“The court emphasized that the men — whom the Trump administration has labeled “alien enemies” — are entitled to more due process than the administration has so far provided. That means advance notice of their deportations and a meaningful opportunity to challenge the deportations in court, the justices wrote in an unsigned opinion.”
“When a Guatemalan man sued the Trump administration in March for deporting him to Mexico despite a fear of persecution, immigration officials had a response: The man told them himself he was not afraid to be sent there.
But in a late Friday court filing, the administration acknowledged that this claim — a key plank of the government’s response to a high-stakes class action lawsuit — was based on erroneous information.”
“what followed was a master class in presidential deal-making of the most direct kind. Brzezinski and his colleagues often complained that Carter read too much. One of the president’s internal nicknames was “grammarian-in-chief.” But by the end of the improbably successful 13-day Camp David peace talks that September, they realized that Carter’s obsessive reading in this case had been indispensable. His knowledge of every topographical quirk, and geographic line, in the disputed Sinai desert, was critical to the marathon process that resulted in the first ever Arab recognition of Israel’s right to exist. The Camp David accords didn’t fix the Middle East, but they set the template for every attempt to forge a lasting peace ever since.”
“economic development officials and lawmakers from several states say that the uncertainty fueled by Trump’s on-again, off-again trade wars is keeping many foreign businesses from pouring money into the U.S. market right now. And it signals the uneven impact the tariffs are having on reshoring American manufacturing — Trump’s stated goal for raising rates to the highest levels in a century.”
Trump is dismissive of refugees, but then actively supports these South African refugees. Why? One obvious difference is that these refugees are white. Or maybe this is just Musk’s influence who has a personal interest in South Africans because he is from there? Maybe it’s because of the relative wealth and/or skills of these refugees? Is it about ease of assimilation? Does focusing on South Africa stoke fears about potentially anti-white policies in the U.S., increasing fervor and support for Trump and those like him?
The South African government is not taking land from white farmers. They have an offer to buy their land for redistributive purposes, but there is no forced land takings by the government. There is a law that could be read as allowing the government to take land from whites, but it has not been used like this so far, and it could just be similar to eminent domain laws in the United States.
There have been robberies and murders of white land owners, but there is a lot of crime in South Africa, and this is a small minority of it. It’s not clear that there is a focused crime attack on white farmers. What is clear, is that South Africa has a lot of crime in general.
“the administration’s indiscriminate approach has also halted countless important projects like the use of artificial intelligence to detect early signs of breast cancer. There are simple alternative policy changes that would both curb politically biased research and protect crucial scientific research that benefits the public. For instance, the administration could change the criteria by which future grants are evaluated to avoid funding projects that are political in nature. If researchers or universities are unwilling to comply, the administration could let existing grants expire and decline further renewal.
Some higher education critics might consider this nitpicking — after all, when the federal government holds the leverage, what does it matter if the changes are implemented with the proper decorum? But they neglect the decentralized nature of universities and the buy-in from faculty required to make long-term changes.
The Trump administration’s current approach alienates exactly those influential allies within universities who would help facilitate and maintain long-term changes, forcing them to choose between left-wing intolerance and right-wing authoritarianism.”
“There is a real issue with South African farmers being killed or violently attacked, experts told us. But most of the violent acts are committed during robberies in a country where most of the wealth and land post-apartheid is still owned by a relatively small white minority.
“Yes, white farmers are being killed in South Africa,” political scientist Jean-Yves Camus, co-director of the Observatory of Political Radicalism at the Jean Jaurès Foundation in Paris, told us via email. “However, there is nothing like a ‘white genocide.’ And the issue needs to be seen in the broader context of a country plagued by crime and gang activity.”
Although police statistics are imprecise on the issue, there have been about 50 farm murders per year over the last several years. That’s less than 1% of all murders in the country.
“Murder victimization is far more correlated to class, gender and location than race,” Lizette Lancaster of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, told us via email.
“Farm attacks, including murders, do occur in South Africa, and many are undeniably brutal,” Anthony Kaziboni, a political and critical sociologist at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Development in Africa, told us via email. “However, South Africa must be understood in its broader socio-economic and historical context.” South Africa has “extreme inequality, with approximately 10% of the population (largely white) owning over 80% of the wealth. It also has a deeply violent past, and the country’s structural violence persists today alongside physical violence, economic violence, and many other forms of violence.”
“Violent crime affects all sectors of society, not just farmers,” Kaziboni said.”
“DOGE’s aggressive cost-cutting efforts, led by a staff Musk brought in, are expected to continue even after he formally leaves his role as a special government employee. Both Republicans and Democrats also widely expect the tech billionaire, who poured $290 million of his own money into the 2024 elections, to continue to be a major political player.”