“An Oslo district court has sentenced Marius Borg Hoiby, the stepson of Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon, to four years in prison for rape and other crimes. Hoiby, 29, became part of the royal family when his mother, Mette-Marit, married Haakon in 2001. The court convicted Hoiby of two counts of rape as well as domestic violence against his former partner Nora Haukland and narcotics offences. He was acquitted on two separate rape counts with judges finding insufficient proof that the encounters were nonconsensual. One of the rapes he was convicted of took place in the basement of the crown prince’s official Skaugum residence. While denying the rape charges, Hoiby had pleaded guilty to domestic abuse and transporting 3.5kg (7.7lb) of marijuana in 2020.” (06/15/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Nicholas Mosvick
“he preeminent historian of the American Founding, Gordon Wood, died last week as the result of a traffic accident. Wood, a long-time professor at Brown University, had a profound and prolific effect upon the historiography of the American Revolution and the Founding in an academic career spanning six decades. Significantly, he was the first leading historian to emphasize the importance of republican thought and principles, both classical and modern, to 18th-century America, a tradition that later gave way to the totalizing force of equality and democratization.” (06/14/26)
“Four people were killed while the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, a symbol of Ukrainian spiritual and cultural history, caught fire, in the heaviest Russian air attack on the Ukrainian capital in two weeks, authorities said on Monday. The fresh strikes came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday he had spoken to U.S. President Donald Trump and discussed efforts to achieve an end to the more than four-year conflict, ahead of a G7 meeting in France this week. … Four emergency service rescuers and one municipal official were killed and at least another five injured after a second Russian strike hit Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram, with three people, including a child, wounded in Sumy, according to social media posts by local authorities.” (06/15/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Athan Clark
“A worker earning $60,000 a year sends 12.4% of his wages to Social Security: $7,440 annually, every year of his working life. Half is deducted from his paycheck; the other half is paid by his employer, which economists broadly agree comes out of the worker’s wages anyway, though he never sees it. There is no deposit slip or account with his name on it, but this is money that would otherwise be his. That same $7,440 a year, invested for 40 years at an inflation-adjusted 7% — roughly the long-run historical performance of US equities — would accumulate to about $1.5 million. Social Security, by contrast, offers most younger workers an implicit inflation-adjusted return in the range of 1% to 2%, and lower still for higher earners.” (06/12/26)
“Iran and the United States have agreed to a memorandum of understanding to end more than 100 days of war, with Tehran saying the agreement includes Lebanon, which has been under intense Israeli attacks since March 2. Mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, the deal will be formally signed in the Swiss city of Geneva on Friday. … According to the Iranian news agency Mehr, the draft agreement contains 14 points. It includes: A permanent and immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon; the complete lifting of the naval blockade within 30 days; a US commitment to withdraw its forces from around Iran; and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The draft also mentions the suspension of sanctions on oil sales, reaching a final agreement on nuclear issues within 60 days of signing the deal, and the release of $24bn in frozen Iranian assets during the 60-day negotiation period.” (06/15/26)
“Twice a year, every year, for more than a century now, most Americans ‘spring forward’ or ‘fall back,’ pretending that an hour has been deleted from, or inserted into, our sleep schedules. Our bodies spend weeks adjusting to each ‘new normal,’ leading to, among other things, measurable increases in traffic fatalities. … US president Donald Trump wants the government to knock off its weird time-shifting magic routine. Some Trump-watchers even suggest that he cares enough to make it one of his ‘loyalty test’ issues, punishing politicians who don’t toe the line. Therefore, Congress will likely vote on something called the ‘Sunshine Protection Act’ later this summer. … Thank you, President Trump, for your attention to this matter!” (06/13/26)
“A first-of-its-kind law in New York could force 3D printers sold for homes and business to come equipped with technology blocking them from making guns. The new requirement, also under consideration in California, attempts to thwart the latest technique for producing untraceable ‘ghost guns’ that have turned up in crimes. … A New York law signed last month and a bill in the California Legislature both would direct panels of experts to come up with standards for firearm blueprint detection algorithms. The technology would analyze every design submitted for 3D printing, compare it to a digital library of firearm parts and reject those that are similar.” [editor’s note: If the idea wasn’t so irredeemably evil, it would be kind of funny to watch them fantasize about their ability to implement it – TLK] (06/14/26)
“In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Trump boasted that ‘one of the primary reasons for our country’s stunning economic turnaround, the biggest in history, where the Dow Jones broke 50,000, four years ahead of schedule, and the S&P hit 7000 where it wasn’t supposed to do it for many years, were tariffs.’ The facts tell a different story. First, because there is no schedule for stock-market gains, it is meaningless to say that the Dow Jones or S&P 500 rose ‘ahead of schedule.’ The reality is that the US economy during the first year of President Trump’s second term simply did not perform a ‘turnaround,’ much less one that could be ranked as ‘the biggest in history.'” (06/12/25)
