Hamas Hostage Claim: Hamas says it killed one hostage and wounded two; IDF unable to confirm.
Trump's DOJ Lawsuit: Trump plans to sue Justice Department for $115 million over Mar-a-Lago search.
NOT NEWS NEWS
UF President's Spending: Ben Sasse tripled office spending, hired GOP allies at high salaries.
Lab-Grown Salmon: Taste test reveals promising results, with room for texture improvement.
Texas Abortion Laws: Women file complaints over delayed ectopic pregnancy treatment.
Teen Pregnancy Decline: Drop in teen births explains over half of U.S. fertility rate decrease.
Urban Family Exodus: Major cities seeing significant decline in young children population.
Immigrant Crime Rates: Legal immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born, but rates increase in second generation.
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1.) Jerusalem Post: Hamas kills one hostage and wounds two, terror group spokesman says
IDF says it lacks the necessary intelligence to confirm or deny Hamas's claims at this time.
[TS] Hopefully, it’s not true - but to lie about this to spread terror is bad in and of itself.
2.) NBC: Trump plans to sue Justice Department over Mar-a-Lago search and prosecution
The former president is seeking monetary damages from the government, which he may soon be heading, over what his legal filing called a "malicious political prosecution."
An attorney for former President Donald Trump has filed a legal notice announcing that his client plans to sue the Justice Department and the FBI for $115 million for alleged "malicious political prosecution" and "abuse of process."
[TS] This is for headlines and nothing else. This is a civil suit. You know what that means? Discovery. 0% chance this proceeds.
QUICK BITES:
Elon hosts Trump on Twitter spaces. It gets off to a rocky start as Elon claims they were “attacked” via a “DDOS” to shut down the stream. [TS] Elon is now 0/2 on big political interviews thus far (DeSantis/Trump). Trump seemed to be impersonating Sylvester the cat the entire call:
Lincoln Project’s financials show a low amount of spending on ads and a high overhead and operating expenditures. A good breakdown by Rob Pyers:
Lincoln Project has "spent $437K in the 2024 Presidential race"
vs $11.7M on overhead and other operating expenditures since January 1, 2023). Some figures for the cycle:
$989K to Joe Trippi's firm
$664K to Rick Wilson's Intrepid Media
(plus $106K to his son for 'corporate campaign management')
$531K to Reed Galen's Summit Strategic
$410K to Stu Steven's Message Mountain
$372K to Tara Setmayer's Veracity Reigns
Maimi Herald: Why Trump flew to campaign events on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane last weekend. [TS] This makes for a juicy headline, but using someone’s plane doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. How many planes are really for sale? Can’t be that big of a market. Granted, Trump’s relationship with Epstein has been well documented…
Bloomberg: TikTok Shows Less ‘Anti-China’ Content Than Rivals, Study Finds
Ukrainian commander in chief of the armed forces Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi tells Zelensky and his top government and national security officials in this video, “As of now about 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory has been taken under control.”
CRFB: Kamala’s plan to exempt tips from the income tax and raise the minimum would add $𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝐭𝐨 $𝟐𝟎𝟎 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧 to the deficit over a decade, or more if folks reclassified wage income as tips.
[TS] Thought a bit more about the Trump hack. Why didn’t he report it to the authorities?
“The Trump campaign itself says that they did not report to authorities the apparent malicious foreign hack of their communications. Why not?” Some theories floated:
General mob mentality
Concerns about litigation comms being exposed
Concerns about campaign slush fund being exposed
They know/hope more foreign interference is coming & didn't want to sound alarm
Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes officially certifies that the abortion access amendment effort in the state got the minimum signatures required - and it will be on the November general election ballot
Banks, credit card companies, and more will be required to let customers talk to a human by pressing a single button under a new Biden administration proposed rule.
[TS] I don’t see how govt regulation in this space will improve things. Will these companies actually hire more resources to fill what will be an increase in demand? Or will a now larger set of customers be fighting over the same amount of reps, thereby increasing wait times?
3.) Independent FL Alligator: Sasse’s spending spree: Former UF president channeled millions to GOP allies, secretive contracts
The former UF president tripled his office’s spending compared to predecessor
Key points:
Ben Sasse, during his 17-month stint as UF president, dramatically increased his office's spending from $5.6 million to $17.3 million in his first year.
Much of the spending went to secretive consulting contracts and high-paying positions for Sasse's Republican allies. Sasse hired six ex-Senate staffers and two former Republican officials to high-paying, remote jobs at the university, despite promising "political celibacy."
