SCOTUS turns away challenge to New York gun company shakedown law

Source: NBC News

“The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to a New York law that sets out a legal pathway to hold gunmakers accountable for harm caused by their weapons [sic]. The court’s decision not to intervene means the 2021 law remains in effect. It allows for various legal claims against gun manufacturers under state law, including alleged conduct that endangers the public health [sic] of New Yorkers. The law, which was immediately challenged in court after being enacted, was written specifically to circumvent a 2005 federal law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that created a liability shield for gunmakers. It could still face future legal challenges.” (06/15/26)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-turns-away-challenge-new-york-firearms-liability-law-rcna349068

Thomas L. Knapp

The Kratom Civil War Is Heating Up, and MAHA Has Picked a Side

Source: Wired
by Mattha Busby

“A decade ago, kratom advocates fought a surprisingly successful campaign against a proposed Drug Enforcement Administration ban that claimed the obscure Southeast Asian plant posed ‘an imminent hazard to public safety.’ They won bipartisan allies from Bernie Sanders to Rand Paul, and helped create a billion-dollar industry out of kratom, which has pain-relieving effects they said could help fight the opioid epidemic as a far safer, natural alternative to pills. Now, many of those same pro-kratom activists are calling for a ban on products containing concentrates of one of kratom’s active components: 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, an ultra-potent extract with opioid-like effects. And it’s causing major friction amongst consumers, sellers, and advocates of both substances.” (06/15/26)

https://archive.is/PnMxR

Thomas L. Knapp

BBC investigation: Russian regime was behind arson attacks targeting Starmer

Source: BBC News [UK state media]

“Even after he set fire to Sir Keir Starmer’s house, Roman Lavrynovych – convicted on Monday of conspiring to commit arson – seemed to know as much about the prime minister as a bullet knows about its target. His anonymous handler, known by the initials EL, gave a clue in a message: ‘Look, you attacked the home of a very high-ranking person in Britain. I’ll send you money, you need to leave the city.’ It was too late: Lavrynovych was arrested within hours. … Our investigation has found the arson attack was just one part of an extensive campaign of sabotage, provocation and lies leading all the way to the Russian state. … Russian operatives ran their sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and the messaging app Telegram, we found, creating fake online far-right and Muslim groups, which were used to organise acts of vandalism in the UK and stir up division and fear.” (06/15/26)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8r2l352z2do

Thomas L. Knapp

Sabotaging the Invisible Hand: Adam Smith Predicted Modern Policy Failures

Source: The Daily Economy
by Paul Mueller

“Smith observed that significant economic inequalities arise not from voluntary exchange but from distortions that restrict competition, channel resources toward favored interests, and limit economic mobility.” (06/15/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/sabotaging-the-invisible-hand-adam-smith-predicted-modern-policy-failures/

Thomas L. Knapp

Major attack on Arch Linux: Massive malware injection into the AUR

Source: Research Snipers

“Arch Linux continues to struggle with a large-scale malware wave in its user repository AUR (Arch User Repository). This is currently literally flooded with malware. The attack continues and becomes more sophisticated. After the developers behind the Linux distribution initially assumed that they had brought the security incident under control with more than 1,500 affected packages in which malicious code was integrated, further manipulated code submissions have now been discovered. … The incident once again raises questions about the security of the AUR. Unlike the official Arch Linux package sources, the repository is maintained by users who can provide their own software packages there. Given the repeated findings, some observers are calling for additional protective measures or even a temporary shutdown of the service until more effective security controls can be put in place.” (06/15/26)

https://researchsnipers.com/major-attack-on-arch-linux-massive-malware-injection-into-the-aur/

Thomas L. Knapp

SpaceX Monetizes the Future

Source: Gideon’s Substack
by Noah Millman

“Buying SpaceX shares was never something I was likely to do. I understand the perspectives of the enthusiastic, the skeptical and the outraged, but I recognize that my inclination toward the skeptical camp is substantially personality-driven. I’m just congenitally skeptical. But I think one thing all three camps may not be acknowledging as fully as they should is the degree to which pricing a company like SpaceX is genuinely extremely difficult because to such a considerable degree what drives its value is a portfolio of real business options, which are inherently difficult to value. That doesn’t usually matter because real business options are usually only marginal factors in valuing a large company like SpaceX. But we’ve entered a world where there are real business options of plausibly extraordinary value, and that world is just genuinely very weird.” (06/15/26)

https://gideons.substack.com/p/spacex-monetizes-the-future

Thomas L. Knapp