Oh sh t!

Posted this with a gift link on the user blogs page earlier this morning if anyone wants to actually read the article.

More: In a dramatic capitulation, the owner of Facebook and Instagram agreed to the financial penalties for violating federal child privacy and states' consumer protection laws, the states announced. Meta also agreed to limit how long teenagers can spend on its platforms and to bans on features that stoke mental health issues, striking at the heart of the company's business of engagement for advertising.

"The focus of this case was to protect our kids: stopping notifications and alerts at night and when they are in school, encouraging them to take breaks from social media, protecting them against harmful features," said Colorado's attorney general, Phil Weiser, in a statement. The agreement exceeded what most courts might order, he added.

The settlement effectively ends a bellwether federal trial in the U.S. Northern District of California in Oakland, where California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey were seeking roughly $200 billion over accusations that Meta harmed children. The states filed their agreement with Meta on Wednesday morning in that court, where Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is expected to approve it.

Meta still faces numerous other lawsuits from school districts and individuals, some of which are scheduled for trial in the coming months.

The settlement could signal an inflection point for a social media industry that has largely escaped regulatory scrutiny over the harms its products have caused children. The settlement amount is one of the highest ever paid by a tech company to states.

"Meta wouldn't settle unless it sees the writing on the wall and feels really exposed," said Nora Freeman Engstrom, a law professor at Stanford University.

More: The Bulwark's Will Sommer published a report on the story Monday night, writing:

"In Pounds's portentous telling, an unnamed official"soon after revealed to be Sarah B. Rogers, the undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department"had offered to leak her government documents about Cuba to publish as an exclusive.' While Pounds was initially enthusiastic, markings on the documents prompted her to panic that she was being set up. Had she published the documents, Pounds felt, she would've exposed herself to criminal prosecution. She took the news of her supposed entrapment directly to her audience."

But Rogers explained the markups that had Pounds thinking she was being set up.

"The markings' are FOIA redactions required even for voluntary disclosure," Rogers wrote to Pounds on X. "To prove this isn't a trap,' I will happily disclose the documents myself."

The entire situation, in Sommer's view, "highlights a real problem facing the Trump administration: a lack of talented media figures who can handle even the basic function of laundering the administration's message."

Named my dog Jolene after the song.

Missed the "Dolly Departin'" headline opportunity.

This will have the Israelis staining their BVDs.

Comment period for this travesty is now open.

This asinine move seems 100% meant to protect Starlink.

More: The park service engineer alerted the administration to the peeling issue in an email sent June 11, which the U.S. attorney's office included in a court filing Wednesday. Prosecutors said that they were "not aware of or in possession of" documentation that the Interior Department had of installation problems at the time they charged Hearn.

The engineer noted that the "top layer of liner has peeled," adding that it is "very thin and will not impact the strength of the liner." The person explained in the email that the "contractor stated that the peeled area was overspray' from spraying the perimeter joint with polyurea," according to the Justice Department. The engineer warned that the issue could "lead to a 1'-2' strip that is vulnerable to peeling."

The engineer sent the message to Interior Department and park service personnel.

"These statements cast significant doubt that the defendant caused damage to the lining," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Spence said in the filing Wednesday, referring to the engineer's warning and Hearn. "This information " that the piece of liner peeled by the defendant was overspray, of little or no value " was first furnished to the prosecutors weeks after the grand jury indicted the defendant."

Spence argued that these "late provided documents showing blistering and peeling, as noted by the contractors, would sabotage the government's ability to meet its burden of proof" in the Hearn case.

One of my favorite places to go for a quick weekend backpacking trip, Turkey Pen Gap, is in the South Mills River area near Asheville, NC which will be affected by this. It's infuriating they might log such a beautiful wilderness. Caught some of the best tasting native trout I've ever had out there.

How many here still owe them money?

"There were no injuries to the crew, who demonstrated resilience, grit, professionalism and unwavering steadiness in their response," Comer's statement to USNI News said.

What other choice did they have while stranded at sea in broiling temperatures with no galley services, toilets or air conditioning?

The Trump administration is turning our once-great Navy into a floating trailer park.

#2,

Exactly. And don't forget astronomical healthcare costs and tuition rates. We'll never see universal healthcare and free college here because it'd basically kill military recruitment rates.

What kind of ----- would make the women put on some kind of weird garb they'd never were in normal life when visiting religious figures?!?!

Being respectful of our neighbors in their religious spaces is now a bad thing?

More: In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals sided with historic preservationists who sued to stop construction. The court said it would stay its own ruling for two weeks to allow the administration to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help," the court wrote.

"This holding has nothing at all to do with whether the proposed ballroom is desirable, or not, as a matter of policy. This ruling does not even necessarily mean that the Defendants may not ultimately construct the ballroom.

"What it does mean," the court continued, "is that the Defendants may not do so during the district court's expeditious litigation without securing Congress's authorization, as the Constitution and laws require."

These mother effers sprayed bed liner in the pool?

More: Creative Polymers partnered with Rhino Linings, a California-based company that made large quantities of polyurea coating at its factory in Texas. Rhino was also attractive because it made a coating in a shade called "American flag blue," and the patriotically named hue delighted Mr. Trump.

In turn, a sales manager at Rhino called Atlantic Industrial Coatings, a Virginia-based company that had never won a government contract, and enlisted its help with applying the coating, according to a statement on the company's website.

Put more simply: documents and interviews establish how a first-time contractor was paid millions of dollars to apply a novel solution designed by a golf club manager to a national landmark.

"It's like asking the museum guard to restore a painting in the Met," said Charles Birnbaum, the president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit that has sued unsuccessfully to stop the work.

Neither Rhino Linings nor Mr. Schutzenhofer answered questions about their roles in setting up the Reflecting Pool repairs or in choosing Atlantic for the application.

More: Iran on Wednesday said it was finalizing an agreement on shipping routes with Oman, a U.S. ally that sits on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian state media quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying that ships would enter through the strait's northern corridor near the Iranian coast and exit through the southern corridor near the Omani coast.

"I never thought leopards would eat MY face," sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.