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🔗 United States 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history

The nuclear football (also known as the atomic football, the president's emergency satchel, the Presidential Emergency Satchel, the button, the black box, or just the football) is a briefcase, the contents of which are to be used by the President of the United States to authorize a nuclear attack while away from fixed command centers, such as the White House Situation Room. It functions as a mobile hub in the strategic defense system of the United States. It is held by an aide-de-camp.

🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 Cold War 🔗 Conservatism 🔗 United States/U.S. history 🔗 United States/United States Presidents

"We begin bombing in five minutes" is the last sentence of a controversial, off-the-record joke made by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1984, during the Cold War.

While preparing for a scheduled radio address from his vacation home in California, President Reagan joked with those present about outlawing and bombing Russia. This joke was not broadcast live, but was recorded and later leaked to the public. The Soviet Union criticized the president's joke, as did Reagan's opponent in the 1984 United States presidential election, Walter Mondale.

🔗 United States 🔗 Politics 🔗 Women's History 🔗 United States/U.S. presidential elections 🔗 United States/District of Columbia 🔗 Current events 🔗 Joe Biden 🔗 Women in Red

The inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States took place on January 20, 2021, before noon (EST), marking the commencement of the four-year term of Joe Biden as president and Kamala Harris as vice president. The inaugural ceremony took place on the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. and was the 59th presidential inauguration. Biden took the presidential oath of office, before which Harris took the vice presidential oath of office.

The inauguration took place amidst extraordinary political, public health, economic, and national security crises, including outgoing President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, which incited a storming of the Capitol, Trump's unprecedented second impeachment, and a threat of widespread civil unrest, which stimulated a nationwide law enforcement response. Festivities were sharply curtailed by efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate the potential for violence near the Capitol. The live audience was limited to members of the 117th United States Congress and, for each, one guest of their choosing, resembling a State of the Union address. Public health measures such as mandatory face coverings, testing, temperature checks, and social distancing were used to protect participants in the ceremony.

"America United" and "Our Determined Democracy: Forging a More Perfect Union"—a reference to the Preamble to the United States Constitution—served as the inaugural themes.

🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 Law 🔗 Open

Patentleft (also patent left, copyleft-style patent license or open patent) is the practice of licensing patents (especially biological patents) for royalty-free use, on the condition that adopters license related improvements they develop under the same terms. Copyleft-style licensors seek "continuous growth of a universally accessible technology commons" from which they, and others, will benefit.

Patentleft is analogous to copyleft, a license which allows distribution of a copyrighted work and derived works, but only under the same or equivalent terms.

🔗 United States 🔗 Biography 🔗 Olympics 🔗 United States/FBI 🔗 Georgia (U.S. state)

Richard Allensworth Jewell (born Richard White; December 17, 1962 – August 29, 2007) was an American security guard and law enforcement officer who alerted police during the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. For months afterwards he was suspected of planting the bomb, leading to adverse publicity that "came to symbolize the excesses of law enforcement and the news media."

While working as a security guard at the Olympic Park, Jewell discovered a backpack containing three pipe bombs on the park grounds. He alerted law enforcement and helped evacuate the area before the bomb exploded, probably saving many people from injury or death.

Initially hailed by the media as a hero, Jewell was soon considered a suspect by the FBI and local law enforcement based on scientific profiling. Though never charged, he underwent a "trial by media", which took a toll on his personal and professional life. Jewell was cleared as a suspect after 88 days of public scrutiny. Eric Rudolph eventually confessed and pleaded guilty to that bombing and other attacks. The media circus surrounding the investigation, which was leaked to the press, has been widely cited as an example of law enforcement and media excesses.

In recent years, Jewell's heroic legacy has been the subject of popular culture, including the 2019 film Richard Jewell, and the drama anthology series Manhunt.

🔗 United States 🔗 Finance & Investment

The term 3-6-3 Rule describes how the United States retail banking industry operated from the 1950s to the 1980s. The name 3-6-3 refers to the impression that bankers had a stable, comfortable existence by paying 3 percent interest on deposits, lending money out at 6 percent, and being able to "tee off at the golf course by 3 p.m."

