Chicago police have yet to capture a five-foot alligator after it was seen swimming in the Humboldt Park Lagoon. Attempts have been made to capture the alligator for transport to a zoo, but so far the five-foot reptile has evaded both expert and amateur seekers. The gator is suspected to have been released into the lagoon by someone who had kept it illegally as a pet, after it grew too large to care for. Humboldt Park has previously been known to feature overgrown turtles, carp, and even piranhas, all sourced…
The Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled on Tuesday that it is a violation of free speech for President Trump to block his critics on Twitter. The ruling which the 2nd Circuit upheld would require Trump, as well as other government officials who use their social media presence to deliver official statements, to allow open access for all users to view such statements. In particular, the ruling applies to critics of the president, whom he has been known to block from viewing or commenting on his Twitter postings.…
On Monday, the International Criminal Court held a Congolese warlord responsible for eighteen counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has long struggled with violence. Since the late 1990s, tens of thousands of people have been killed as rival militias compete for control over the region’s key resources, such as gold mines. Bosco Ntaganda – known as “the Terminator,” was the deputy chief of staff and commander of a rebel group that carried out an ethnically-motivated massacre in the early 2000s. The court found…
An Italian court has sentenced 24 people to life in prison for their involvement in Operation Condor, in which the dictatorships of six South American countries conspired to kidnap and assassinate political opponents in each other’s territories. In the 1970s and ’80s in South America, six countries – Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina – conspired to help each other kill and kidnap an estimated hundreds to thousands of people. 23 Italians were included among the dead. These countries wanted to crack down on left-wing activists and political opponents, so…
A certain video which went viral on the 28th of June showed a woman opening a container of Blue Bell ice cream in a Walmart, licking it, then closing the container and putting it back in the freezer. What might be seen as little more than a disgusting prank has developed into a much more serious situation, as authorities in Lufkin, Texas now seek to press charges that could lead to a maximum of 20 years in prison. Product tampering laws are very strict on both the state and federal…
A report by POLITICO that the State Department may plan to grant new waivers to China allowing for current sanctions on Iranian oil to be bypassed. The current US maximum-pressure policy has been to end all waivers and insist on zero importation of Iranian oil by all of its trade partners. However, this tactic may have reached the limits of what US soft pressure can coerce other nations to accept. China has received Iranian oil tankers as recently as June, despite the Trump administration ending sanctions waivers in May. Likewise,…
Twenty high school students walked into the corporate office of Facebook and delivered a plan to help bring affordable housing to their area. Unexpectedly, the tech company listened and Facebook decided to start a small pilot program to fund four small granny flats for low-income residents in East Palo Alto and Melon Park, California. The money will finance low-interest loans for low and moderate-income homeowners who couldn’t otherwise afford to build a granny flat and might struggle to get traditional financing. When the granny flats, also known as accessory dwelling…
The European Union and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) announced Friday that they reached agreement on a new trade deal. EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said it was the EU’s biggest deal to date and, at a time of trade tensions between the US and China, showed that “we stand for rules-based trade”. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro said it was “historic” and “one of the most important trade deals of all time”. The deal aims to cut or remove trade tariffs, making imported products cheaper for consumers while also boosting…
Entomologists have put out warnings that the state of Alabama may find itself home to unusually massive wasp nests this year. Known as ‘perennial’ nests, they dwarf the nests normally constructed by yellow jacket wasps, in terms of both the number of wasps living within and the volume of space the nest occupies. Perennial wasp nests may contain up to 15000 worker wasps, several times the population found in a normal ground-based nest. These nests expand along with their population into any structure available, climbing the sides of buildings or…
To date, the Bull Moose Party remains the strongest third-party run for the United States presidency of the past 125 years. After Theodore Roosevelt became frustrated with the business-friendly policies of his hand-picked successor, President William Howard Taft, he entered the 1912 race for the Republican ticket. He entered the race late and despite outpolling Taft in most primaries, lost the nomination. Undeterred, Roosevelt met with a handful of progressive Republicans to form his own party. The party was given its nickname after Roosevelt told reporters “I’m as fit as…