“Caffeine is the most widely used legal psychoactive drug in the world. Nearly two-thirds of American adults get their daily doses from coffee, according to a 2025 National Coffee Association poll, and they seem to be getting more than a jolt of energy. A study published by JAMA in February tracked the brain health of 130,000 people for more than 40 years. It found that moderate daily consumption of coffee was associated with a reduced risk of dementia and slower cognitive decline. … A roundup of studies compiled by the National Center for Health Research (NCHR), a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., details the manifold other health benefits of drinking coffee. … Coffee drinkers have enjoyed the beverage’s benefits for centuries and will do so for years to come. After all, Starfleet Capt. Kathryn Janeway in the 24th century declared coffee ‘the finest organic suspension ever devised.'” (for publication 06/26)
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger
“Let’s face it: It doesn’t really matter whether Democrats or Republicans are in charge. The big spending and the big debt will continue to grow, whether it’s on welfare, warfare, regulation, or control. There are always projects, programs, wars, conflicts, regulations, and controls on which to spend money. As we have seen, both Republicans and Democrats always find ways to spend and borrow ever-increasing amounts of money. … But the fact is that neither Republicans nor Democrats are the root cause of America’s fiscal woes. Instead, the root cause is a systemic one — the welfare-warfare state, regulated-managed economy system, and national-security state system that have come to characterize our nation.” (05/19/26)
“The Trump administration is doubling down on efforts to resettle [w]hite Afrikaners from South Africa as refugees in the U.S., proposing to increase the government’s refugee cap to welcome thousands more of them, according to a State Department plan sent to Congress and obtained by CBS News. The administration has effectively closed the U.S. refugee program for most nationalities, except Afrikaners from South Africa, arguing they’re the victims of racial oppression for being [w]hite. The South African government has denied persecuting the ethnic minority, composed of descendants of European settlers, mostly from the Netherlands.” (05/19/26)
“Robby Soave gives his radar on a viral video showing teenagers brawling at a Chipotle in Washington DC, leading to more calls for cracking down on youth violence in the city.” (05/19/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“Spain was the second-largest beneficiary of the EU’s Next Generation funding scheme (NGEU), rolled out in 2021 to help member states recover from pandemic-era lockdowns. Its total allocation was €163 billion ($190 billion, after Italy, which received €194 billion, or about $226 billion), enabling Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez to unveil a record-breaking budget for 2022, boosted with the first €26 billion ($30 billion) from this historic program. Yet from the beginning, Spain’s deployment of NGEU money, access to which depends on hitting investment targets set by Brussels (most of them designed to further the EU’s green agenda), has been surrounded by controversy. The latest scandal over Madrid’s alleged misuse of these funds has highlighted one of the most contentious issues in the bloc—namely, the viability of mutual debt schemes.” (05/19/26)
“Anthropic and the Justice Department will argue their case Tuesday before a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., over the Defense Department’s designation of the AI company as a supply-chain risk. Fifteen minutes are allotted to each side, after which the three-judge panel will deliberate and release a written ruling, according to CNBC.” (05/19/26)
“A 15-year-old opened his laptop to work on a coding project he’d been building for months. His school had assigned tools like Anthropic’s artificial intelligence model Claude to help write code, debug errors and teach concepts instructors hadn’t covered. Yet when the site loaded, he found his project history, saved conversations and every thread of work gone — replaced by a suspension notice. ‘Our team found signals that your account was used by a child,’ Anthropic explained in an email. ‘This breaks our rules, so we paused your access to Claude.’ … I’m 17. In less than a year, a number on a calendar will determine I’m old enough to access the tools that define my field. Nothing about my capabilities will change on my birthday; only my legal classification will.” (05/19/26)
“Spotify is launching verification badges for podcasts to help ‘authenticate creator identity and likeness.’ The most obvious use case for this is to help listeners find real podcasts amidst a sea of AI slop. To that end, the platform says it will also now remove podcasts that impersonate other creators via ‘AI voice cloning or any other method.’ The ‘Verified by Spotify’ badge is accompanied by a light green checkmark icon, making real-deal podcasts much easier to spot while perusing. These badges and icons will appear on show pages and in search. The verification process takes the podcast itself into account, but also its listeners. AI-generated podcasts tend to attract a bot-driven listenership. Spotify is looking for ‘sustained listener activity, with consistent audience engagement over time.'” (05/19/26)
“The so-called ‘Election Integrity Network’ has released its ‘Model Election Laws Handbook.’ The problem with the handbook isn’t that every proposal in it is unreasonable. Many of the proposals, of course, absurd, but they tend to hide behind reasonable rhetoric …. the handbook repeatedly treats ordinary features of election administration as evidence that the system itself lacks legitimacy. I’ve seen a quote floating around online that states, ‘Everything’s a conspiracy if you don’t understand how anything works.’ The basis of the handbook is that administrative imperfections stop being problems to manage and increasingly become proof that elections can’t be trusted unless the system becomes more restrictive, more adversarial, and more procedurally rigid.” (05/19/26)
