Isn't DHS the Defense part? So rename DoD to Department of Offense or Department of War like Hegseth and Trump sayin'.
Ex-Vogue Editor: Melania Trump Blocked From Vogue Cover by ‘Extraordinarily Liberal’ Anna Wintour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su6boXzWhh4
MLB removes 'diversity' from careers page after order
NEW YORK – Major League Baseball removed references to "diversity" from its MLB careers home page following an executive order by President Donald Trump that could lead to possible federal action against organizations using DEI programs in violation of his administration's interpretation of civil rights law.
"Our values on diversity remain unchanged," MLB said in a statement Friday. "We are in the process of evaluating our programs for any modifications to eligibility criteria that are needed to ensure our programs are compliant with federal law as they continue forward."
The removal of the references was first reported by Cup of Coffee.
Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, who launched a diversity pipeline program in 2016, said following an owners meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, last month that MLB was evaluating the interpretation of law coming from the federal government.
"Our values, particularly our values on diversity, remain unchanged, but another value that is pretty important to us is we always try to comply with what the law is," he said. "There seems to be an evolution going on here. We're following that very carefully. Obviously, when things get a little more settled, we'll examine each of our programs and make sure that while the values remain the same that we're also consistent with what the law requires."
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/44347886/mlb-tries-comply-dei-laws-keep-programs
FBI takes down three of America's 10 most wanted since Trump took office
President Donald Trump's administration has swiftly taken down some of America's most notorious criminals.
FBI Director Kash Patel has announced that three of his agency's 'Ten Most Wanted Fugitives' have been arrested since the president took office on January 20.
'The FBI and [the Department of Justice and Attorney General Pam Bondi] have captured our third fugitive on the Ten Most Wanted list since January 20, 2025,' Patel posted this week.
'That’s not an accident,' his post continued. 'When you let good cops be good cops, this is what happens.'
'This administration is giving the new FBI and AG Bondi the resources to get the job done — and we won’t stop.'
For comparison, four fugitives on the FBI ten most wanted list were apprehended during Joe Biden's four years as president.
At this point during Biden's presidency, none of the fugitives on the FBI list were caught.
Earlier this week, Patel announced the arrest of Francisco Javier Román Bardales, 47, an alleged MS-13 gang leader from El Salvador, who is facing charges related to violent crime, drug distribution and extortion in the Eastern District of New York.
The cartel is notorious for murder, drug trafficking, terrorism and more, and Bardales is thought to be among the gang's senior leadership.
He was arrested Monday in the mountains of the Gulf coast state of Veracruz by soldiers and federal agents.
The alleged MS-13 leader was deported from Mexico to New York on Wednesday.
He is accused of various crimes including racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources to terrorists, narco-terrorism conspiracy and alien smuggling conspiracy.
'This is a major victory both for our law enforcement partners and for a safer America,' Patel wrote in celebration of Bordales' capture.
The FBI also thanked Mexican authorities for their support in the operation.
'When you let good agents be good agents, this is the result,' Patel said of the quick action his agency is taking on the most wanted list.
Arnoldo Jimenez, 43, another of the 10 Most Wanted, was arrested in Mexico on January 30, 2025.
Jimenez is accused of murdering his wife the day after their wedding in 2012.
Her body was later found in the bathtub of their apartment, but the alleged criminal fled to Mexico to avoid being prosecuted.
Donald Eugene Fields II, 60, who was on the FBI 10 Most Wanted for crimes relating to child abuse, was arrested on January 25, 2025.
Fields is charged with child rape and child sex trafficking charges, and he is also accused of trying to solicit a minor into sexual acts.
He was arrested during a routine traffic stop in Florida.
In addition to the 10 Most Wanted criminals, the FBI also announced earlier this month the arrest of Justin Smith, a man accused of killing his pregnant wife in 2021.
Smith allegedly shot his girlfriend in the head several times in Philadelphia, killing her and her unborn child.
'The hunt is on,' Patel posted on X Thursday. 'And we’re just getting started.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14520713/fbi-americas-wanted-trump-office-second-term.html
JD Vance had a point on migration, Denmark’s prime minister warns EU leaders
In a wide-ranging interview, Mette Frederiksen says she considers “mass migration … as a threat to the daily life in Europe.”
COPENHAGEN — There’s not much the socialist Danish prime minister agrees on with the Trump administration.
For one, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to annex Greenland, an autonomous Danish dependent territory. He’s also shown a particular desire to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin when it comes to the country’s invasion of Ukraine, a sentiment Mette Frederiksen has ardently opposed.
Surprisingly, though, the center-left Frederiksen told POLITICO in an interview that the Trump administration’s Vice President JD Vance was right when it comes to migration and limiting the mass arrival of foreigners.
