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SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said early Wednesday that he would soon lift the military rule he imposed overnight, after the parliament voted to reject his martial law declaration.

Yoon had declared martial law late Tuesday, vowing to eliminate “anti-state” forces as he struggles against an opposition that controls the country’s parliament and that he accuses of sympathizing with communist North Korea.

Less than three hours later, parliament voted to lift the declaration, with National Assembly Speaker Woo Won Shik declaring that the martial law was “invalid” and that lawmakers “will protect democracy with the people.”

France's minority government is on the brink of collapse after Prime Minister Michel Barnier used special powers to force through his budget without a vote in parliament.

Furious opposition parties said they would back a no-confidence motion to oust the former Brexit negotiator in a vote that could take place as early as Wednesday.

Barnier opted to push through controversial reforms to social security by invoking presidential decree after failing to win enough support for the measures.

On November 19th, Newsweek ran an opinion piece by none other than Daniel Lubetzky, CEO of KIND snacks, whose net worth is estimated to be 2.3 billion dollars. In the wake of the Democrats’ failure to win the Presidency, keep the Senate, or even win the House, Lubetzky shared his point of view: it was the Left’s fault. And not just the Left in general, but specifically the Democratic Socialists of America. In his view, “the Democrats, a party of over 40 million registered voters, have been too eager to court the DSA’s fewer than 100,000 members. The party has allowed the DSA to set the terms of engagement on key issues like immigration and crime, with slogans like ‘open borders’ and ‘defund the police,’ making it all too easy for Republicans to tar their opposition.” This is a lie. If the DSA had been able to set the terms on those issues, we would have seen legislative movement from the Democrats. We haven’t.

At the head of the protests is sixth grader Rainier Long, 12, an avid reader who was outraged to learn Carlos Gilbert Elementary would be cutting library time in half — to 30 minutes a week — this year to make more time for technology education.

“It’s not going to help kids to spend more time on screens,” Rainier argued. “Reading will really stimulate your senses and make you a lot — I don’t wanna say smarter — but smarter,” he said.

Students were told that after implementing technology classes, the school didn’t have time in its schedule this year to allow all grades an hour of library time.

His next move? Staging protests during recess — the only free time students have during the day.

Rainier used sticks, tape and graph paper to craft signs with messages saying, “Stop the shortening!” and “We want to read!”

When the recess protests had little effect on administrators’ attitudes, he further escalated the strategy — convincing a quarter of his class to stage a sit-in protest in the library, staying for the full hour his movement is calling for.

World of Warcraft still exists in 2024. The game’s 10th expansion was released in August, and while it doesn’t command quite the same influence as it did during its early-millennium prime, millions of players still step through its portal every day. But the dynamic I’m describing—the complex social contract, the acquaintances waiting to be forged into brotherhood—is nowhere to be found. The chat box that used to chirp with shitposts, gossip, and hyperlocal banter is conspicuously barren. If you do partner up with someone for an adventure, words are rarely exchanged. When the final boss is toppled, everyone leaves the group and dissolves into the ether. It used to be something of a faux pas to play without a microphone, but I honestly can’t remember the last time one of my fellow dwarves has beckoned me to join a voice channel.

This is part of a shift that can be felt across video game culture writ large. Even though some of the biggest franchises in the world—Fortnite, Call of Duty, League of Legends—pit a server’s worth of players against one another in lethal combat, the softer interactions those places once fomented are on the decline. We are all in front of our computers, paradoxically together and separate, like ships passing in the night.

This is a difficult trend to prove empirically, but it certainly has been felt by lifelong gamers. There are multiple somber YouTube video essays about the lack of conviviality in multiplayer lobbies, and most of them bear titles that gesture toward an elemental wound in the culture. (One video, titled “Modern Gaming Is Becoming More and More Isolated,” has over 500,000 views.) A similar despondence has struck the domains of Reddit and GameFAQs, which have historically served as the premier watering holes for fans of the hobby. (“No one uses voice chat these days,” wrote one user. “People don’t chat in gaming anymore,” added another.) On a more macro level, about half of Americans are currently experiencing loneliness, particularly among millennials and Gen Z, who represent the industry’s primary consumers. All of this is evidence of a generation that has come to believe that a reliable source of intimacy—even if it’s down the scope of a sniper rifle—has gone awry. I would find it pathetic if I didn’t totally relate.

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Food deserts are not an inevitable consequence of poverty or low population density, and they didn’t materialize around the country for no reason. Something happened. That something was a specific federal policy change in the 1980s. It was supposed to reward the biggest retail chains for their efficiency. Instead, it devastated poor and rural communities by pushing out grocery stores and inflating the cost of food. Food deserts will not go away until that mistake is reversed.

Congress responded in 1936 by passing the Robinson-Patman Act. The law essentially bans price discrimination, making it illegal for suppliers to offer preferential deals and for retailers to demand them. It does, however, allow businesses to pass along legitimate savings. If it truly costs less to sell a product by the truckload rather than by the case, for example, then suppliers can adjust their prices accordingly—just so long as every retailer who buys by the truckload gets the same discount. [...] The Robinson-Patman Act, in short, appears to have worked as intended throughout the mid-20th century.

Then it was abandoned. In the 1980s, convinced that tough antitrust enforcement was holding back American business, the Reagan administration set about dismantling it. The Robinson-Patman Act remained on the books, but the new regime saw it as an economically illiterate handout to inefficient small businesses. And so the government simply stopped enforcing it.

The ruling Georgian Dream party’s disputed victory in the country’s Oct. 26 parliamentary election, which was widely seen as a referendum on Georgia’s aspirations to join the European Union, has sparked major demonstrations and led to an opposition boycott of the parliament.

The opposition has said that the vote was rigged with the help of Russia, Georgia’s former imperial master, with Moscow hoping to keep Tbilisi in its orbit.

The government’s announcement that it was suspending negotiations to join the EU came hours after the European Parliament adopted a resolution that condemned last month’s vote as neither free nor fair. It said the election represented another manifestation of Georgia’s continued democratic backsliding “for which the ruling Georgian Dream party is fully responsible.”

European election observers said October’s vote took place in a divisive atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and physical violence.

• Rebels with the group Hay’et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have seized control of large parts of Aleppo, one of Syria’s largest cities, after a surprise offensive this week.
• The renewed fighting in Aleppo marks a new phase in Syria’s long-running civil war, which began in 2011 during the Arab Spring protests.
• The forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had previously held Aleppo, with the support of allies in Iran, Russia and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
• Russia has responded to the rebel offensive with air strikes, though its military resources are expected to be stretched thin due to its continuing war in Ukraine.