Mexico helped disband two migrant caravans bound for the United States, days after President-elect Donald Trump warned he would levy a 25 percent tariff on imports from the country.  |
- Mexico helped disband two migrant caravans bound for the United States, days after President-elect Donald Trump warned he would levy a 25 percent tariff on imports from the country.
- President Joe Biden has pledged more than $1 billion in humanitarian support for sub-Saharan African nations as he seeks to strengthen ties in the region to counter China's growing influence.
- The COVID-19 virus likely originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, a House subcommittee has concluded, following a two-year investigation into the pandemic.
- A martial law order from South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has again put communist influence in the country under the spotlight.
- A private school in upstate New York teaches first graders Shakespeare. The principal explains why. Story after the news.
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Good morning. It's Wednesday. Thank you for reading Morning Brief. |
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Migrants of different nationalities walk to the United States in a caravan along a highway in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas state, Mexico, on Nov. 5, 2024. (Isaac Guzman/AFP via Getty Images) |
Authorities in Mexico dissolved two caravans of would-be illegal immigrants heading to the United States days after President-elect Donald Trump warned he would levy a 25 percent tariff on imports from the country. Trump had demanded that Mexico block migrants headed to the U.S. border or face the punitive tariff. Migrant activists said this week that some caravan members were bused to cities in southern Mexico, and others were offered transit papers. The breaking-up of the two caravans appeared to be part of "an agreement between the president of Mexico and the president of the United States," migrant rights activist Luis Garcia Villagran said. |
- The first of the caravans started out from the southern Mexico city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, on Nov. 5, the day Trump was elected. At its height, it had about 2,500 people. In almost four weeks of walking, it had gone about 270 miles to Tehuantepec in the state of Oaxaca, activists said.
- In Tehuantepec, Mexican immigration officials offered the migrants free bus rides to other cities in southern or central Mexico, members of the caravan and activists said.
- "They took some of us to Acapulco, others to Morelia, and others from our group to Oaxaca city," said Barbara Rodriguez, an opposition supporter who left her native Venezuela after that country's contested presidential elections earlier this year.
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The second caravan of about 1,500 migrants set out on Nov. 20 and made it about 140 miles to the town of Tonala, in Chiapas state, activists say. There, authorities offered a sort of transit visa that allows travel across Mexico for 20 days. (More) More Politics |
- "The United States is all in on Africa," President Biden said following his meeting on Tuesday with Angolan President Joao Lourenco.
- Chad Chronister, the Hillsborough County sheriff in Florida, withdrew from consideration to become head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration days after being nominated by President-elect Donald Trump.
- Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) became the first Democrat to join a House caucus dedicated to supporting the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
- Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, was ordered by a judge to turn over communications she may have had with federal special counsel Jack Smith and the House Jan. 6 subcommittee.
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A Republican-led House oversight subcommittee has concluded, following a two-year investigation into the pandemic, that the COVID-19 virus likely originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China. |
- The report found that the U.S. National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and that EcoHealth Alliance Inc. used U.S. taxpayer dollars to facilitate this research at the lab.
- The Chinese communist regime, agencies within the U.S. government, and some members of the international scientific community sought to cover up facts concerning the origins of the pandemic.
- The committee said that COVID-19 possesses biological characteristics not found in nature and that data indicates that all COVID-19 cases stemmed from a single introduction into humans, unlike previous pandemics, where there were more spillover events.
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"By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced," the oversight subcommittee said in a statement. (More) More U.S. News |
- California's unemployment insurance program is facing financial challenges, burdened by shortfalls and a multibillion-dollar federal loan.
- The jury in the trial of former Marine Daniel Penny began its deliberations on Tuesday to decide whether Penny's actions were justified when he put Jordan Neely, a mentally ill homeless man, into a headlock on May 1, 2023, and wrestled him to the ground, or whether those actions crossed the line into manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, as prosecutors allege.
