Florida & Beyond, and All Opinions

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.

Eighty years ago, on a day now known as D-Day, thousands of Allied soldiers crossed the choppy waters of the English Channel by air and sea to land on beaches and coastal areas of Normandy, France, to destroy the Nazi invaders and defeat Hitler’s regime. Within the military collections of the National Museum of American History, several artifacts collected over the decades help tell the story of Omaha Beach and the invasion landings on D-Day.

You can spot them in the streets of Paris or at fashion events in London, Milan, Brussels or Dubai. Most are black African men with sharp outfits designed and chosen to get them noticed. Known as “Sapeurs” – the name comes from the Society for Ambience and Elegance (Sape) and from French slang “se saper”, “to dress up” – these figures stand out with their offbeat and baroque sartorial style.

Colombia’s is seen as the most comprehensive peace accord that has been signed to date. It considers issues ranging from security to social justice and political participation, in great detail. The accord acknowledges that a peaceful postwar society requires not only respect for human rights but also “protection of the environment, respect for nature and its renewable and nonrenewable resources and biodiversity.”

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency announced in late April 2024 that it plans to ease federal restrictions on cannabis, reclassifying it from a Schedule I drug to the less restricted Schedule III, which includes drugs such as Tylenol with codeine, testosterone and other anabolic steroids. Similarly, the FDA granted a breakthrough therapy designation to psilocybin to expedite drug development. Preliminary studies suggest it may have substantial therapeutic value for treatment-resistant depression and major depressive disorder.