Category: reason

The South Florida Sun Sentinel‘s reporting on sensitive information about Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz was “shameful,” a circuit court judge said yesterday.

Earlier this month, the Sun Sentinel obtained a confidential Broward School Board report on Cruz, who murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he used to attend. As Reason‘s Robby Soave wrote, the report showed that Cruz was entitled to special needs assistance while attending Stoneman Douglas, but the school never provided him with the help he needed.

The Sun Sentinel was not supposed to have access to much of Cruz’s confidential information. In compliance with a court order, the school board redacted two thirds of the report on his background. But the newspaper figured out that by copying and pasting the report into a separate file, it could read the blacked-out portions. The Sun Sentinel then published the report in full.

In response, the school board asked Judge Elizabeth Scherer of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Court in Broward County to hold the newspaper in contempt. Yesterday, in addition to saying she would consider the request, Scherer blasted the Sun Sentinel‘s reporting as “shameful.”

“You all manipulated that document so that it could be unredacted,” Scherer said. “That is no different than had they given it to you in an old-fashioned format, with black lines, and you found some type of a light that could view redacted portions and had printed that. It’s no different.”

Scherer also threatened to exercise prior restraint on the newspaper suggesting she can control what it does and does not publish. “From now on if I have to specifically write word for word exactly what you are and are not permitted to print—and I have to take the papers myself and redact them with a Sharpie…then I’ll do that.”

The Sun Sentinel says it did nothing wrong. “In a rush to deflect from its own negligence in publicly disclosing the…report at issue in a wholly unsecured format,” Sun Sentinel attorney Dana McElroy wrote last week, “the School Board now seeks to have this Court find the Sun Sentinel in contempt for exercising their First Amendment rights to truthfully report on a matter of the highest public concern.”

The paper says it has received the support of dozens of news organizations:

A coalition of 30 media organizations, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS Broadcasting and CNN, came to the Sun Sentinel’s side in a court brief filed Tuesday. They called on the judge to deny the School Board’s motion to penalize the news organization and two of its reporters, Paula McMahon and Brittany Wallman.

According to Chuck Tobin, a lawyer for that coalition, it would be “flatly unconstitutional” for Scherer to follow through on her threat. “The order the court entered did not tell the journalists or the newspaper what they could or couldn’t publish,” Tobin said.

The Broward School Board, meanwhile, has backtracked somewhat, telling the court yesterday it didn’t actually want the Sun Sentinel to be held in contempt.

Less than five months after passing legislation that made creating and disseminating fake news punishable by jail time, Malaysia’s parliament has repealed the law.

The Anti-Fake News Bill 2018 was approved in early April by the government of then-Prime Minister Najib Razak. But as the Associated Press reports, human rights advocates worried the law would be used to stamp out opposition ahead of Malaysia’s general election in May.

“This is a law that was clearly designed to silence criticism of the authorities and to quell public debate—it should never have been allowed to pass in the first place,” Teddy Baguilat, a Philippine member of parliament, said in a statement. Baguilat serves on the board for the Southeast Asian nonprofit group ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights.

Those found guilty under the now-repealed fake news measure faced up to six years behind bars, as well as a fine of up to 500,000 ringgit (about $123,000).

But if the law’s purpose was to keep Najib in power, then it failed. Najib’s party was defeated in May, and Mahathir Mohamad became the new prime minister. On Thursday, the new government repealed the fake news bill by a voice vote. “We don’t need new legislation. We already have existing laws, such as the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and others that can deal with” fake news, Deputy Minister Mohamed Hanipa Maidin told lawmakers prior to the vote.

Baguilat praised the government’s decision to get rid of the law. “The Malaysian lower house’s decision today to repeal the wildly repressive Anti-Fake News Law marks a huge step forward for human rights in Malaysia,” he said in his statement. “It not only shows that the Pakatan Harapan government is serious about its promises to strip controversial laws from the legal books, it also sends a signal to the wider region that positive human rights change is within reach.”

