Author: nick

Blanchard v. Augusta Bd. of Ed., decided yesterday by Judge Stacey Neumann (D. Me.), held that the First Amendment was likely violated by school board public commentary policies forbidding “gossip,” “abusive … language.,” “vulgar language,” and “complaints or allegations … at Board meetings concerning any person employed by the school system or against particular students,” also described as “[p]ersonal matters or complaints concerning student or staff issues.” The parties had agreed that the public comment period was a “limited public forum,” a place opened up by the government for speech on particular subjects. In a limited public forum, speech restrictions…

The White House has asked the intelligence community to assess how Iran would respond to the US declaring victory and ending the conflict.  According to multiple sources speaking with Reuters, senior Trump administration officials requested the intelligence community develop the assessment. The request could signal that President Donald Trump may be seeking an off-ramp to end the war against Iran.  Early in the war, the intelligence community assessed that if the US declared victory and withdrew from the region, Tehran would view the move as a victory. Additionally, some members of the administration are concerned that ending the conflict now…

War hawks love the idea of “credibility.” In his confirmation hearing last year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called his philosophy “peace through strength by restoring the credibility of American deterrence.” When President Donald Trump sent special forces to capture Venezuelan ruler Nicolás Maduro, Vice President J.D. Vance said that “Maduro is the newest person to find out that President Trump means what he says.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth similarly stated last month that “Iran is learning the hard way that President Trump means what he says.” It’s ironic praise for a president who so often doesn’t mean what…

There are moments in public health when the path forward is unusually clear, when the evidence aligns with behavior, when risks are well understood, and when policy has a genuine opportunity to reduce harm at scale. This should be one of those moments.  Non-combustible nicotine products—vapes, heated tobacco, and especially nicotine pouches—are widely understood to be far less harmful than smoking, a point I and many others have covered repeatedly, and one that no longer sits at the frontier of scientific debate. At the same time, the political panic that once drove restrictive policy has subsided, with youth vaping falling sharply from…

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Monsanto Company v. Durnell, a case that will determine the balance of power between states and the federal government over cancer warnings on pesticide labels. In 2019, the defendant, John Durnell, filed a lawsuit against Monsanto Co., arguing that he had developed non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma due to exposure to glyphosate, an active ingredient in the company’s weed killer Roundup. In 2023, a jury sided with Durnell, awarding him $1.25 million after it found Monsanto liable for failing to warn of the alleged cancer risk from glyphosate, even though the Environmental Protection Agency…

Social media users are posting about people who died or disappeared, claiming they are all scientists who knew secrets about nuclear research and unidentified flying objects. They theorize that what happened to these people, who have died or disappeared since 2021, is concerted and not a coincidence. A viral April 14 X post read, “Can anyone explain what the deal is with all the missing scientists lately? We’ve had like 10 disappearances in the last two years. …What’s the deal? It’s too much to be coincidence. It’s a legitimate anomaly. It’s spooky.” A former lawmaker is also posting about it.…

When he returned to the White House in January 2025, one of the first things President Donald Trump did was sign an executive order aimed at “restoring freedom of speech.” Among other things, that order prohibited any federal “officer, employee, or agent” from engaging in “any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.” Like Trump’s approval rating, that commitment to the First Amendment seems to have significantly eroded during the past 15 months. On Tuesday, the Trump administration escalated its war with late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and his employer, Disney, over a joke…

After the Secret Service stopped a would-be assassin at the Washington Hilton on Saturday night, President Donald Trump and his allies said the incident demonstrated the urgent need to complete the enormous ballroom he wants to erect on the site of the White House’s demolished East Wing. Since the gunman targeted an annual dinner sponsored by the White House Correspondents’ Association, as opposed to the executive branch of the U.S. government, that argument was hard to follow. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche nevertheless reiterates it in a motion he filed on Monday night in the U.S. District Court for the…

Now-deleted Comey post, copied from a CNN article on the indictment. From today’s indictment: On or about May 15, 2025, in the Eastern District of North Carolina, the defendant, JAMES BRIEN COMEY JR, did knowingly and willfully make a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon, the President of the United States, in that he publicly posted a photograph on the internet social media site Instagram which depicted seashells arranged in a pattern making out “86 47”, which a reasonable recipient who is familiar with the circumstances would interpret as a serious expression of an intent…

The interoperable app that they want “every citizen to use” is officially ready for use! The EU is rolling out its official age verification app according to the joint statement issued by EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen [emphasis added]: It is our duty to protect our children in the online world, just as we do in the offline world. And to do that effectively, we need a harmonised European approach. One core topic is the question: how can we ensure that there is a Europe-wide technical solution for age verification? Today, I can announce that we…