Quillette.

It is not normal to hear objections raised when universities award honorary doctoral degrees. The distinction, often conferred at happy graduation ceremonies, brings attention to exemplary achievement by the recipient. The aim is to nominate recipients who, in the tradition of the university, elevate all of us. This is true with academic recipients who represent the best of scholarly inquiry, but also with popular figures who represent universalist aspirations.

Francesca Albanese has been the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur for occupied Palestinian territories since 2022. In every medium, she leads the accusation that Israel has been committing genocide in the Gaza Strip since Hamas’s 7 October 2023 massacre. And on 2 April, in Antwerp’s Queen Elisabeth Concert Hall, Albanese will receive an honorary doctorate from not one, but three Flemish institutions in Belgium: the University of Antwerp, the University of Ghent, and the Free University of Brussels. The universities say they wish to honour Albanese’s “outstanding commitment to human rights and international justice.”

It is the first time that universities have jointly conferred such an honour, and this curious event will overshadow simultaneous awards by the University of Antwerp to a pulmonologist, a toxicologist, and a scientist of learning. But the illusion of unanimous acclaim has been punctured already. The Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium’s highest ranked university, rejected an invitation to join the others. “The stance of KU Leuven at this moment is sickening,” wrote a professor emeritus at the university’s faculty of law and criminology in response. “It is a direct mockery of the calls from the International Court of Justice to do everything possible to end the genocide in Gaza. It makes KU Leuven complicit in this mass murder.” Not only did Leuven not wish to honour Albanese; it had also awarded research grants to Israeli scholars engaged in academic work.

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Europe is literally paying Indians hundreds of euros a month to “study” while its own students can’t afford rent and are drowning in debt.

In a now-viral video, an Indian student in Europe boasts about the arrangement. He explains how the EU provides him with 1400 euros every single month that covers rent, travel, and meals, with zero student debt, while he still saves 600 euros every single month.

He walks through what he calls “elite scholarship secrets,” noting that a simple bachelor’s degree, a valid passport, and basic English proficiency suffice — adding that “IELTS is not always mandatory” and a certificate from some random school abroad will do.

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Conservative states across the US have taken action in recent months to begin the arduous process of removing the stain of the woke movement from America’s streets and public buildings. For the last decade, the far-left ideological crusade has left its mark everywhere while using “marginalized” identity groups as a moral shield.

Though they claim to be acting as a civil rights movement, the reality is that “Pride” and LGBT activist groups are entirely political. The pride flag is a political, ideological and some would argue religious symbol of cultural dominance planted across the country as a means to claim ownership.

The State of Idaho is no longer tolerating this insurgency. On Tuesday, Mayor Lauren McLean was forced to remove the Progress Pride flag from display in Downtown Boise after Governor Brad Little signed HB 561. The bill, brought by Rep. Ted Hill, R-Eagle, limits local governments to flying only the American flag, state flags, official military flags, recognized tribal flags, and the official flag of an Idaho university or college.

The response from Democrats has been dramatic, to say the least, with a somber proclamation of “Transgender Day” to mourn the loss of the pride flag. Idaho also recently passed one of the strictest laws in the nation against transgenders using incorrect bathrooms and public facilities.

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Texas Congressman Keith Self has dropped a bombshell on the growing reality of Sharia-adherent communities taking root inside the United States. Far from some future hypothetical, these enclaves are here, now, and operating openly in his own district.

Self laid it out plainly: “Sharia is alive, well, and operating in Plano, Texas. Right now, as I speak, there is an existing Sharia-adherent enclave run by the East Plano Islamic Center in my congressional district. It’s been functioning for 12 years right in our midst. This is not a hypothetical or future threat. It is here, now and operational.”

He continued: “It is a parallel society, a de facto Sharia enclave operating in defiance of full assimilation into American law situated immediately adjacent to the very law enforcement facilities meant to protect our communities.”

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California is a cash machine. The state collects some of the country’s highest income, business, and fuel taxes, and now spends more than $300 billion per year. And yet, everywhere you look, California seems to be falling apart.

The roads are crumbling. Mismanaged wildfires have turned neighborhoods into ash. Drug addiction and homelessness have metastasized, turning parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco into no-go zones. And the cost-of-living crisis is pricing middle-class taxpayers out of basic necessities like groceries and gas, even as the state spends billions on welfare programs that never seem to lift anyone out of poverty.

