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"The Life We Chose, William ‘Big Billy’ D'Elia and The Last Secrets of America's Most Powerful Mafia Family" tells the story of a little-known Pennsylvania based Mob powerhouse and his behind the scenes life in organized crime. The former president has gotten the brush off from a former reputed power in the Mafia: Billy D'Elia. In the new biography about him, D'Elia says he did business with former President Trump when he owned Atlantic City casinos in the 1980's, and that Trump shaved off $1 million from one real estate deal... by flipping a coin. ITALIAN AUTHORITIES ARREST MAFIA BOSS AFTER 30 YEARS ON THE RUN The Feds say D'Elia, known as "Big Billy," ran the Buffalino Crime Family, based in Pennsylvania, for decades. He honed his profession at the side of the family's namesake, the legendary Russel Buffalino, who Robert F. Kennedy called "one of the most ruthless and powerful leaders of the Mafia in the United States." ...

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has faced scrutiny for making a flawed claim about Black infant mortality under White doctors in her dissenting opinion to last week's landmark affirmative action decision. Jackson sought to show that race-based admissions are a matter of life and death for racial minorities, and her dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court's ruling on Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard cited an example. The law firm apparently responsible for the misleading statement sought to "clarify" the claim on Friday. Seeking to show that considering race in admissions was fair and realizes equality, Jackson argued in her dissent that diversity "saves lives" and is essential for "marginalized communities." She asserted that diversity is for the "betterment" of students and society at large beyond college campuses. "For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that ...

Megan Tagami / Wall Street Journal : Some US schools are piloting AI surveillance robots that can detect aggressive behavior in people, alert security, and more, amid growing gun violence concerns   —  When Lori Andrews attended her daughter's graduation at Santa Fe High School, she spotted a 5-foot-10, 400-pound robot roaming …

Tennessee’s ban on transgender care for minors — including puberty blockers and surgery — can be enforced, an appeals court ruled Saturday, overturning a lower court’s ruling.  The decision from the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati came following an emergency appeal from the state of Tennessee , and after a district court judge ruled late last month that it was unconstitutional because it discriminated on the basis of sex.  In a split decision, the panel of judges voted 2-1 to temporarily allow the ban to go into effect, saying the issue is better left to the legislature than the judiciary.  "Given the high stakes of these nascent policy deliberations — the long-term health of children facing gender dysphoria — sound government usually benefits from more rather than less debate," wrote Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a former President George W. Bush appointee. FLORIDA MEDICAID MOVES AGAINST TRANSGENDER THERAPIES COVERAGE, CALLS IT ‘EXPERIMENTAL...

As Portland struggles to manage crime and an increase in homelessness , city staff members are being told to adopt a more "culturally conscious" vocabulary that includes not using words such as "women," "Caucasian" or "citizen." The Office of Equity and Human Rights pushed an Inclusive Writing Guide in June as part of a "city-wide collaboration" to alter commonly used terms that they feel have evolved. The guide suggested removing femininity from terms commonly used for women, including replacing "pregnant women" with "pregnant people" to be inclusive of those "who have this experience [pregnancy] but do not identify as women." Portland officials also advised staffers to "instead of women’s health rights, say reproductive rights, instead of feminine hygiene products, say menstrual products or period products, and instead of breastfeeding, say chest feeding." PORTLAND RESIDENT SOUNDS ALARM OVE...

Eugene Wei / Remains of the Day : How a new TikTok-style algorithm and pay-to-play scheme ruined Twitter's complex but functional community, destroying a beloved social network   —  NOTE: I'd been working on this piece on and off for a few weeks while trying to move to NYC and settle into my new apartment …

Six people were charged Friday in an alleged scheme to divert tens of thousands of dollars in public money to New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign months before his election. The indictment, announced by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, does not implicate Adams or other current city employees in the upended plot. Rather, it describes a straw donor conspiracy orchestrated by people with business before the city who hoped to maximize their donations in exchange for political favors. NEW YORK GOP REPS URGE MAYOR ADAMS TO ABANDON COAL, WOOD-FIRED OVEN RULE THREATENING 'PERFECT NEW YORK SLICE' Among the defendants are a former NYPD commander who has known the mayor for decades and the owners of a construction safety business that's currently working on a trash depot on Staten Island. "We allege a deliberate scheme to game the system in a blatant attempt to gain power," Bragg said in a statement. "The New York City Campaign Finance Board program i...

