Hi. I’m a bit of a news junkie.
Yep and as recent as 2014:
The national campaign to ban geoengineering can be traced back to Rhode Island in 2014, when a lawmaker looked to the sky and saw a conspiracy.
…
Ms. MacBeth’s beliefs are better known as the “chemtrails” conspiracy theory, which posits that airplanes are secretly emitting dangerous chemical trails, as opposed to water vapor naturally released as condensation from planes’ engines, which turns to visible trails of ice crystals in the cold air. There is no evidence supporting the chemtrails theory, which has attracted many followers through social media.
TikTok is fighting a possible US ban in January 2025 and was in court last week to argue the questions that you’re raising: https://www.npr.org/2024/09/16/g-s1-23194/tiktok-us-ban-appeals-court
This CNN article links to the clips: https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/17/politics/jd-vance-kamala-harris-fascist/index.html
It’s a bit more nuanced than that. The article doesn’t talk about it, but this NYT article touches on how these Chinese sites are exploiting the de minimis exemption loophole to circumvent US anti-forced labor law, which companies have to comply with to keep their supply chain free of slave labor (Uyghurs in Xinjiang for example):
Lawmakers are flagging what they say are likely significant violations of U.S. law by Temu, a popular Chinese shopping platform, accusing it of providing an unchecked channel that allows goods made with forced labor to flow into the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/22/business/economy/shein-temu-forced-labor-china.html
Agreed. ChatGPT doesn’t like to cite sources. Microsoft CoPilot and Google Gemini do link to some sources, though not as accurate or thorough like Wikipedia.
From the article, attempts to improve things are blocked:
When President Joe Biden and Harris first took office, Biden rescinded the Trump-era zero-tolerance policy and established a family reunification task force that found that more than 5,000 families were separated under the policy.
More recently, the Biden administration worked with a bipartisan group of senators to craft a comprehensive immigration and border security plan that seemed to have buy-in from both parties on Capitol Hill.
But GOP support for the bill tanked after Trump indicated his disapproval of the plan.
Thanks. I’ve updated the post.
I don’t think so. There are other important parts in the article:
For the first time, the annual event will also involve troops from the Australian and French military. Fourteen other countries in Asia and Europe will attend as observers. The exercises will run until May 10.
…
The 2024 exercises are also the first to take place outside of Philippine territorial waters.
“Some of the exercises will take place in the South China Sea in an area outside of the Philippines’ territorial sea. It’s a direct challenge to China’s expansive claims” in the region, Philippine political analyst Richard Heydarian told DW.
He added that some of the exercises this year will also be close to Taiwan.
This year’s exercises have a “dual orientation pushing against China’s aggressive intentions both in the South China Sea but also in Taiwan,” he added.
According to ProPublica, it’s commonly done using Leahy Laws:
The recommendations came from a special committee of State Department officials known as the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum. The panel, made up of Middle East and human rights experts, is named for former Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chief author of 1997 laws that requires the U.S. to cut off assistance to any foreign military or law enforcement units — from battalions of soldiers to police stations — that are credibly accused of flagrant human rights violations.
…
Over the years, hundreds of foreign units, including from Mexico, Colombia and Cambodia, have been blocked from receiving any new aid. Officials say enforcing the Leahy Laws can be a strong deterrent against human rights abuses.
https://www.propublica.org/article/israel-gaza-blinken-leahy-sanctions-human-rights-violations
Archive link: https://archive.ph/7mQ8M
It wasn’t me!
Just pointing out the headline seems to imply it’s from WaPo when in fact it was written by RT.
This is a repost of an RT article. https://www.rt.com/news/594456-biden-israel-indiscriminate-bombing/
Agreed. Here’s some more context:
Korea has the second-lowest number of physicians among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, leading to some of the highest doctors’ wages among surveyed member nations.
Doctors in Korea earn the most among 28 member countries that provided related data. Following Korea, the highest earners are in the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and the UK. The US was among the countries for which data was not provided.
Measured by PPP, which takes into account local living costs, salaried specialists earned an average of $192,749 annually in 2020, According to the 2023 OECD Health Statistics report. That was 60 percent more than the OECD average. Korean GP salaries ranked sixth.
… The country also ranked low in the number of medical school graduates – 7.3 per 100,000 people, which is the third-lowest after Israel and Japan, and nearly half the OCED average of 14 graduates for every 100,000 people.
These doctors are not telling the whole story. More context from the article:
Public surveys show that a majority of South Koreans support the government’s push to create more doctors, and critics say that doctors, one of the highest-paid professions in South Korea, worry about lower incomes due to a rise in the number of doctors.
Officials say more doctors are required to address a long-standing shortage of physicians in rural areas and in essential but low-paying specialties. But doctors say newly recruited students would also try to work in the capital region and in high-paying fields like plastic surgery and dermatology. They say the government plan would also likely result in doctors performing unnecessary treatments due to increased competition.
Your comment seems to suggest that the boat was far away from Taiwan, which was not the case. For context, the boat was touring Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands, which are just a few kilometers/miles from the Chinese mainland (Wikipedia says 10 km/6.2 mi), and had to veer toward the Chinese side of the water to avoid shoals.
According to the article, this seems like an escalation by the PRC:
For years, sightseeing boat tours between Kinmen and Xiamen, the closest city on the Chinese mainland, have offered Taiwanese tourists a chance to gaze at China’s dazzling skyline without the hassle of border checks, with China operating similar tour boats for its citizens too.
…
Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, said the latest measures are part of China’s “gray zone” tactics, referring to coercive or aggressive state actions that stop short of open warfare – something Beijing has used increasingly in recent years in the East and South China Seas, as well as toward Taiwan.
The inspection of a Taiwanese tour boat by China’s coast guard, which Chong said had not happened before, was meant to provoke Taiwan and see if it would either escalate or accept this sort of behavior as given.
deleted by creator
Looks like AP dropped the ball on this one because that’s not what the prosecutors said. They said:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-charges-against-18-defendants-scheme-manufacture-and-distribute