But while Malaysia may have gotten rid of this one law, it’s still far from a bastion of free speech and press. The nation was ranked 145th out of 180 countries in the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders’ 2018 World Press Freedom Index.

The group noted that Malaysian newspapers must renew their operating licenses with the government every year. And under the decades-old Sedition Act, criticism of the government is heavily restricted. “The Malaysian authorities should now follow up and repeal all other repressive laws, including the Sedition Act,” Baguilat said.

Fake news is a real problem around the globe. But as Reason’s Nick Gillespie has previously argued, that doesn’t mean regulation is the answer.

Public transportation in the U.S. is often overly expensive and unnecessary, so it makes sense that the agencies that run transit systems would want a security system to match.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) announced that it was partnering with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in deploying new body scanners on its subway system.

Metro will be the first transit agency in the country to deploy the new machines, which are supplied by British company Thruvision at the rough cost of $100,000 a piece. According to a TSA press release, the scanners will be used to “keep transit riders safe from person-borne improvised explosive devices or other weapons that are intended to cause mass casualties.”(Similiar machines are being experimented with at bus and rail stops in New York and San Francisco.)

The scanners, which TSA tested and recommended but which Metro staff will operate, mercifully do not require people to line up one by one to be scanned. Rather, the portable Thruvision machines are able to pick up the waves emitted by the human body as they walk through the machine’s field of vision, while security personal look for concealed objects that might be blocking these waves. That makes them less invasive and cumbersome then the body scanners you might find at airports. It doesn’t make them any more useful.

Because they rely on those waves emitted from the human body to reveal hidden objects, these scanners can only detect things that people are carrying on their person. In the case of terrorism prevention, that would be suicide vests or maybe pipe bombs (like the one used in an unsuccessful attack near the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal in December 2017).

A would-be terrorist with any kind of guile could get around this security precaution by simply carrying an explosive device in a backpack.

The two most high profile attacks on rail transit in Western Europe—the 2004 Madrid train bombing and the 2005 London Underground bombing—both saw the perpetrators smuggle explosive devices onto trains in backpacks or small bags.

There’s reason to be skeptical about how useful these scanners will be even for spotting dangerous concealed objects on passengers’ persons. According to a 2015 ABC investigation, undercover federal agents had a 95 percent success rate at getting fake weapons and explosive devices through far more intensive and individualized TSA airport screenings. A 2017 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General also found that TSA screeners and equipment often failed to detect contraband smuggled through security by undercover agents, with failure rates possibly as high as 80 percent.

It’s possible LA Metro security staff scanning whole crowds of people at once will do a better job, but I doubt it.

This ineffectiveness shouldn’t worry passengers too much. Actual instances of terror attacks on public transit in the U.S. remain incredibly rare. Apart from the 2017 Port Authority bombing—which killed no one, and only left the attacker seriously injured—I could find no example of similar attacks on U.S. buses or trains.

The security threats one actually faces on America’s public transit systems are more mundane: muggings, assaults, and occasional homicides. The new scanners will do precious little to prevent these crimes. Judging by videos of Thruvision scanners in action, security personal will have a hard time telling the difference between someone’s phone or wallet and all but the most conspicuous weapons.

The end result of these scanners then will be less privacy, and the same amount of safety for Metro riders.

California officials are wondering if the decision to force coffee shops to post cancer warnings went a bit too far.

California’s Proposition 65 requires that all businesses use explicit warning labels on their products if there is a cancer-causing agent present. A March ruling by a Los Angeles Counter Superior Court judge extended that requirement to coffee shops, even major chains like Starbucks, because of the existence of acrylamide.

Acrylamide, a byproduct of roasting coffee beans, was included following a study showing that lab rats who consumed the chemical in high doses were much more likely to develop cancer. A human coffee drinker would need to consume 35,000 cups of regular coffee every single day to face the same risk.

The L.A. Times reports that the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) determined that coffee did not pose a significant risk to consumers and is seeking to reverse the labeling requirement. OEHHA announced a Thursday hearing to propose an update to the regulations that would clarify “exposures to Proposition 65 listed chemicals in coffee that are produced as part of and inherent in the processes of roasting coffee beans and brewing coffee pose no significant risk of cancer.”