“I consider this mass migration into Europe as a threat to the daily life in Europe,” said the leader of the wealthy Scandinavian welfare state, echoing what Vance said weeks earlier at the Munich Security Conference. Frederiksen used mass migration interchangeably with irregular migration during the interview.
“There is nothing more urgent than mass migration,” Vance told a partly shocked audience of Europeans Feb. 14, saying the threat was bigger than Russia. Frederiksen, who was in the audience when Vance gave his speech that day, said she “unfortunately” disagreed with him on Russia. She described Russia as the No. 1 threat facing Europe.
Still, he had a point on migration, she conceded.
The center-left politician stands out in a sea of conservatives in Europe as one of the only socialist leaders remaining in power across the bloc, in large part due to her severe policies on migration. Elected in 2019, she doubled down on a wholesale turnaround of Denmark’s immigration policy, which moved from openness to one of the strictest migration policies in Europe, if not the world.
But while Danish voters have embraced her tough stance on accepting foreign nationals, human rights organizations and refugee advocates have accused the government of “racism” and “discrimination.”
Conservative leaders across Europe, from Austria and Hungary to Germany and the Netherlands, have embraced similar viewpoints on migration with relative success while the popularity of Frederiksen’s socialist counterparts has waned. Outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have pulled the other way when it comes to immigration, arguing against hardline policies at the EU level.
Scholz was voted out of office though he hardened his stance on asylum seekers weeks ahead of the Feb. 23 German election.
“The message that our populations in almost all European countries have tried to send to politicians through the years: Please get in control [of] our borders and be decisive on migration,” Frederiksen said.
Frederiksen, like Trump, has found that her voter base embraces her stance on migration.
To limit migration, Denmark has deployed a potent cocktail of policies dubbed “zero” refugees including negative advertising in source countries urging migrants not to make the trip; confiscating valuables from migrants to offset the cost of their stay; threatening rapid deportations for settled Syrians during the reign of Bashar Assad; and the controversial “No Ghetto” laws aimed at reducing the proportion of foreign-born people in Danish neighborhoods. The country also passed a law in 2021 that could allow refugees to be moved to centers in partner countries outside the EU, such as Rwanda, a proposal that the European Commission later criticized.
Frederiksen isn’t responsible for all of these laws — some of which were introduced before she rose to power — but she has kept the direction of travel steady.
Dating back to his first term, Trump built his core support with “build the wall” chants at campaign rallies, promising to send back the hordes of migrants he claimed crossed over the border from Mexico daily. In recent days, Trump ignored a judge’s order while sending a plane of Venezuelan nationals to a third country, El Salvador.
In office and on the campaign trail, Trump said repeatedly that migrants have taken jobs away from Americans.
“No matter if you look at statistics on crimes or if you look at problems on the labor market, insecurity in local communities, it is the most vulnerable who experience the consequences” of uncontrolled migration, Frederiksen said.
Frederiksen attributes her party’s success with voters to her migration stance, which Vance also alluded to in Munch.
“No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants. But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it. And more and more, all over Europe, they’re voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control migration,” Vance said.
Frederiksen has embraced staunchly socialist ideology when it comes to championing blue-collar workers, expanding access to abortion and protecting housing rights for tenants. Her immigration policies have kept the far right at bay and the percentage of immigrants in Denmark lower than other European countries such as Germany or Sweden.
The result has been a precipitous drop in asylum seekers between 2019 and 2024, when Denmark approved a total of 864 asylum claims.
“I totally believe in equal opportunities and a Scandinavian welfare model with a tax-paid education, social benefits and health care. But for me that’s only one traditional pillar of being a social democrat,” she argued.
“Being in control of migration is the second pillar.”
Copenhagen’s hardcore approach has stirred up plenty of controversy. Rivals have accused Frederiksen of co-opting far-right policies to win power and of riding roughshod over the dignity of migrants. Some of Denmark’s policies, like the law mandating the confiscation of valuables from arriving migrants, have drawn criticism from the United Nations. The “No Ghetto” law was found, just last month, of being “directly discriminatory on the basis of ethnic origin” by an adviser to the EU’s top court.
But exceptions remain. When Denmark took in Ukrainian refugees after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the country’s parliament voted to amend the law to exempt those nationals from the restrictions on other migrants.
Critics have noted that similar policies would not work in larger, less homogenous EU countries such as Spain or France, which have much bigger immigrant populations going back generations linked to their colonial histories.
What’s more, Denmark has carve-outs from Europe’s justice and home affairs treaty, which grants Copenhagen wide latitude to enact policies that might be illegal elsewhere.
Indeed, while Denmark is something of an outlier in the EU, its officials have been driving a recent reappraisal of the bloc’s entire approach to migration.
After the EU adopted a new Migration and Asylum Pact in 2024, Denmark quietly led a group of 20 nations to propose further revisions to the way Europe handles asylum requests and deportations, according to two EU diplomats.
