Florida & Beyond, and All Opinions

This summer, the Democratic National Convention will again be in Chicago. The parallels with previous events in Chicago, such as the Battle of Michigan Avenue in 1968 and the Days of Rage in 1969, are intriguing to consider – especially given the strong divisions in the country now over the Israel-Hamas war. There are also, of course, major differences, including the fact that students in the U.S. do not have a legitimate fear of being drafted – and there are not U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza.

Prominent cases of purported lying continue to dominate the news cycle. Hunter Biden. George Santos. The rapper Offset. There are a number of variables that distinguish these cases. One is the audience: the faceless government, particular donors and millions of online followers, respectively. Another is the medium used to convey the alleged lie: on a bureaucratic form, through intermediaries and via social media.

Presidents need to use both intuitive and deliberative decision-making. The ability to make smaller decisions effectively using intuitive decision-making frees up time to concentrate on larger ones. However, the decisions that make or break a president are exceedingly complex and highly consequential, such as how to handle climate change or international conflicts. Here is where deliberative decision-making is most needed.

Ahead of the European parliament elections in June, Germany has lowered the age limit on participation to 16. This makes it the largest of just a handful of states in the EU to allow people under the age of 18 to vote. Austria, Belgium and Malta have already enfranchised 16 and 17-year-olds, and Greece is to allow anyone turning 17 in 2024 to participate in the June vote.

Rhetoric strengthens or erodes democratic institutions and can prime an audience to expect or accept violence. Regardless of how someone feels about the legal arguments made during Trump’s trial, Trump’s attempts to prevail in the court of public opinion continue his campaign to discredit democratic institutions and threaten anyone who gets in his way.

This was the largest election in Mexico’s history, with more than 98 million citizens registered to vote. It was also the most violent election, with more than 30 politicians killed. The new president will now face two major challenges: confronting the rampant violence in Mexican society and increasing militarisation of public life, and the deterioration of checks and balances on executive power.

Among the 150,000 soldiers who landed on and fought across the hostile beaches of Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, were 1,000 members of a new, specially trained unit – the U.S. Army Rangers. Most of them fought across the German beachfront defenses, supported by nearly 7,000 naval vessels and 11,000 Allied aircraft. More than 200 Rangers fought vertically – up the sheer cliff face of Pointe du Hoc.

New York’s prosecution of Donald Trump can be, and has been, characterized long before today by some as a “political prosecution” because of the strong belief that a case on an allegedly false record would never have been brought if Trump were not running for president. Justice Jackson warned that such a case, without an apparent victim, could undermine the public’s perception of the prosecution’s legitimacy.

One hundred years ago, the U.S. Congress enacted the most notorious immigration legislation in American history. Signed by President Calvin Coolidge, the Immigration Act of 1924 dramatically reduced immigration from eastern and southern Europe and practically barred it from Asia. The new law was unabashedly racist, seeking to roll back the demographic tide. One of its sponsors, U.S. Rep. Albert Johnson, warned the House Committee on Immigration that “a stream of alien blood” was poisoning the nation.

One of the American rabbis told reporters at Democracy Now! that this was the only way she could imagine marking Passover, a holiday that celebrates the story of liberation from oppression and slavery. Marching to the gates of Gaza with food for starving Palestinians was consistent with Passover’s imperative to invite the hungry to every table.

May is Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month, a time when Americans celebrate the profound contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders – a group that is commonly abbreviated as AAPI – to U.S. society. The focus on AAPI communities this month provides an excellent occasion to push back against a stereotype that has long misrepresented and marginalized a diverse range of people: the myth of the “model minority.”

While charging a former president with criminal offenses was a first in the United States with Trump, in other countries ex-leaders are routinely investigated, prosecuted and even jailed.

There’s no denying that the current Congress has been one of the most chaotic in recent memory. But would term limits make a difference? The evidence suggests that term limits create more problems than they solve and could even accelerate the polarization that’s been hobbling Congress for over a decade.

Physicists consider black holes one of the most mysterious objects that exist. Ironically, they’re also considered one of the simplest. For years, physicists have been looking to prove that black holes are more complex than they seem. And a newly approved European space mission called LISA will help with this hunt.