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Decades of tension between the United States and Mexico over shared water resources turned into an actual water-cum-trade war overnight. In a post on Truth Social, U.S. President Donald Trump made good on earlier promises and threatened additional tariffs on Mexico if the country does not comply with its obligations to send water from the Rio Grande and its tributaries into Texas.

Donald Trump has threatened to impose an additional 5% tariff on Mexico if it does not immediately provide additional water to help US farmers, accusing the country of violating a treaty that outlines water-sharing between the neighbors.

President Donald Trump warned Monday that Mexico's failure to deliver water owed under a decades-old treaty is harming Texas farmers and could trigger a new tariff if the country does not immediately release a critical share of its required supply.

A bitter end. The post The fateful fax that tore apart the Pixies: “I’m out” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Watch as the interview turns awkward.

A large proportion of college students, law students, and medical students are willfully cheating and lying to get better grades. Nowhere is this happening more than at elite universities, where there is exponential growth in the number of students claiming disabilities in order to get the “accommodation” of time and a half on their exams. Nationwide, 20 percent of college students now claim to have a disability. That number has quintupled over the past decade. Of course, there is no plausible scenario in which the number of disabilities among young people would actually increase fivefold (unless a city were carpet-bombed), so this must be a trend with a purpose. Plus, the more elite the school, the higher the rate of “disability,” even though one would think debilitating cognitive and learning disabilities would make attendance at such schools less likely. At Stanford University, for instance, 38 percent of undergrads are officially registered as being disabled. Certain populations also have extremely high rates of diagnosed disability. For example, 54 percent of nonbinary students at American colleges today are registered as having a disability. (RELATED: The Outrageous Scandal That Should Be Rocking Higher Education) [M]ost of these “disabled” students are liars and cheaters who know they have no actual impediment that prevents them from taking an exam within an allotted timeframe. Many assessments in the mainstream media on the surge of “accommodations” speak in gentle tones about whether additional safeguards are needed and whether the system has become “unfair.” But make no mistake about it, most of these “disabled” students are liars and cheaters who know they have no actual impediment that prevents them from taking an exam within an allotted timeframe. (RELATED: America’s Universities: A Multi-Generational Perspective) Their decision to take extra time on their exams — which has been shown by several studies to significantly increase the likelihood of a better grade — is a purposeful act to hurt their classmates in favor of advantaging themselves. It is wrong. Even if they have genuinely fallen for the claim that anxiety and “ADHD” entitle elite college, law, or medical students to 150 percent time on exams, they’re guilty because they know that they are perfectly capable of reading the exam and giving an answer, and that a lower score is the result of low effort and/or low intelligence. After all, half of these students had no disability until after they showed up at their university. (RELATED: Higher Education’s Triple Crisis: Finances, Integrity, Leadership) The time and a half given to students with “disabilities” is certainly not leveling the playing field. Several studies have found that giving students extra time has about the same effect on increasing scores for students with and without disabilities. Those benefits to students with “disabilities” can be seen in the rise in LSAT scores in recent years, which can be attributed to the increased rates of test-takers receiving time and a half. Conveniently, these “disabled” test-takers who get time and a half on the LSAT do, on average, better than their non-disabled peers. These “disabled” students do serious harm to students who are actually disabled. College students who are blind, paralyzed, missing limbs, have cerebral palsy, have severe dyslexia, are recovering from surgery, etc., etc. actually need accommodations. Students with fake disabilities who monopolize the resources of accommodations testing offices for the purpose of cheating steal resources from students who genuinely need them. Plus, they cast suspicion on the students who need accommodations by means of promoting widespread resentment toward accommodations. This month, the Atlantic published an essay on this growing phenomenon. The author, Rose Horowitch, argued that the explosion of accommodations in higher education “has put the entire idea of fairness at risk.” She traced the origin of this explosion in accommodation grants back to a 2008 amendment from the Association on Higher Education and Disability that called for colleges to give significant consideration to students’ own assessment of their disability and not to rely only on medical diagnoses. The organization claimed that “(r)equiring extensive medical and scientific evidence” actually “perpetuates a deviance model of disability.” In addition, the American Psychiatric Association in 2013 expanded the definition of ADHD — the “disability” that 17 percent of college students claim to have — to the amorphous standard that a person’s symptoms need only to “interfere with, or reduce the quality” of academic functioning. Horowitch doesn’t say this, but ADHD is a diagnosis that is made to account for totally disparate behaviors in people. For example, one person with “ADHD” could be a 21-year-old woman who gets distracted by TikTok when she’s supposed to be studying, and another person with “ADHD” could be a 11-year-old boy who has intense anger and is willfully disobedient toward all adults. In other words, ADHD can be applied to people who aren’t the best at