Californians are beginning to ask: Where is all this money going? On paper, it funds hospitals, universities, schools, prisons, infrastructure, and other public services. But beneath the surface, something else is happening that California Governor Gavin Newsom does not want you to see: massive, systematic, brazen fraud.

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The arrest of dozens of IRGC-linked money changers in the United Arab Emirates is one of the most serious blows yet to Tehran’s sanctions-evasion network, laying bare how heavily the Islamic Republic has depended on Dubai as an economic lifeline.

Sources familiar with the matter told Iran International that UAE authorities detained dozens of money changers tied to financial entities linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, shut down associated companies and closed their offices. The crackdown follows days of mounting regional tensions and comes after other measures targeting Iranian nationals, including visa revocations and tighter travel restrictions through Dubai.

For years, Dubai has served as Iran’s main offshore financial artery, where oil proceeds, petrochemical revenues and rial conversions were turned into dollars, dirhams and euros beyond the reach of the country’s battered domestic banking system.

“This is going to be a real problem for Tehran because Dubai was an economic lung for the Iranian regime,” Jason Brodsky of United Against Nuclear Iran told Iran International.

“That is economic pressure and diplomatic isolation in a way that the UAE is able to employ against the Iranian regime, and it will have a very considerable impact.”

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The Feeding Our Future fraud is the largest pandemic-relief theft in American history – $250 million stolen, mostly by Somali immigrants who fabricated meal counts and pocketed federal child nutrition funds.

The prosecutions have dragged on for years.

Now that sentences are finally coming down, a troubling pattern is emerging: the punishments don’t seem to fit the crime.

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A crowded crop of Democratic candidates has liberal Californians worried it could lead to the deep blue state ending up with two Republicans running for governor.

California has a jungle primary system, where the top two vote getters advance to a general election and several polls have shown Democrats could split the vote among themselves, vaulting two Republicans to the top.

The state has not elected a Republican to the governor’s mansion since Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006.

“We know there’s this risk ahead, a 15% chance of calamity,” Paul Mitchell, a leading Democratic data strategist in the state, told Politico.

“It’s not a 15% chance of stubbing your toe, it’s a 15% chance of losing the governorship, losing the down-ballot races,” he said.

Democrats are concerned two Republicans at the top of the ticket could depress turnout, wiping out the gains they hoped to make after voting to redraw the state’s congressional maps to give their party additional seats.

Judge orders Trump to halt $400 million White House ballroom project, for now (Mike Scarcella/Reuters)

Judge Blocks Trump Ballroom Pending Congressional OK

Trump Blasts Order Halting White House Ballroom

BREAKING: Trump will sign sweeping order attacking mail-in voting (Yunior Rivas/Democracy Docket)

NPR and PBS Win Injunction Against Trump Order to End Funding (Daniel Seiden/Bloomberg)

Trump signs order directing creation of a national voter list, a move sure to face legal challenges (Associated Press)

Dems Struggle to Criticize Trump’s No Tax On OT

A New Era of International Gangsterism (Peter Juul/Liberal Currents)

Trump’s gas prices problem (Cameron Peters/Vox)

Birthright Citizenship Shouldn’t Be Up for Debate (Michael Waldman/Brennan Center …)  Freedom of speech? What’s that?

Trump interview: I am strongly considering pulling out of Nato (Connor Stringer/Telegraph)

Appeals Court Stops V.O.A. Journalists From Quickly Returning (Minho Kim/New York Times)

CNN Poll: Trump’s approval rating on the economy hits a new low (Jennifer Agiesta/CNN)  Among the people polled by CNN. (Rasmussen: Trump Approval Steady at 51 Percent)

Trump Eyes NATO Exit Over Iran Rift

Astroturf and selective outrage: The real story behind ‘No Kings’ (Jay Rogers/The Hill)

The Costs of a Political Science-Free Foreign Policy (Daniel W. Drezner/Drezner’s World)

Trump’s mixed messages on Iran perplex his own team (Axios)  What, you didn’t know that writers for Axios could read minds?

Inside the Bizarre Feedback Loop Between DHS and MAGA Influencers (Josh Kovensky/Talking Points Memo)

Inside the Bizarre Feedback Loop Between DHS and MAGA Influencers (Josh Kovensky/Talking Points Memo)

Trump Motorcade Met With Middle Fingers on Way to Supreme Court (J.D. Wolf/MeidasTouch News)  Leftist class.

