Florida & Beyond, and All Opinions

With the conflicts in Ukraine, south Asia, and the Middle East showing the limitations of more established European and Russian hardware, there are growing opportunities for Chinese weapons technology. It’s also likely that Chinese military systems will find customers among countries that are not on Donald Trump’s list of favoured nations, such as Iran. Should Iran be able to equip itself with Chinese systems, it will be better placed to go head-to-head with Israel.

Today’s sanctuary practices, and the federal targeting of sanctuary cities, are largely the result of the way sanctuary took shape across the U.S. in the 1980s when churches, city officials and activists assisted migrants fleeing the violent conditions created by U.S. proxy wars in Central America. To a large extent, this was the result of the Reagan administration’s refusal to acknowledge the extent of human rights violations perpetrated by U.S.-supported regimes in Central America.

Australia will recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly meeting in September, joining the United Kingdom, Canada and France in taking the historic step. The Israeli government has ruled out a two-state solution and reacted with fury to the moves by the four G20 members to recognise Palestine. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the decision “shameful”. Practically speaking, the formation of a future Palestinian state consisting of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem will be difficult to achieve.

There is not much research on how white people think about what it means to be white. Meanwhile, popular and scholarly treatments of white Southerners as overwhelmingly conservative and racially regressive abound. Some white Southerners fit those tropes. Many others do not. Overall, white Southerners across the political spectrum actively grappling with their white racial status.

Mohammed Amer’s “Mo” provokes laughter and stirs deep emotions, including despair, loneliness and helplessness, as the episodes explore life in America for people on the margins. Mo is a semi-autobiographical depiction of Amer’s life. He’s a Palestinian who grew up in Houston, Texas, immigrating to that city when he was nine years old by way of Kuwait. The comedy-drama format allows Mo to address difficult and divisive issues, such as immigration in America and the Israel-Gaza war, in non-threatening ways.

National park visitation is growing, with record-high visitor numbers in 2024 across the entire 398-property system, as well as at the 63 formally designated national parks. And there has been a general trend of people gravitating to Instagram-popular parks, and even specific spots within popular parks. Reductions in federal funding and staffing at national parks means visitors may see longer lines to enter parks or popular locations within them, fewer visitor services and educational programs, and fewer rangers to ask for advice or assistance.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, which collates that data, accuses Israel of “engaging in the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists” that the U.S.-based nonprofit has ever seen. “Palestinian journalists are being threatened, directly targeted and murdered by Israeli forces, and are arbitrarily detained and tortured in retaliation for their work,” the committee added. This history stretches back to at least 1967, when Israel militarily occupied the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip following the Six-Day War.

For decades, one name was ubiquitous in American evangelical homes: Focus on the Family. A media empire with millions of listeners and readers, its messages about parenting, marriage and politics seemed to reach every conservative Christian church and school. And one man’s name was nearly synonymous with Focus on the Family: James Dobson.

The American South – and the nation more broadly – continues to wrestle with how to remember its most painful chapters. Tourism is one of the arenas where that struggle is most visible. the impulse to monetize history isn’t new. More than 300 plantation sites across the country generate billions of dollars in revenue each year. This type of tourism forces communities and visitors alike to ask a difficult question: What parts of the past do Americans preserve, and for whom?

Specialists have estimated that the Eiffel Tower actually grows between 12 and 15 centimetres when comparing its size on cold winter days with the hottest days of summer. This means that, in addition to being a landmark, a communications tower and a symbol of Paris itself, the Eiffel Tower is also, in effect, a giant thermometer.

Beach vacations only became popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries as part of the lifestyle of the wealthy in Western countries. Early Europeans, and especially the ancient Greeks, thought the beach was a place of hardship and death. As a seafaring people, they mostly lived on the coastline, yet they feared the sea and thought that an agricultural lifestyle was safer and more respectable.

While it’s still too early to fully assess the long-term impact of the United States’ political shift when it comes to global cooperation on climate change, there are signs that a new set of leaders is rising to the occasion. China and the European Union issued a joint statement vowing to strengthen their climate targets and meet them. They alluded to the U.S., referring to “the fluid and turbulent international situation today” in saying that “the major economies … must step up efforts to address climate change.”

Despite promises of moderation and inclusion, four years later, the Taliban has established a repressive, exclusionary regime – one that has dismantled institutions of law, justice and civil rights with ruthless efficiency. As the Taliban regime has tightened its grip, international attention has waned. Crises elsewhere dominate the global agenda, pushing Afghanistan out of the spotlight. With the Taliban seeking to end its isolation and gain legitimacy, can the international community find the will now to exert real pressure?