LIKE PEOPLE: Study shows that apes are more optimistic after hearing laughter.

GOOD: Deeper sleep is more likely to lead to eureka moments, study indicates.

STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: Slang, spelling errors derail AI in medical exams.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Private College Tuition Discount Rate Hits All-Time High: 56.3%.

I said over a decade ago that widespread discounting would be a sign of the bubble’s collapse, long before they started cutting sticker prices.

Also, if you pay full freight you’re a sucker.

HOW ORIGINAL: Professor’s new book ties pro-life movement to white Christian authoritarianism.

CHANGE:

BREAKING: SCOTUS in 6-3 decision authored by ACB

"Universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts. The Court grants the Government’s applications for a partial stay of the injunctions entered below, but only to the extent…

— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) June 27, 2025

UPDATE: Full opinion is here.

THE ENEMY WITHIN: ‘Iran will never die’: USF professor praises regime, blasts critics.

WE REALLY NEED TO TREAT MARXISM LIKE NAZISM:

Yes. This is downstream of the end of the Cold War and the War on Terror. As it became clear that there was no global working class ready to overthrow the Western order, leftists needed another revolutionary class to fantasize about. They began to fantasize about Muslims. https://t.co/EvLWJIHzZ0

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) June 26, 2025

“MISSED OPPORTUNITIES?” AYFKM? Zohran Mamdani’s Jewish Problem: The presumptive Democratic nominee for mayor of New York has repeatedly missed opportunities to forthrightly condemn antisemitic violence. He hasn’t “missed opportunities to forthrightly condemn antisemitic violence” — he supports antisemitic violence.

WHY IS HIGHER EDUCATION SUCH A CESSPIT OF BIGOTRY AND RACISM?

According to a whistleblower, Cornell University DEI administrators rigged the search process for a professor of evolutionary biology by deliberately excluding white men from consideration and hand-picking their "hoped-for diversity hire."

This is racial discrimination. pic.twitter.com/UVJxa9f5XT

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 26, 2025

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Rocket Lab launches HawkEye 360 satellites.

Rocket Lab is overshadowed by SpaceX, but is a very cool company in its own right.

NOT OUR BEST AND BRIGHTEST: LaMonica McIver Gives Up the Game in Comments Made After Court Appearance.

ACCOUNTABILITY: Trump Blames Dems For Iran Strike Intel Leak, Calls For Prosecutions.

RICHLY DESERVED: The Scythe Draws Near: CNN’s Overpaid ‘Talent’ Brace for Deep Cuts Amid Corporate Shakeup: Morale is ‘really grim’ at left-wing network as ‘ruthless cost cutter’ Gunnar Wiedenfels sharpens his blade.

FUNNY HOW THAT WORKS:

Remember when it was a big story that a homicidal maniac connected to international orgs and appointed by two Dem governors to state boards k*lled two Minnesota lawmakers and wrote he believed Tim Walz wanted him to take out Amy Klobuchar?

Boy, that story vanished in a hurry. https://t.co/c4Ea2S463B

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) June 26, 2025

A FREE SPEECH VICTORY FOR PROFESSOR SCOTT GERBER: VICTORY — America First Legal Secures Settlement, Reinstatement, and Vindication for Law Professor Fired by Ohio Northern University for Objecting to Race-Based Hiring.

In 2023, ONU terminated Dr. Gerber, a tenured law professor, after he objected to the University’s race-based hiring practices. When he was terminated, ONU sent campus security and armed local police officers into his classroom to forcibly remove him.

Now, after nearly two years of litigation, ONU has agreed to reinstate Dr. Gerber and allow him to retire at his rightful faculty rank, with all his benefits intact. As part of the settlement, ONU formally acknowledged that:

Dr. Gerber was never a public safety risk to any member of the ONU community.
He never acted with moral turpitude.
He provided “outstanding teaching, scholarship, and service” throughout his tenure at ONU.

“Dr. Gerber should be commended for his courage in filing complaints about what he perceived as ONU’s consideration of race and sex in hiring professors, which is illegal. This has cost him years of lost teaching opportunity, reputational harm, and the stress of years of litigation. However, his reward is full vindication. He was never a safety threat. He was nothing but an outstanding professor and scholar who stood on truth,” said Nick Barry, Senior Counsel at America First Legal.

The right now has a legal infrastructure of the sort that the left always had. More, please. Make them pay.

HE SEEMS RIGHT ABOUT THIS:

This reality utterly changes the calculus of integrated air defense as air-to-air weapons priced to kill a $1.2 million cruise missile are far too expensive for tens of thousands of $50K to $200K OWA drones/loitering munitions.

2/2

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) June 26, 2025

GOOD: Who Counts? Trump Poised To Try To Remove Noncitizens From Census. “Some immigration researchers project that including noncitizens in the census count disproportionately benefits Democratic states with large illegal alien populations.”

AND THIS WAS ENTIRELY PREDICTABLE: Andrew Sullivan: Trans Extremism is Backfiring on Gay People. “As Sullivan sees it, the fight for gay marriage had always been one that emphasized this was a change for consenting adults which wouldn’t change how the nuclear family worked for straight people. They could still get married and raise their kids whether the gay couple down the street were married or just living together. The argument from the pro gay marriage side was this changes things for us but not for you. And obviously that worked. It worked not just in court but it worked in the greater population. As noted above, opposition to gay marriage became a minority position even in the Republican Party. But the trans rights movement completely undoes that tacit cultural agreement. . . . He’s absolutely right about this. I said the same thing last week and several times before that. The backlash began when this started involving everyone’s children. Gay marriage was carefully framed as a discussion for consenting adults, but the gender unicorn is indoctrination for kids who don’t have the first clue what sex or gender is about.”

The shouts of “we’re coming for your children!” probably didn’t help.

TVA USED TO HANDLE THESE — ENTIRELY NORMAL — MIDSUMMER TEMPERATURES WITHOUT A HICCUP. Now: TVA urges power conservation as temperatures climb. “The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is asking all electric power consumers, including Hartselle Utilities customers, to voluntarily reduce electricity usage beginning today as extreme heat continues to strain the power system across the region. The sustained high temperatures have created significant demand on TVA’s power grid, prompting the call for energy conservation to help ensure system reliability across its seven-state service territory.”

Generation capacity hasn’t kept up, something I’ve complained about before.

Maybe shouldn’t have shut down fossil fuel plants.

Flashback: Thank the green-energy cult for major blackouts this summer.

OPEN THREAD: Disport yourselves.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Chinese scientists push for cubesat swarm mission to fly by infamous asteroid Apophis.

ANOTHER ONE: Promising New Drug For Weight Loss Works With Just One Monthly Dose.

IF YOU CAN’T KEEP THEM AWAY FROM THE CYCLOTRON, IT’S A SIGN: Your Baby’s Favorite Toy Could Hint at Their Future IQ.

A NICE STORY ABOUT A 98-YEAR-OLD BARBER in Knoxville who’s still cutting hair. Perhaps an up-and-coming Salena Zito here.