Amazon customers have had reason to rejoice as of late. Whereas up until very recently the company required Prime members to spend at least $25 when purchasing small items in order to qualify for free one-day shipping, buyers can now receive the same benefits without the monetary requirement. The requirement change seems to be Amazon’s most recent attempt at...
Free speech advocates in Singapore had quite a scare this month over the country’s newly established “fake news” law. The Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act came into effect Oct. 2, and, to a western eye, it looks terrifying. The law will allow the government ministers of Singapore to flag online information as “false,” which will force the...
Amongst the many liberties the U.S. constitution promises its citizens, personal autonomy is perhaps chiefest amongst them. It stands to reason, then, that nobody should have the power to decide what one does with their body. Unfortunately, as the Supreme Court starts dismantling abortion laws, that may not be the case much longer. A woman should be allowed to...
Not a month went by in 2018 in which the words “cancel culture” weren’t brought up in some capacity. The term refers to a widespread internet phenomenon involving the exposure and boycott of a person (or piece of media) that has perpetrated some sort of unsavory act, often by sharing a questionable opinion or behaving problematically.
The most recent example...
The streets of Hong Kong swell with the rage of angry protestors, and that rage doesn’t seem any closer to pacification than it was back when the protests started this past June. Said protestors have a lengthy list of demands and one unified goal in mind: Hong Kong must not surrender its autonomy. Media coverage of the demonstrations has...
August saw social media lit up with discussion of the Amazon rainforest fires, and one month later those same fires are still burning bright. 80,000 rainforest fires have started in the region since the beginning of January, and Brazillian President Jair Bolsonaro has done very little to put them out. The far-right wing former congressman was a vocal advocate...
Last month, the Department of Energy gave a press release announcing a further commitment to “U.S. jobs, economic growth and clean energy” in which they mention the Trump administration's efforts to spread “freedom gas” throughout the world. At first glance, the name freedom gas may seem out of place, but one need only look back to Rick Perry’s announcement...
The housing crisis is an incredibly difficult issue to solve with no single, obvious solution capable of satisfying everyone. The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness reported that an estimated 129,972 Californians were homeless “at any given day” last year, with 6,702 family households contributing to that number. According to expert housing economist David Rubenstein, the crisis has two...
Trump pardoned fellow billionaire Conrad Black on May 15, 2019, with very little explanation. The pardon allegedly came as a surprise to the media mogul, who was convicted of fraud back in July of 2007. More perceptive individuals may have seen this coming, however, as Black has had only positive things to say about the current president in recent...
UCR’s Associated Students serve several purposes, the most important being their representation of students from each distinct college within the university. While in theory this should be an opportunity for students to gain knowledge about local politics and, ultimately, an appreciation for civic duty, ASUCR has often fallen short of this ideal.
While no government or bureaucratic system is perfect,...