Monday, April 14, 2025

April 14, 2025

Good morning,

Welcome to the news for independent thinkers

Leading the News . . .

Suspect in arson at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's residence planned to beat him . . . A man who authorities said scaled an iron security fence in the middle of the night, eluded police and broke into the Pennsylvania governor's mansion where he set a fire had planned to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a hammer if he found him, according to court documents released Monday. The fire left significant damage and forced Shapiro, his family and guests to evacuate the building early Sunday. The man, Cody Balme, who was arrested later in the day, faces charges including attempted homicide, terrorism, aggravated arson and aggravated assault, authorities said. Associated Press

Politics

Tariff exemptions for electronics may not last, Commerce secretary says . . . The tariff exemptions on smartphones and other electronics that cheered investors and consumers after being announced Friday may only be temporary — with President Donald Trump continuing to implement his vision to re-center global production in the U.S., Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday. "He's saying they're exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they're included in the semiconductor tariffs which are coming in probably a month or two," Lutnick told Jonathan Karl on ABC's "This Week." "So these are coming soon." Politico

Court Shopping: Three-quarters of judges hearing challenges to Trump appointed by Democrats . . . About 75% of the judges hearing legal challenges to President Donald Trump's executive orders and other policy actions were appointed by Democrats, according to an analysis from an independent digital law and policy journal. Just Security, based at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law, conducted the analysis of dozens of cases filed against the Trump administration to date. Just the News

Trump administration ordered to unfreeze funding in dispute with Maine over transgender students

While publicly rebuking Russia, Joe Biden opened 2014 back door for Moscow gas to flow to Ukraine . . . While Joe Biden publicly led the charge to punish Russia for its first invasion of Ukraine, he used his role as vice president to quietly open a backdoor for Moscow's gas to flow to its neighbor in fall 2014, at a time when his son Hunter's Ukrainian energy company sought such help, according to government messages in a private email account kept from Americans for more than a decade. Just the News

Doug Emhoff Lands Huge Payday at Law Firm That Caved to Trump . . . Kamala Harris's husband, Doug Emhoff, is facing pressure to resign after his new law firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, cut a deal with the Trump administration earlier this month to scrap diversity programs and offer free legal services to Trump-approved causes. Emhoff allegedly opposed the deal, but that doesn't mean he's going to give up his partnership at the firm anytime soon. Harris and Emhoff are desperate to amass personal wealth before she inevitably runs for governor in 2026, and Willkie Farr is shelling out "around $6 million" a year for Emhoff's services. Washington Free Beacon

Pronouns in Bio? You May Not Get a Response From the White House . . . On at least three recent occasions, senior Trump press aides have refused to engage with reporters' questions because the journalists listed identifying pronouns in their email signatures. "As a matter of policy, we do not respond to reporters with pronouns in their bios," Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, wrote to a New York Times reporter who had inquired about the potential closing of a famed climate research observatory. A few weeks earlier, Katie Miller, a senior adviser at the Department of Government Efficiency, declined to answer questions from another Times reporter. New York Times

Trump 'fully fit for duty,' White House physician says . . . The note, written by Dr. Sean P. Barbabella, is effusive in its praise of Trump. According to the memo, Trump stands 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighs 224 pounds, putting him just below the clinical threshold for obesity. His resting heart rate was 62 beats per minute, with a blood pressure reading of 128/74 mmHg — both within healthy ranges. Trump scored a perfect 30 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, a test often used to detect early signs of dementia. Politico

No question Trump is in great shape mentally and has no apparent physical problems. But he does not weigh 224 pounds.

Trump to meet with El Salvadoran President Bukele at White House . . . President Donald Trump will meet with El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele at the White House on Monday amid both leaders teaming up on migrant deportation efforts. "We look forward to seeing President Bukele, of El Salvador, tomorrow in the White House!" Trump wrote on TRUTH Social on Sunday evening. Trump told reporters over the weekend that he thought Bukele was doing a "fantastic job." Just the News

Trump walks out at UFC 314 to roaring crowd chanting 'USA!' . . . President Donald Trump walked out to a raucous Kaseya Center crowd in Miami at UFC 314 on Saturday night. Trump had an entourage, which included his granddaughter Kai Trump and UFC CEO Dana White, with him as the crowd screamed when they saw him head toward the center of the arena to greet some of his administration. Among those administration members were DOGE policy advisor Elon Musk, who was seen walking down from Air Force One earlier on Saturday, FBI Director Kash Patel, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Fox News

Culture

Trump State Department Axes $25M Pro-LGBTQ 'Global Equality Fund' . . . A $25 million program that offered taxpayer funds to promote LGBTQ ideology abroad has been removed from the State Department website by the Trump administration. In 2023, the Global Equality Fund invited projects led or supported by LGBTQ organizations and communities to apply to win awards of between $750,000 and $1.5 million. In 2021, the fund offered up to $1 million to LGBTQ "empowerment" projects in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Daily Signal

Young People Are Driving Increase in Faith, Church Attendance in West, Reports Say . . . In February, the Pew Research Center released a report showing that the decade-long decline in Americans identifying as Christian has leveled off. But new studies show that the downward trend is now in full reverse, with the engine driving the change occurring among Generation Z and millennials. The Washington Stand

Berklee College of Music Professor Attacked Jews as 'Vile Predators' and Blamed Them for Slavery . . . A top official at the Berklee College of Music has a years-long history of posting anti-Semitic and historically inaccurate claims about Jews, accusing them of oppressing black people and blaming them for slavery. "All these so-called Jews mad, because how dare I make them face the facts of their sordid past and present," Payton said in a video posted to Instagram in July 2020. "So you want to help liberate black people you want to help free us, then free us from amongst yourselves ... expose how Jewish people have exploited us. Apologize for it and atone and do better." Washington Free Beacon