- Wisconsin public workers and teachers unions scored a major legal victory with a ruling that restores their right to collective bargaining.
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Martial law was declared, and then quickly lifted, in South Korea. The declaration was allegedly clearing the way to root out North Korean subversion throughout the country. Watch ➞ |
A martial law order from South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has again put communist influence in the country under the spotlight. |
- For the first time in nearly four decades, the South Korean leader invoked the authority, accusing the opposing Democratic Party of aligning with communist North Korea. He revoked martial law hours later after parliament voted to lift the order.
- "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free constitutional order," Yoon said in a late-night address on Dec. 3.
- He said the political opposition, which dominates the national assembly, was "paralyzing the judiciary by intimidating judges and impeaching a large number of prosecutors" and causing dysfunction in other government sectors.
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Lee Jae-myung, who has likened himself to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and leads the opposition party, has taken a more friendly stance toward the Chinese regime even as Yoon has tried to steer his country closer to the United States and reverse the country's yearslong trend of appeasing Beijing. "It's a very serious problem that we need to be aware of," Suzanne Scholte, president of Virginia-based Defense Forum Foundation, previously told The Epoch Times. "A liberal democracy like South Korea almost elected a pro-communist candidate in the last election." (More) More World News: |
- In a rare coordinated response to Washington, Chinese industry associations told Chinese companies on Dec. 3 that U.S. chips are "no longer safe" to buy.
- The warning was issued a day after the U.S. Commerce Department expanded rules to block China from accessing advanced semiconductor technology and added 140 entities to an export control list.
- The demise of top Chinese military officials are signs that Xi Jinping is facing an intense challenge to his control within the Party, experts say.
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People enjoy the atmosphere of Liverpool Christmas Market on St. George's Plateau in Liverpool, England, on Dec. 3, 2024. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images |
"If you'd fix a busted knee, why not a dysregulated brain or disrupted brain wave frequency?" |
- Dr. Kevin Murphy, a radiation oncologist and creator of personalized repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, posed this question to challenge our biases around mental health treatment.
- As a specialist in central nervous system tumors, Murphy advocates seeing behavioral issues as symptoms of underlying anatomical imbalances rather than personal failings.
- He suggests destigmatizing brain wave treatment, understanding certain behaviors as reflections of physiological imbalances, and viewing the brain like any other organ in need of attention.
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Brain wave patterns—whether too fast, too slow, or out of sync—can influence everything from our mood to our ability to focus. Neuromodulation is a technique that employs electrical or chemical stimulation to adjust the functions of the nervous system. Simple at-home methods also offer new solutions for mental health challenges while changing our understanding of how the brain functions and heals. (Full Article) |
Michael Fitzgerald, principal of Northern Schoolhouse in Middletown, New York. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times) |
An upstate New York private school, Northern Schoolhouse is focused on classical literature and art, immersion in nature, and nurturing a strong moral character in students based on time-tested virtues. |
- "If you recognize beauty, you can recognize what's good. And those are highly correlated in the classical world, especially in the Socratic sense. They talk a lot about truth, beauty, and goodness," says Fitzgerald.
- "Our goal was to create a school that was focused on giving the kids the best literature, history, and art throughout time."
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Fitzgerald says the school takes a creative classical approach, combining traditional educational principles with nature-based and creative methods. |
- "We start Shakespeare in grade one, for instance, with all our kids," Fitzgerald says. "Shakespeare is so beautiful, thought provoking, insightful, and hard. And so we want to give the kids really hard, challenging things that are completely worthy of their time and worthy of them as humans."
- "We also bring in this heavy emphasis on self-direction for the students, lots of nature study, being outside as much as possible, and a lot of opportunities for the kids to practice leadership."
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As part of its mission, Northern Schoolhouse focuses both on knowledge building and character development, nurturing a lifelong love of learning and self-improvement in the students.
Watch the full interview with Michael Fitzgerald on Epoch TV here.
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