Other groups have similarly found no connection between coffee and cancer in human beings. The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), for example, wrote in February that while “acrylamide increases risk for lab animals, no links have been established between acrylamide in food and cancer risk for humans as research is inconclusive.” AICR added that the topic of whether or not coffee is linked to cancer “is a well-studied one.”

Bonus links: Simple coffee is not the only part of one’s morning routine that has faced scrutiny from regulators. Coffee additives and accessories like sweetener, plant-based milk, and straws (for the cold brew fans) have been the subject of a legal battle or two at some point.

President Donald Trump has revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan.

In a statement, Trump accused Brennan of leveraging his “status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations—wild outbursts on the internet and television—about this administration.” Trump added that “Mr. Brennan’s lying and recent conduct, characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary, is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation’s most closely held secrets and facilitates the very aim of our adversaries, which is to sow division and chaos.”

Which is to say, Trump doesn’t like Brennan’s very vocal criticism of him. The president told The Wall Street Journal he holds Brennan largely responsible for the special investigation to determine the extent of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and whether anybody in Trump’s orbit was involved.

Let us not weep much over Brennan’s fate. As director of the CIA, Brennan defended terrible practices such as torture and extrajudicial drone assassinations. Under him, the CIA secretly snooped on Senate Intelligence Committee staff who were researching and producing a report critical of the CIA’s use of torture in interrogations of terrorism suspects during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then Brennan played dumb about it. And then nothing happened. Brennan is neither the hero of this story nor a victim, and he is probably still going to do just fine as a talking head on the news.

Sadly, not very many people cared about Brennan’s behavior in connection with the Senate torture report at the time, which makes Trump’s inclusion of it as a justification in his statement a bit unexpected. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who is encouraging Trump to revoke the security clearances of former officials and who filibustered Brennan’s appointment as CIA director to highlight the secret use of drones by Barack Obama’s administration, certainly knows all about Brennan’s background. Other Republicans, however, were hardly big supporters of the torture report, and the Trump administration apparently wants nothing to do with the issue.

There is little about Brennan’s actual behavior as CIA director that Trump would disagree with, so let’s not play dumb about Trump’s motivation in revoking his security clearance or those of other potential targets. It’s obviously a way of punishing critics within the national security and intelligence community whom Trump loathes (and who loathe him in return).

Does the motive matter? Trump, for his own reasons, is punishing former officials whose behavior may be detestable on other grounds. Or even possibly illegal: One of Trump’s targets is form National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who lied to a Senate panel about the existence of the National Security Agency’s massive domestic surveillance program.

Let’s not fall for a false choice. We can welcome the outcome here and still be concerned about the downstream consequences of tying security clearances to personal loyalty. This is an administration under investigation, and Trump is clearly using his powers against those who support the investigation. There’s a pretty clear message here for anyone working within the administration who may be connected to the Trump investigation or anybody currently employed by the Justice Department who may be involved: If you support this investigation, it could hurt your career.

Gary Johnson today finally made the official announcement that he is running for the U.S. Senate in New Mexico as a Libertarian. Now the two-time former governor of the state and two-time former Libertarian Party candidate for president has nine weeks to take on overwhelming front-runner Sen. Martin Heidrich (D) and novice Republican nominee Mick Rich.

In a phone interview yesterday, Johnson acknowledged that he is a “long shot” to win a three-way race in a heavily Democratic state. He said Rich seemed determined to stay in the race when the two men talked, but Johnson saw some cause for optimism in Heinrich’s soft numbers and the swiftness with which the incumbent lashed out at the Libertarian when the news broke. “I don’t know if Champagne shouldn’t be popped right now,” Johnson said.

