouGov/Economist poll that reported some 20% of Americans ages 18-29 are Holocaust deniers has been questioned by Pew Research Center. The very same poll was a WIGO entry in December 2023. Pew did its own survey with better methodology, and found 3% of Americans ages 18-29 are Holocaust deniers — the same as other age brackets. |
| 18 | Fox News and the Daily Telegraph are spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation way past its due date. It hinges on a BMJ journal's paper that may "insinuate" a connection between COVID vaccines and excess deaths, but establishes no causation and might be better explained by surges in COVID cases. The journal itself came out and rebuffed various media for their reports on the paper. Update: There are now calls to retract the BMJ paper. |
| 19 | Former President Hollande wants to take a shot at the 2024 election. France ain't THAT desperate, Hollande. |
| 15 | Former US CDC director predicts a bird flu pandemic is a matter of "when, not if". There's currently no solid evidence of human-to-human transmission potential, but evolution could find a way. |
| 25 | Poland’s lower chamber, the Sejm, has passed a bill to allow all Poles, including overseas Poles, to vote by post. Currently, only domestic resident elderly and disabled Poles can vote by post. |
| 63 | A Reuters investigation found that the Pentagon ran an anti-vax campaign to undermine China during the COVID pandemic. Oh, and this WIGO is NOT part of a Chinese campaign to slander America. I swear. |
| 7 | The US House voted 216-207 to hold US Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for defying a Congressional subpoena regarding an investigation of Joe Biden's mishandling of classified information. Rep. Jordan, a primary advocate for the measure, had himself refused to comply with a Congressional subpoena in relation to the January 6th attack on the Capitol. |
| -33 | At a meeting in Italy, the G7 countries agreed to loan $50 billion to Ukraine, which will be paid for by collecting the interest from frozen Russian assets. The US and the European countries disagree on how quickly the money should be sent, with the US position being that it should be sent at once and the Europeans wanting to send it over a number of years. |
| 46 | A US federal jury has found the fruit corporation Chiquita liable for murders perpetrated by the AUC, a far-right Colombian paramilitary organization, as the company had paid them millions of dollars even after the US government had designated the group as a terrorist organization. The jury awarded $38.3 million to the families of eight victims. |
| 18 |  Bill aims to equate abortion and homicide for both mothers and doctors in Brazil. Current legislation already bans abortions in most cases, with penalties of up to three years in prison for mothers, and up to four years for doctors. |
| 35 |
A judge has deemed Florida's gender-affirming care ban for minors unconstitutional. |
| 51 | In a blow to Mike Johnson's old fundamentalist legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, as well as associated groups like the American College of Pediatricians (who were co-plaintiffs), the Supreme Court has unanimously ruled that these groups lacked legal standing to challenge the FDA's regulation of the abortion inducing drug mifepristone, preserving access to this medication. |
| -18 |  Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan has said the country will start to formally leave the Russian-backed military alliance the CSTO. |
| 4 |  Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo has resigned after the far-right Vlaams Belang party prevailed in recent elections. |
| 64 | A United Nations Inquiry has concluded both Israel and Hamas have committed Crimes against Humanity in the Gaza Strip. |
| -15 | Pro-Russian and pro-Assad useful idiot Clare Daly has officially lost her MEP seat in the European elections. It is also looking like fellow traveller Mick Wallace may lose his as well. Update: Wallace has lost his seat after the 20th count. |
| 20 | Experts predict "horrifying" heatwaves that could kill tens of thousands of people, and hospitalize hundreds of thousands more. |
| 34 | Biden administration to propose a federal rule barring consideration of a person's medical debt in credit reports. |
| 18 |  Hunter Biden found guilty on all three counts in gun case. NPR: "The jury found Hunter Biden guilty on two counts of making false statements about his drug use when he bought the weapon, and one count of illegal possession of a firearm by a drug user or addict." |
| 18 | The three Trump golf courses in New Jersey could soon have no nineteenth holes, as the state is reviewing the alcohol licenses of the on-site bars in light of his convictions. |
| 11 |  36-year-old asshole claiming to document "homeless epidemic" shot homeless person on livestream in Spokane, WA |
| -10 | Inside the brain school: CBC reports on a "brain wave training school", which back in 2014 provided a 7-day program to indigenous children. The training promised to increase IQ and provide trauma relief via the manipulation of brain waves. |
| 13 | Post publisher draws more scrutiny after newsroom shake-up — The new publisher, William Lewis, wants to create a separate newsroom unit focused on "social media-driven and service journalism" (a euphemism for tabloidism) |
| 15 | Benny Gantz resigns from Benjamin Netanyahu‘s War Cabinet, saying “Netanyahu is preventing us from approaching true victory, which is the justification for the painful ongoing crisis”. |
| 33 | Raid on central Gaza kills over 200 Palestinians |
| 29 | Alex Jones to sell Infowars to pay off 1.5 billion dollar debt to Sandy Hook families. |
| 11 |  Political researcher Jean-Jacques Wondo is one of dozens that has been arrested after the failed coup attempt last month. |
| 44 | Israel is still using white phosphorous in Lebanon |
| 38 | Israel is now threatening Lebanon |
| 32 |  A New Mexican pickup driver who killed a cyclist in a traffic collision, has been let off by local police. Police accepted the reason for the accident due to the sun being in the eyes of the driver leading to no visibility.
