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Recent Articles
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Lucy is the Woman Who Rewired America
Biography Feature Lucille Desiree Ball was born in 1911 in Jamestown, New York, into circumstances that offered little illusion of permanence, and when her father died of typhoid fever before she was four, the loss did not simply register as grief but as an early lesson in instability, a condition that would follow her for decades and quietly harden her instincts. The Ball household fractured into temporary arrangements, relatives stepped in, finances tightened, emotional certainty thinned, and Lucy learned—long before she had words for it—that security was conditional and visibility could not be assumed. Her mother remarried, the family moved, and the young Lucy developed a temperament that… |
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Trump officials have tried to justify ICE shootings
This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. Just a few hours after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement that said, without evidence, that the 37-year-old registered nurse “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would later imply Pretti had been “asked to show up and to continue to resist” by Minnesota’s governor. Multiple videos from the scene immediately undercut those claims, and there has been no indication in the days since that Pretti threatened or planned to hurt law enforcement. Several high-profil… |
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Daughter and son-in-law charged with killing four family members in 2015
Shocking new charges have been brought in the case of a family that was brutally murdered in their homes on Halloween night in 2015. Cathy Scott, her husband Michael Scott, Mr Scott's mother, Barbara, and Ms Scott's mother, Violet Taylor, were murdered on Halloween night in 2015. Now, the couple’s daughter, Amy Vilardi, and her husband, Rosmore "Ross" Vilardi, have been arrested and charged in their deaths. Ms Vilardi and her husband were featured in tearful television interviews following the murders, but are now considered the prime suspects in the slayings, according to The Daily Beast. The four adults were found shot and killed in their homes in Pendleton, South Carolina, on 2 November 2… |
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The Climate Emergency Governments Still Pretend Is Optional
GENEVA — A coalition of scientists and public health experts this week urged the World Health Organization to formally declare climate change a global public health emergency, escalating pressure on governments as new projections warn 2026 could become one of the hottest and most destructive climate years ever recorded. The demand arrives at a moment of extraordinary contradiction. Governments across Europe, North America, and Asia now openly acknowledge the dangers of climate change while simultaneously approving new fossil fuel projects, subsidizing oil and gas production, and delaying emissions targets that scientists say are already dangerously inadequate. The WHO panel’s argument was bl… |
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Trial of Stanford students charged in 2024 pro-Palestinian protests deadlocked
The jury found the defendant guilty of vandalism by a vote of 9 to 3 and guilty of conspiracy to trespass by a vote of 8 to 4. After five days of talking about it, the jurors indicated they couldn't come to a decision. Judge Hanley Chew asked each of them if taking additional time to think would help, and they all said no. There was a mistrial in the case of five current and former Stanford University students who were prosecuted following pro-Palestinian protests in 2024, when they locked themselves inside the executive offices of the university president and provost. Chew remarked, "It looks like this jury is hopelessly deadlocked, so I'm going to declare a mistrial in counts one and two."… |
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How to Write and Publish Science Fiction
Science fiction has always been a genre of defiance. From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower, the best sci?fi stories refuse to accept the world as it is. They imagine what could be, what should be, and sometimes what must never be. Yet for the modern writer, the act of creating and publishing science fiction is itself a rebellion—against shrinking attention spans, against publishing monopolies, against the quiet pressure to write something “safe.” This is not a neutral craft. To write and publish science fiction today is to step into a contested space where art, commerce, and politics collide. 1. The Spark: Writing Against Gravity Every sci?fi story begins … |
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Philippine politician wanted by the International Court
Philippine Senate President claims that a lawmaker wanted by the International Court (ICC) is no longer in the Senate building, where he had been taking sanctuary, fearing his arrest. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, former national police commander and main enforcer of the murderous “war on drugs” under former President Rodrigo Duterte, has been ?shielded by the Senate, he is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same allegations that Duterte faces. Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano informed reporters on Thursday that the sergeant-at-arms verified he is not in the building anymore. The declaration came a day after shots rang out in the Senate, where Dela Rosa remained locked up. Confusion and … |
