This past week in Britain’s local elections, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has made huge gains in previous strongholds of the Labour and Conservative parties. Running on a right-wing populist agenda, Farage has made reducing immigration a focus of his party’s campaign. Ten years ago, he also emphasized immigration issues in his successful campaign for Brexit. But politically, even by his own goals, this was not a success in resolving the issue.Before 2021, British membership of the EU allowed citizens of any other member country to live and work in the UK without restrictions. The effects of this were especially…

Slightly over a year ago, Canadians went to the polls to elect their Members of Parliament. In a major turnaround from the expected result for years, the Liberal Party retained its grip on Ottawa under the leadership of Prime Minister Mark Carney. A large part of the Liberal Party’s rebound was due to Canadians’ dislike of Republican President Trump, and his perceived ideological similarities with Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre. Many Canadians feared Trump’s desire to make Canada the 51st state, trusting Carney instead to bring prosperity to an independent Canada instead.For the past decade, however, the Liberal Canadian government,…

A recent hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship on the MV Hondius has generated global concern and alerts from health authorities. The hantavirus has already resulted in multiple deaths, and required quarantines of the remaining passengers. Not coincidentally, interest in a treatment for the disease has spiked, as have the prices of Moderna’s stock. During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Moderna, along with Pfizer and AstraZeneca rapidly developed vaccines using mRNA technology, the first of their kind in history. And these vaccines were widely distributed and used around the world, marketed as “safe and effective” by numerous health authorities. But an investigation into…

110 years ago marked the beginning of a new political era for the Irish. Centuries of oppressive rule by British overlords included the prohibition of expressions of Irish culture, discrimination against its Catholic population, and worst of all, intentional mass starvation during the 1840s. Although it is known as the Irish Potato Famine, the reality is that while the potatoes died in large quantities, British landlords confiscated virtually all of Ireland’s supply of other foods, such as beef, cheese, and fish. They made exorbitant profits off selling them back in Great Britain, whose wealth contrasted with the extreme poverty that…

For almost two centuries, both Britain and Argentina have claimed the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. The islands have predominantly been under British control, with a brief interruption during the Argentine invasion in 1982. Recently, reports have indicated that President Trump is reassessing the United States’ recognition of Britain’s claim in favor of Argentine President Javier Milei, as a form of punishment for Britain’s lack of involvement in the Iran war. However, what legitimacy does Argentina have in its claim to the islands? The Falklands were first colonized by the British and French empires long before the Spanish…

Recycle to save the environment. After all, who wants plastic to end up in an ever-expanding landfill? Surely, all the plastic bottles that we drink out of could be turned into new gadgets after a quick sip. But most of the time, this is wishful thinking. It turns out that only around 5% of all plastic that is thrown into recycle bins is actually remanufactured into new usable products. Plastic products are often fragile in terms of their ability to be recycled, easily being damaged by food stains or residual fluids from their use as containers or bags. As a…

In the wake of rising fuel prices caused by Trump’s war with Iran, massive protests broke out led by farmers in Ireland. Long convoys of trucks and tractors have blocked streets, ports, and oil refineries across the island in response to carbon and fuel taxes. These protests have since been calmed by economic relief packages including reduction of said taxes. Nevertheless, they reflect an increasingly global opposition to the war on farmers against elitist tyranny. Farmer protests conducted in similar ways have occurred all across Europe, in the Netherlands, France, and Germany, against other authoritarian measures in recent years. Particularly,…

The Earth has existed for approximately 4.5 billion years, enduring countless unimaginable catastrophes. Erratic climate events, such as tropical storms and global floods, have occurred since liquid water first appeared on the planet. Wildfires have been a natural occurrence for hundreds of millions of years, long before the rise of Homo sapiens. Geologically, processes like plate tectonics, continental drift, and supervolcano eruptions have destroyed numerous ecosystems and significantly reduced biodiversity. The effects of Ice Ages seem minor when compared to the Snowball Earth phases, during which even the tropics were blanketed in ice, rendering most of the surface too cold…

We are often told that European colonialism was uniquely barbaric and oppressive. Without a doubt, many atrocities against native Africans and Indians occurred at the hands of British, French, and Belgian overlords in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. After the Second World War, European empires quickly lost most of their overseas colonies. But has this brought them peace and prosperity? Hindus and Muslims lived in peace for nearly 400 years under the British Raj in what is now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Similarly, there were few tensions between Arabs and Jews in the British Mandatory Rule over what…

Nowhere in our constitution is there a limit to how large the House of Representatives can be. But the 1929 Reapportionment Act arbitrarily limits it to the familiar 435. Before then, the size of the chamber grew each decade, meaning that the number of constituents per representative grew slower instead. In fact, the United States capitol building even expanded to accommodate the new representatives multiple times. Since 1929, however, the average electorate size for each representative has almost tripled. As a result, the house continues to become less representative of American voters as a whole, as more constituents compete to…