“President Donald Trump said Thursday that progress has been made in negotiations with Tehran aimed at ending the Iran war. … Trump said he would delay attacks on Iran’s energy infrastructure by an additional 10 days. … Statements from Iran about the negotiations have struck a different tone from Trump’s. Iran’s state-run media reported earlier Thursday that Tehran had rejected a 15-point ceasefire proposal by the White House. But the Iranian report did not suggest a total breakdown in negotiations, leaving open the possibility that Washington could issue a follow-up proposal. Iran has previously offered its own terms for ending the conflict, including demands for the United States and Israel to pay compensation for war damage, the cessation of Israeli attacks against Lebanon, and the recognition of Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.” (03/27/26)
“The Senate agreed unanimously early Friday to reopen the Department of Homeland Security after a 40-day shutdown, but without funding for immigration enforcement and deportation operations. Senators approved the package at 2:20 a.m by voice vote after a marathon session, which followed arduous bipartisan negotiations that occurred in fits and starts over the last six weeks. The measure is expected to have President Donald Trump’s support but faces an uncertain future in the House. … Trump announced Thursday that he would sign an order to pay Transportation Security Administration officers who have gone without paychecks during the funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security. … The House is set to hold an unrelated vote at 10:00am before leaving for recess.” (03/27/26)
“Vladimir Putin has asked Russia’s oligarchs to donate to the country’s dwindling defence budget to continue its invasion of Ukraine, it has been reported. The Russian president is expected to continue the conflict, which began in February 2022, until Moscow has secured the remaining areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region not under its control, according to the Financial Times. At least two businessmen have told Putin they would be willing to make contributions to the defence budget after talks on Thursday, the newspaper reported. Putin is understood to be pressing ahead with the invasion after Ukraine refused to withdraw unilaterally from Donbas during recent negotiations brokered by the US.” (03/26/26)
“A judge has blocked the Trump administration from labeling Anthropic a ‘supply chain risk’ and cutting off all federal work with the artificial intelligence firm, an early win for Anthropic in its bitter feud with the government over AI guardrails. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin on Thursday ruled in favor of Anthropic, which sued the federal government earlier this month for taking actions that it called an ‘unprecedented and unlawful’ attempt to punish the company for First Amendment-protected speech. Lin’s ruling in the case prevents the government from enforcing its supply chain risk designation against Anthropic, a move that aimed to stop private government contractors from using the company’s powerful Claude AI model.” (03/26/26)
“A U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed X Corp’s antitrust lawsuit that accused the World Federation of Advertisers and major companies including Mars, CVS Health and Colgate-Palmolive of illegally boycotting billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s social media company. U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle in the federal court in Dallas said X failed to show it had suffered any harm under federal antitrust laws. X Corp’s lawsuit, filed in 2024, said the advertisers, acting through a World Federation of Advertisers initiative called Global Alliance for Responsible Media, collectively withheld ‘billions of dollars in advertising revenue’ from X, previously known as Twitter.” (03/26/26)
“An Amsterdam court on Thursday ordered Elon Musk’s Grok to stop generating non-consensual nude pictures and child sexual abuse material. The company xAI, which owns the artificial intelligence chatbot, is ordered to pay damages of €100,000 per day for each day it fails to comply, up to a maximum of €10 million. … The platform took steps to restrict features in January after Grok was found to be generating [fake] pictures of real people in bikinis or nude. Estimates have said that around 3 million pictures were generated in 11 days.” (03/26/26)
“An appeals court has paused lower court rulings in Oregon that restricted federal officers’ use of tear gas during protests at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland. A three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the Trump administration’s request for temporary administrative stays in two cases on Wednesday. The 2-1 decision came from two judges appointed by President Donald Trump, with the dissenting judge appointed by former President Joe Biden. One of the lawsuits was filed by the ACLU of Oregon on behalf of protesters and freelance journalists, while the other was brought by residents of an affordable housing complex across from the Portland ICE building. The lawsuits argue that federal officers’ use of chemical and projectile munitions has violated the rights of protesters and residents.” (03/26/26)
It’s a FIREHOSE FRIDAY at the freedom movement’s daily newspaper — we’ve got at least 125 news stories, opinion pieces, and audio/video links for you today at our web edition (maybe more by the time you read this).
Why? Three reasons:
First, to remind our email digest subscribers of a change, effective a month or so ago, that you might have missed: EVERY day is now a “drink from the firehose” day, with extra content above and beyond the 60-70 items in the email edition. We usually have AT LEAST 15-20 extra links for you, sometimes more. So after you’ve looked at the digest, come on over for a visit at the web if you want more!
Second, to remind our web readers that we DO offer a daily email digest. It’s one, and only one, email message a day — no spam, and we never sell, rent, or share our subscriber list — with 60-70 handy summaries and links.
And third, of course, to remind our readers that we’re a reader-supported publication. We try to go easy on fundraising nine months out of the year (we run one real “fundraiser” in the fourth quarter), but we do have to occasionally bring it up. You can help out at:
“Restrictions that had left Moscow residents without mobile internet for three weeks – with the Kremlin citing ‘security’ – were lifted on Wednesday while St Petersburg endured a third consecutive day of outages. Some fear an attempt to isolate Russians from information from the outside world amid a parallel government effort to ramp up digital surveillance.” (03/26/26)
“Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, hosting his first monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon since the Iran war began, prayed on Wednesday for American bullets to hit their targets. … The services proceeded even after a lawsuit was filed Monday over such gatherings by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The advocacy group filed a similar suit against the Labour Department, where Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer also hosts monthly prayer gatherings inspired by Hegseth. The nonprofit group, in existence since 1948, said both officials were ‘abusing the power of their government positions and taxpayer-funded resources to impose their preferred religion on federal workers.'” (03/26/26)