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The Assassination of Malcolm X
On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X woke up alone in a suite at the Hilton Hotel in New York City.He was, in the most literal sense, a guy without a home. The week before, someone had set fire to his house in the East Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens in the middle of the night. His wife, Betty Shabazz, and his four small children were all well, but for their own protection, they were currently residing with friends in a secret location.Malcolm was sure that his old coworkers from the Nation of Islam (NOI), led by Elijah Muhammad, were responsible for the firebombing. He used to be the second most influential person in the religious and political movement, but now he had to watch out for the milit… |
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Smile for the Camera because Immigration Enforcement Gets a Makeover
Guest Editorial I'm writing this from Saigon, where traffic confidently ignores rules, and no one pretends that chaos is order. The atmosphere is refreshing. Handguns are not allowed in Vietnam, and I haven't seen a police officer in over a year—not even any traffic accidents. It's amazing. There's no road rage here. I've been away long enough to witness Trump veering toward obscurity or damnation. Not sure which, but it will be exciting. I admit I’m biased. Can you tell? Distance sharpens perspective. There's no violent crime here, and the people are friendly. You can see American politics more clearly when you’re far enough away to stop smelling the perfume it sprays on itself. So, I felt … |
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Stock markets surge as Trump calls off strikes on Iran
Stock markets have surged following US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he called off planned strikes against Iran and a peace deal with Tehran is imminent. Wall Street’s benchmark S&P500 index finished nearly 1.8 percent higher on Thursday, ending a three-day streak of losses for the biggest single-day gain since April. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite jumped 2.5 percent, while the older, blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 1.9 percent. The rally continued in the Asia Pacific on Friday, with markets in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Australia racking up gains. South Korea’s Kospi, the best-performing major index this year, surged more than 8 percent in… |
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California named the most air polluted state in US
The 27th annual “State of the Air” study revealed that almost half of kids in the US are exposed to harmful levels of air pollution. That includes 7 million youngsters in California, and more than eight in 10 individuals live in counties with bad air. The research rated the air quality of counties with data from 2022 to 2024 on ground-level ozone pollution, popularly known as smog, and particle pollution, generally known as soot. Los Angeles-Long Beach was once again the most ozone-polluted metropolis in the nation. Bakersfield was the most contaminated for yearly particle pollution, although the area continued to improve in 2026 report. Ground-level ozone pollution, or smog, is a potent res… |
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Will America Go To War With NATO Over Greenland
Feature Editorial The United States is now openly challenging NATO, which theoretically could lead to WW3. What began as a crude discussion about purchasing has evolved into strategic pressure, which often transcends boundaries when power disregards its obligations. This conflict is no longer solely about Arctic bases or melting ice lanes; it raises the critical question of whether the United States is willing to fracture the very system it established, whether an alliance built to stop war can hold when the danger comes from the United States itself. The Arctic used to feel distant, a white silence at the edge of maps where ambition froze before it could speak. That illusion is gone. Greenl… |
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Forever Young
Opinion | Editorial It began not with candlelight or conversation, but with silence. After their injuries in 2018, in a Minnesota hospital ward, two patients lay unconscious, each suspended between life and death. Families kept vigil, doctors measured progress in whispers, and the world outside moved on. Then, slowly, both opened their eyes. What followed wasn’t just recovery, but the improbable intertwining of two lives that had nearly ended before they began together. Their romance between Zach Zarembinski and Isabelle Richard is extraordinary because it starts at the edge of tragedy. Comas aren’t romantic backdrops; they’re medical limbos. Survival rates vary, and recovery is often incomp… |
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Three Family Lives Brutally Taken in a Single Night