This effort fed into a new “Directive on returns,” published earlier this month by the European Commission, that gives states legal guidance on how they can speed up deportations to third countries or third states where migrants were previously employed, similar to the law Denmark passed in 2021 to allow the country to move refugees to Rwanda.
The bloc is also shelling out billions of euros to keep migrants from reaching its shores. Last year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen inked a €7 billion deal with Egypt to boost development and deter irregular migration. The EU has also rushed to restore diplomatic ties with Syria, where it hopes to start returning more migrants after the fall of Assad despite recent outbreaks of sectarian violence.
“Of course we are all looking at what is going on in Syria. It’s not a political choice whether a country is safe or not. We have authorities looking into that,” she said.
For Frederiksen, such outlays don’t clash with Europe’s other big focus — defense. Instead, they’re all part of the same effort to make Europe more secure for its citizens.
“If I ask people about security and their security concerns, many of them will reply that Russia and defending Europe is top of mind right now. But security is also about what is going on in your local community,” Frederiksen said.
“Do you feel safe where you live? When you go and take your local train, or when your kids are going home from school, or whatever is going on in your daily life?”
https://www.politico.eu/article/mette-frederiksen-denmark-jd-vance-migration-asylum-refugees/
Collin Rugg
@CollinRugg
NEW: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says he sold 1000 immigration Gold Cards (priced at $5M each) in one day this week.
The development means $5 Billion was made to help pay off the national debt.
"There are 37,000,000 people in the world who are capable of buying the card… The president thinks we can sell a million."
Lutnick says Trump got the idea to sell a Gold Card during a meeting he had with investor John Paulson.
Podcast: All In Podcast
https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1903192954795331708
7 million gold cards would pay off the national debt.
UAE commits to $1.4 trillion US investment, White House says
WASHINGTON/DUBAI (Reuters) -The United Arab Emirates has committed to a 10-year, $1.4 trillion investment framework in the United States after top UAE officials met President Donald Trump this week, the White House said on Friday.
The framework will "substantially increase the UAE's existing investments in the U.S. economy" in AI infrastructure, semiconductors, energy, and manufacturing, the White House said in a statement.
The White House did not outline how UAE investments would reach $1.4 trillion, with some of the deals unveiled as part of the framework having already been announced.
The only fully new deal appeared to be an investment by Emirates Global Aluminium in what would be the first new aluminum smelter in the United States in 35 years, the White House said, adding the plant "would nearly double U.S. domestic aluminum production".
"Developing a primary aluminium smelter in the U.S. has been part of EGA's ambitions for several years," a spokesperson for the firm said in a statement.
The UAE, an oil producer and longtime security partner of the U.S., is looking to deepen investment ties with Washington and is emerging as a global leader in AI, one of the sectors it is betting on to diversify its economy away from energy.
In September, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan met former U.S. President Joe Biden, in the first visit of a UAE president to the White House, as the two leaders discussed deepening cooperation in areas such as AI, investments and space exploration.
Gulf sovereign wealth funds, including Abu Dhabi's $330-billion Mubadala, are already big U.S. investors, and Trump and his family have business ties to the region.
Trump in January asked Saudi Arabia to spend upwards of $1 trillion in the U.S. economy, over four years, including purchases of military equipment, and said this month he likely would make his first trip abroad to the Gulf country to seal an investment agreement.
The deal, which could happen between this month or the next, would come at a time when Saudi Arabia, the Arab world's biggest economy, has been taking a more prominent role in U.S. foreign policy. The Gulf country is set to host diplomatic talks around Ukraine involving the United States and Russia next week.
The White House said on Friday the UAE agreement resulted from a meeting that Trump held on Tuesday with national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan in the Oval Office and a dinner that Vice President JD Vance and several cabinet members held with the UAE delegation, which included the heads of major UAE sovereign wealth funds and corporations.
Among the tie-ups highlighted on Friday was a partnership between UAE sovereign wealth fund ADQ, which is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon, and U.S. private equity firm Energy Capital Partners, for a $25 billion U.S.-focused initiative to invest in energy infrastructure and data centers. That had been previously announced two days ago.
A commitment by XRG, the international investment arm of UAE state oil company ADNOC launched in November, to support U.S. natural gas production and exports with an investment in the NextDecade liquefied natural gas export facility in Texas, had previously been made public last year by ADNOC, under Biden.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-meeting-uae-commits-10-134941173.html
So you don't want people in your country that are capable, and good at making money? Even if you're an idiot, the wealth would trickle down. 7 million is not even that many ppl compared to 40 million illegal migrants soaking up social security.
Maine universities agree to keep transgender athletes out of women's sports after Trump admin pauses funding
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday that the University of Maine System (UMS) has agreed to comply with President Donald Trump's executive order to keep transgender athletes out of women's sports.