The Republican attorney general of Kansas sued in state court Friday to block transgender residents from changing their sex on their driver's licenses and to rebuke the Democratic governor for defying his interpretation of a new law. Attorney General Kris Kobach is seeking an order to stop Gov. Laura Kelly, and agencies under her control, from allowing the changes to transgender people's licenses. Kobach contends a law that took effect Saturday prevents such changes and requires the state to reverse any previous changes in its records. Kobach has argued that the law applies in the same way to birth certificates, but the lawsuit filed Friday doesn't address those documents. The settlement of a 2018 federal lawsuit requires Kansas to allow transgender people to change their birth certificates. KANSAS AG MOVES TO BLOCK CHANGING SEX ON BIRTH CERTIFICATES More than 900 people have changed the listing for sex on their birth certificates in the past four years. About 400 have ...

Not even $12 million worth of fines is enough to stop a Jersey Shore town from bulldozing sand on its beach to bolster eroded spots in defiance of state environmental officials. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection says North Wildwood once again carried out unauthorized repairs to its eroding dunes, most recently on June 5 without state approval and in violation of a February court order imposed by a judge trying to sort out the decade-long sand storm between the two parties. On Thursday, DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette wrote to North Wildwood officials offering one final attempt to resolve the matter without imposing additional penalties, and warning that the city's conduct jeopardizes funding for future beach protection projects. NJ SHORE TOWN FINED $12M FOR BUILDING OWN DUNES BEGINS EMERGENCY BEACHFRONT REPAIRS Describing himself as "perplexed" by North Wildwood's actions, LaTourette wrote that the city "has repeatedly engaged in destru...

Jay Peters / The Verge : Adam Mosseri says Threads will not “encourage” politics and “hard news”, as those verticals bring scrutiny not worth the “incremental engagement or revenue”   —  / Adam Mosseri ran Facebook's News Feed in 2016, and now he tells Alex Heath that politics …

President Biden is off to repeating – once again – what has been labeled a "highly misleading" claim about the federal budget deficit .  During a Thursday speech in West Columbia, South Carolina touting what he says is the success of his administration's economic policies , Biden claimed he had reduced the federal government's budget deficit by $1.7 trillion since taking office in January 2021. "And by the way, parenthetically, I want you to hear about the deficit. I cut the deficit $1.7 trillion in two years. Nobody's ever done that – cut the debt $1.7 [trillion]," Biden told the crowd gathered at manufacturing company Flex LTD. BIDEN ADMITS CHINA ‘DOMINATING’ RAW MATERIAL PRODUCTION, PROMISES TO BRING ‘FULL BATTERY SUPPLY CHAIN HOME’ Biden has made the same claim on numerous occasions and, in April, earned a "Bottomless Pinocchio" rating for it from The Washington Post's liberal chief fact-checker, Glenn Kessler.  Kessler, who calle...

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters : The European Commission opens a full-scale investigation into Amazon's $1.7B iRobot acquisition, setting a November 15, 2023 deadline to clear or block the deal   —  Amazon's (AMZN.O) $1.7 billion acquisition of robot vacuum cleaner maker iRobot (IRBT.O) may reduce competition …

FIRST ON FOX – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis brought in an impressive $20 million in fundraising during the first six weeks of his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, his political team told Fox News on Thursday. Never Back Down, the super PAC supporting the Florida governor's presidential run, in a separate announcement told Fox News that they've hauled in $130 million in fundraising since the committee launched in early March. The figures from the DeSantis campaign and from Never Back Down illustrated the Florida governor's fundraising prowess as he aims to defeat front-runner and former President Donald Trump for the GOP nomination next year. WHO'S IN AND WHO'S ON THE SIDELINES — YOUR GUIDE TO THE 2024 GOP PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION RACE Trump's team reported on Wednesday that the former president's campaign and Save America, his political action committee, together brought in over $35 million between April and June in the second qua...