Spain hits back at Trump in escalating row over euthanasia (Milena Wälde/Politico)

Trump’s Antifa Terror (Julia Ioffe/Puck)

Trump’s Fateful Choice (The Atlantic)

Trump Administration Live Updates: White House Now Plans to Gut, but Not Close, Consumer Protection Agency (Stacy Cowley/New York Times)  I would like to dance in its intestines.

“Casualty Cover-Up”: The Pentagon Is Hiding U.S. Losses Under Trump in the Middle East (Nick Turse/The Intercept)

Obama Judge Orders Trump Admin To Restore Legal Status Of 985,000 Migrants Who Used CBP One App

Trump Presidential Library To Feature Solemn ‘Reflecting Pool’ Of Liberal Tears (Babylon Bee)

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Not just that, but according to the Financial Times, the Alberta separatists have met with Trump officials a few times over the past year.

This could prove amusing.

Quillette.

Tariq Ramadan is either a predatory manipulator who belongs behind bars or a calm voice of reason victimised by a prejudiced ruling class. It really depends on whom you ask. Last week, the Paris Criminal Court sentenced Ramadan to eighteen years in prison for raping three women between 2009 and 2016. This ought to have settled the question about one of Europe’s most divisive thinkers. In fact, Ramadan’s punishment will only fortify the views of the two opposing camps.

Ramadan’s background is well known in France and his native Switzerland but less so elsewhere. His maternal grandfather, Hassan al-Banna, founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928. In the late 1940s, al-Banna’s daughter Waffa married a Brotherhood activist named Said Ramadan. After al-Banna’s assassination in 1949, Said became one of the organisation’s leading figures. Expelled from Egypt in 1954 during president Gamal Abdel Nasser’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, the couple moved to Syria and then Pakistan before eventually settling in Switzerland, where Tariq was born in 1962.

According to his defenders, Ramadan rejected the illiberal fanaticism of his father and grandfather and grew up to be an urbane and moderate academic, enculturated by Western norms but with a heritage that provided him with the legitimacy to speak to and on behalf of radical Muslim communities. Western liberal elites were entranced by this paradoxical figure, and they embraced him as a figure who could explain East to West and vice-versa. This was especially true in France, where he enjoyed his highest profile, frequently appearing in debates and on talk shows.

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Leftist politicians in Providence, Rhode Island, are erasing the memory of an innocent victim to shield their failed policies on crime and immigration.

The nearly completed mural honoring Iryna Zarutska—the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee brutally murdered on a North Carolina light rail train by a repeat offender—is being removed after pressure from Democrat leaders who called it divisive.

Conservative commentator Benny Johnson broke the story, posting: “Iryna Zarustka mural in Providence, RI, is being removed following protest of it by Mayor Brett Smiley.

UPDATE: City’s Demand to Remove Iryna Zarutska Mural Speaks Volumes About the Left’s ‘Values’

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This past Sunday was Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week for Christians around the world, a period that should be meaningful and joyous, but that was not the case in Nigeria, as dozens of Christians were reported to have been killed by gunmen, including in Gari Ya Waye community Angwan Rukuba, served by Nigeria’s Catholic Archdiocese of Jos. The targeting of Christians in Nigeria is not new or rare, prompting President Trump to threaten military action last November, unless their government did more to protect the community, but still the latest attacks were ignored Monday by the network newscasts.

The New York Times did report on the 12 deaths and multiple injuries in the mostly Christian city of Jos, while downplaying reports of a Christian genocide in Nigeria, which it’s more than ABC’s World News Tonight, The CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, PBS News Hour and Special Report With Bret Baier could manage on Monday, which was not one word about the killings combined. After all it was a busy news night. ABC’s David Muir had to tell his viewers about the return of Celine Dion.

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In a blistering exclusive interview with The Telegraph, President Trump has declared he is “strongly considering” pulling the United States out of NATO, branding the 77-year-old alliance a “paper tiger” after European allies – including the UK under Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer – refused to join America’s military campaign against Iran or help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

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A federal judge has ordered California to pay more than $4.52 million in attorneys’ fees to a coalition of parents and teachers who successfully challenged the state’s anti-parent public school policies on student gender transitions.

U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez issued the fee award on March 30 in the long-running case, citing the plaintiffs’ prevailing status after winning summary judgment and a class-wide injunction last year.

The ruling came as the underlying dispute continues in the federal appeals court.

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The recent news that one in eight children are now reported by their parents as being disabled ought to prompt an immediate national inquiry into what on earth is causing a large proportion of the population to sicken.