staying focused (a difficult task for almost everyone, it turns out), and it can describe people with a range of other serious mental disorders. Brain scans of those with an “ADHD” diagnosis have found nothing in common among those with the condition that is distinct from the rest of the population. Brain scans have also found nothing consistently deficient in the brains of people with ADHD. Therefore, a diagnosis of ADHD means and describes practically nothing coherent. And yet, there are many ADHD activists who claim that there is something wrong with the brain chemistry of people who have ADHD, and that this can only be solved by stimulants that are controlled substances. (These activists still haven’t shown what is wrong with the brain chemistry of people with ADHD, or demonstrated that the stimulants have positive effects in the long term.) Even though ADHD means so little and has such a low standard for diagnosis, many psychiatrists have been known to diagnose patients with it even when the basic standards are not met. In a survey, nearly half of psychologists said the purpose of a psychoeducational assessment was to secure accommodations for a student rather than to discover if the student is in need of them. Others advertise that they will provide a diagnosis for accommodations. One assessment company, for instance, publicly bragged that it had a “95 percent success rate in getting learning disability accommodations.” The company’s owner even said in a YouTube video that he wasn’t aware of a case in which a client had been denied accommodations. A different cognitive testing company had a banner on its website that said “Get ACT Extra Time.” Thus, it’s become easy for parents to essentially buy their kid a diagnosis that will unlock time and a half on his or her exams. Another piece of evidence for this is the fact that disability accommodations are given more frequently at schools with students from wealthier families. But really, parents don’t even need to buy their kids a diagnosis. In a recent study in Canada, 23 universities approved a (fictional) student’s request for extra time on her exams because of ADHD. Here’s the twist: The official neuropsychological battery, which was given to the universities, stated that she was within normal range for everything. All she had to do to get accommodations was state that she felt she had ADHD. The researcher, Allyson G. Harrison, reported that she was inspired to do the study by a similar study that was conducted in the U.S. that also “found almost perfect compliance” with the student’s request. The researcher refused to publish that study, she said, because he feared institutional backlash. Increasingly, diagnoses of anxiety and/or depression are accounting for a greater proportion of students who receive extra time on their exams. At Ohio State, students with these mental health difficulties constitute 36 percent of those receiving accommodations. These students also tend to receive leniencies, such as being able to skip class or turn in assignments late. Of course, it seems quite clear that teenagers with anxiety and depression would be better off being held to the same standard as their peers instead of being coddled into feelings of helplessness and insufficiency. Having depression and anxiety might mean you need help and therapy, but it certainly doesn’t make you too stupid to take your exam in the normal amount of time. Also, about this time and a half for exams. There’s no scientific rationale for it. Harrison explained to the Chronicle on Higher Education that there’s no significant research on what extra time might be appropriate for certain disabilities. “It’s just throwing darts,” she said. Students in Australia with disabilities, for instance, only receive 115 percent time for exams. In recent years, many employers have reported that college graduates are unprepared for the workforce. Of course, getting concessions and easier exams for claiming to have the “disability” of “ADHD” at a time when rigor in higher education is falling each year is hardly the best preparation for the workplace. After all, you don’t get time and a half to do your job. In 2023, Brett Seaton, then a student at the University of Pennsylvania who was diagnosed with ADHD but refused to accept accommodations, wrote about what exactly is supposed to happen when these coddled students show up at their place of work post-graduation and aren’t given concessions. He said: Employers trust Penn to educate students and to prepare them to enter the workforce. Imagine how surprised they will be when they find out that in time-sensitive situations, accommodated students function at half of the processing speeds of non-accommodated students. Accommodated students will feel slow and behind, while employers will be frustrated and more likely to fire them for their slow rate of creating value. What will be much worse is when doctors who received time and a half on their exams start treating patients. Unfortunately, doctors with “ADHD” will also not receive time and a half to help a patient in a medical emergency. By choosing to give so many students such unwarranted benefits, universities are putting their reputations at serious risk. Students are graduating from their schools entitled and unprepared. Genuine merit is overshadowed by those who game the system. And, as most college courses are graded on a curve, either officially or unofficially, each student who is not cheating is being robbed of the grades he or she deserves. Universities’ entire system of academic integrity has collapsed, and the value of their degrees has fallen. Surely, these schools are terrified of getting sued by students who claim their disabilities were not accommodated. But there is no reason that time and a half on an exam should be a “reasonable” accommodation for ADHD, depression, or anxiety. Universities need to fight back against the liars and the cheaters. READ MORE from Ellie Gardey Holmes: Texas Might Be the Only State Strong Enough to Face Real Evil Rev. Phil Phaneuf’s ‘Transition’ Shows United Methodist Church in Turmoil Sacramento Power Brokers Rally Behind Dana Williamson