The implication was that the banks were less competitive during that period than in subsequent years due to tight regulations that limited the formation and location of banks as well as restrictions on interest rates that could be charged or paid. As a result, bankers had "power and prestige ... while profits were steady and certain". These regulations were loosened in the 1980s.

Richmond Federal Reserve senior economist John R. Walter argues that, although there is evidence that restrictions on banks before the 1980s did limit the competitiveness of banking markets and thereby granted some banks monopoly power, "the regulatory restrictions probably had a limited effect on competition" during the time in question. Chicago Federal Reserve researchers Robert DeYoung and Tara Rice argue that, "Like most good jokes, the 3-6-3 rule mixes a grain of truth with a highly simplified view of reality."

The rule has been noted positively following the late-2000s financial crisis as a preferable way for banks to operate following the bailout of major banks.

Australia's banking system, which was deregulated in the 1990s in a manner similar to that in the U.S., also came to be characterized in the same way as did the United Kingdom's.

🔗 United States 🔗 Law 🔗 Correction and Detention Facilities 🔗 African diaspora

In the United States, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution states the following:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

This prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, but leaves an exception for punishment for a crime of which one has been convicted. Various commentators have accused states of abusing this provision to re-establish systems similar to slavery, or of otherwise exploiting such labor in a manner unfair to local labor.

Starting in the late 2010s and extending into the mid-2020s, a movement emerged to repeal the exception clause from both the federal and state constitutions. As of February 2026, eight states had joined Rhode Island in repealing the exception clause from their state constitutions, while 26 states' constitutions make no mention of either slavery or involuntary servitude and 15 states retain an exception clause.

🔗 United States 🔗 International relations 🔗 Military history 🔗 Military history/North American military history 🔗 Military history/United States military history 🔗 United States/Military history - U.S. military history 🔗 Iran 🔗 Israel 🔗 Western Asia 🔗 Military history/Middle Eastern military history 🔗 Military history/Post-Cold War

Numerous reasons have been given by different people for the 2026 Iran war, which began when the United States and Israel launched surprise airstrikes on Iran on 28 February 2026. The reasons are described as diverse, changing, and at times contradictory.

US and Israeli officials have framed it as a preemptive war of self-defense. They argue that diplomacy had failed to contain the unacceptable and potentially existential threats of Iran's nuclear program and ballistic missiles. They also argued the strikes were justified as a response to Iran's regional activities (support for proxy groups, attacks on shipping, etc.) and its violent suppression of domestic protests in January 2026. Critics have described it as a war of choice. Some analysts describe the war as a classic "security dilemma", where both sides saw the other's military buildup as threatening, making conflict increasingly likely even if neither side necessarily wanted full-scale war. Regional actors, like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, share many of the US and Israel's war aims though differing on whether to pursue war or diplomacy.

🔗 United States/U.S. Government 🔗 United States 🔗 Terrorism

The 1983 U.S. Senate bombing was a bomb explosion at the United States Senate on November 7, 1983, motivated by United States military involvement in Lebanon and Grenada. The attack led to heightened security in the DC metropolitan area, and the inaccessibility of certain parts of the Senate Building. Six members of the radical left-wing Resistance Conspiracy were arrested in May 1988 and charged with the bombing, as well as related bombings of Fort McNair and the Washington Navy Yard which occurred April 25, 1983, and April 20, 1984, respectively.

🔗 United States 🔗 Law

In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008), was an en banc decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on the patenting of method claims, particularly business methods. The Federal Circuit court affirmed the rejection of the patent claims involving a method of hedging risks in commodities trading. The court also reiterated the machine-or-transformation test as the (meaning sole) applicable test for patent-eligible subject matter, and stated that the test in State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group should no longer be relied upon.

The Supreme Court of the United States issued an opinion on appeal (as Bilski v. Kappos) that affirmed the judgment of the CAFC, but revised many aspects of the CAFC's decision. In its decision, handed down on June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court rejected the machine-or-transformation test as the sole test of process patent eligibility based on an interpretation of the language of § 101. The majority, however, had high praise for the Federal Circuit opinions, advising that "[s]tudents of patent law would be well advised to study these scholarly opinions."