While the idea of running for the Senate “came as a complete surprise” to Johnson just five weeks ago, after years of steadfastly ruling out another political run of any kind, the candidate says he’s relishing the opportunity to talk about the national debt (“I’d be the number-one deficit hawk”), free trade, anti-interventionism, and President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

A first advertisement by the pro-Johnson Elect Liberty PAC, run by his former and presumed future campaign manager Ron Nielson, has been released:

And for the charges already cropping up that he could play “spoiler” to the Democrats’ dream of retaking control of the Senate, Johnson says bring it on, dreaming of what a Libertarian swing vote could mean. “Potentially,” he said, “I could be the U.S. senator from New Mexico who actually has a say in the direction this country ends up taking.”

The following is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation:

Reason: Let’s talk through how this happened. If I’m not mistaken, five months ago you told…Nick Gillespie that absolutely not would you ever get involved in politics again: “No, I’m done, I’m done with elected political office.” If we can’t trust your word about such important matters, how can we trust you to cut taxes once in office? What happened?

Gary Johnson: Well, so, I would just suggest that your timeline is a little off, that as recently as five weeks [ago], I would have said that…. So this came as a complete surprise—me, in Las Vegas, complete surprise. And everything I’m about to tell you is, was, [former L.P. Senate nominee] Aubrey Dunn‘s idea.

So there is no question in New Mexico that Martin Heinrich was going to win this race. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. But what was surprising was that [Dunn] had [done] some polling and discovered that Martin Heinrich’s numbers are really weak; there aren’t that many people that are committed to voting for him. And if Aubrey Dunn would have been elected to the U.S. Senate—which wasn’t going to happen, but if he would have been—arguably he would have been maybe the most powerful, or certainly among the most powerful, senators in the U.S. Senate, because he would have been the swing vote, and he would have been an independent Libertarian.

So that’s the lure here. This isn’t about bellying up to the trough; this is conceivably about being the swing vote in the Senate and deciding what’s good and what’s bad. And I have to tell you, this being laid on my plate in Las Vegas, anyone with this laid on their plate would seriously have to consider the offer, which in this case was, “Hey, I’m going to drop out, and the Libertarian Party of New Mexico can name you as my replacement.” So a couple of weeks ago, he announced that he was dropping out, and that he was imploring me to enter the race, and that’s what’s happened.

It’s not so much about [Heinrich]; it’s about what is at stake, and in this case, [that’s] balancing the federal budget. Nobody’s talking about the deficit! Yeah, lower taxes are a good thing, reducing the size and scope of government…gee, it doesn’t necessarily seem like he’s doing that, and by that I mean Trump, and the endless wars, and free trade. I’m not intending to be a wallflower if I actually get this opportunity to go to Washington. I could be, you know, a topic of [George] Stephanopoulos’s talk crew every Sunday morning: “Where’s Johnson on this stuff?”

Reason: So, you had said in your public comments up until now that you’re taking it seriously, but you only want to get in if you can win. Can you really win a three-way race in a very strongly Democratic state?

Gary Johnson: Deep question. I’m the underdog, no ifs, ands, or buts. I’m the underdog. We’ll see how much money we raise, and by “money we raise,” you know, you don’t have to outraise your opponent, you’ve got to have a certain parity, and we think that’s going to happen. And if that happens, it’ll be interesting.

And three-way race, yeah, it becomes more difficult in a three-way race. You hit that on the head also. And right now, Mick Rich, I think, is really upset. I mean, he’s pissed off. So at the moment, he’s going to…redouble his efforts; he’s going to win. That’s according to Mick Rich.

Reason: Have you reached out to him? I mean, I can’t help but notice, he’s sort of in the same career profile as yours, right? Like he’s—

Gary Johnson: Yeah, but it kind of ends there. I mean, he took it off his website, [but] on his website, he said his number-one priority was [keeping] illegal drugs from crossing the border. And I’ve got to tell you, that’s a disconnect. That’s just a non-issue. Are there drugs coming across the border? I’m sure there are. To the extent that it should be his number-one priority?…

I did have a conversation with him, and the one takeaway I wanted from the conversation was I didn’t want to make him mad; I just didn’t want to make him mad. And I accomplished that. During that conversation, he really, genuinely, expressed to me that he was going to win…

Reason: Last time you and I were in close contact, which is sort of the end of 2016, the last two months there were not a happy time for you on the campaign trail. You were eagerly looking forward to not reading about Gary Johnson, to not looking at Twitter, to getting up on a bike at 10,000 feet above sea level, doing God knows what kind of terrible athletic things. Are you enthusiastic about running? Are you in it to win it, not just as a concept, but are you a happy warrior in there, and motivated to get out on the trail, given how much it wasn’t always fun last time?

