By Savannah Green (CMC ’20) The topic of citizenship in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe has been consistently discussed since the beginning of Brexit talks. Though the UK’s exit from the European Union is still not finalized, many EU citizens living in the UK (and vice versa) are worried about their status post-Brexit. EU citizenship brings a multitude of perks, including seamless...
By Musa Kamara (PO’22) The rise of streamed music consumption—that is, the consumption of music that does not need to be downloaded—represents a significant milestone in the history of music. Streaming services have made listening to music easier than ever before and have facilitated a rise in music industry revenues, revenues that had suffered as CD sales declined in the 2000s. Take, for...
By Alex Simard (PO’22) Content Warning: This article, as it centers on the death penalty and a man condemned to it, contains depictions of gun violence, murder, and domestic and sexual violence, including rape. It also contains graphic depictions of petitioner’s medical condition and brief depictions of 17th- and 18th-century modes of punishment, including torture. In 1944, Albert Trop, a...
By Katya Pollock (PO’21) In March 2019, the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced that they had secured the last ISIS stronghold in Syria, the small town of Baghouz at the eastern border of the country. In the nearly five years since ISIS’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, first declared the creation of an Islamic caliphate, the group has controlled a territory as large as Great...
By Rafael Santa Maria (PO ’20) Last week, the Supreme Court implemented official rule changes that reduce the word limits in court briefs and identify potential conflicts of interest. Originally proposed last November, these changes intend to reduce the Court’s caseload and make it clear when justices must recuse themselves from certain cases. These new rules go into effect on July first...
By Savannah Green (CMC ’20) One of President Trump’s major economic issues has been the US’s increasing trade war with China. In 2017, the US carried out an in-depth investigation into Chinese hacking, following reports that the Chinese government was targeting key US industries as a way of gaining new technology. In response to the investigation’s findings, the US government imposed...
By Kimberly Tuttle (CMC’19) Many debates surrounding the legality of Julian Assange’s controversial organization, WikiLeaks, resurfaced this week in light of Assange’s recent release from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has lived under diplomatic protection since 2012. In particular, news regarding the U.S. government’s indictment of Assange have concerned the American public...
By Calla Li (PO ’22) American universities across the country have long regarded international students as a means of not just increasing campus diversity, but increasing revenue too, as international students receive (on average) far less financial aid than their American peers. In the 2017-2018 school year alone, 1.1 million international students representing over 100 countries were...
By Rafael Santa Maria (PO ’20) Last Friday, the Department of Defense began implementing a new policy that effectively prevents transgender individuals from joining the military. Although the policy was announced in a Defense Department memorandum last month, enforcement began on April 12. This development follows efforts to curtail transgender military service by the Trump administration dating...
By Christopher Tan (PZ ’21) “When China awakes, the world will tremble,” Napoleon once famously said. This statement has never rung truer as China faces an economic slowdown after 30 years of unprecedented growth, with global markets anxious about the trickle-down effects of the country’s sluggish economy. With official numbers from the last quarter of 2018 reporting a growth rate of 6.4...