UMS, a network of eight public universities in Maine, claims it has been compliant with the NCAA's revised gender policy to keep trans athletes out of the women's category since the NCAA's revision was made on Feb. 6, and has always followed state and federal law. UMS was subject to a temporary pause in funding from the USDA last week during an ongoing battle between the state and the federal government over trans inclusion in women's and girls sports. The funding was reinstated just days later.
The USDA now claims the UMS is in full compliance with Trump's executive order.
"After the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) initiated a Title IX compliance review regarding federal funding, the University of Maine System (UMaine) has clearly communicated its compliance with Title IX’s requirement to protect equal opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports, as articulated in President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order," the USDA said in its announcement.
"Any false claim by the UMaine can, and will, result in onerous and even potentially criminal financial liability."
UMS Chancellor Dannel Malloy provided a statement to Fox News Digital, saying the system is "relieved" to have come to an understanding with the USDA.
"The University of Maine System has always maintained its compliance with state and federal laws and with NCAA rules, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture also affirmed in a press release today," said Chancellor Malloy.
"We are relieved to put the Department’s Title IX compliance review behind us so the land-grant University of Maine and our statewide partners can continue to leverage USDA and other essential federal funds to strengthen and grow our natural resource economy and dependent rural communities through world-class education, research and extension."
In fiscal year 2024 alone, the USDA awarded $29.78 million in funding to UMS for research, the system said. The USDA claims it has provided over $100 million to the UMS in recent years in a letter addressed to the system.
Trump initially vowed to cut funding to Maine specifically if it continued to allow trans athletes to compete in girls sports during a meeting of GOP governors at the White House Feb. 20.
The next day, Gov. Janet Mills' office responded with a statement threatening legal action against the Trump administration if it withheld federal funding from the state. Then Trump and Mills verbally sparred in a widely publicized argument at the White House during a bipartisan meeting of governors.
Just hours after that interaction, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would investigate the state for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports and for potential Title IX violations.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has already determined that the state and its Department of Education violated Title IX by allowing transgender athletes to compete and warned that it will make a referral to the U.S. Department of Justice if the state does not provide a written agreement to comply with Trump's executive order.
"What HHS is asking of the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association (MPA) and Greely High School is simple — protect female athletes’ rights. Girls deserve girls-only sports without male competitors. And if Maine won’t come to the table to voluntarily comply with Title IX, HHS will enforce Title IX to the fullest extent permitted by the law," OCR acting Director Anthony Archeval said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/maine-universities-agree-keep-trans-athletes-out-womens-sports-after-trump-admin-pauses-funding
Maine high schools have 10 days to comply
WASHINGTON – Maine's education office is being ordered to ban transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports or face federal prosecution, an escalation in President Donald Trump's threats to pull federal money from states and schools over transgender athletes.
The U.S. Education Department on Wednesday said an investigation concluded Maine's education office violated the Title IX antidiscrimination law by allowing transgender girls to compete on girls' sports teams and use girls' facilities. It's giving Maine 10 days to comply with a list of demands or face Justice Department prosecution.
“If Maine does not swiftly and completely come into compliance with Title IX, we will initiate the process to limit MDOE’s access to federal funding," Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.
The federal investigation into Maine's Department of Education was opened Feb. 21, just hours after Trump and the state's Democratic governor, Janet Mills, clashed over the issue at a meeting of governors at the White House. During the heated exchange, Mills told the Republican president, "We’ll see you in court."
Messages to Mills' office and the state's education department were not immediately answered.
It's an astonishing turnaround for a civil rights investigation at the Education Department, which often takes months or years to resolve cases. The Trump administration has pushed harder and faster to punish alleged violators, in some cases drawing accusations that it's bypassing due process procedures required by law.
The proposed resolution would require Maine's schools to forbid transgender girls from participating in any sports program or using any locker room or bathroom designated for girls. It would also force the state to accept the Trump administration's definition of sex as male or female only.
The state would be required to revoke individual awards and honors won by transgender girls and give them to athletes who otherwise would have won. The state would have to issue a formal apology to those athletes “for allowing her educational experience and participation in school sports to be marred by sex discrimination,” the Education Department said.
A separate announcement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the University of Maine system appears to be in compliance with Trump's orders on transgender athletes and will continue receiving money from the agency. The USDA said it began investigating the issue last month but the system responded saying it does not allow transgender athletes in women's sports.
The system is “relieved to put the Department’s Title IX compliance review behind us,” Chancellor Dannel Malloy said in a statement.
Trump campaigned on a promise to remove transgender athletes from girls' sports and has made it a top priority.
The Education Department has launched investigations over the issue at the University of Pennsylvania and San Jose State University, along with a high school sports league in Massachusetts. On Wednesday, the White House said it suspended about $175 million in federal funding for Penn over the participation of a transgender athlete in its swimming program.
Trump officials are ramping up investigations even as they lay off about half the employees at the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, which investigates complaints and works to bring schools into compliance. The cuts entirely laid off staff at seven regional offices, including one in Boston, which has historically handled cases in Maine and New England.
