The "midnight library" refers to a personalized hypothetical library where an individual has access to millions of books, each representing how their life might have gone had they made a different decision at a certain point in their life. Each book is titled with the alternate decision that could have been made. Once a book is opened, the visitor is transported to an alternate reality where they are the exact same age they are now, and live in that world for a few hours before they are transported back to this world.

Only you can enter your own midnight library.

Sweden and Finland have been running military drills in extreme cold conditions and reinstated a draft. This is partly in preparation for a Russian invasion but also because global warming will make a lot of oil and gas fields that are currently frozen viable.

Budget Responsibility Offices (BROs) are independent public sector organisations that that are part of the government but are not under the purview of elected officials or other agencies/departments. BROs provide economic and fiscal analysis of government finances and assess the long-term sustainability of public spending. 

Once elected, governments typically provide BROs with binding fiscal targets surrounding spending and growth and provide projected budgets for the policies they plan to undertake. BROs annually review adherance to these goals, assessing how likely the government is to meet their targets and adhere to their spending plans. If a BRO finds that a government is in violation of its targets, governments are typically forced to raise taxes, cut spending, or reallocate funding. One example of this is the UK's Office of Budget Responsibility. 

In March 2023, China mediated a ceasefire agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In November 2024, it signed a new Free Trade Agreement with Peru aimed at boosting commerce by 50%. China has been vocal in its support of Palestine and has been providing humanitarian aid to Gaza. It is currently working on bridge construction around the Panama Canal and is investing heavily in the energy and tech sectors of various countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Dual-purpose organizing refers to an approach to activism that treats activist spaces as sites of both community building and political organizing

Since President Trump’s inauguration in 2025, the U.S. has seen a significant rollback of financial regulations. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has loosened rules on fraud oversight, executive compensation, and bank mergers. Meanwhile, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been severely weakened under new leadership, dropping several major consumer protection lawsuits. Congress is currently debating legislation that would fully dismantle the CFPB.

For the purpose of this debate, the franchise system refers to establishing women's teams as franchises of men's teams (e.g. Arsenal F.C. and Arsenal Women's F.C.), and the separate league system refers to establishing an entirely separate league with separate teams (e.g. the NHL and the PWHL having the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Sceptres)

Currently, the US healthcare system has a blend of both permanent and temporary nurses.

Permanent nursing refers to a model of nursing employment where hospitals or clinics employ nurses as full-time employees.

In contrast, temporary nursing is a model of nursing employment where nurses pick up shifts on an ad-hoc basis, or sign short term contracts (usually no longer than a few months) via agencies to work at certain facilities.

In recent years, the proportion of temporary nurses in US hospitals has increased.