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When a mystery is as complicated as this series, with lots of side stories, it's less enjoyable for viewers.

On a new episode of “The Show,” Joel Sherman & Jon Heyman are joined by owner of the New York Mets, Steve Cohen. Steve Cohen talks about the disappointing Mets season, evaluates David Stearns and why he wants to keep him for at least the entirety of his five-year contract, explains the decision to fire...

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s upcoming trip to the UK with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet is raising fresh questions about whether the Sussexes could reunite with the royal family. On “Royals Recap,” Royal Expert Charlie Lankston breaks down reports that Kate Middleton hopes Prince William will meet with Harry, Meghan and their children during...

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s upcoming trip to the UK with Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet is raising fresh questions about whether the Sussexes could reunite with the royal family. On “Royals Recap,” Royal Expert Charlie Lankston breaks down reports that Kate Middleton hopes Prince William will meet with Harry, Meghan and their children during...

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Mexico has signed a 16-year extension of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact, adding that Canada has also completed the required step and is awaiting a response from the United States. Top trade officials from all three countries are set to meet July 1 to decide the agreement’s future. If no extension...

The last time the shirts were in stock, they raised $2.3 million for the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The last time the shirts were in stock, they raised $2.3 million for the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The site—described by the organization as a picturesque canyon—includes a creek, hiking trails and wooded hills, with more than 30 acres intended for outdoor activities.

"I’ve gotten so sick to the point where I’ve been having stiffness in my heart, my stomach, so I just try to keep it out of my mind," the woman's father said.

The former owner of Modell's Sporting Goods has shut down a website he launched to sell Knicks-themed and other merch after just a week online -- due to a cease-and-desist letter he received from the current owner of Modell's, The Post has learned.

They're sticking it to bad parkers!

Apple Negotiating To Buy Blacklisted Chinese Chips To Ease AI-Driven Shortage

After raising prices on their entire product line last week as much as 50% thanks to "unsustainable" input costs from the memory cartel (SK Hynix, Samsung, Micron and Sandisk), Apple is in active negotiations to buy memory chips from two Chinese semiconductor manufacturers on the Pentagon's blacklist, aiming to diversify supply and mitigate the impact of sharply rising component costs triggered by surging AI demand.

Adding to Friday reporting from the Financial Times, Bloomberg now reports that the iPhone maker is seeking chips from ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), a major DRAM producer, and Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC), a fast-growing NAND flash maker. The components would be used exclusively in devices sold in China, where Apple already offers market-specific models. The talks are ongoing and not yet finalized, according to people familiar with the matter.

This was the logical next step... 

*APPLE SHARES CLOSE DOWN 6.1% IN BIGGEST DROP SINCE APRIL 2025

China's memory makers are waiting by the phone

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 25, 2026

This move would expand Apple's memory supplier base from its current three - Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology - to five. It comes after Apple raised prices across its Mac, iPad, and other product lines last week to offset what it described as an unprecedented surge in memory and storage costs. A company spokesperson attributed the increases to the "rapid expansion of AI," noting the firm had "never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly."

The global memory shortage stems from hyperscale data-center operators prioritizing high-end memory for AI training and inference workloads. This has pulled production capacity toward premium segments, driving up prices for the DRAM and NAND used in consumer electronics. Microsoft took similar action last week, raising Xbox console prices for the third time in 13 months, largely due to the same memory squeeze.

The Apple news was the straw that broke the memory's back: chip stocks had already gotten whacked on Wednesday amid a momentum-meltdown sparked by news that Meta would pivot to a cloud business to sell excess compute from its overpriced collection of data centers, effectively become a neocloud, while capitulating on hopes to build a leading frontier model. 

Aaaand Micron is now below its 20-day moving average for the first time since April...

It's not clear what happens next. Both CXMT and YMTC appear on the Defense Department's 1260H list of Chinese companies believed to have ties to the People's Liberation Army. YMTC has carried an additional Commerce Department Entity List designation since 2022, which generally bars it from receiving U.S. technology without special licenses.

That said, Apple does not require formal U.S. government approval to proceed with purchases - though adding the two firms to its supply chain carries significant political risk amid ongoing U.S.-China tensions over advanced technology. Apple CEO Tim Cook has appealed directly to Trump administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, to help manage potential backlash from national security hawks in Washington. Some officials within the administration have expressed objections to giving Apple leeway on the matter.

To limit exposure, Apple is structuring any deal around devices sold only in China rather than global models. The company previously explored sourcing memory from YMTC in 2022 for China-market iPhones, but that effort was abandoned after strong opposition from U.S. lawmakers and officials concerned about supply-chain security.

In short - the memory market has been reshaped by AI infrastructure spending. Major producers have shifted output toward high-margin products demanded by data centers, leaving tighter supply and higher prices for mobile and computing applications. Samsung and SK Hynix have outlined massive capacity expansions, while Micron is investing heavily in U.S. production - but meaningful relief for consumer electronics remains months away.

For Apple, securing additional sources could help stabilize costs on China sales and reduce reliance on the dominant trio of suppliers. For policymakers, the episode highlights a recurring tension: balancing efforts to secure critical technology supply chains against the immediate economic pressure of higher consumer prices driven by concentrated global demand.

Any agreement would likely draw scrutiny from Congress and administration hardliners who view partnerships with firms on the 1260H list as contrary to U.S. efforts to reduce dependence on Chinese technology. At the same time, the memory-driven component inflation has become visible enough that some officials may see limited, geographically restricted sourcing as a pragmatic pressure valve.

