The Conversation

After Editors of Columbia Law Review, a prominent journal run by students from the prestigious university’s law school, published an article critical of Israel, the board, which includes Columbia Law School faculty members and alumni, had the law review’s website taken down. The board soon relented and allowed the website back online on June 6, including the article in question. But it issued a statement accusing the student editors of failing to properly review the article prior to publication.

French president Emmanuel Macron told French citizens he had “decided to give [them] back the choice of our parliamentary future through the vote”. These words, pronounced in reaction to the historic surge of the far-right National Rally at the European elections, triggered the dissolution of France’s parliament and snap elections on 30 June and 7 July.

Machine learning has pushed the boundaries in several fields, including personalized medicine, self-driving cars and customized advertisements. Research has shown, however, that these systems memorize aspects of the data they were trained with in order to learn patterns, which raises concerns for privacy.

Blue whales are fascinating animals. At 24-30 metres in length (longer than a basketball court) they are the largest creatures on Earth. They are also among the rarest. Estimates suggest that there are only around 5,000 to 15,000 blue whales left in the world.

President Joe Biden condemned the ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants for Israel’s and Hamas leaders as “outrageous” and accused the ICC of drawing false moral equivalence between Hamas and Israel. just a year ago, when the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another Russian official for alleged international crimes in the Ukraine war, US officials were full of praise for the court. Biden welcomed the action, calling it “justified.”

Radical doubt or scepticism was famously articulated by the 17th-century French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy. Realising that many of his previous beliefs were mistaken, Descartes suggested that an all-powerful “evil genius” could be systematically deceiving him about his most basic beliefs – much like how the supposed deep state is apparently deceiving those who believe in QAnon.

The Israeli military is reported to have signed off on a major offensive against Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militia, prompting fears that the situation could spiral into a full-blown war. The two sides have been exchanging fire since the conflict in Gaza began with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. But in recent weeks this has escalated considerably.

Immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status but are married to U.S. citizens, will now have protection from deportation, President Joe Biden announced on June 18, 2024. In order to qualify, they must have arrived 10 or more years ago and be married to a U.S. citizen. Those who meet these criteria will be able to get work permits and can get on the pathway to citizenship while working and living in the U.S. legally.

The U.S. State Department removed Cuba from its list of countries “not fully cooperating” with anti-terrorism efforts in mid-May 2024, but you would be forgiven for not noticing. Taking Cuba off the list is a big deal. This latest move is a potential step toward a rapprochement between Washington and Havana.