The Justice Department’s surprise Live Nation settlement raises big questions about the future of federal antitrust.
But it is expanding its modest American Manufacturing Program. TDK will make camera stabilization sensors, while Bosch will build chips for crash detection and activity tracking. Cirrus Logic and Qnity Electronics are also on board. The $400 million planned for these new partnerships won’t make a major dent in Apple’s reliance on China, though.
An order that required nonprofit groups to take down online videos of two former DOGE staffers being questioned under oath has been lifted, with US District Judge Colleen McMahon ruling that the risk of “embarrassment and reputational harm” isn’t enough to overcome public interest in the conduct of public officials.
ICE is supposed to be helping TSA at American airports. I didn’t see that at JFK.
Hey, remember that weird trade The Financial Times highlighted? The one about oil? Paul Krugman doesn’t like it — nor does he like the weird Venezuela trade or the one about death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. I’ve written here about how ill-prepared the CFTC is for insider trading cases. Krugman has a solution: call some of it treason and let the FBI — well, the post-Kash Patel FBI — sort it out.
[Paul Krugman]
The former FBI head and special counsel passed away on Friday at the age of 81. Mueller had been a persistent thorn in the side of President Trump, who quickly took to Truth Social to declare, “Good, I’m glad he’s dead.” The New York Times has a lengthy obituary recapping his life and storied and, at times, controversial career:
Robert S. Mueller III, who led the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 12 tumultuous years, brought politically explosive indictments as a special counsel examining Russia’s attack on the 2016 presidential election, and then concluded that he could neither absolve nor accuse President Trump of a crime, died on Friday. He was 81.
The convicted crypto exec has been heaping praise on the president from behind bars. Most recently, posting on X through intermediaries that “Operation Epic Fury is working,” and backing Donald Trump’s war on Iran. According to CoinDesk:
The tone has drawn attention, given Bankman-Fried’s legal position. Presidential pardons have historically extended to financial crimes, and Trump has shown a willingness to grant clemency in high-profile cases. Ross Ulbricht, who operated a digital black market platform called Silk Road, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2015 before Trump freed him shortly after being sworn in in 2025.
Everyone was a bit caught off guard when the DOJ settled its antitrust suit against Live Nation. There was speculation that Donald Trump intervened to push for a settlement. Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that was indeed the case:
After the trial began in March, Trump began calling around to ask why it hadn’t been settled. What’s the holdup? he wanted to know, according to people familiar with the matter. It was an extraordinary role for a president to play in a routine antitrust investigation.
On March 5, both sides met at the White House to hash things out, according to people familiar with the meeting.
The New York Times sued over the Pentagon’s more stringent policies late last year, and following today’s ruling, the Pentagon has been ordered to restore press passes for seven NYT journalists.
[The New York Times]
