Source: SFGate
“A Thai woman accused of killing her ex-husband, a U.S. diplomat, has been sentenced to one year in prison for violating Myanmar’s immigration laws, but she still might go to trial for murder, a lawyer familiar with her case said Wednesday. The court in Yangon’s Kamayut township on Tuesday found Pavinee Supasirivisan guilty under a provision applying to any foreign national who commits a crime in the country, according to the lawyer. The charge carries a sentence ranging from six months to five years, the lawyer said on condition of anonymity to avoid possible repercussions from Myanmar’s military-backed government, which exercises tight control over information. Pavinee is being held at Insein Prison. Neither U.S. nor Myanmar officials have publicly named the dead man, but the New York Post and other Western media have identified him as 43-year-old Daniel Paul Riva, who served as a U.S. State Department assistant regional security officer.” (08/26/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/a-thai-woman-suspected-in-myanmar-death-of-us-22404396.php
Source: The New Republic
“Trump’s Fury at Canada Takes Unhinged Turn—and Backfires Badly for Him.” (08/26/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/214744/trump-fury-canada-takes-unhinged-turn-and-backfires-badly
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum
“President Donald Trump has been threatening to yank the licenses of broadcasters who irk him since his first term. But this time around, the FCC’s Trump-appointed chairman, Brendan Carr, seems eager to act on that vindictive impulse. Carr portrays the ABC review as a response to ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ programs that may qualify as ‘unlawful discrimination.’ But he has made it clear that the FCC also is considering the broader question of whether ABC’s stations are serving ‘the public interest,’ a vague statutory mandate that he views as a license to override freedom of the press.” (08/26/26)
https://reason.com/2026/08/26/brendan-carrs-vendetta-against-abc-conflates-the-public-interest-with-trumps-personal-grievances/
Source: Fox News
by Ted Jenkin
“In the 1999 movie ‘The Matrix’, Agent Smith hears a train approaching and delivers one of the iconic movie lines: ‘That is the sound of inevitability.’ America, listen closely. Our national debt just blew through $40 trillion, and unless Washington dramatically changes course, that train has another destination coming into view very quickly. $50 trillion. Yes, $50 trillion. But wait! There’s more! It could happen by 2030. Yes, by 2030. This isn’t a Republican problem. It isn’t a Democratic problem. It’s now an American math problem. The Congressional Budget Office projects a federal deficit of approximately $1.9 trillion in 2026. But that’s hardly the end of it. CBO projects deficits totaling more than $23 trillion from 2026 through 2035. Think about that.” (08/26/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/50-trillion-debt-not-distant-threat-america-speeding-towards-it
Source: ABC News
“An inquest opened Wednesday into the sudden death earlier this month of Jason Arday, a Cambridge University professor who faced a storm of plagiarism accusations. Arday, 41, who became Cambridge’s youngest [b]lack professor in 2023, was found dead at an address in south London on Aug. 13, days after he resigned his post as professor of sociology of education following intense media scrutiny of his credentials and many of the other claims he had made about his accomplishments outside of academia. The inquest opened with a short hearing at London Inner South Coroner’s Court. Any deaths in the U.K. that are deemed to exhibit uncertainties of one form or another are investigated by a coroner.” (08/26/26)
https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/inquest-opens-death-cambridge-university-professor-jason-arday-135967522
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe
“In total, the Trump family is estimated to have made over $2 billion since Trump returned to office. … It is understandable why most Americans find this upsetting, especially after Trump launched a war that predictably raised gas prices for a population already struggling with a years-long inflation crisis. … Trump is visibly using his power to make his own family richer while his policies leave most American families worse off. But the key word there is visibly. Because the truth is that, despite what establishment Trump critics want us to think, Trump did not bring this kind of ‘corruption’ to the White House; he’s just not trying as hard to hide it. This is what states do. And it’s what they have always done.” (08/26/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/profiting-government-didnt-begin-trump
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Michael Waldman
“In November, we should be able to have elections that are free, fair, and secure. But it will take a lot of work between now and then. We saw that for sure this week. On Monday, the Supreme Court made headlines and sowed confusion, but it did not change much. Here’s what you should know. Earlier this year, Trump signed an executive order to upend mail voting. That is the way 1 in 3 Americans vote. Trump purported to order the US Postal Service to refuse to deliver lawfully cast ballots unless the voter is on a list (which doesn’t exist yet) created by each state and sent to the post office for checking against mail ballots. It’s absurd. And, no surprise, it’s illegal.” (08/25/26)
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/noise-and-confusion-supreme-court
Source: CNBC
“Mortgage interest rates moved even higher last week, causing demand for loans to weaken yet again. Total mortgage application volume dropped 1% from the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances of up to $832,750 increased last week to 6.78% from 6.77% the prior week, with points rising to 0.66 from 0.65, including the origination fee, for loans with a 20% down payment. That is the highest level in three weeks. Applications to refinance a home loan, which are most sensitive to weekly rate moves, fell 2% for the week. They were 17% lower than the same week one year ago, when rates were 9 basis points lower.” (08/26/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/26/mortgage-rates-hit-highest-level-in-3-weeks-weakening-demand-further.html
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“War On Terror? Trump Pulls Syrian Al-Qaeda From US Terror List.” (08/26/26)
https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1nxnRBOgavmxO
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Stephen Weese
“You probably haven’t heard of too many examples of successful data center developments, and that’s partly because ‘something worked; everything is just fine’ is not a common news story. However, CNN recently reported on exactly that: Quincy, Washington, is home to over 30 data centers and has experienced an incredible boom as a result. The data centers now cover an estimated 57% of Quincy’s property tax revenue, funding a wave of public infrastructure projects: a $15 million aquatic center, a 143,000-square-foot indoor sports complex, a $120 million high school, a new hospital, library, police and fire stations, paved sidewalks, sewage systems, and a wastewater treatment plant. Residential electricity rates in the county rose 3.5% last year, while large industrial users, such as the data centers themselves, absorbed a 9.1% increase. The data centers there are paying for their own added infrastructure and generation costs rather than spreading those costs to households.” (08/26/26)
https://fee.org/articles/the-truth-about-data-centers/