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2026 - 16:40

Controversially, The Supreme Court Rules For Common Sense: Taibbi

Authored by Matt Taibbi via Racket News,

From Mother Jones yesterday:

The science is far from settled about whether trans girls who have received gender-affirming treatment actually have a competitive advantage or pose a greater risk of injuring other players. But the majority opinion, by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, glosses over those unknowns - reasoning that "biological sex" is a good enough proxy for athletic ability for states to categorically ban trans girls from girls' sports.

It was once uncontroversial to observe that testosterone gives athletes advantages. Baseball's steroid scandals were only a tick of the historical clock ago, and the number of people in the continental United States willing to stand up and say Mark McGwire and Raffy Palmeiro hit their own homers would have fit in a dentist's waiting room. Every working comedian in the country made at least one joke about balloon-headed liar Barry Bonds:

This was universal, but once the trans issue with its myriad lifestyle and political considerations came along, the general public was suddenly asked to accept one factual absurdity after another about the same thing. "Far from settled!" Really, Mother Jones?

The Supreme Court Tuesday handed down a landmark 6-3 ruling in West Virginia v. BPJ and Little v. Hecox, upholding two state bans on the participation of transgender athletes on women's and girls' sports teams. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote the majority opinion, used strong language in upholding West Virginia and Idaho statutes, saying the court disagreed that "schools must allow biological males... to compete on girls' sports teams." Kavanaugh even used a hated term, asking, "May schools determine eligibility for women's and girls' sports based on biological sex? The answer is yes," upsetting pundits who want officials to stick to activist-approved phrases like "sex assigned at birth."

"It's a good decision for women and girls," said Kara Dansky, who wrote an amicus brief supporting the states for the U.S. chapter of the Women's Declaration International.

Dansky was once senior counsel for the ACLU Center of Justice. In this case she was on the other side of the ACLU, whose attorneys (including co-director of LGBTQ and HIV rights, Chase Strangio) argued against the state bans. The ACLU has also split with former feminist allies by arguing for the housing of biological men in women's prisons, including those with records of violent sex offenses. These efforts in trying to force society to reimagine biology are clearly failing, but the outraged reaction yesterday shows the fight isn't over. NBC described the decision as a "major blow to LGBTQ rights," and former VP contender Tim Walz claimed the "Supreme Court says schools can be cruel to my trans kids":

As the Supreme Court says states can be cruel to trans kids, my message is clear: Here in Minnesota, we stand with and value our trans neighbors and youth.

— Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) June 30, 2026

Cruel is an extraordinary word to describe the act of allowing states to object to a radical social program that was implemented virtually everywhere ahead of both scientific and (especially) political consensus. The numbers aren't close. A New York Times/Ipsos poll last year found 79% of Americans, including 67% of Democrats, are opposed to "athletes who were male at birth" participating in women's sports. The same poll found 71% of all Americans, including 54% of Democrats, believe no one under 18 should have access to puberty blockers. This was after exposure to years of movement messaging.

Strangio and the ACLU don't see that they're asking for something people can't give them, even if they wanted to, namely the honest belief that people who've transitioned have literally changed sexes. The gambit failed for the same reason Spanish speakers rejected "Latinx."

Like politics, language has a democratic dynamic. If people don't use Latinx because Spanish (like 38% of all languages) is a gendered tongue with its own distinct sonic system that Spanish speakers love, they won't use it, and you can't make them. The ostensible logic behind Latinx was to "challenge the gender binary" and "remove gender from Spanish," in part because a handful of intellectuals claim gendered language causes unequal economic outcomes. A rational person finds this absurd, unless you believe the early French schemed to consign bananas to girlhood while making boys out of tuna as a weirdly subtle means of oppressing women in future centuries.

As with Latinx, activists tried to lobby "sex assigned at birth" into reality, only to have the population spit it back out as "biological sex." The court just recognized another thing that was uncontroversial until ten minutes ago. Yes, a small percentage of human beings have intersex characterstics, but most of the world's population can't be forced to unlearn what it intrinsically knows. Knowing which gametes your body cranks out is another form of "lived experience," one is irrelevant to activists, apparently, because it's "normative." People know they weren't "assigned" a sex by hospital clerks. Some people tried to think that way. It just didn't take.

Activists could have started with a proposition: given that sex is binary, what can society do to accomodate people who experience dysphoria and wish to live under a new identity? The same Americans who accepted gay marriage fairly quickly after Obergefell v. Hodges 11 years ago likely would have extended as far as they could without jumping into a factual or scientific abyss, on issues ranging from expanded insurance to easier routes to housing or identification. Instead, activists treated access for biological males to women's locker rooms, sports rosters, even prisons as settled rights matters, against which only right-wing Christian patriarchal bigots could possibly object. Unless 80% of Americans are bigots, a lot of apologies are owed: 

None are coming, of course. 

Subscribers to Racket can read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 07/01/2026 - 16:20

The dominoes of the Lakers’ offseason continue to fall into place.  Backup big man Jaxson Hayes is heading to the Jazz on a two-year deal. Jaxson Hayes has agreed to a two-year, $12 million dollar contract with the Utah Jazz. ESPN first reported that Hayes is signing for $12 million across the two years, with a...

The U.S. Men's National Team is in uncharted waters against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Byrd hosted a softcore TV series for 20 years, and it became a rallying point for AIDS awareness and anti-censorship activism.

He matured in the most important area of his career by buying into an unrewarding role.

Despite that inner conflict and his complaining, Zayn has generally done the right things, even if it didn’t always work perfectly.

The Blueshirts added a right wing who has surpassed 30 points in each of his last nine seasons to a forward pool in need of more consistent producers.

While French elites have spent years wagging fingers at air-conditioning as American excess and bad for the planet, regular Parisians have been left sweating through hotel rooms and apartments with little more than open windows and a shrug.