Arrogance run amok. It is the most apt comment to characterize Britain’s justice minister David Lammy’s new understanding of what constitutes justice in England. His new scheme is to deprive many Britons of the right to be judged by 12 of their peers, insisting he has “a superior understanding of Magna Carta” and that the “emergency” justifies forsaking the meadows of Runnymede, eliminating 800 years of legal jurisprudence in England. Lammy said the Labour government will place thousands of accused in front of a single legal counsel adorned with the wig of a judge and the authority of a jury. The justice minister wants to cut the backlog in pending legal cases before the crown court by watering down the idea of justice in England — he believes his new “swift courts” are the answer. Lammy said the Labour government will place thousands of accused in front of a single legal counsel adorned with the wig of a judge and the authority of a jury. The push back has already begun. His opposite number, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, reacted to the scheme, admonishing that if it was allowed to proceed, it would be “the beginning of the end of jury trials.” He further criticized the Starmer government for being so solicitous of the rights of illegal migrants while dismissing 800 years of English jurisprudence and a check on state power. (RELATED: The Vanishing Englishman: Inside the Schools Forecasting the UK Future) Under the proposals, only the most serious offenses, such as murder, robbery, and rape, would continue to be tried by a jury. Most other cases (which constitute the vast majority) would be heard by a single judge alone. Yet, the evidence suggests that jury trials are not the primary cause of the current backlog. Crown court backlogs began rising sharply in 2017, driven by years of budget reductions, court closures, maintenance backlogs, and limits on the number of days courts were permitted to sit. However, the backlog has not fallen below 35,000 since 2000. There is currently a record backlog of over 78,000 crown court cases. Addressing the House of Commons this past week, the justice minister announced, “I will create new ‘swift courts’ within the crown courts with a judge alone deciding verdicts in triable either-way cases with a likely sentence of three years or less.” He claimed these would “deliver justice at least 20 per cent faster than jury trials.” More importantly, these changes would be “hardwired,” indicating these actions are not temporary fixes — they are intended to be permanent. Lammy defended his sweeping change as absolutely necessary in the face of an “emergency” which threatens “a total collapse of trust in the justice system.” The justice minister insisted, in fact, that he commanded a greater understanding of Magna Carta than his critics. In speaking to The Times, he said that while much attention was given to Article 39 — no free man shall be imprisoned “except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land” — less consideration was given to Article 40, which states the government shall not “delay right or justice to anyone.” The problem with such logic is that the government is obligated to do both; in placing his emphasis on Article 40, is Lammy arguing that speed of justice is more important than the quality of justice? Rising to address the changes proposed in Parliament, Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick defended the Magna Carta and brought to bear the historic circumstances of its creation on that of England today. He said abolishing trial by jury will not solve the problem with the justice system, noting that courtrooms stand empty this very day. He said, “And why? Not because there are too many juries, but because the justice secretary won’t fund the sitting days.” “Had he done so, the backlog would have shrunk by up to 10,000 cases, while it actually rose this year. The truth is scrapping juries is a choice. This government found the money to bear down on the backlog of asylum claims; it could find the money to spend more on benefits, just not to fund the courts … why does this justice secretary think he has a mandate to rip up centuries of jury trials? In his twisted logic, he says he’s scrapping juries to save them. But be in no doubt, if the justice secretary gets away with this, it’s the beginning of the end of jury trials.” The Conservative shadow justice secretary rightly ended his critique of the government’s shameless scheme with his remarks about Britain’s migrant crisis. It seems the government has been able to find considerably more money for asylum seekers in its budget, but not for opening more courts. Jenrick remarked: “He [Keir Starmer] defends [migrant’s] rights under the ECHR but not [Britons’] rights under Magna Carta, and for what?” (RELATED: The Business of Borders: The Economy of Virtue) “Rachel Reeves is able to find £16billion out of British taxes for benefits, and billions for illegal migrants who broke into the country on small boats — it’s the wrong priorities,” Jenrick added. The right to be tried by one’s peers has deep roots in the legal tradition of England and Wales. Its origins trace back to Magna Carta in 1215, which promised that no one would lose their liberty or property without “the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land”. The judge and legal philosopher Lord Devlin described trial by jury as “the lamp that shows that freedom lives.” It is a symbolic cornerstone of justice in England and Wales. Legal groups expressed concern about the right being undermined. The Law Society of England and Wales said the proposals “go too far in eroding our fundamental right to be judged by a jury of our own peers.” Riel Karmy-Jones, chairwoman of the Criminal Bar Association, said: “It is not juries that cause delays. Rather, it is all the consequences of the years of underfunding that look set to continue.” The Labour government’s even partial abolition of trial by jury is not only unnecessary; it is dangerous to anyone who values what Americans are guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution — the Sixth Amendment’s right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of one’s peers. READ MORE from F. Andrew Wolf Jr.: America’s Retirement Dilemma and Australia’s Surprising Blueprint Thanksgiving — Beyond the First Feast While Humans Were Tuning Their Guitars — AI Created America’s No. 1 Country Song