___
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/wireStory/maine-found-violation-title-ix-transgender-athletes-after-119963759
Obviously Trump Admin will vet them. You think they're gunna sell the gold cards to war lords and drug dealers?
Iceland's female minister for children resigns in disgrace after admitting boy, 15, got her pregnant
Iceland's Minister for Children has resigned in disgrace she was accused of having sex with a 15 year-old boy when she was 22 and getting pregnant by him.
Ásthildur Lóa Thórsdóttir said she met the troubled teen, identified as Eirík Ásmundsson by RUV, while she was working as a counsellor at a religious group he attended.
He was just 15-years-old when they began their secret relationship, the outlet reported. Thórsdóttir claims he was 16 when it became sexual.
The age of consent is 15 in Iceland, but it is illegal to have sex with anyone under the age of 18 if the adult holds a position of authority over them, as Thórsdóttir is accused of doing.
'I understand… what it looks like,' Thórsdóttir, now 58, said, adding that it is 'very difficult to get the right story across in the news today'.
She gave birth to the couple's son aged 23, while her lover was just 16.
The revelation emerged after Ásmundsson's relative got in touch with Iceland's Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir last week.
The former children's minister was then summoned to her office on Thursday, where she confirmed the reports and immediately resigned.
'This is very personal matter [and] out of respect for the person concerned, I will not comment on the substance,' Frostadóttir said, adding that it was 'very serious'.
Ásmundsson met Thórsdóttir while attending a Christian religious group Tru og Lif (Faith and Life) in Kópavogur he used to frequent as an escape from his troubled home life.
After he got her pregnant the baby's parentage was reportedly kept secret, although the father was present at the birth and for the first year of his life, RUV reports.
However, this changed when the former children's minister met her husband.
The Icelandic news outlet said it had seen documents submitted to the courts by Ásmundsson in which he unsuccessfully requested access to his son.
Eirikur claimed he was eventually permitted just two hours of visitation per month at Thórsdóttir and her husband’s home, First Post reports.
Meanwhile, Thórsdóttir requested and was receiving child support payments for the next 18 years.
She has since claimed that Ásmundsson was the more sexually experienced party and alleged that he 'stalked' her before she took pity on him.
'Although I had not specifically anticipated it in this situation, 16 was the age of consent at the time, and relationships between people of that age were not at all uncommon, even if they were not desirable,' she said in a statement to Iceland Monitor.
She also tried to paint him as a deadbeat dad who lost interest in her after getting her pregnant.
'Our son is 35 years old today,' she added. 'He has therefore been of legal age and an adult according to the law for 17 years.
'They met once by chance, but apart from that, his father has never in all these years made the slightest attempt to meet him or establish a relationship between them.
'Given my previous experience, I cannot say that this surprises me.'
'It's been 36 years, a lot of things change in that time and I would definitely have dealt with these issues differently today,' she added
Despite stepping down as children's minister, Thórsdóttir revealed she has no plans to leave parliament.
She has been a Member of Parliament for the Southern Constituency since 2021 and has been Minister of Education and Children's Affairs since 2024.
She worked as a teacher prior to entering politics.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14524397/iceland-minister-children-boy-pregnant-quits.html
Keep an eye on it then. I'm all ears.
Trump unveils new 6th generation F-47 fighter jet.
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1903175204735430750
Trump offers to pay the overtime of stranded NASA astronauts.
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1903174250380529694
We’re only 60 days in, and the Dept of Education is already gone.
https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1903109579895963703
Yahoo is selling TechCrunch
TechCrunch has a new owner, again. Yahoo has sold the tech news site to the private equity firm Regent for an undisclosed sum, according to an announcement on Friday.
Regent is the same company that snapped up Foundry, the firm behind outlets like PCWorld, Macworld, and TechAdvisor on Thursday. Founded in 2005, TechCrunch has experienced many shakeups in ownership after AOL acquired the site in 2010.
When Verizon acquired AOL in 2015 and Yahoo in 2017, the company folded TechCrunch, Engadget, Yahoo Sports, and other sites into a new division called Oath, which later became Verizon Media. In 2021, Verizon sold its media division to Apollo Global Management for $5 billion, and it was renamed Yahoo!
“Yahoo decided to sell TechCrunch because, in the end, our DNA is simply different from the rest of its portfolio,” TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos writes in the announcement, noting that Yahoo will still have a “small interest” in TechCrunch.
