“China has launched its first nationwide programme of childcare subsidies as it steps up efforts to boost birth rates and give more spending power to households with young children. The government will give families Rmb3,600 ($503) a year for each child under the age of three, state news agency Xinhua said on Monday. The subsidy will be applied from January 2025 but families with children born between 2022 and 2024 can apply for partial handouts. The policy is expected to benefit more than 20mn families each year, Xinhua reported, citing a spokesperson from China’s National Health Commission.” (07/29/25)
“The American government — after years of nurturing a censorship agenda in the South American country — is now penalizing Brazil’s super-censor Supreme Court justice, Alexandre de Moraes, along with various colleagues, for imposing censorship demands on U.S. companies. The U.S. State Department revoked their visa privileges, preventing them from entering the United States.” (07/29/25)
“The war with Russia is now going very badly for Ukraine. But Ukrainians must feel like the world, and not just Russia, is treating them badly.” (07/29/25)
“The Department of Education has launched a civil rights investigation into Duke University amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on higher-learning institutions as it seeks to rid the private and public sector of diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The civil rights investigation was launched Monday into not only Duke but its law journal for violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by allegedly discriminating against students based on race. The investigation coincides with the departments of Education and Health and Human Services sending a joint letter to Duke University outlining their ‘shared concerns’ about its use of race in its hiring, admissions and scholarship decisions.” (07/29/25)
“Trump had a reputation as a different Republican president: less libertarian, more authoritarian, less interested in shrinking government or cutting entitlements, more interested in using the levers of government to reward friends and punish enemies. But Trump’s approach to FEMA in his second term belies that reputation. The agency, created in 1979, is explicitly retreating from the disaster relief business and shifting the burden to already overburdened states and localities.” [editor’s note: Scher always says “libertarian” like it’s a bad thing – TLK] (07/28/25)
“The Founding Fathers recognized unalienable rights – not rights that couldn’t be taken away. Rather, rights which it was wrong (sinful! evil!) to take away. They are God’s gift to His creations: every human being. Our headlines are filled with both examples of those rights, those liberties, being stolen away. And of people who use their liberties to do evil things. Not just to others, but even to themselves.” (07/28/25)
“Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been found guilty of witness tampering and bribery in a landmark trial, becoming the country’s first ex-president to ever be found guilty at trial. Judge Sandra Liliana Heredia ruled on Monday that there was enough evidence to determine that Uribe, 73, conspired with a lawyer to coax three former members of paramilitary groups who were in prison into changing testimony they had provided to Ivan Cepeda, a left-wing senator who had launched an investigation into Uribe’s alleged ties to a paramilitary group in the 1990s. The case dates to 2012, when Uribe filed a libel suit against Cepeda with the Supreme Court. But in a twist, the high court dismissed the charges against Cepeda and began investigating Uribe in 2018.” (07/29/25)
