International Updates 101

  The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved a new set of waivers allowing six states to restrict the purchase of unhealthy food items under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The waivers were signed by Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins, joined by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as part of the federal initiative titled “Make America Healthy Again.” The newly approved states are Hawai‘i, Missouri, North Dakota, South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. These waivers will take effect in 2026 and are aimed at removing sugar-sweetened beverages, candy, processed snacks, and other ultra-processed foods from the list of items eligible to be purchased using SNAP benefits. According to the USDA, the purpose of the initiative is to ensure that taxpayer-funded nutrition support programs contribute to better public health outcomes. Authorities argue that chronic illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease hav...

 The US President reposted a New York Post article with offensive content and later said at a press conference that Europe was moving "in the wrong direction." The article in question was a New York Post article by Dominic Green, a Wall Street Journal contributor and fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The article, titled "Impotent Europeans Can Only Fume as Trump Rightly Sidelines Them from the Ukraine Deal," apparently resonated with Trump, who had previously frequently criticized the publication for criticizing him. Trump reposted the post. A few hours later, at a meeting with reporters, the US president stated that "Europe should be very careful." "We want to preserve Europe. But Europe is moving in the wrong direction. We don't want Europe to change that much," Trump said. Donald Trump criticized Europe He also mentioned the war in Ukraine in his now-familiar vein, saying that if he were president, the war wouldn't have ...

  The reaction comes after the European Commission fined the social network X 120 million euros  on Friday for violating EU law  with a misleading verification mark, lack of transparency in advertising, and difficulty in providing data access to researchers, in accordance with the EU Digital Services Act.   In a series of posts between Friday night and Saturday morning, the billionaire criticized the EU, calling for the  "abolition"  of the bloc. "Sovereignty [must] be returned to individual countries so that governments can better represent their people  ," Musk wrote on his X account. Musk's attacks come a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio criticized the fine, which he described as an "attack" on Washington "by foreign governments." "The fine (...) from the European Commission is not just an attack on X; it is an attack on all American technology platforms and the American people by foreign governments," Rubio declared i...