|
| 15 |  Russian warships going to Cuba. |
| 62 | Steve Bannon ordered to be in his prison cell by July 1st. |
| 7 | SpaceX accomplishes first soft splashdown of Starship, Super Heavy Booster on Flight 4 mission |
| 13 | Missouri’s attorney general is waging war to keep the wrongly convicted locked up. |
| 30 |
The Southern Poverty Law Center has finally designated Genspect and the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine as hate groups. |
| 26 | Study finds that the world is unsurprisingly warming up, with 2023 breaking records. Of last year's heat, 92% was accounted for by human activity. Bad as that is, the study indicated that warming isn't "accelerating", meaning it isn't evident that global tipping points were surpassed. |
| 26 | Economists warn Trump's plan to tax "virtually all foreign goods" with a universal baseline 10% tariff could spark a global trade war and worsen inflation. A trade conflict with China in particular could take place no matter who is president, however Trump's plan for trade with China may be riskier. Criticism by economists of the proposed universal 10% tariff "has been relatively bipartisan." |
| 29 |
Missouri appeals court sides with a transgender boy who was denied access to boys' bathrooms and locker rooms at school. It was found to be sex discrimination on the basis that he "did not fit their stereotype of what a male should be." The judge who penned the court's decision said: "This is no different than discriminating against a male because he is not tall enough or not muscular enough." |
| 26 | FBI raids corporate landlord Cortland Management, in connection to a nationwide antitrust inquiry "into an alleged rental price-fixing conspiracy that may have already impacted millions of Americans." A price-setting algorithm (RealPage) was used by corporate landlords representing much of the urban housing market. |
| 14 | Republicans in the US Senate (except two) block The Right to Contraception Act, which does pretty much what it says on the tin. The vote was 51-39, and required 60 votes to pass. |
| 23 |
A study reflecting on 20 years of evidence about equal marriage rights for gay people finds that not only did it have significant positive effects for married gay couples in a plethora of measures, it also had no detected negative effects on straight couples and somehow even increased the amount of straight marriages too. |
| 26 | Deborah Birx on bird flu (H5N1): "I'm really concerned because we're making the same mistakes today that we made with COVID. And what do I mean by that? We're not testing to really see how many people have been exposed and got asymptomatically infected." (Birx previously served as US Global AIDS Coordinator and as White House COVID Response Coordinator under Obama and Trump, respectively.) |
| 21 | Joe Biden has signed an executive order that'll "gain control" of the border and suspend the processing of asylum claims by asylum seekers who came from the U.S.–Mexico border if the daily crossing rate surpasses 2,500. It's the same law Trump used in 2017 to ban immigration from several Muslim-majority countries. The ACLU claims both of these actions are illegal, and intends to sue. |
| 29 |  Wisconsin's Attorney General has filed felony forgery charges against two attorneys and an aide who helped submit paperwork falsely saying that Trump had won the state in the 2020 election. |
| 30 | US Department of Justice indicts Bill Guan, alleging a "massive money-laundering scheme" involving "at least" $67 million dollars. Guan is chief financial officer for The Epoch Times, a right-wing newspaper that the DOJ says was funded by the money-laundering scheme. |
| 23 | A French environmental NGO is warning about the growing trend it calls “fast deco”, basically fast fashion for the home, from retailers like Shein and Temu. |
| 67 | China says its spacecraft has landed on the Moon's far side |