Student Connections

Within the past 5 years, the rate at which Presidents have declared National Emergencies has significantly increased. Since the passing of the National Emergency Act in 1976, an act which established the procedures for declaring a National Emergency, there have been 89 declarations of a National Emergency in the United States (Brennan Center for Justice). […]

Prior to the Cold War, the Arctic held significant military importance for the USSR and the United States (Arctic Institute 2). After the dissolution of the USSR, a new status quo emerged, with Arctic states- Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the U.S., Denmark, Canada, and Iceland- forming cooperative organizations, such as the Arctic 8 or The […]

Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal, an ex-military intelligence officer for the Venezuelan government, pled guilty to charges involving drug trafficking and narco-terrorism this June, after initially pleading not guilty when Spanish authorities captured him in 2021 (CBS News). Carvajal was the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate and a legislator, working closely with Chavez, but he […]

Following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, local officials in Puerto Rico are facing new challenges in securing federal disaster aid. Recent developments within the Trump administration have cast uncertainty over the future of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), prompting Puerto Rican leadership to explore alternative funding measures (San Juan Daily Star 1). The Central […]

The Mexican state of Chiapas, Mexico, bordering Guatemala, faces an intense and underreported conflict involving the Mexican government, government-aligned paramilitaries, cartels, and the EZLN or Zapatista movement (WordPress). Chiapas, home to one of the largest indigenous populations of the country -26% of the state’s inhabitants -is also an epicenter for about half of all unresolved […]

Protesters in Puerto Rico have begun organizing against a measure to build a bike lane alongside the beach. The proposed plan would build a bicycle lane crossing a forest (Bosque La Armonia) which would lead to its deforestation and would also be built alongside the beach causing soil erosion. Protesters carried out a walk across […]

Syria’s new government, three months after the fall of Bashar al Assad, is at what the top Syrian UN envoy described as a crossroads between conflict, political fragmentation, violations of Syrian sovereignty, and secular violence or protection of sovereignty, regional security, and an end to the 13 year long Syrian civil war and its aftermath […]

Between 2023 and 2025, a total of 9,308 cybercrime complaints were published, and 8,485 of these cases were resolved (HINDUSTIAN TIMES). In response, 151 officials and 113 police officers were deployed to handle the growing number of cybercrimes (HINDUSTIAN TIMES). The cyber war in Tripura began in 2023, when a 148% increase in cybercrime cases […]

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has endured years of ongoing violence and unrest (AMNESTY). Various militias have been established in an attempt to protect populations after decades of instability (AMNESTY). Current developments, however, indicate that clashes between a terrorist group known as M23 and the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) have escalated massively (AMNESTY), with […]

Following the end of World War II, civil war erupted in China between Mao Ze-Dong’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Kuomintang (KMT), led by Chiang Kai-Shek. By 1949, the CCP declared victory over the KMT, marking the start of the People’s Republic of China (PBS 1). Chiang Kai-Shek and his party subsequently fled to […]