Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“I can’t help but wonder whether advocates of America’s socialist (i.e., central planning) system of immigration controls and the vicious immigration police state that comes with it are proud of how their system is being used against the Iranian soccer team that is competing in the World Cup games here in the United States. All three soccer games in which the Iranian team is competing are being played inside the United States. But with their socialist system of immigration controls, U.S. officials wield the omnipotent power to determine who enters the United States and under what conditions.” (06/18/26)
“German engineering and technology firm Bosch has agreed to pay a $36 million [bribe] to resolve federal allegations that it exported restricted products and software to China’s Huawei. Federal prosecutors announced the agreement Wednesday, saying the Bosch resolution was the National Security Division’s first declination under the Justice Department’s new corporate self-disclosure policy. The company has agreed to forfeit the $11.4 million in profits it made in the alleged transactions, with a portion being credited against the [bribe]. As a result, the NSD has declined to prosecute the company.” (06/18/26)
Source: Property and Environment Research Center
by staff
“As American summers grow drier and hotter, the institutions built to manage lands, water, and wildlife have not kept pace. These institutions, made up of laws, policies, contracts, and other rules that govern how we allocate water, manage forests, prevent wildfire, and conserve wildlife, were designed for a cooler, wetter, and more stable environment. This report focuses on helping institutions adapt to our changing reality. It proposes practical recommendations within five topical areas that can help people and ecosystems weather this summer as well as the years ahead.” (06/18/26)
“The Bank of England held U.K. interest rates at 3.75% on Thursday, as policymakers continue to balance the need to address above-target inflation with lackluster economic output. The hold, which was in-line with the expectations of economists polled by Reuters, was backed by seven of the nine monetary policy committee members in the BOE’s May meeting. BoE chief economist Huw Pill and Megan Greene, an external member of the rates-setting Monetary Policy Committee, were the two dissenting voices. Pill and Greene both cast votes to hike the BOE’s ‘base rate’ by 25 basis points to 4%.” (06/18/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Christopher Snowdon
“In my new book, Inside the Sausage Factory, I examine four campaigns for ‘public health’ policies in the 2010s and examined all the evidence that was marshalled for and against them. It turns out that the evidence for them wasn’t very good and there wasn’t much evidence marshalled against them, but that isn’t really the point. Nor does it matter that all the policies failed. A bad policy introduced on the basis of poor evidence is still an evidence-based policy. The question—or my question at any rate—was whether the four policies were evidence-based at all.” (06/18/26)
“An Ecuadorean man, who police accuse of leading a faction of one of the country’s most feared criminal gangs, has been shot dead as he was leaving the airport in Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil. Security footage shows two young men waiting outside the arrivals terminal holding stuffed toys and flowers before one of them approaches the victim, pulls his gun from behind a teddy and shoots him point-blank. Police have detained two teenagers in connection with the crime, the latest in a widespread wave of gang violence. … Ecuador’s interior minister, John Reimberg, identified the victim of Wednesday’s attack as 39-year-old Carlos Alberto Suástegui Villanueva, who he said was the leader of the Los Águilas gang in El Triunfo, a region east of Guayaquil.” (06/18/26)
