JONATHAN LEAF: News That’s Been Drowned Out By The Sound of Battle, Part III.
Under pressure from the United States, the government of Cuba pardoned and released 2,010 political prisoners.
The total number of people who have died in Canada in legal assisted suicides may soon pass 100,000. That’s more than twice as many Canadians as lost their lives in World War II. Moreover, in 2025 roughly one of every twenty Canadians who passed on did so in a case that the Canadian government labeled as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID).
There’s been a dramatic change in the rate of acceptance of American immigration asylum claims. During the Biden administration, the rate went up and down, but it was typically around 50%. This led to some embarrassing cases in which immigrants were granted asylum in the United States and then publicly endorsed the oppressive policies of the countries that they claimed to have been obliged to flee. The Trump administration has fostered a much more restrictive regime, and approval rates have dropped all the way down to 7%.
The U.S. Postal Service is rapidly going broke. Its losses are piling up so fast that it’s asked Congress if it can stop putting money aside for its contributions to its workers’ pension plans. It’s also seeking a $19.4 billion boost in the amount of debt it can carry on its books and a 4-cent increase in the cost of a regular postal letter stamp, which would go up in price to 82 cents.
If you’re wondering why so much business and so many people are re-locating to Austin, Texas, you might wish to take note of a recently published study by the Pew Research Center on apartment and home construction in the city. As in much of Texas, this is relatively unregulated. The study found that over a nine-year period concluding in 2024, 120,000 new units of housing were built in Austin. This increased the total by 30 percent. During that same period, average monthly rents in the city fell from $1,546 to 1,296. The average monthly rental in Manhattan costs more than $5,000 per month.
If you build it, they will come.