Introduction

This article reviews China's heavy-handed response to an announcement by Japan and the Philippines that they intend to delimit their exclusive economic zone (EEZ) maritime boundary east of Taiwan. It will first briefly discuss the some of the outcomes of the May 2026 Japan-Philippines Summit meeting, where the two nations announced (inter alia) their intention to delimit their maritime boundary. It will then discuss China's diplomatic response to the proposed delimitation, as well as China's special maritime law enforcement operation east of Taiwan intended to discourage Japan and the Philippines from negotiating the boundary agreement without China's participation. The article will then discuss the relevant international law applicable to maritime delimitations and the authorities coastal States enjoy over foreign-flagged vessels in the various maritime zones. The article will next review the legality of China's unprecedented special maritime law enforcement operation and will conclude with the observation that the operation was inconsistent with international law, as it impeded high seas freedoms of navigation of foreign-flagged vessels and violated the principle of exclusive flag State jurisdiction applicable beyond the territorial sea.

Japan-Philippines Summit Meeting

During a

Most Americans seldom hear the term "amphibious operations" outside of an entertainment context: John Wayne as Sgt. John Stryker in The Sands of Iwo Jima or Tom Hanks as Capt. John Miller in the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. For service members, though, it's a different story.

Historically, the ability to project power onto a hostile shore is a critical element of national security and a mainstay of a maritime nation. Military strategist B. H. Liddell Hart explains that “Amphibious flexibility is the greatest strategic asset that a sea power possesses.”

Yet, despite its strategic necessity, America's amphibious readiness faces critical funding and organizational challenges that demand immediate action from Congress and the Department of the Navy.

The debate over U.S. autonomous weapons policy is dominated by concerns over moving too fast. Detractors warn that we may risk losing control of the systems themselves or the escalation dynamics they will impact. But, as we argue in a recent report, the reality is that the Pentagon is moving too slow owing to funding, procurement, organizational, and oversight systems that are poorly suited to fielding and continuously updating the most decisive capability on the modern battlefield. While increasingly autonomous systems are not preferable in an ideal world, they are being developed in the real one. If the U.S. neglects to develop them proactively, it risks having to develop them reactively in a crisis, with far less time to conform with our ethical standards.

The moral questions that frame the debate are important and reflect a serious unease captured by Pope Leo's

This article was originally published at The Empowerment Alliance and is republished here with permission. 

Earlier this year, the Trump administration removed a chapter on climate change from a manual used by judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys "to better interpret the scientific complexities of the cases before them." For those of us who don't believe in coincidence, the response to that removal offers a textbook case of how liberal climate crusaders and their media allies spring into action to rescue a struggling leftwing cause.

First, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, a non-governmental institution, soon issued a report designed to advance the cause of "extreme event attribution," a questionable scientific premise designed to point fingers at specific corporations and activities based on how much they contribute to worsening weather calamities.

Second,

Iowa was first.

In 1983, before climate anxiety became injected into the American bloodstream by Washington, D.C. consultants, Iowa passed the nation's first Renewable Portfolio Standard. It wasn't driven by ideology — it was pro-agriculture and smart market-hedging behavior. A farming state hedged against energy price volatility the way farmers hedge against weather: practically, locally, without waiting for permission from the federal government.

The result is that Iowa today generates more than 60% of its electricity from wind and still pays roughly 13.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, well below the national average of about 18 cents. When energy policy is written by people who pay energy bills, good things happen.

Christina Bohannan has a different model in mind, and it's a model invented by people who know a lot more about making lattes in Brooklyn than bringing in the corn in Clinton County.

Cannabis-related hospitalizations are climbing as more young Americans appear to be embracing it to cope with how they perceive the state of the world.

Emergency room visits for cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) — cyclical vomiting caused by frequent cannabis use — rose roughly 16% from Oct. 2025 through May 2026, according to a Thursday report by the Centers for Disease Contro

l and Prevention (CDC).

The report comes after the 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that approximately 21.4 million people in the U.S. use cannabis daily or near-daily, surpassing the consumption frequencies of roughly 19.9 million cigarette smokers and 17.2 million alcohol

More than 30 shots were fired at a Georgia elections official's home shortly after midnight early Thursday morning.

Three suspects fired shots at the home of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's Communications Director Robert Sinners.

Shocking surveillance video shows three suspects firing more than 30 shots at Robert Sinners' home on Wellington Street SW in Atlanta.

Sinners was asleep in his bed next to his fiancé at the time of the shooting.

Nobody was injured.

"We are still confused why 30 shots hit our home last night," Robert Sinners told WSB-TV.

"Scariest thing we've ever had happen to us," he added.

Police pursued the suspects and exchanged gunfire with them.

Two suspects, Jermaine Howard, 29, and Gregory Vaughn, 26, have been arrested. A third suspect is still

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) announced that a California sheriff's department has settled a lawsuit regarding the issuance of concealed carry permits.

Pro-Second Amendment organizations and individual plaintiffs originally filed the suit in December 2023, accusing California jurisdictions of charging excessive fees and being dilatory in processing applications for carry permits. The group celebrated the settlement with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) in a Thursday release.

Other plaintiffs in the case included Gun Owners of America (GOA), Gun Owners Foundation, seven individuals and the California Rifle and Pistol Association (CRPA). The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department did not respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

"CRPA and our strategic partners have been monitoring local jurisdictions to make sure

There's no mystery in why Dr. Anthony Fauci strove to silence discussion about the origins of COVID-19 – he was in full CYA mode because the agency he led had helped fund the Wuhan lab that apparently created the deadly virus. It also seems clear that others in the government and many powerful business interests enabled this deception for fear that fingering China rather than a rabid bat might lead Americans to demand some accountability.

This makes President Biden's decision to grant Fauci a "preemptive pardon" all the more troubling. Biden apparently believed that the doctor who equated himself with science itself needed to be shielded from prosecution "for any offenses