Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Rindala Alajaji & Aaron Jue
“Even with the best intentions, every online age verification scheme has the same result: users are forced to reveal sensitive personal information to third parties simply to access the web. Once that valuable data is centralized, it becomes an immediate target for leaks, hacks, and misuse. This isn’t hypothetical: it has already happened several times.” (05/28/26)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/05/age-verification-privacy-nightmare
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A former US government official has been arrested after FBI investigators found hundreds of gold bars worth more than $40m (£29.6m) in his Virginia home. David Rush made several requests to the US government to receive the bars ‘for work-related expenses’ over the past year, according to court documents. He has been charged with criminal theft of public money in a complaint filed last week. According to the New York Times, Rush held a senior position in the CIA until recently. He was arrested and is being held in detention until his hearing this week. His attorney declined to comment. Agents also uncovered about $2m in US currency in Rush’s home, along with 35 luxury watches, many of them Rolexes..” (05/28/26)
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yezdl054po
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Elfadil Ibrahim
“The emerging deal between the United States and Iran represents an existential danger to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future. With his coalition fracturing and elections approaching, Netanyahu can’t survive a peace that leaves Hezbollah intact and Iran’s nuclear program deferred. The only path that may keep his future viable now runs through Lebanon. This may help explain why, just hours after President Donald Trump announced that a deal with Iran was ‘largely negotiated’ through talks that excluded Israel, Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to ‘increase the blows’ against Hezbollah, adding on Monday that ‘we are deepening our operation in Lebanon.'” (05/28/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/netanyahu-iran-deal-lebanon/
Source: Common Dreams
by Ralph Brauer
“In his stumbling explanation of the muddled autopsy report on the 2024 election debacle, Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin uttered two pieces of wisdom that regrettably, neither he nor the party has heeded: ‘The Democratic brand is in trouble and needs repair’ and ‘I agree with folks who have said we have to learn from the past to win the future.’ Had they followed that advice, they would have seen how history tells a neglected and important story. It begins when Bill Clinton was handed the keys to the White House by a group of largely Southern officials who formed the New Democrats with the mission of putting a Southern, pro-business candidate in the White House. With its pointed references to Reagan speeches and policies, Clinton’s Second Inaugural signaled a devil’s bargain that ended a century of Democratic Party policies.” (05/28/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/dem-party-history-problem
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“France will reimburse the cost of weight-loss drugs prescribed to severely obese patients from mid-June in a first for a European Union country, Health Minister Stephanie Rist said on Thursday. Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro medications have led a boom in anti-obesity treatment, attracting interest from governments keen to address rising overweight levels worldwide. Rist estimated the annual cost to the state at around €100 million (US$116 million) at full roll-out. Patients in France are currently paying around €300 per month on average for the drugs, she said, without indicating how many people currently follow such treatments.” (05/28/26)
https://archive.is/GfBOS
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Escalation? US/Iran Exchange Fire As Yet Another ‘Breakthrough’ Announced.” (05/28/26)
https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1RKZzzwEdpoKB
Source: Niskanen Center
by Erich Battistin, Richard Hahn, Samantha Pérez-Dávila, & Borui Sun
“Washington, D.C., offers a rare opportunity to study how police departments throughout the country might, and in fact must, do more with less. Since reaching a dramatic peak in 2023, violent and property crime in the District has fallen sharply — even as the police force shrank to its smallest size in half a century. This essay draws on Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) crime and arrest data, officer deployment records, and independent data sources to explain the role police management played in that paradox and extract lessons for American cities facing similar constraints.” (05/28/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/washington-dc-crime-decline-and-its-lessons-for-american-policing
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Caleb O Brown, Liam Sigaud, & Edgar Orozco
“Indiana and Ohio didn’t fall apart when they pared back certificate of need programs. Their patients ended up with more choices and shorter drives.” (05/28/26)
https://www.bluegrassinstitute.org/con-cj/
Source: The Daily Economy
by Walter Donway
“AI enables Americans to navigate the legal system without attorneys, operationalizing the right to self-representation and expanding access to justice on an unprecedented scale. Can courts cope?” (05/28/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/ai-enters-the-courtroom-how-chatbots-are-reshaping-litigation/
Source: SFGate
“The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled for a [b]lack death row inmate from Mississippi who claims there was racial bias in the makeup of the jury that convicted him. By a 5-4 vote, the justices sided with Terry Pitchford, who was sentenced to death for his role in the killing of a grocery store owner. ‘In this case, whether due to confusion, oversight, an overly hurried jury selection process, or some other cause, things broke down,’ Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court. Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices joined with Kavanaugh. There were 11 white jurors and one [b]lack juror in a trial with similarities to that of another [b]lack man on Mississippi’s death row, whose conviction the high court overturned seven years ago.” (05/28/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/supreme-court-rules-for-black-death-row-inmate-22280494.php