Washington is spending like tomorrow doesn’t exist. The national debt has blown past $38 trillion, rising at a pace unprecedented outside of war or crisis. The government will pay roughly $1 trillion in interest this year alone, money that produces nothing, builds nothing, and feeds no one. Interest is now one of the largest line-items in the federal budget, rivaling or exceeding what we spend on education, transportation, or housing. Congress keeps borrowing, as if the bill will never come due. Elections change the faces, but not the habit: Washington spends, and future taxpayers are left to clean up the wreckage. (RELATED: How Did We Reach a $38 Trillion Debt During a ‘Shutdown’?) Bureaucracies succeed when they grow larger, not when they deliver value, so expansion becomes the proof of purpose. Waste isn’t a glitch. It is the architecture. The Government Accountability Office lists 38 federal programs at high risk for mismanagement or fraud. In a single enforcement sweep, prosecutors charged more than 300 defendants in schemes exceeding $14 billion. Americans routinely estimate that more than half of federal spending is wasted, and in context, that belief is less cynicism than observation. Bureaucracies succeed when they grow larger, not when they deliver value, so expansion becomes the proof of purpose. (RELATED: The Forces Fueling America’s 45-Year Debt Addiction) Nowhere is the system more strained than in health care. National spending reached roughly $4.9 trillion last year, or about $14,500 per person. Families pay rising premiums for shrinking networks, independent physicians disappear, emergency rooms overflow, and hospitals consolidate into regional monopolies. Patients wait longer for fewer appointments while the United States spends more on health care than any nation in history. If $5 trillion a year cannot produce timely care, then the incentives governing the system need rethinking. (RELATED: DOGE Is Missing $2 Trillion in Healthcare Waste) The federal machinery directing this spending is immense. The Department of Health and Human Services employs around 80,000 people and oversees a budget larger than the GDP of most sovereign states. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services alone manage roughly $1.6 trillion with over 6,000 staff. Improper Medicaid payments exceed five percent annually, and millions are enrolled in duplicative health programs. (RELATED: Washington’s Reverse Midas Touch) Much fraud and waste go undetected — Minnesota proves it. Feeding Our Future alone diverted roughly $250 million in federally funded child-nutrition aid while serving few, if any, meals. At the same time, separate fraud schemes have exploited Medicaid,  including via housing-stabilization and therapy-billing scams — siphoning off millions more and exposing how porous oversight of government-funded welfare programs has become. (RELATED: Yes, the New York Times Really Ran a Story About Social Services Fraud by Immigrants) States have learned that if Washington keeps giving, they’ll keep spending — wasteful or not. And, the government spends billions trying to stop fraud, most of the time unsuccessfully. A system designed this way cannot be accountable. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: Traitors, Traitors Everywhere) I experienced this personally. While negotiating Medicaid waivers, I had to travel to Washington and spend days outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building waiting for officials to return from coffee breaks, because phones often went unanswered and follow-up was rare. Decisions affecting real patients, budgets, and providers remained stuck while staff cycled through internal meetings. During one negotiation, a federal official asked, without irony, if we grant states more flexibility, what will our job be? The bureaucracy has become the mission. The Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency couldn’t even live for a year. (RELATED: Bureaucracy Beats Entrepreneurship — Musk Leaves Washington) Americans live with the consequences. Inflation still sits near three percent year-over-year. The dollar has lost most of its purchasing power since the 1970s and fell eleven percent against major currencies in 2025 alone. A household can work hard, save diligently, and still fall behind because the federal government is expanding the money supply faster than wages grow. Healthcare costs compound the problem. Coverage now resembles a second mortgage. Employers respond by reducing benefits or shifting costs to workers. Americans are not choosing between good and better care. They are choosing between affordability and access. The answer is not another task force or oversight panel. It is discipline. A federal balanced-budget requirement would force Congress to confront the reality it has postponed. Every federal program should carry a sunset provision to ensure survival is earned, not assumed. Agencies with overlapping mandates should be consolidated, and funding should follow measurable outcomes rather than personnel counts. States should receive block-grant authority without federal micromanagement, because experimentation is impossible when permission is always pending. (RELATED: Aristotle on a Balanced Budget Amendment) There is still time to choose reform over crisis, but the window narrows with each trillion spent on borrowed funds. Debt service will crowd out discretionary spending. Inflation will continue eroding household income. Health systems will strain under demand they cannot meet. Arithmetic is patient, but it is not merciful. Washington won’t restrain itself; citizens must. Prosperity requires limits. Government needs boundaries. We can demand them now, or wait until the bill arrives and choice is totally gone. Gary D. Alexander served as secretary of health and human services in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. READ MORE: A 50-Year Mortgage Is a Financial Narcotic What Does the Great Gold Spike Signify for the World Economy?