Along with Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, and Yahoo News, Yahoo still owns the tech site Engadget, which laid off staff across its leadership team last year.
https://www.theverge.com/news/633950/yahoo-selling-techcrunch-regent-acquisition
Anna Bower
@AnnaBower
Hours after the Paul Weiss news broke, an associate at Skadden Arps sent a firm-wide email: "Please consider this email my two week notice, revocable if the firm comes up with a satisfactory response to the current moment…We do not have time. It is now or it is never, and if it is never, I will not continue to work here."
https://x.com/AnnaBower/status/1902982563599184282
Congress Has The Tools To Stop Rogue Judges From Overriding Trump’s Agenda Without Reaching For Impeachment
While Republican lawmakers continue to call for impeaching judges who block President Donald Trump’s agenda, Congress has another tool it could use to prevent judges from overriding executive authority.
Limiting courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions, which district judges use to block policies across the entire country, could become a strategy for Republicans looking to rein in what the Trump administration is slamming as an abuse of power by the judiciary.
“The Supreme Court should have addressed the issue of nationwide injunctions a decade ago,” South Texas College of Law professor Josh Blackman told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “But the Court keeps kicking the can down the road. Congress should take a close look at how to ensure courts are properly exercising their jurisdiction.”
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said Thursday that he would introduce legislation to “stop the abuse” of judicial authority through nationwide injunctions. California Rep. Darrell Issa has already introduced similar legislation, which was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee 14-9 in early March.
Issa’s No Rogue Rulings Act of 2025 would limit judges to only issuing injunctions that apply to parties in the case, rather than the entire country.
“We have a crisis on the bench right now and not just with this or any single judge,” Issa said in a statement Wednesday, adding that his bill is “the comprehensive solution we need to ensure that this problem does not occur anywhere in our federal judiciary and resets the proper and appropriate balance in our courts.”
Nationwide injunctions put the over 670 district court judges “temporarily on a par with the Supreme Court of the United States because each one can halt a practice nationwide unless and until a higher court revises, reverses, or vacates its order or Congress modifies the underlying substantive law,” Heritage Foundation legal scholars Paul Larkin and GianCarlo Canaparo wrote on Friday.
“Unless and until Congress endorses that practice, the federal courts should limit the reach of their judgments to the parties to a lawsuit,” they argued.
The Trump administration urged the Supreme Court last week to evaluate lower courts’ use of nationwide injunctions, asking the justices to limit rulings that prevented his executive order on birthright citizenship from taking effect nationwide.
“District courts have issued more universal injunctions and TROs [temporary restraining orders] during February 2025 alone than through the first three years of the Biden Administration,” Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote in the application. “That sharp rise in universal injunctions stops the Executive Branch from performing its constitutional functions before any courts fully examine the merits of those actions, and threatens to swamp this Court’s emergency docket.”
Several Supreme Court justices have previously expressed opposition to the practice. During oral arguments for a challenge to the abortion pill in 2024, Justice Neil Gorsuch criticized “a rash of universal injunctions.”
Nearly two-thirds of all nationwide injunctions issued since 2001 were against the first Trump administration, according to a Harvard law review article published in June 2024, which does not include data from his second term. Nearly 92% of those rulings were issued by Democrat-appointed judges.
University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds included restrictions on nationwide injunctions among his suggestions for addressing the problem of overstepping judges in a Substack post Wednesday, noting pushing for impeachment is “a symbolic and probably self-destructive gesture.”
“Impeachment is hard, there’s no way the Republicans will get 2/3 of the Senate to vote for removal, and history suggests — from Bill Clinton through two different attempts on Donald Trump — that failed impeachment efforts leave their targets stronger, not weaker,” he wrote.
Chief Justice John Roberts issued a statement Tuesday after Trump called for impeaching a judge who ruled against him. Obama-appointed Judge James Boasberg ordered the administration on Saturday to halt flights carrying members of the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang after Trump used the Alien Enemies Act to initiate their deportation.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said.
Republican Texas Rep. Brandon Gill introduced articles of impeachment against Boasberg on Tuesday.
Several other Republican lawmakers have introduced similar resolutions to impeach other federal judges, including Paul Engelmayer, who restricted the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing Treasury Department records; John McConnell Jr., who blocked Trump’s funding freeze; Amir Hatem Mahdy Ali, who blocked the administration from implementing its foreign aid spending freeze; and John Bates, who ordered health agencies to restore information removed from their websites.
https://dailycallernewsfoundation.org/2025/03/21/congress-has-the-tools-to-stop-rogue-judges-from-overriding-trumps-agenda-without-reaching-for-impeachment/
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
I look forward to watching the sick terrorist thugs get 20 year jail sentences for what they are doing to Elon Musk and Tesla. Perhaps they could serve them in the prisons of El Salvador, which have become so recently famous for such lovely conditions!
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114200244380161257
Nvidia to spend hundreds of billions on U.S.-made chips, confirms Blackwell system production in the U.S.
Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, confirmed at GTC 2025 that the company plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on chips made in the U.S. over the next four years, reports the Financial Times. This decision comes as the company works to lessen its reliance on Asian manufacturing due to potential tariffs under the Trump administration and geopolitical instability surrounding Taiwan. The company is also producing Blackwell systems in the US.
