Contestations over the Republican National Committee’s efforts to foreclose avenues for lawful protest outside this week’s Republican National Convention (RNC) were already heated months before GOP delegates started booking their flights to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the convention.
Columbus police have killed more than 60 people since 2013
Columbus police shoot and kill more people than most of their peer cities, according to an analysis of police shootings data by the Columbus Dispatch, part of the USA TODAY Network.
Late last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) quietly introduced a regulation that may be one of the most important shifts in how non-profit and for-profit U.S. institutions, both at home and abroad, conduct future medical and public health research. It represents an erosion of personal medical choice and threatens to undermine the public’s trust in scientific investigations in biomedicine.
We are former U.S. Government Officials who resigned from our respective positions over the last nine months due to our grave concerns with current U.S. policy towards the crisis in Gaza, and U.S. policies and practices towards Palestine and Israel more broadly. We are subject matter experts representing the interagency, and are a multifaith and multiethnic community of professionals and patriots dedicated to the service of the United States of America, its people, and its values. Whether in the civil service, foreign service, armed forces, or as political appointees, each of us has sworn an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and as our nation celebrates its Independence Day, each of us are reminded that we resigned from government not to terminate that oath but to continue to abide by it; not to end our commitment to service, but to extend it.
Wikipedia’s editors have voted to declare the Anti-Defamation League “generally unreliable” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding it to a list of banned and partially banned sources.
At least Ukraine doesn’t discriminate, when it comes to detaining writers.
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It should be noted that similar jailings are taking place in Russia, with some hitting close to home. This past December, Russians arrested Boris Kagarlitsky, a longtime Moscow Times contributor who was the main writer on the “Russian Dissent” Substack sponsored by this site. Boris, a socialist himself but not connected in any way to the WSWS, was denounced as an “inoagent” (a foreign agent) and given a five year sentence, which Russian authorities called “excessively lenient.” The case is one of the more absurd in the history of speech offenses. Kagarlitsky was initially accused of making light of a 2022 explosion on the Krimsky Bridge linking Russia to Crimea, thanks to a video titled “Explosive Congratulations to the Cat Mostik,” sarcastically putting a cat in the frame for the blast. The Russian news agency TASS noted Kagarlitsky’s “negative attitude toward authorities,” and Boris remains in prison. We’re trying to get more information about his status.
Mostik isn’t just any cat! Mostik = Bridge. Mostik is themascot of the Crimean Bridge. Petty criticism,maybe. Anyway, I’m not surprised that the West is ignoring anyone detained in Ukraine for speech issues while screeching about ‘freedom of the press’ and ‘human rights’ in Russia.
“RIPLEY (voice-over): Chinese state media is using A.I.-enhanced videos on TikTok, altering the reporter’s voice and face. A disclosure on screen for just a few seconds, easy to miss.
[01:39:52]
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Under China’s jurisdiction.
RIPLEY: The video is pushing Beijing’s narrative on the South China Sea.
Is this a threat to democracy?
FELIPE SALVOSA II, JOURNALISM PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF SANTO TOMAS: Most definitely. I think China has found a more cost-effective way to get its message across.
RIPLEY: Turning today’s digital landscape into a battleground for truth, where seeing is no longer believing.
Every time I do a story about these deepfake videos, what strikes me is the quality keeps improving. Our researcher (INAUDIBLE) spent hours putting these through algorithms to determine with 99 percent accuracy whether these videos are real, whether they’re fake, whether the voice has been altered, the face has been altered. Who on social media has time for that and a lot of people don’t take the time which experts say is dangerous, particularly in democracies when people are watching these videos and then potentially using the information they hear to make decisions about how to vote.
The “Fighters for Free North Korea*” group claimed to have sent balloons containing USB thumb drives loaded with K-pop music and 200,000 leaflets criticizing Kim Jong Un, while another group of DPRK defectors dispatched balloons containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets, radios, and USB thumb drives featuring a speech by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
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In 2020, South Korea’s Constitutional Court invalidated a law criminalizing the sending of anti-Pyongyang propaganda, citing it as an undue restriction on free speech**. Consequently, experts argue that there are currently no legal grounds for the government to intervene in activists’ balloon launches into the DPRK. The South Korean Unification Ministry stated that the issue is being deliberated in light of the 2023 court ruling.
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Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have endured for an extended period as a result of systemic escalation on the part of Japan, the US, and South Korea.
The three nations have been conducting joint naval drills in the peninsula and along the demilitarized zone, which has triggered major security concerns on the part of DPRK.
“The first is the right to free speech and for people to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard. The second is the rule of law. Both must be upheld. We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent.”
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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