“CNN published a story on Monday covering software developer Joshua Aaron’s ICEBlock app, which lets “users alert people nearby to sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their area.” CNN reports that the app, released in April, has amassed over 20,000 users. The app, which is only available on the App Store (Aaron is concerned about the mandatory data collection on Android devices), allows users to specify where they’ve spotted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity and alerts other users within a 5-mile radius via push notification. The function of the app is not dissimilar from Waze and Google Maps, which help drivers avoid encounters with police officers monitoring highways and roads for traffic violations.
The First Amendment protects ICEBlock, just as it does Waze and Google Maps. Even if it didn’t, it still would protect CNN’s coverage of it. Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), tells Reason that prosecuting CNN for reporting on ICEBlock “would be like prosecuting a news outlet for reporting on Virginia drivers illegally using radar detectors to avoid speeding tickets.” Moreover, the First Amendment protects the development and use of the ICEBlock app itself because “putting out general information that someone, somewhere might use to evade law enforcement” is not aiding and abetting but “just providing others true information,” says Terr.”
“A federal inmate had to have one of his or her limbs partially amputated after being kept in restraints for two days. Another incarcerated person died after being pepper sprayed and left shackled in a restraint chair for five hours.”
“Paramount, which owns CBS, has agreed to settle a laughable lawsuit in which President Donald Trump depicted the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris as a form of consumer fraud that supposedly had inflicted damages “reasonably believed to be no less than” $20 billion. Compared to that risible claim, the amount that Paramount has agreed to pay—$16 million for legal expenses and a contribution to Trump’s presidential library—is pretty puny. It is also less than the $25 million that Trump reportedly demanded during negotiations with Paramount. It is nevertheless $16 million more than Trump deserved based on claims that CBS had accurately described as “completely without merit.”
This humiliating settlement starkly illustrates how the powers of the presidency can be abused to punish news outlets for constitutionally protected speech. It does not bode well for freedom of the press under a president who has no compunction about weaponizing the government against journalists who irk him.
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You can judge for yourself whether the editing of the Harris interview qualified as “lying to the American People.” But there is no question that it was protected by the First Amendment, which does not include an exception for journalism that strikes the president as misleading, biased, or unfair. Trump is avowedly determined to use any tools at his disposal to make sure “no one gets away” with covering the news in a way that offends him, which does not seem like a “win” for anyone who values the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
Trump getting fed up with good calls with Putin where Putin says he is working toward peace and then turns around and attacks civilians. Trump is selling weapons to NATO who will give them to Ukraine, and says Putin has 50 days to end the war or 100% tariffs will go on countries buying from Russia, like India and China.
“Forcing states to cover some of the cost of food stamps would be a big change for how the program operates, and one that is long overdue. “The federal government pays for 100 percent of the benefits, so state administrators have little incentive to crack down on theft,” Chris Edwards, chair of fiscal policy for the Cato Institute, and a longtime advocate of food stamp reform, tells Reason. While most states are not swindling federal taxpayers as often as Alaska does, more than $1 in every $10 spent through the food stamp program last year was paid out in error.
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to get Murkowski and Sullivan on board with the bill, the Senate added a sweetener: Any state with a food stamp error rate of more than 13.3 percent will be exempt from the federal-state cost-sharing measure for two years.
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Imagine that you’re administering the food stamp program in a state like Delaware, which last year had an error rate of 12.37 percent. If the Senate version of the tax bill becomes law, you’d have a pretty strong incentive to simply let that error rate rise a bit for the rest of this year, thus buying you two more years of a fully federally funded SNAP program with no mandatory state spending.”
“No vehicle is currently anywhere close to meeting these standards: According to data from the Energy Department, motorcycles come closest, at just shy of 45 miles per gallon, while cars average less than 25 miles per gallon. But the standards are fleet-wide, meaning the average for all of an automaker’s output needs to fall below the minimum. In practice, this means manufacturers must rely heavily on low- or zero-emission vehicles, like battery-powered electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids, to get on the right side of the average.
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The Senate version of the “big, beautiful bill” sets both of these dollar amounts at “$0.00,” effectively rendering it moot: Automakers making cars that don’t adhere to CAFE standards will still technically be in violation of the law, but they would face no reprisal.”
“in fairness, tariff-free trade into Vietnam is good news for American farmers and manufacturers that export goods to that country, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has argued. And the reduction in tariffs may marginally increase our exports to Vietnam.
For the vast majority of Americans, however, trade with Vietnam matters on the buying side, not the selling side. For them, this deal accomplishes very little.
The deal also sends a clear signal to other countries that Trump’s promise of reciprocity was bullshit.
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Free trade between the U.S. and Vietnam would be a win-win for both countries. That’s not what Trump has delivered with this deal. Vietnamese businesses and consumers got free trade. Americans got more taxes.”
Russia’s S-400 anti-air missile batteries are good, but without being integrated into larger defense systems, are vulnerable to air power. U.S. air power out-ranges these missiles, and low flying aircraft can’t be seen because the S-400 by itself can’t see over the horizon.
Trump’s tariffs have actually retarded U.S. manufacturing rather than bolstered it due to uncertainty and tariffs raising the cost of manufacturing inputs. From the Trump tariffs already put into effect, we haven’t seen huge price jumps as companies frontloaded their inputs to buy time and haven’t yet made pricing decisions.