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Also of note, Texas State authorities trespassing into the river (which is international territory) to sabotage lawful crossings

Tl/DR: The COVID-era semiconductor and RAM profits are over. Phone sales are lackluster.

There is little evidence of legislative action in many cities. However, Democrats in Congress have moved to pass a federal housing law − to bar landlords from learning whether potential tenants have criminal records, which would include past squatter offenses. 

The common nuisance of squatting reflects a breakdown in basic deterrence of our laws. Property offenses have been steadily downgraded as priorities in many cities, while prosecutions are viewed as politically risky for officials who do not want to be viewed as targeting people who are homeless. 

The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority struck down President Biden’s proposal to cancel at least some student debt for tens of millions of borrowers, saying it overstepped the powers of the Education Department.

In a 6-to-3 decision, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that a mass debt cancellation program of such significance required clear approval by Congress.

Chief Justice Roberts declared that the administration’s logic — that the secretary of education’s power to “waive or modify” loan terms allowed for debt cancellation — was a vast overreach. “In the same sense that the French Revolution ‘modified’ the status of the French nobility,” he wrote, quoting a previous court decision.

I'm sure almost every other spy agency in the world is too, but it's still not a good look.

• The Supreme Court ruled that the affirmative action admission policies of Harvard and the University of North Carolina, which gave weight to a would-be student’s race, are unconstitutional.
• The court’s majority opinion said that both Harvard’s and UNC’s affirmative action programs “unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points.”

Pacific Northwest city lost nearly 3% of its population between 2020 and 2022

Mark Rogers has made a list of things he misses about Portland—its vegan restaurants, Powell’s bookstore, public transit—and the things he doesn’t—having his things stolen, stepping in human excrement, extreme politics.

The 44-year-old artist moved across the country to Fort Wayne, Ind., last year.

“I don’t want to talk trash about my home city even though there’s trash everywhere,” Rogers said. “I still love Portland even though it’s got some problems, and I wouldn’t have left if the housing prices weren’t so high.”

Unfortunately for him, he probably moved from one political extreme to another. It's like there's no home for normies anymore.

Basically the EU's new "tech regulations" have managed to not affect a single European company except one, which isn't happy about it and wants to be exempted.

It does seem like Europe can't cultivate any meaningful innovation, but is perfectly happy to tell foreign companies how to operate worldwide.

U.S. President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes in a deal with the Justice Department, according to court documents on Tuesday.

The federal charges against Hunter Biden arose from an investigation by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in the Democratic president's home state of Delaware who was appointed by Republican former President Donald Trump.

According to the deal, Biden also entered the pretrial diversion agreement on one firearm offense.

It is definitely down, written off by thousands of individual and institutional investors. The most obvious issue: scams. In the world of crypto, big firms are scams. Little firms are scams. Stable coins are scams; exchanges are scams; NFT schemes are scams; initial coin offerings are scams; tokens are scams. Firms run by self-proclaimed altruists are scams. Firms run by the shadiest dudes you can possibly imagine are scams.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday he "cannot defend what is alleged" in the most recent indictment against former President Donald Trump, a seemingly tougher stance than he had previously taken regarding the Justice Department's decision to charge his former running mate.