Our daily trip around the world

🇮🇱 Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered yesterday to protest against the government’s new judicial reform. The mass demonstrations, which occurred in 20 different cities across the country, came after one portion of a larger bill aimed at curbing the power of Israel’s Supreme Court was approved by lawmakers late Monday evening. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu previously halted the judicial reform process in March amidst widespread public protests, but resumed his campaign to pass the bill after negotiations with opposition lawmakers broke down last month.

🌍 A group of scientists say that, due to human activity, Earth has entered a new geological time period called the “Anthropocene Epoch.” The late Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen first proposed the idea of the Anthropocene Epoch at a scientific conference more than 20 years ago. Scientists afterward set up a team to examine whether a new time period was needed to capture how nuclear fallout, pollution-induced extinctions, climate change, and other human activities have changed the Earth. And yesterday, following decades of study, the Anthropocene Working Group announced the new Anthropocene Epoch began sometime between 1950 and 1954, with the effects being most visible at Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada. But this designation is also facing scientific pushback – learn more about the ongoing debate here.

🇭🇰🇯🇵 Hong Kong is threatening to ban Japanese seafood if Tokyo follows through on its plan to dump nuclear wastewater in the ocean. Japan's plan to dump wastewater from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean has faced opposition both at home and abroad over concerns for food safety, despite confirmation from the UN’s nuclear watchdog that the environmental impact would be negligible. Hong Kong is Japan's second-largest market for seafood exports, behind China.