Max Tani / Semafor : Twitter threatens to sue Meta over Threads, alleging Meta has “engaged in systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets”   —  Twitter is threatening legal action against Meta over its new text-based “Twitter killer” platform, accusing the social media giant …

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday announced that the state will no longer recognize a number of out-of-state driver licenses that are given to illegal immigrants, enacting restrictions in legislation passed earlier this year. DeSantis, who is also running for president in 2024, announced that the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has published a list of out-of-state license classes that are now invalid in Florida.  That list targets certain licenses given to illegal immigrants in Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont. It does not apply to typical driver licenses, but those with certain limitations -- including those that state they are "not for federal identification" are not REAL ID compliant or that are dubbed "limited purpose."  The states targeted are those that allow those in the country illegally to obtain a form of ID and license to drive. DESANTIS UNVEILS BORDER SECURITY PLAN TO ‘STOP THE INVASION’; BLASTS B...

Lawyers representing Internal Revenue Service whistleblower Gary Shapley sent a letter demanding The Washington Post set the record straight on allegedly "false and defamatory" statements made by Hunter Biden’s legal team. Shapley’s legal team sent a letter Monday to Post reporters Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein, asking them to clear Shapley’s "good name" and confirm publicly that he was not their source for an October 2022 article after Hunter’s legal team complained about "illegal" leaks. "Biden family attorneys have falsely accused SSA Shapley of illegally leaking to you," the letter read. "Shapley was not a source for you on that story, or any other story for that matter." "It would be nice if you would publicly affirm that truth, and avoid becoming, through your silence, an accomplice in the media spreading false narratives dreamed up by Biden family attorneys to intimidate and silence lawful whistleblowers like SSA Shapl...

Kevin Purdy / Ars Technica : Gfycat, a Snap-owned GIF-hosting platform, plans to shut down on September 1, 2023; the site was down for five days in May due to an expired SSL certificate   —  Snap-owned service has little to say, other than save or delete your stuff.  —  The internet continues to get a bit more fragmented and less accessible every week.

The Biden administration is once again increasing the number of migrants it potentially allows into the U.S. each day under the controversial CBP One app as its policies face a number of brewing legal challenges. Customs and Border Protection says it is allowing 1,450 migrants a day into the U.S. each day via CBP One – a mobile application that was expanded earlier this year to allow migrants to upload data and make appointments at ports of entry to be processed into the U.S. Initially, the agency was allowing 1,000 people in each day ahead of the end of Title 42 in May. In June, it increased the number to 1,250. The latest change means the number of migrants entering the U.S. each day via the process has increased by nearly 50%.  "CBP is expanding the number of available appointments at ports of entry for the second time in less than two months, through scheduling enhancements and operational efficiencies," said acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said in a statement. ...

FIRST ON FOX: High-ranking Senate Republicans are calling for the nation's top energy regulator to immediately assess the impact President Biden's crackdown on fossil fuel power plants will have on electric grid reliability. The two Republicans — Energy and Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. — penned a letter Wednesday to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) four members. They expressed concern that Biden's power plant regulations would exacerbate grid reliability issues. "The already-strong pressure for premature retirements of electric generating units coupled with the rising risks to electric reliability require you to convene representatives of entities subject to your jurisdiction and other interested parties in order to develop a record on the potential impact of the Clean Power Plan 2.0," Barrasso and Capito wrote. ...

Kate Park / TechCrunch : CADDi, which offers a B2B marketplace for the manufacturing industry and an AI-powered cloud service for managing drawing data, raised a $89M Series C   —  The pandemic has damaged the entire manufacturing supply chain, which is not likely to return to normal until at least 2024 due to a few challenges …

Kris Holt / Engadget : Twitter claims advanced notice about rate limiting would have allowed bad actors to evade detection and says rate limiting had a “minimal” effect on advertising   —  The company claims bad actors could otherwise have changed their strategies.  —  Twitter has been even more of a mess …

Wall Street Journal : A look at Spill, an invite-only Twitter alternative designed as a safe destination for LGBTQ and Black people that added 100K+ users over the past three days   —  Designed by former Twitter employees, the app has attracted users including Questlove and garnered interest from Lizzo

Drew Harwell / Washington Post : A likely fake 8-month-old Twitter account with a Blue check and 130K followers, suspended after WaPo informed Twitter, is a case study of political rage baiting   —  The Erica Marsh account shows how ‘rage baiting’ remains a powerful way to win attention and score political points

A U.S. District Court judge is temporarily preventing White House officials from meeting with tech companies about social media censorship, arguing that such actions in the past were likely First Amendment violations. The Tuesday injunction by Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty was in response from recent lawsuits from Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general. The suits allege that the White House coerced or "significantly encourage[d]" tech companies to suppress free speech during the COVID-19 pandemic. Doughty is barring several federal officials and agencies — including some of Biden's cabinet members and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre — from contacting social media companies in efforts to suppress speech. Google, Meta and Twitter were all named in the lawsuits. EITHER GARLAND OR WEISS ARE LYING IN HUNTER BIDEN CASE: CHRISTIE The injunction, which was obtained by Fox News, states that the government's actions "likely violate the Free Speec...