Gary Johnson: Well, you’ve hit on the other aspect of this, which is, “Oh my gosh, this is going to be a nine-week race.” I can do anything for nine weeks!

That was another criticism that I had about [a potential] Senate race: Number one, going up to the trough, number two…you’re looking at a year and a half of your life to campaign for that office. I think this will be terribly exciting; this came as a complete surprise, but it’s a nine-week campaign. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

So, yeah, I think your assessment about what happened in the presidential race is accurate. But…for me, that was the end of like an eight-year, 10-year endeavor, going back a long way.

Reason: So if you were to win this, at a time when currently the split in the Senate is 51/49 Republicans, and the country is feeling pretty anti-Republican, though the Senate math is pretty dicey for Democrats, you could conceivably be the difference between a Republican-controlled or Democratic-controlled Senate. You would be…

Gary Johnson: Exactly!

Reason: …in other words, the most hated man in all of the United States, politically.

Gary Johnson: Or, maybe not, though, depending on what came out of that most hated man’s mouth.

Reason: Talk us through the prospects of being that person, both in terms of the opportunity to be hated, and the opportunity, as you see it, to do something different.

Gary Johnson: Well, talking about these issues, being a skeptic when it comes to our military interventions, genuine free trade being a solution, the size and scope [of government]. Nobody’s talking about the deficit; I’d be the number-one deficit hawk. I’d be in there fighting to reduce spending in meaningful ways, and that would mean reform of Medicaid and Medicare….

So I don’t know, am I going to be the most hated guy, or am I going to be the future of politics if I’m elected?

Reason: Talk about that future a little bit. This is obviously a chance for the Libertarian Party to have a shot at a Senate seat, which it has never really come close to. Talk about how this fits in with the growth of the success of the Libertarian Party, and how that motivates what you are doing right now.

Gary Johnson: Well, it’s an unparalleled opportunity for Libertarians. It’s an unparalleled opportunity for people that are independent, registered independent—which, of course, is the largest political affiliation in the country today. But really, if you can just drill into that a little bit, people I think discover that, “Oh my gosh, I’m independent, but I’m probably leaning Libertarian more than anything else.”

And I have used broad brush strokes to declare…what a Libertarian is. Which—I’ve gotten in big trouble with the Libertarians beccause “it’s not about that at all,” but I’m going to say it here too—is, “Look, I’m running as a Libertarian; this is the opportunity that has presented itself. But I’m really an independent. We’re all independent when it comes to philosophy. Hands down, I’m closer to being a Libertarian than any of the other two parties, but I don’t toe a line either. I’m an independent. We’re all independents. We really are.…

Reason: The bad September 2016 that you had, part of that, as we have discussed previously, was that was the month that Democrats freaked out about you. Tom Steyer threw a bunch of money into the campaign. Suddenly there was a barrage of very similar-sounding headlines about what a disaster you would be for the environment and suchlike. I’ll just throw a couple of headlines out that I just found five minutes ago or so. One is “Gary Johnson, Professional Spoiler, Jumps Into New Mexico Senate Race“; that’s New York magazine. And Esquire says, “Stoplight Skeptic Gary Johnson Just Decided That the Senate Is in Need of a Libertarian Loon.” You’re going to see a lot of that. You ready for that? You looking forward to that?

Gary Johnson: Yeah, well they’re dealing with New Mexico now. So New Mexico did elect me two times as governor, and I sowed a lot of seeds. So we’ll see how it turns out. I mean, hey, I don’t want to in any way diminish the long-shot aspect of this, but I don’t know if that’s wise. I don’t know if Champagne shouldn’t be popped right now, based on what’s happening.