Raymond Sass (former Senate chief of staff) was the Univ of Florida’s vice president for innovation and partnerships — a position that didn’t exist under previous administrations: $396,000 salary, more than double his Capitol Hill pay
James Wegmann (former Senate communications director): $432,000 salary, working remotely from Washington D.C.
Sasse raised his former Senate staffs' salaries at UF by an average of 44% compared to their Capitol Hill pay.
Travel expenses for the president's office increased to $633,000 in Sasse's first full fiscal year, over 20 times higher than his predecessor's annual average.
Sasse spent $7.2 million on consulting, with nearly two-thirds ($4.7 million) going to McKinsey & Company, where he once worked. The details of McKinsey's work for UF were largely kept secret, with key information redacted from public records.
Sasse used McKinsey data to argue that some faculty weren't pulling their weight, suggesting potential departmental cuts.
The university has not provided clear answers about the source of funds for Sasse's increased spending or who authorized it.
Sasse abruptly resigned in July 2023, citing his wife's epilepsy diagnosis, leaving the future of his appointees unclear.
4.) Lab-grown salmon is becoming a reality.
Sam Bowman was able to try lab grown salmon and review it:
Had the opportunity to try lab-grown salmon this weekend. Very good - texture was not quite as good as the animal-grown stuff, not enough bite, but would be perfectly good on scrambled eggs. It won’t be long until we don’t need to keep salmon around at all.
I should add that the texture is apparently a product of length of time it’s been “gestating” (might not be the right word) and longer time supposedly gives a chewier bite.
about $30/pound. But I might be wrong there.
[TS] I think this is great. I would also suggest that “lab-grown” is probably not the right wording for these companies marketing their product. Maybe it is? I don’t know, I’m not a marketer. Maybe “no-kill” meat is better in very liberal counties and maybe “clean-meat” in other spots. Feel free to steal my ideas!
5.) Texas Tribune: In new complaint, Texas women say delayed care due to abortion laws endangered their fertility
Two Texas women filed federal complaints after hospitals refused to treat their ectopic pregnancies, resulting in lost fallopian tubes. Despite legal protections, hospitals hesitated due to fear of strict abortion laws. The complaints allege violations of EMTALA, which requires hospitals to provide stabilizing care. This highlights the conflict between state abortion bans and federal emergency medical treatment requirements.
6.) Economist: More than half the drop in America’s total fertility rate is explained by women under the age of 19 now having next to no children.
[TS] I think I’ve covered this in the past, but this surprised me. People have been talking about the dropping birth rates in developed countries but a huge portion of that is just teen pregnancies dropping. If you missed it: Worth re-reading my Trumpdate (#9) on Why family-friendly policies don’t boost birth rates.
[TS] Semi-related….
7.) EGI: Urban Family Exodus: Young families have continued leaving big cities post-pandemic
America's biggest and richest cities are losing children at an alarming rate.
From 2020 to 2023, the number of kids under 5 declined by:
almost 20% in NYC
about 15% in LA, SF, Chicago, and St Louis
10% in NoLA, Philly, Honolulu
[TS] This is what JD Vance should be attacking instead of “childless cat ladies.” Progressives preside over counties that young families are leaving. And that's bad. (Housing likely an issue too!)
8.) [TS] Immigrants & Crime
[TS] We’re going to be hearing a lot immigration (illegal and otherwise), the border, crime etc. So, I wanted to unpack a few stats on immigrants and crime.
Legal immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than native born citizens.
Determining illegal/undocumented crime rates is difficult - however the data we have shows illegals are incarcerated at higher rates than legal immigrants.
[TS] For one, coming into the country is a crime in and of itself, but secondly, the data isn’t complete.
Despite its centrality to public and political discourse, we lack even basic information on fundamental questions regarding undocumented immigrants and crime. This stems largely from data constraints.
Here is the delta between legal/illegal immigrants by age (again per Cato):
[CRIME RELATED]
What % of the population commit violent crimes?
In NYC, a 2016 report by the NYPD found that around 1% of the city’s population was responsible for committing roughly 66% of the violent crime
Based on a study in Sweden: The 1 % of the population accountable for 63 % of all violent crime convictions.
That means that a three strikes law for violent crime would prevent more than half of all violent crime in Sweden.
Certain data is considered "sensitive" in Sweden. This includes, e.g., nation of birth data. Note, it's not sensitive in the usual sense of personally identifiable information, but instead in the sense that it's *politically* sensitive.
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