Sen. James Lankford, Oklahoma's senior senator, is making religious liberty a pillar of his political agenda and claims the White House is failing to enforce basic protections on the issue. The senator made the remarks in an interview with the Daily Mail published Tuesday. "My passion for religious liberty really draws from my personal faith, that I have the ability to be able to live my faith, practice my faith and speak about my faith," Lankford told the outlet. LANKFORD BLASTS WASTEFUL SPENDING, GOVERNMENT 'FUMBLES': MILLION-DOLLAR WINE TRAILS AND ECUADOR DRAG SHOWS Lankford, a Republican, served as a Christian minister for 22 years prior to taking office. He says religious liberty is much broader than simple freedom to worship. "Faith is not the freedom of worship. You have the freedom to be able to worship as you choose," said Lankford. "It's the freedom of religion. It's the freedom to have a faith and live that faith. And so th...

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch : For Europeans, CJEU's Meta ruling has the potential to end this chapter of surveillance capitalism, which relies on denying users a clear choice about tracking   —  Mark your calendar European friends: July 4th could soon be celebrated as independence-from-Meta's-surveillance- capitalism-day …

First son Hunter Biden took photos of his Porsche dashboard as he sped his way to Sin City in the summer of 2018. President Biden's son took a photo on Aug. 2 of his Porsche dashboard that showed him driving 172 miles per hour.  BIDEN SLAMMED AFTER REPORT REVEALS NUMBER OF GRANDCHILDREN HIS AIDES INSTRUCTED TO SAY PUBLICLY: ‘MONSTERS’ The younger Biden was traveling to Las Vegas when he hit that speed, the New York Post reported .  The Daily Mail also reported on Sunday that texts on the computer showed the younger Biden coordinating with prostitutes for a hot tub party during that same trip. "I don't have a bathing suit and I really really wanted to wear a cute bathing suit," a woman saved under a contact named "Cheryl." "I don't have any money to buy one so then I'm just going to have to be naked right?" "Honestly babe the problem is you have too many girls there," "Cheryl" wrote the day after the event. "I...

Insider : Instagram's Twitter-like “text-based conversation app” Threads has appeared in the Google Play store in some European countries   —  - Instagram appears to be getting ready to launch its Twitter-rival app called “Threads.”  — The app has been in development since Jan …

The Supreme Court decision last week ruling against affirmative action in higher education could dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in corporate America, experts say.  On Thursday, the Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision said that colleges and universities could not include race considerations in their admissions process, effectively outlawing what's known as affirmative action and upending previous legal precedent that allowed it. The decision has sparked debate on if and how it could influence other sectors of public life, including the hiring and promotion practices of companies and corporations.  Fox News Digital spoke with experts who say the decision could mean that corporations could be held liable for "woke-ism" in DEI programs and policies. THOMAS BLASTS JACKSON'S 'RACE-INFUSED WORLD VIEW' IN SUPREME COURT RULING OUTLAWING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION Will Hild, executive director of Consumers' Research, says that case could expose c...

2023 is now half over.  There wasn’t a lot Congress absolutely had to accomplish legislatively this year. And overall, the floor traffic will likely be light until fall. There are really only about five things which Congress must do this year. With the pages halfway off the calendar, lawmakers have taken care of two of the five. CONGRESS PUSHES AGGRESSIVE USE OF AI IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, SAYS AI 'UNDER-UTILIZED' IN AGENCIES Here’s the docket: Elect a House speaker. Tackle the debt ceiling. Pass a farm bill. Reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration. And finally, fund the government in September to avert a government shutdown. Of course, there are other sundry tasks which lawmakers from both parties want to do. There are even a few other miscellaneous items which likely fall into the "must do" category" – depending on with whom you speak. And sure. There are big hearings which both sides plan to hold. House Republicans on the Judiciary and Over...