Reason: Some Libertarian Party activists who are, for the most part, pretty excited about this news, have nevertheless back-channeled to me concern that, “Hey, this sounds like Ron Nielson’s idea. This doesn’t sound like Gary Johnson’s idea.” And there have been concerns over the years that too much of the strategy from your camp comes from him and not you. What do you say to those people about those specific concerns?

Gary Johnson: Well, in this case, this was Aubrey Dunn’s idea; this was really Aubrey Dunn’s idea.

Ron and I have had a great relationship; Ron and I now are on a 25-year relationship. I leave the campaign to Ron, but the messaging is me; he leaves that to me….I can’t say enough about Ron Nielson, and I think the guy’s a genius. I come back to the fact that Hillary and Trump each had [$1.8 billion], and we had $12 million. And, you know, I think Ron spent two solid weeks without a minute of sleep, and that was Ron. I mean, that’s what we all did. But Ron’s cooking this up and I’m the puppet? I don’t know. No, I don’t think so.

Reason: So going forward now, you’ve got a nine-week sprint ahead of you. What are some milestones? What are some big things that need to happen? What is the rabbit that you want to pull out of your hat?

Gary Johnson: Well, I think that money is the key….Don’t have to have more money; less is okay, but as long as it’s enough to actually launch into this, that’s really the key. And we’ll see how that goes….

Reason: And just straight up to the “spoiler” charge, which you’re going to hear nonstop from Democrats…How do you respond specifically to that spoiler charge now?

Gary Johnson: Well, I’m going to embrace whatever it is that they’ve got to call me; I’m just going to embrace it and go from there. You can call me anything you want, but here’s what’s at stake, and you want to call that a spoiler? I don’t know. I call that having a voice. I call that as a way to actually express my frustration over the whole system. That’s a vote for me….

Professional spoiler? Like I said, I’ll embrace it, whatever you want to call me. But potentially, I could be the U.S. Senator from New Mexico who actually has a say in the direction this country ends up taking.

Remy is OUTRAGED over outrageous outrage.

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A Colombian window manufacturer is taking advantage of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum to undercut its American competitors and expand its market share in the United States.

Technoglass, which is based in Barranquilla, Colombia, can export finished windows to the United States without paying tariffs on them. Domestic window makers, by contrast, have to pay Trump’s 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum and 25 percent tariff on imported steel—two crucial components of window frames. Those higher production costs for American companies have given Technoglass “a leg up,” says Bloomberg’s Ezra Fieser. Technoglass COO Christian Daes says the company plans to make the most of the situation by keeping prices low and expanding sales in the U.S. “I love Trump for that,” Daes tells Fieser.

Since tariffs are taxes on imported goods, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that they have punished American companies and benefited those located elsewhere, which don’t have to pay the taxes. That’s why some American companies, such as iconic motorcycle manufacturer Harley Davidson, are considering moving some operations overseas in response to Trump’s tariffs.

Counterintuitively (but not unexpectedly), tariffs that were supposed to protect American businesses end up punishing American businesses. Steel- and aluminum-consuming industries bear the brunt of the tariffs, but even one of the largest domestic suppliers of aluminum is now seeking relief from Trump’s tariffs. It turns out that even aluminum producers have to buy steel and aluminum products.

The winners in Trump’s trade policy, then, are not U.S. businesses or consumers but companies in other countries. Motorcycles made in Poland and windows made in Colombia are only part of that story. When retaliatory tariffs from China targeted American soybean farmers, it was Brazil that emerged as the real winner of the Sino-American trade war. Brazilian soybean exports have increased dramatically in the months since China slapped tariffs on America, and Brazilian farmers are now tearing out other crops to plant more soy.

While uncertainty about future U.S. trade policy has slowed investment in additional aluminum output in the U.S., Reuters reports that China is set to expand production in response to high prices created, in part, by the American tariffs. China already produces more than half of the world’s aluminum, Reuters notes, and with Trump disrupting aluminum supply chains in the United States, Trump’s main trade adversary could be “the main beneficiary” of the trade war.

