Author: nick

Hours after the Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s “emergency” tariffs on February 20, he revealed a backup plan. Instead of relying on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which the justices held does not authorize import taxes at all, Trump invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows tariffs in response to “fundamental international payments problems” caused by “serious United States balance-of-payments deficits.” The main issue raised by that new legal rationale is whether Trump is right in asserting that the United States faces such a situation. On Friday, the U.S. Court of International Trade…

A Baltimore hospital held a woman against her will for several months, while a psychiatrist repeatedly tried to forcibly inject her with antipsychotic medications—even as two independent experts concluded she showed no signs of psychosis and didn’t need inpatient care. The Supreme Court will soon decide if her lawsuit against the hospital can continue in federal court. “T.M.” suffers from a rare medical condition involving Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and non-celiac gluten sensitivity where any amount of gluten could trigger a psychotic episode. In 2023, she arrived at the Baltimore Washington Medical Center asking for voluntary admission after experiencing a gluten-induced psychosis.…

Robby Soave and Christian Britschgi play a guessing game involving metal music and military operations before they dive into an update on the ceasefire that never really ceased anything from happening in Iran and the Persian Gulf. 0:00—Robby was pretending to be Christian. 3:51—The ceasefire that never was and Trump Always Chickens Out 20:03—Is it a metal music album or a military operation? 29:53—Christian finally got an Apple MacBook. 39:40—The culture wars always come around. 44:02—Pokémon is so back. 52:25— The Substance and how young actors look 1:10:14—COVID-19 cultural impressions 1:16:47— Christian’s thoughts on Ukraine Source link

The Daily Tar Heel, the student-run newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), announced it would stop producing satire articles for the rest of the semester after receiving backlash from students and school administration over its April Fools’ Day issue.  On April Fools’ Day, the paper published a series of satirical articles, including one with a subheadline that said the paper had rebranded as The Daily Woke Heel. Others read “UNC brings back DEI—for whites,” and “A new way forward for the Dean Dome: a two-stadium solution.” Another, published on the website, said “Satire: Trump orders…

Some excerpts from the 88 pages of opinions in AFSCME v. Social Security Admin., decided today by the Fourth Circuit en banc, in an opinion by Judge Toby Heytens: Three organizations sued to stop the Social Security Administration from giving U.S. DOGE Service personnel access to sensitive personal information about millions of Americans. The district court granted a preliminary injunction, which the Supreme Court stayed pending this appeal and any further Supreme Court review. We now vacate the current preliminary injunction and return the case to the district court for further proceedings…. On January 20, 2025, the President signed an…

Chris Hedges joins The World This Week to examine the prospects of a deal to end the war on Iran and to remake the Middle East. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have lost their unprovoked war of aggression against Iran. Trump listened to Netanyahu when all of his principal national security advisers told him not to go to war. Iran then pounded U.S. military bases, U.S.-allied Gulf Arab monarchies and the state of Israel, while absorbing U.S. and Israeli attacks. Most importantly, Iran holds sway over the world economy by controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Needing a way out of…

For days, President Donald Trump has said the U.S. would attack civilian infrastructure such as power plants in Iran by the evening of April 7 if the warring countries cannot reach an agreement.  That morning, Trump said on Truth Social that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Attacking civilian targets is widely considered a war crime in most cases. But on April 6, a day before Trump’s deadline, Fox News host Jesse Watters downplayed that idea, saying there’s plenty of historical precedent for what Trump threatened. “Bombing power plants is not a war crime,”…

In a speech to what he called “the single largest gathering of American farmers that the White House has … ever had,” President Donald Trump distorted the facts on the estate tax, soybean exports and more. Trump falsely claimed that “we saved 2 million American farms from extinction by virtually ending the unfair estate tax.” That’s roughly the total number of farms in the country. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said only about 1% of farms would have paid any estate tax even if Congress had not permanently extended provisions that were set to expire. Experts say few, if any,…

As Artemis II sets records for human spaceflight’s farthest distance and captures photos of the moon, some social media users shared out of context and fabricated photos they claimed were from the event.   The Artemis II mission, with a four person crew, launched April 1 with the goal of carrying astronauts farther from Earth and closer to the moon than any human has been in over half a century.  Some photos on social media that claim to be from Artemis II show different angles of the moon, while others showcase the natural satellite full of vibrant colors. “Stunning high-res Moon…

Q: I read this on FB. Is it true? The U.S. Treasury just declared the U.S government is insolvent. A: No. That’s the conclusion of an opinion piece that cited a Treasury report showing the government’s liabilities outweigh its assets. But that’s been the case for decades, and unlike an insolvent business, the government can levy taxes. FULL ANSWER Two economists — Steve Hanke at Johns Hopkins University and David Walker, a former comptroller general of the U.S. — published an opinion piece in Fortune last month advocating bills aimed at reining in the national debt. In support of this, they pointed to…