"We are in it," Huang said at a GTC press conference, answering a question about production at TSMC Arizona, reports Reuters. "We are now running production silicon in Arizona." Huang also confirmed to the Financial Times that Blackwell systems are being produced in the US.
Huang did not elaborate on which chips are being manufactured at TSMC’s Fab 21 in Arizona, nor did he disclose volumes that Nvidia is producing there. The phrase ‘running production silicon’ means that actual chips (not test or prototype chips) are being manufactured. It does not necessarily imply high-volume production.
But while the volumes of Nvidia’s chips made in the U.S. remain unclear, Nvidia is set to increase manufacturing in America over the course of the next four years.
“Overall, we will procure, over the course of the next four years, probably half a trillion dollars’ worth of electronics in total,” Jensen Huang told the Financial Times. “And I think we can easily see ourselves manufacturing several hundred billion of it here in the U.S.”
It should be noted that while unit sales of discrete GPUs for client PCs are generally decreasing, the die sizes of flagship graphics processors are increasing, so the silicon real estate that Nvidia produces is also expanding. Additionally, sales of Nvidia’s gigantic data center GPUs are on the rise, and the company expects this to continue for the next several years. Therefore, it is not surprising that the company plans to spend roughly $500 billion on chips in the next four years.
Nvidia is mostly known for its GPUs for client PCs and data centers. In addition to GPUs, Nvidia also designs its own CPUs, DPUs, NVLink switches, networking chips, and system-on-chips (SoCs) for vehicles as well as various embedded applications. The vast majority of Nvidia’s silicon is produced by TSMC, though some chips are made by other foundries.
However, Nvidia’s products and Nvidia-based products also use numerous other chips not designed by Nvidia or produced by TSMC.
For example, the company uses CPUs developed by AMD and Intel, as well as GDDR and HBM memory made by Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix. It also uses a variety of components from other suppliers, including retimers, system management controllers, clock generators, power management ICs, analog devices, and various controllers/microcontrollers, to name a few.
Companies producing memory (Micron, SK hynix) and other components (Analog Devices, GlobalFoundries, Texas Instruments) are all building new production capacity in the U.S. (Micron’s fab is coming online in 2027, SK hynix is expected to follow in 2028, and TI’s SM1 fab is expected to be operational in 2025).
As a result, Nvidia may increasingly source these components from American facilities. Furthermore, Nvidia’s next-generation x86 servers will use AMD or Intel CPUs that could be produced by either TSMC in Arizona or Intel in Arizona.
That said, with the expanded production of semiconductors in the U.S., it would not be surprising if Nvidia spent several hundred billion dollars on silicon made in America in the coming years. However, a key question is whether by ‘hundreds of billions’ Jensen Huang meant closer to $125 billion or between $250 billion and $300 billion, as many new fabs in the U.S. are coming online in the latter half of the decade.
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/nvidia-to-spend-hundreds-of-billions-on-u-s-made-chips-confirms-blackwell-gpu-production-at-tsmc-arizona
En Banc Ninth Circuit Upholds California Ammo Magazine Ban
The Golden State’s blanket ban on ammunition magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds is constitutional, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday.
A divided en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld California’s ban on so-called large-capacity magazines. The court split 7-4, with the majority holding that the types of magazines covered under the ban do not count as “arms” under the Second Amendment.
“Large-capacity magazines are optional accessories to firearms, and firearms operate as intended without a large-capacity magazine,” Judge Susan Graber wrote in Duncan v. Bonta. “A large-capacity magazine is thus an accessory or accoutrement, not an ‘Arm’ in itself. Possession of a large-capacity magazine therefore falls outside the text of the Second Amendment.”
The ruling is a setback for gun-rights activists. It establishes a binding precedent in the country’s largest appellate circuit—which contains multiple states with similar bans—blessing magazine restrictions under the Second Amendment. That precedent will stand permanently unless the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) intervenes. Whether it will choose to remains an open question.
The ruling may end the Duncan case, which has gone through something of a procedural Groundhog’s Day. US District Judge Roger Benitez first struck it down as unconstitutional in 2019. That briefly led to a phenomenon known as “Freedom Week,” in which California gun owners could purchase magazines covered by the ban again. Then, the Ninth Circuit stepped in to issue a stay on that decision while it heard the appeal.
In 2021, the en banc Ninth Circuit ultimately upheld California’s magazine ban by the same 7-4 margin. Then SCOTUS granted, vacated, and remanded that decision back down to the lower courts to be reconsidered in light of the Second Amendment test it created in 2022’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In September 2023, Judge Benitez again ruled the ban unconstitutional. Then, the en banc Ninth Circuit again stepped in to stay the ruling while it considered California’s appeal.