The small Alabama town of Wilmer has been plunged into grief after the discovery of three lives brutally taken in a single night. Inside a modest home, investigators found a mother, her young son, and a pregnant teenager—all bound with zip ties, all slain in acts of chilling precision. The silence of that house now echoes with the weight of tragedy, a place once filled with love now marked forever by violence. It was a phone app alert that led loved ones to the scene, a digital whisper that revealed horror beyond imagination. Lisa Ferguson, 46, her 17-year-old daughter Keziah Luker, who was eight months pregnant, and 12-year-old Thomas Cordelle were each confined to separate rooms, their fin… |
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Why is Iran bombing Gulf states while avoiding US naval assets and Israel
As the United States escalates its strikes on Iran, Tehran is hitting back, targeting military and civilian infrastructure across the Gulf states and Jordan while avoiding attacks on US naval assets deployed near its coast and on Israel – a strategy that analysts say is intended to pressure US President Donald Trump without expanding the scope of the war. While Washington has struck railway stations, power facilities, telecommunications networks and drinking-water infrastructure in Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has responded by attacking civilian airports and water and power stations in Kuwait and Bahrain. Military analysts said there’s a logic to this strategy. Targetin… |
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Nine-year-old Girl Killed After She Left Her Classroom
A Child’s Ordinary Day, Interrupted Forever On a November afternoon in Tucson, Arizona, nine-year-old Arlette Chavira left her classroom with the same joy she carried every day. She was an honor student, known for her kindness and eagerness to help. Walking with her seven-year-old sister, she headed toward her mother, who was waiting nearby. It was supposed to be routine—the kind of moment parents treasure: the daily reunion after school. Instead, a heavy rolling gate—long neglected, reportedly “busted” and awaiting repair—collapsed. It crushed Arlette in front of her sister. The gate did not fall because of chance. It fell because adults responsible for its upkeep failed to act. A lawsuit l… |
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A timeline of British royal sagas and scandals down the decades
Former British prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, brother of the United Kingdom’s King Charles II, was released by police on Thursday after being arrested and held for several hours on suspicion of misconduct in public office over his links to convicted late American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mountbatten-Windsor, who turned 66 the day of his arrest, is the first British royal in more than 350 years to be arrested and held in police custody – the last one was King Charles I, who was arrested by parliamentary forces in 1647 and put on trial for high treason. His princely title was revoked last year over his links to Epstein and allegations that the two men sexually abused Virginia Giuffre … |
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Laura Lynch of the Dixie Chicks killed
Laura Lynch, one of the original members of the singing group that would become famous as the Dixie Chicks, died in an automobile accident in West Texas. She was 65 years old. The Texas Department of Public Safety said that Lynch was in a head-on crash near El Paso on Friday. The trio, now known as the Chicks, announced on Instagram about Lynch's passing. Musical They've taken "Dixie" out of their name and are about to put out their first album in 14 years. It may be the finest record of the Chicks' troubled history. The band announced in a statement, "We are shocked and saddened to learn of the passing of Laura Lynch, a founding member of The Chicks." "We have a special place in our hearts … |
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AI companies accused of copyrighted infringement
Opinion | Editorial The open letter signed by Scarlett Johansson and hundreds of other creatives didn’t land because it was polite. It landed because it said the quiet part out loud: training commercial AI systems on copyrighted work without permission is theft dressed up as inevitability. The industry has spent years insisting this was a philosophical debate about progress. It isn’t. It’s a business choice—and a corrosive one. The letter, organized through the Human Artistry Campaign, rejects the soothing language that has insulated AI companies from accountability. “Learning,” “absorption,” “transformation.” These words are doing legal work, not descriptive work. They exist to blur a simpl… |
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Iran Prepares for US Attack as It Rejects Negotiations
Iran is not dancing toward the negotiating table out of fear; it is bracing for war while refusing to yield. Reports that Tehran is preparing for a possible U.S.–Israeli missile assault, even as it dismisses offers to talk, underscore a new kind of tension: fear without capitulation. That is not weakness, and it is not readiness in the traditional sense. It is a regime calculating its own survival amid an increasingly hostile international environment. This moment looks nothing like the hope-tinged diplomacy of past nuclear talks. Then, there were back channels, envoys meeting in hotel suites, whispered negotiations and, at times, fragile progress. Now the language is public posturing, threa… |