International

New Australian Law Makes Certain Prayers 'Unlawful' . . . The government of the Australian state of New South Wales explains the newly enacted Conversion Practices Ban Act 2024 allows "prayer" or expression of any "religious belief" only if it is not "directed to changing or suppressing an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity." The bill—which took effect last Friday, April 4—bans any speech the government classifies as attempting to change someone's LGBTQIA2S+ status, with a maximum penalty of "imprisonment for 5 years." Daily Signal

Masked Men Abduct South African Minister While He Preached . . . The kidnapping epidemic that has plagued South Africa this decade may have hit a new criminal low when an American pastor was nabbed at gunpoint while he was preaching at a Baptist church in Motherwell. Local police said four masked men abducted Pastor Josh Sullivan and whisked the minister away in his own car, cutting short a late Thursday prayer meeting he was leading for a gathering at the Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell. His wife and six children were also in attendance but were unharmed. Breitbart

Money

Mark Zuckerberg, Serial Witness, Will Take the Hot Seat Again . . . As early as Monday, Mr. Zuckerberg will again take the hot seat, this time as the marquee witness in the Federal Trade Commission's landmark lawsuit accusing Meta of breaking antitrust law. Regulators sued the company in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia over its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, saying it used a "buy-or-bury strategy" to maintain a monopoly in social media. New York Times

Modelo Owner Complains Trump's Crackdown on Illegal Immigration Hurts Sales . . . "Efforts to go to restaurants, to have social gatherings, things that are very much beer occasions, have softened in the more recent term," Constellation Brands CEO Bill Newlands said. The executive said that Latino customers, who represent half of the beer brand's customer base, have limited social gatherings, which Newlands said often include beer drinking. Breitbart

You should also know

Wealthy family of top doctors and MIT student athletes wiped out after their private plane crashed . . . A high-achieving family of doctors and scientists was wiped out in a plane crash en route to celebrate a birthday and Passover in the Catskills in Upstate New York. The Mitsubishi MU2B aircraft went down just after midday on Saturday in a field in Copake, killing all six people on board. The victims were identified on Sunday as Karenna Groff, a former MIT soccer player and NCAA's 2022 woman of the year, her boyfriend and MIT graduate James Santoro, Karenna's father, neuroscientist Dr. Michael Groff, as well as her mother, urogynecologist Dr. Joy Saini. Daily Mail

How bad is California's housing crisis? A first-in-the-nation bill would let students live in cars . . . A progressive Democratic lawmaker is seeking a simple but jarring remedy of last resort for California's college students navigating the state's housing crisis: Let them sleep in their cars. With one in four California community college students experiencing homelessness in the past year, Democrats — who have a supermajority in the statehouse — face increasing pressure to deliver on affordability issues. Politico

Trump commends Rory McIlroy's 'tremendous courage' fighting for Masters win on Sunday: 'It was amazing' . . . President Donald Trump was among those who thought Rory McIlroy's Masters win on Sunday showed exactly what the legendary golfer was made of as he battled through highs and lows throughout the round. Speaking with reporters on Air Force One, Trump gave his congratulations to McIlroy, who became the sixth golfer ever to capture the coveted Grand Slam, winning every single professional golf major. Fox News

Trump Has Made Conservatism 'Hot' Again—I Found Out for Myself at the Latest DC MAGA Social . . . Welcome to the Golden Age, where being conservative is trending, and for more reasons than their commonsense politics. I attended the latest "cool kids" social at Butterworth's, MAGA's well-known hangout spot in Washington, D.C. On Thursday night, The Conservateur brought its famous "Make America Hot Again" social to the district—this time calling it "America Is Hot Again." After all, President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump are back in the White House. Daily Signal

Declassified Cold War-era CIA files detail Soviet clash with aliens who witnesses say turned soldiers to stone . . . The report claims Soviets conducting a training exercise in Ukraine spotted a "low-flying spaceship in the shape of a saucer" soaring above their heads. During the encounter, one of the Soviets fired a surface-to-air missile, which struck the UFO and sent it crashing to the ground. After escaping the debris of their ruined ship, the beings huddled together and "merged into a single object that acquired a spherical shape," the surviving soldiers recalled. "In a few seconds, the spheres grew much bigger and exploded by flaring up with an extremely bright light. At that very instant, 23 soldiers who had watched the phenomenon turned into … stone poles." New York Post

It's always best to just let flying saucers go about their business.

How to Evade Taxes in Ancient Rome? A 1,900-Year-Old Papyrus Offers a Guide . . . It may not have been the tax-evasion trial of the century — the second century, that is — but it was of such gravity that the defendants faced charges of forgery, fiscal fraud and the sham sale of slaves. Tax dodging is as old as taxation itself, but these particular offenses were considered so serious under Roman law that penalties ranged from heavy fines and permanent exile to hard labor in the salt mines and, in the worst case, damnatio ad bestias, a public execution in which the condemned were devoured by wild animals. New York Times

Guilty Pleasures

Florida Occult Shop Owner Faces Felony Charges for Selling Human Bones . . . . Kymberlee Anne Schopper of nearby Deltona. She was charged with "trading in human tissue," a Florida second-degree felony. Conviction can carry both a fine and prison term, which would be determined at sentencing. Advertised by the Wicked Wonderland store were two human skulls for $90, a human clavicle and scapula for $90, a human rib $35, human vertebrae for $35 and a partial human skull for $600 – featured on the shop's website and the Facebook page, authorities say. Breitbart

We all have to make living.

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