Russia: Moscow’s mobile internet restored as Saint Petersburg goes offline

Source: France 24 [French state media]

“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)

https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260326-moscow-mobile-internet-restored-as-saint-petersburg-goes-offline

What Gives Something Value?

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Zachary A Collier

“It’s spring, which is bad news if you have pollen allergies, but is good news if you are planning to buy or sell a home: this is typically the busiest season for home sales. If you are buying a home or selling a home, the concept of value is one that is very important to keep in mind. Why is one buyer willing to offer more than another for the same house? Or why would a seller be willing to lower the price of their home? Everyone places different values on goods, and the same person can even place different values on the same good under different circumstances. But what gives something value, and why does it matter?” (03/26/26)

https://fee.org/articles/what-gives-something-value/

Investigating FISA abuses in Crossfire Hurricane

Source: The Volokh Conspiracy
by Stewart Baker

“The nation is close to marking the tenth anniversary of the discredited Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which saw the FBI and Justice Department seeking a FISA intercept against Carter Page by relying on false news stories and a partisan oppo research dossier. These days, nobody defends the Carter Page warrant process, but ten years later we still haven’t figured out how bad the abuse was. In fact, just last week we learned that Carter Page was not the only U.S. political figure subjected to a dubious FISA surveillance.” (03/26/26)

https://reason.com/volokh/2026/03/26/investigating-fisa-abuses-in-crossfire-hurricane/

A war by any other name is still a war

Source: The Hill
by Don Wolfensberger

“‘Is it an earthquake or simply a shock? Is it the good turtle soup or merely a mock?’ Those opening lines from Frank Sinatra’s 1962 hit song ‘At Long Last Love’ came to mind when President Trump parried with reporters on March 13 over how to characterize the U.S.-Israeli aerial bombardments of Iran. Trump called it a ‘little excursion.’ Some thought he meant to say incursion. But when a reporter pressed him and asked, ‘which is it, a war or an excursion?’ Trump stuck to his semantical guns and hedged: ‘Well, it’s both. It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war, and the war is going to be — for them it’s a war, for us it turned out to be easier than we thought.’ … The president’s semantic juggling over whether to call our current military operation a war or an excursion cannot gloss over that we are already at war with Iran.” (03/26/26)

https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5800394-trump-war-excursion-iran/

AUSA sues Hegseth, Chavez-DeRemer over prayer services

Source: CBC News [Canadian state media]

“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)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hegseth-religious-services-prayer-lawsuit-9.7142921