Not hard to tell: The government will give you money if you say you’re disabled.

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A new report from researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia, published in Carcinogenesis, finds that nicotine-based e-cigarettes are likely to cause lung and oral cancers, a finding that may alarm the millions of young people, from high school through college, and into the professional world, who use them heavily.

Researchers examined human studies, animal experiments, and lab tests. Together, they found signs that vaping can damage DNA, cause inflammation and oxidative stress, and expose users to harmful chemicals considered drivers of cancer. Some rodent studies also found lung tumors after vape exposure.

“Nicotine-based e-cigarettes are likely to be carcinogenic to humans who use them, causing an indeterminate burden of oral cancer and lung cancer,” the researchers wrote in the report.

Most attempts to adjust one’s mood through recreational chemicals appear to be a bad idea.

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Remember when blues state Democrats tried to enforce sweeping pandemic mandates for years after it became clear that covid was not the “mass killer” that the supposed experts claimed it would be? Remember when they called for people to be jailed for publicly speaking about scientific facts that contradicted the narrative? Remember when they called for people’s children to be taken away if they refused to vaccinate?

Remember how millions of people left blue states in response to the far-left madness? Well, Democrats are now pretending that none of that ever happened, but they can’t hide the continuing consequences of their draconian policies.

The historic population shift that escalated during the pandemic era is still well underway, though the causes are now more economic than political. We recently covered New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s sad attempt to beg wealthy NY taxpayers to stop leaving her state. However, New York is only one of multiple blue regions being crushed by an ongoing wealth exodus.

New data from states like Massachusetts indicate that Democrat efforts to institute state level “wealth taxes” are driving out business owners and corporations, and these residents are taking billions in tax revenues with them.

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Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, was murdered in Charlotte last summer. She was minding her own business, seated on a public transit train, when a deranged felon abruptly attacked her from behind, without warning, allegedly stabbing her to death. The vicious assault was captured in surveillance footage that went viral and sparked outrage, especially after it was revealed that the suspect had been arrested on at least 14 previous occasions.

“Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes freed [the suspect ] in January, around seven months before police say he went on to slaughter Iryna Zarutska on August 22,” the Daily Mail reported in 2025. “Stokes allowed [the accused killer], who is homeless and has a litany of previous offenses, to walk free on a ‘written promise’ that he would return for his next court appearance.”

The case became a national flashpoint, exemplifying what critics call a broken criminal justice system in “progressive” jurisdictions, where criminals are coddled, and innocent people such as Zarutska are endangered. A project to honor Zarutska’s life through art has now been declared “controversial” by activists and politicians on the Left, as murals in her memory are getting defaced by vandals and denounced by elected officials. In New York City, one such mural was targeted by someone who spray-painted the words “please vandalize this” over the murder victim’s face. The New York Post describes the mural as “loathed by local lefties for its ‘tough-on-crime’ message.”

Newsbusters.

The Washington Free Beacon’s Alana Goodman wrote Tuesday that far-left Michigan senatorial candidate — Democrat Abdul El-Sayed — threatened the Beacon with legal action after the conservative news outlet published a recording of El-Sayed saying he wouldn’t comment on the death of murderous Iranian Ayatollah Khamenei because “a lot of people in Dearborn…are sad” and thus would hurt his electoral prospects.

Earth to Brian Stelter, Oliver Darcy, Scott Nover, Brian Steinberg, and the rest of the so-called media reporting class: Where are you on this act of media intimidation?

Missing in action….

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In the span of nine months, nine top-level scientists in the United States have died or vanished without a trace.

Seven of them were connected to the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) or the institutions it directly funds.

AFRL develops and transitions the most sensitive aerospace technologies in the United States’ defense arsenal.

Don’t call them ‘conspiracy theories’—call them ‘spoiler alerts’.

How to Smuggle a Million Barrels of Oil

How the U.S. Navy Clears Live Sea Mines in the Straight of Hormuz  Too bad the LCS is a worthless piece of shit.

SOMEONE’S DAUGHTER-gate [What happened with Sarah Stock and why does it matter?]  hoe_math at his best.

Why Anti-Blackness Runs Deep in Morocco  Note the assumption that African = black. (WHY THE KHOISAN LOOK ASIAN.(Are They Related?))

Why CPAC Was a Total Disaster  The old Brett Cooper makes a brief re-appearance.

Cancer Proteins Are a New Weapon Against Alzheimer’s  Nick Norwitz.

Muji – The Brand That Designed “Nothing”