Students at Northwestern University face criminal charges for publishing a parody of the school's student newspaper. It criticized the school's support for Israel and its atrocities in Gaza. They wrapped their parody around some of the copies of the newspaper they were parodying.

They are being prosecuted under an obscure law against "theft of advertising services". It prohibits inserting other material into newspapers. Does the law cover wrapping a different cover around the newspaper? In terms of advertising, that is very different.

More deeply, prosecuting people for expressing their political views in a parody is an attack on freedom of speech. No matter if it is offensive to someone -- since it is about a real political issue, we must recognize its redeeming social value whether we agree with it or not.

It seems clear that this is part of a campaign of persecution, in the US, Britain and parts of Europe, of people who publicly defend Palestinians rights.

I disagree with those people on a least one point. They call Israel's war in Gaza "genocide"; in my view, it has not reached that level yet, but it is heading that way. But that disagreement is not pertinent to the issues of raised by prosecuting them.

*A 100km-long curtain moored to the Amundsen Sea bed in Antarctica could prevent catastrophic flooding elsewhere, say scientists.*

I can see things that might fail, but it may be worth a try.

US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act.

This would not do as much good as raising taxes generally on high incomes together with limiting the ability to shelter large amounts of wealth from taxation. We should continue to push for that as what we really want.

US citizens: call on the SEC to propose again the Stock Buyback Disclosure Rule.

Stock buybacks used to be prohibited entirely, before a plutocratist change in the law. We should undo that change and prohibit them entirely once again. But this rule will be much better than no change.

Mississippi Republicans want to make it impossible to repeal abortion restrictions through a vote by the public.