“A federal judge has delivered a First Amendment victory to a student news outlet at Stanford University. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Noël Wise ruled that immigration provisions that allowed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revoke student visas had a chilling effect on noncitizen student journalists at the Stanford Daily. Wise wrote that portions of two federal immigration provisions are unconstitutional when used against noncitizens for speech protected by the First Amendment. The Stanford Daily Publishing Corporation brought the lawsuit alongside two anonymous students unaffiliated with Stanford, though one student was later dismissed from the case. The plaintiffs were represented pro bono by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE. ‘The reporters in our newsroom shouldn’t have to fear that writing a story will result in their deportation,’ Daily editor-in-chief George Porteous wrote following the ruling. ‘Today’s victory means they won’t have to.'” (08/31/26)
“When Karla Padilla started her sentence at the federal correctional institution in Dublin, Calif., in 2023, a guard singled her out. Over the next 15 months, the guard strip-searched Padilla so frequently that anyone near her risked being searched too, and other inmates began keeping their distance whenever that guard was on shift. Most prisons across the country conduct strip searches under a federal policy that requires women officers to inspect incarcerated women. The officer instructs them to remove their clothes, shake their hair, open their mouths, lift their breasts or genital area and then bend, squat and cough. On one particularly cold day in November 2023, while Padilla was cleaning the chapel, the guard demanded that Padilla strip for a search in full view of four male guards stationed there.” (09/01/26)
“Listening to most of the media and Canada’s prime minister, you’d think the U.S. and its northern neighbor were in a full-blown trade war after new tariffs were announced days ago. Au contraire: Anyone who checks the numbers can see this is merely a skirmish. On Aug. 22, the administration’s Section 338 tariffs took effect, at 50% on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods, or about 5% of what Canada sells the U.S. Ottawa’s answer, effective Sept. 8, will be varying tariffs on roughly $20 billion of American exports to Canada, about 6% of what Canada buys from the U.S. While tariffs on $40 billion aren’t chump change, they’re a small portion of the roughly $900 billion in products and services that are exchanged across the U.S.-Canadian border annually.” (09/01/26)
“The $18 billion settlement between Meta Platforms and 48 states announced last week involves a good deal of money as well as technological tweaks to limit the exposure of users under 18 years of age to 24/7 social media feeds. Supporters see it as a major step forward; critics, as the Monitor reported Thursday, say it doesn’t go far enough. Those differing responses, paradoxically, hint at an underlying confluence of viewpoints – that safeguarding the growth and development of children and teenagers is not a one-and-done deal, left to individual court cases or settlements. Rather, balancing the economic drive of private innovation against its potential excesses is a whole-of-society effort.” (08/31/26)
“Left-wing terrorism is a serious problem in the United States, though for political reasons it doesn’t receive anything like the attention right-wing violence gets. For example, when most people think of violence connected to abortion, they imagine attacks on abortion clinics — yet lately pro-abortion extremists have been firebombing crisis pregnancy centers across the country. These centers help women who want to have their babies or who are undecided about having an abortion: Women who are making a choice, just not the choice supposedly ‘pro-choice’ abortion advocates find acceptable. So a group calling itself ‘Jane’s Revenge’ (named for the ‘Jane Roe’ of Roe v. Wade) has declared war on anyone who might choose life.” (09/01/26)
“People who believe capitalism is working out great are just sloppy thinkers who’ve fallen victim to survivorship bias and the just-world fallacy. Survivorship bias is when your analysis focuses on those who made it while ignoring those who didn’t. You got a decent job, bought a house, and are now living comfortably, which means the system works fine and there must be something wrong with anyone who can’t thrive under it. All the people who work just as hard as you do but still find themselves struggling go completely missing from your perspective. All the people who are just as clever and resourceful as you but haven’t found financial stability are conveniently overlooked.” (09/01/26)
“The Administration won a major victory before the Supreme Court this week, securing a 5-4 decision allowing the resumption of construction of the new White House ballroom. Notably, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a dissent with his three liberal colleagues to oppose the move. The case turns on the standing of challengers to bring the case. However, as a torts professor, what intrigued me was what the case says about aesthetic injuries. In torts, I teach aesthetic nuisance cases where courts tend to reject claims of injury due to eyesores and blight. Such claims are disfavored in both codes and cases: ‘Things merely disagreeable, however, which simply displease the eye or offend the taste, or shock an oversensitive or fastidious nature, no matter how irritating or unpleasant, are not nuisances’. [81 N.Y. Jur. 2d Nuisances § 17 (2014)].” (09/01/26)
“A 32-year-old woman has been killed and another victim is in hospital following a double stabbing in Times Square, New York late on Monday afternoon. The suspect, a woman wielding two knives, was shot by police. All three people were taken to hospital, where the female victim and the suspect were later pronounced dead, Mayor Zohran Mamdani told a news conference. The deceased victim was later identified as Erin Piacenti, a Bank of America employee. The male victim remains in a stable condition. New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Jessica Tisch described the attack as ‘unprovoked’ and said the stabbings took place 20 seconds apart. Citing preliminary information, Tisch said the NYPD call centre received several 911 calls at approximately 16:24 local time (21:00 BST) reporting a woman armed with two knives was stabbing people along Seventh Avenue in Times Square.” (09/01/26)
“As Donald Trump engages in the bold midterm election strategy of telling 75 percent of the country that they will be ‘backwards and poor’ if they refuse to allow substantial portions of land to be handed over to data centers, he’s one expression of transpartisan outrage behind. Anger is building just as persistently about Flock cameras, the automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) powered by artificial intelligence and the data centers that make AI run, which are used increasingly by law enforcement to surveil and track citizens, often improperly. ‘This is a deeply un-American thing that is being done,’ said Will Lawrence, the congressional candidate in Michigan who has been well ahead of the political class on identifying and acting on technology products that inflame local communities, from data centers to Flock. ” (09/01/26)
“‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ author Robert Kiyosaki — the self-help guru who has made a fortune preaching the secrets of financial success — has amassed a staggering $1.2 billion in debt tied to his sprawling real-estate investments, according to a report. The 79-year-old scribe has repeatedly touted the eye-popping figure while arguing that borrowing money to buy income-producing assets is a strategy used by the wealthy. ‘So, I’m a billion two in debt,’ he told the ‘Get Rich Education’ podcast over the summer. He added that people ‘[s]hould not do what I do, right?’ ‘But I studied it since 1974… If you’re going to learn to use debt, you’d better take some education.’ His ex-wife and business partner Kim Kiyosaki recently told Vanity Fair that the $1.2 billion figure has been widely misunderstood — and does not represent money the best-selling author personally owes.” (09/01/26)