Reviewing the ban with the Bruen test in mind, the panel first considered whether it implicated the right to “keep and bear arms” as codified by the plain text of the Second Amendment. Here, the panel held that the amendment only refers to weapons rather than accessories.
“At the time of ratification, a clear distinction was recognized between weapons themselves, referred to as ‘arms,’ and accessories of weaponry, referred to as ‘accoutrements,'” Graber wrote.
The panel acknowledged that some accessories that themselves would not be considered arms could nonetheless be given equal protection under the amendment’s text if they are “necessary for the ordinary operation of a protected weapon.” However, they concluded that “large-capacity” magazines are never necessary.
“To the contrary, firearms that accept magazines operate as intended when equipped with magazines containing ten or fewer rounds,” Graber concluded. “Accordingly, the Second Amendment’s plain text does not encompass a right to possess large-capacity magazines.”
Though it determined that finding sealed the ban’s fate, the panel proceeded with a historical analysis of similar restrictions anyway because it said that “plaintiffs’ argument fares no better even if we assume that their proposed conduct falls within the plain text of the Second Amendment.”
The panel decided that the ban required “a more flexible analogical approach” to review historical laws because it said California passed the magazine ban in response to “unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technological changes.” It said that mass shootings involving large-capacity magazines “warrant an even more flexible approach” than SCOTUS used to uphold the federal domestic violence restraining order gun ban in 2024’s US v. Rahimi because the problem reflects both of the criteria it said would allow for a “more nuanced approach” to history.
Under this looser standard, the majority held that Founding-era gunpowder storage requirements, bans on trap guns, and 19th-century bans on weapons associated with criminality like Bowie knives all support California’s modern ban.
“We discern two distinct traditions from the legal regimes described above,” Graber wrote. “First, the Founding-era gunpowder storage regulations established an early tradition of laws seeking to protect innocent persons from infrequent but devastating harm by regulating a component necessary to the firing of a firearm. Second, since the Founding era, legislatures have enacted laws to protect innocent persons from especially dangerous uses of weapons once those perils have become clear.”
Judge Patrick Bumatay, joined by three other judges, penned the primary dissent. In it, he accused the majority of taking an “extreme position” by writing magazines out of the Second Amendment. He also charged the majority with “mak[ing] up a new two-test Bruen framework” divided between “the so-called ‘more nuanced approach’ and the ‘straightforward,’ unnuanced approach.”
“Over the course of this litigation, the majority has taken at least three positions on how California’s novel ban should be upheld as constitutional. So this is now the third time we’ve had to warn against the majority’s violation of Supreme Court instructions,” he wrote. “We sound the alarm yet again—but this time, it’s more dire given the extreme nature of the majority’s ruling. Its implications are vast and lead to a dangerous expansion of government power. In contrast, if our analysis here sounds familiar, it is. Our position has remained the same from the start of this litigation. Adhering to the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding, California’s magazine ban is unconstitutional.”
Judge Lawrence VanDyke, already well known for his colorful dissents in Second Amendment cases, likewise dissented from Thursday’s ruling. He also attached a video to his written opinion, which depicted him in his robes in his chamber, demonstrating how ammunition magazines and other gun parts work using his own handguns.
“Instead of straining to use written words to explain the many different parts of a gun and how each part could easily be deemed an ‘accessory’ under the majority’s vacuous test, I have decided to deliver part of my dissent in this case orally—via video—under the established wisdom that showing is sometimes more effective than telling,” he wrote.
He argued the majority’s logic in minimizing the status of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition to unprotected accessories could be applied to grips, sights, triggers, or a host of other essential parts that could be upgraded or downgraded on a pistol. However, Judge Van Dyke’s video drew a sharp rebuke from Judge Marsha Berzon, who penned a concurrence joined by five other members of the majority.
“Judge VanDyke’s dissent improperly relies on factual material that is unquestionably outside of the record,” Berzon wrote. “And, although I am surprised that it is necessary to do so, I write to reemphasize that as judges, we must decide cases as they are presented to us by the parties, leaving advocacy to the attorneys and testimony to the witnesses, expert and otherwise.”
The California Rifle and Pistol Association, a gun-rights group that sued California over its ban, blasted Thursday’s decision and said it would be appealing it to the Supreme Court “immediately.”
“This incorrect ruling is not surprising considering the inclination of many 9th Circuit judges to improperly limit the Second Amendment’s protections,” Chuck Michel, the group’s president, said. “It is high time for the Supreme Court to reign in lower courts that are not following the Supreme Court’s mandates as laid out in the Heller and Bruen cases, and this case presents an opportunity for the High Court to do that emphatically.”
California officials, meanwhile, celebrated the opinion as an “important win” for public safety.
“Let me be clear, this law saves lives,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D.) said. “Today’s ruling is an important win — not only in this case, but in our broader efforts to protect California communities from gun violence.”
https://thereload.com/en-banc-ninth-circuit-upholds-california-ammo-magazine-ban/