Any effort to raise trade barriers will create more losers than winners, but there will always been some industries, businesses, and countries that benefit from the shake-up. The fact that America seems to be losing Trump’s trade war might, eventually, get the president to reconsider his course of action.

Then again, Bloomberg notes, Colombia-based Technoglass has provided windows for Trump Tower in Hollywood, Florida, and Trump Palace in Sunny Isles, Florida. So it seems like everything is working out just fine for the president.

A former library director in Utah blew $89,000 in public funds on the mobile app Game of War: Fire Age. Now, in addition to paying back most of what he stole, he has to go to jail, perform community service, and write a book report.

Adam Winger, 38, was in charge of operations at North Logan City Library for about three years. He was mysteriously placed on administrative leave last summer, then officially resigned in October 2017. It wasn’t clear why he no longer worked for the library until March, when Winger was charged with embezzling.

Investigators said Winger used city credit cards to buy hundreds of Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play gift cards. He used those gift cards to buy power-ups, gold packs, and various upgrades in Game of War, a massive multiplayer online strategy game. Although Game of War is free to play, spending real money on additional features and abilities means you don’t have to wait as long to get better.

According to the Logan Herald Journal, Winger pleaded guilty to theft and forgery. The terms of his plea agreement require that he pay $78,000 in restitution. Winger’s attorney argued his client should have to spend only 10 days in jail, given his “Herculean effort” to pay the money back. But Judge Kevin Allen of the 1st District Court disagreed, sentencing Winger on Monday to 30 days behind bars, plus 100 hours of community service. Winger also has to write a 10-page report on the inspirational self-help book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story, by Donald Miller.

“I am sure there were a lot of times along the way when you knew you needed to stop,” Allen said during sentencing. “Just because you can pay it back doesn’t mean the damage wasn’t done.”

Winger’s case is not unique. In December 2016, the BBC described a case in which an accounting department manager at a machinery company stole nearly $5 million from his employer and spent about $1 million of it on Game of War.

A Georgia family is wondering why police officers chose to use a stun gun on their elderly grandmother while she was cutting dandelions for a traditional Levantine dish.

ABC News reports that Martha al-Bishara, who is 87, immigrated from Syria about two decades ago, and speaks mostly Arabic, decided to cut dandelions with a kitchen knife near a Boys and Girls Club in Chatsworth. A staffer called 911, saying the woman was carrying a knife and didn’t speak English. The staffer also told emergency services al-Bishara was an older woman who hadn’t threatened anyone and seemed to be looking for “vegetation to cut down or something.”

Chatsworth Police Chief Josh Etheridge told ABC News he arrived at the scene after one of his officers, whom he did not name. The pair repeatedly told al-Bishara to drop her knife and at one point attempted to mime the action for her. “She came walking toward the officer,” Etheridge told the Daily Citizen-News. “After multiple commands, he told her to stop several times. She continued walking, at which time we deployed the Taser.”

Al-Bishara was charged with two misdemeanors: criminal trespass and obstruction of an officer. When asked why the officers couldn’t retreat, Etheridge argued that their position on sloped terrain might have caused one of them to fall down, giving al-Bishara an opportunity to approach. Etheridge argued that using the Taser avoided deadly force. “In my opinion,” he said, “it was the lowest use of force we could have used to simply stop that threat at the time. And I know everyone is going to say, ‘An 87-year-old woman? How big a threat can she be?’ She still had a knife.”

Etheridge said there was body camera footage of the incident, but it would not be released due to the pending charges.

Although the shooting is justified in Etheridge’s mind, al-Bishara’s family feels differently. “She is still repeating the incident over in her mind and telling us she didn’t mean for this to happen and apologizing that she didn’t want to bring this on us,” said great-granddaughter Martha Douhne. “She is having trouble sleeping and is stressed.” Al-Bishara’s grandson Timothy Douhne observed that “my grandmother is a human being who they didn’t have any patience with.”

Bonus link: Last month, a Cincinnati police officer tased an 11-year-old girl suspected of shoplifting at a grocery store. Department policy allows tasing of children as young as 7.