Author: nick

[ad_1] Israel has proposed a radical idea: to use crocodiles to guard prisons. The Jewish state has reportedly reclassified Nile crocodiles as “tended” animals, which could clear the way for the animals’ use as part of prison security. The controversial proposal to surround prisons with crocodile-filled moats was reportedly floated late last year by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The politician argued that the reptiles would strengthen security and deter escape attempts. The plan was initially deemed legally unfeasible by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority because Nile crocodiles were classified as wild animals that could only be kept in…

[ad_1] When basketball player Sophie Cunningham said, ‘Young girls in sport shouldn’t have to go against biological men,’ the mainstream media shrugged. How far we’ve come, writes Kat Rosenfield. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] “In Congress, July 4, 1776.” For 250 years, Americans have been innocently misled by the first line on the Declaration of Independence.  Though adopted by the Continental Congress on that famous date, the revered parchment now lying in the National Archives was not signed until Aug. 2, a process that took weeks, if not months. The stirring image of the delegates to Congress lining up to put their names on the document on July 4 is just one of the many myths wrapped around our founding document. Yet once John Hancock boldly put his oversize signature on the parchment, the material…

[ad_1] Photo by Dan Meyers On 22 July, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed what Washington calls a ‘peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement.’ The agreement has been presented as a commercial arrangement that will help Saudi Arabia diversify its energy system while creating a vast new market for US-based nuclear companies. But its significance goes far beyond the construction of power stations. By permitting the possibility that Saudi Arabia might eventually enrich uranium on its own soil, while apparently exempting the kingdom from the most intrusive international inspections, Washington has further weakened the already fragile international regime against nuclear proliferation.…

[ad_1] Despite slapdowns by the courts, President Donald Trump’s love affair with protectionism continues. In recent weeks, he’s authorized additional tariffs against countries supposedly using “forced labor,” slapped 50-percent duties on some imports from Canada, and may soon receive a bipartisan grant of enhanced trade powers from lawmakers seeking to punish nations that trade with Russia. That’s all unfortunate, because barriers to the free exchange of goods have already imposed high costs on Americans. You are reading The Rattler from J.D. Tuccille and Reason. Get more of J.D.’s commentary on government overreach and threats to everyday liberty. “In 2025, the…

[ad_1] John McWhorter on Bill Maher talking about alleged “black fragility.” (Screen capture from video posted to YouTube.) John McWhorter is so valuable to the enemies of Blacks that he has survived wishing the president were assassinated. Or has he? I first heard of John McWhorter when the Daily Californian, a newspaper distributed on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, asked me for a comment on his book, Losing the Race: Self Sabotage in Black America. I said I read it twice in five minutes, because the book rehashes some of the arguments made by Shelby Steele…

[ad_1] Financial institutions have become a tool for suppressing speech. Rainey Reitman learned this in 2011, when PayPal froze the account of a group she was working with to help free whistleblower Chelsea Manning. After negative publicity, PayPal reinstated the account—but Reitman’s interest in what she calls “financial censorship” was piqued. In Transaction Denied: Big Finance’s Power to Punish Speech, Reitman details myriad ways that financial censorship, also called debanking, has been used “to pressure dissenting and marginalized voices.” She tells the stories of protesters, journalists, gun rights advocates, adult content creators, Muslim entrepreneurs, cannabis activists, erotica writers, religious freedom fighters, naked…

[ad_1] Click icon for full interview with Prof Ramesh Thakur for Reality Check Radio RCR A200-page policy report argues that global public health is no longer being driven by the needs of countries, but by financial incentives. At the centre of that argument is Professor Ramesh Thakur—a former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and principal writer of Kofi Annan’s UN reform report. He spent years inside the system helping shape it. Now, he argues that in public health, global authority has gone too far. Thakur says decisions have shifted away from national governments and towards international institutions—particularly the World…

[ad_1] Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair The U.S. House of Representatives voted on July 22 to increase defense spending by US$73 billion. At about the same time as the House vote, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced that it will be moving to a smaller building in Geneva because of budget cuts. The contrast could hardly be starker. One decision expands America’s capacity to wage war; the other diminishes its capacity to save lives. “Without immediate support, women and girls at extreme risk of rape and other abuse are losing access to services that…

[ad_1] The remediation of nuclear waste has long been a classified endeavor. Accidents, exposure to radiation, and worker injuries on the job rarely, if ever, make the newspapers where they would receive public scrutiny. This is, of course, intentional. The less oversight, the easier it is to mislead and cover up mistakes. Take the case of the military’s Palomares disaster. On January 17, 1966, a collision occurred during a routine refueling operation of a B-52 bomber over Spain’s Mediterranean coast. The Associated Press reported first on the incident, writing that a KC-135 tanker with jet fuel had collided in mid-air…