COLLUSION? Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy.

HMM: Jack Smith’s Case Against Trump Appears to Be Falling Apart.

I CERTAINLY HOPE NOT: Is our love affair with Huy Fong cooling? Sriracha lovers say the sauce has lost its heat. “The hot take from die-hard Huy Fong fans is actually a not-so-hot take: They say the Sriracha they once relished no longer brings the same heat. And that bellyaching is quickly spreading across the internet as people conduct their own informal taste tests to measure Sriracha zing.”

For what it’s worth, I’m on my second bottle of Huy Fong since it became easily available again, and I haven’t noticed that it’s any less hot. But I never thought it was all that spicy to begin with.

But when Huy Fong was hard to find, I got into Momofuku’s Chili Crunch that really brings the heat.

LET’S GO BRANDON! Biden’s Star-Studded Fundraiser Interrupted (a Lot) by Protesters.

IT CERTAINLY LOOKS LIKE IT: Did Facebook Run A Man-in-The-Middle Hack Against Competitors?

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Why Is the Phrase ‘Career Criminal’ Even a Thing?

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Elon Musk reveals plan for next Starship mission.

The SpaceX boss said the next Starship launch, which is expected to take place in early May, will focus on bringing the craft back to Earth safely from orbit for the first time.

On Wednesday, SpaceX completed a second static fire test of its latest Starship rocket at its Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

“Getting ready for Flight 4 of Starship,” Mr Musk posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday.

“Goal of this mission is for Starship to get through max reentry heating with all systems functioning.”

Godspeed…

CHUTZPAH: Biden Campaign Accuses Trump of Running a Basement Campaign, and That’s Not the Worst Part.

HMM: Russian network that ‘paid European politicians’ busted, authorities claim.

Investigators claimed it used the popular Voice of Europe website as a vehicle to pay politicians.

The Czech Republic and Poland said the network aimed to influence European elections.

Voice of Europe did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.

Czech media, citing the countries [sic] intelligence agency BIS, reported that politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Hungary were paid by Voice of Europe in order to influence upcoming elections for the European Parliament.

The German newspaper, Der Spiegel, said the money was either handed over in cash in covert meetings in Prague or through cryptocurrency exchanges.

Pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk is alleged by the Czech Republic to be behind the network.

And there’s this from 2020:

Over the past year, Telizhenko has repeatedly aired his claims about corruption in the Biden family while appearing on Giuliani’s YouTube channel and podcast. The claims are drawn from Telizhenko’s past work as a diplomat in the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, his employment with a DC lobbying firm and his stint in the office of the prosecutor general of Ukraine. While serving in these positions, Telizhenko claims to have witnessed signs of corruption and conflicts of interests involving the Biden family and other Obama Administration officials.

With help from Giuliani, these claims also found their way to the U.S. Senate, where Johnson and his staff have had repeated contacts with Telizhenko for over a year. The Wisconsin Senator first met with Telizhenko in July 2019, a month before Johnson teamed up with Senator Grassley to investigate allegations of corruption against the Biden family.

As that probe got underway in the U.S. Senate, Russian allies in Ukraine made repeated efforts to lend credibility to these claims of corruption against Biden. Some of these efforts involved Medvedchuk, a personal friend of the Russian President.

Hopefully, Kissinger’s formula doesn’t apply here and they can all lose.

EXCLUSIVE: Survivor’s Recollections of Genocidal Khmer Rouge Civil War.

MORE NUKES IS GOOD NUKES: Biden administration announces $1.5 billion loan for first reopening of a shuttered nuclear plant.

The plant operated from around 1977 through 2022 and was acquired by a Louisiana-based utility in 2007. When brought back online, the Energy Department projects the 800-megawatt Palisades plant will produce power through at least 2051. The state Legislature has also allocated $150 million to recommission the facility. The administration and the state of Michigan have set a target of a late 2025 restart.

“Nuclear power is our single largest source of carbon free electricity, directly supporting 100,000 jobs across the country and hundreds of thousands more indirectly,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, in a statement. “President Biden’s Investing in America agenda is supporting and expanding this vibrant clean energy workforce here in Michigan with significant funding for the Holtec Palisades nuclear power plant.”

“Once open, Palisades will be the first successfully restarted nuclear power plant in American history, driving $363 million of regional economic impact and helping Michigan lead the future of clean energy,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said in a statement. “I am so grateful to my bipartisan partners in the Michigan Legislature, the Biden-Harris Administration, Holtec, and labor for coming together to get this done. Together, we are showing the world that Michigan is a place where history is made by hardworking people.”

It’s the right thing to do, of course, but Democrats doing it reeks of desperation.

EVERYTHING IS STUPID (AND/OR CORRUPTED): It Could Take HOW LONG to Rebuild Francis Scott Key Bridge???

WHAT A BARGAIN: EV maker slashes prices as it tries to avoid bankruptcy.

California-based electric vehicle startup Fisker slashed the prices of some of its vehicles as it fights to avoid bankruptcy after a potential deal with another automaker fell through.

The manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the 2023 Ocean electric SUV lineup in the U.S., which is equipped with Fisker’s 2024 Ocean OS software version 2.0, fell by tens of thousands of dollars.

Fisker lowered the MSRP for the 2023 Ocean Extreme trim from $61,499 to $37,499, the company said Wednesday. The 2023 Ultra trim will be priced at $34,999, down from $52,999, and the 2023 Sport will be priced at $24,999, down from $38,999, according to the automaker.

Cashflow is cashflow, and they need it.

There’s also this: Tesla Bulls Turn Bearish As ‘Nightmare’ First Quarter Comes To An End.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Will Dems’ Abandonment of Law Enforcement Finally Haunt Them in 2024? “As we’ve seen in recent years, it’s not just that the left is anti-law enforcement, but that they’re pro-criminal. Donald Trump and his supporters are the only people they want to see in jail, the real bad guys get sent right back out to return to their criminal ways.”

ERIC SWALWELL MOST AT RISK: Next epidemic to spill out of China could be SUPER GONORRHEA – where rate of antibiotic-resistant STIs are 40x higher than US and UK. “These findings underscore the urgent need for a comprehensive approach to address antibiotic-resistant N. gonorrhoeae in China, including identifying factors contributing to this high resistance rate.”

PRIORITIES: Washington State Now Offers Hotline for “Hate Crimes” and “Bias Incidents.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: The Department of Education’s FAFSA Fiasco.

If, like me, you have a college-bound high-school senior in your family, you’ve likely been on the receiving end of yet another colossal screw-up by our federal government: the overhaul of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, commonly known as the FAFSA. Every year, students (or more commonly their parents) need to fill out the FAFSA with information about their income, assets, and expenses in order to qualify for federal student aid. Many colleges require the FAFSA before awarding other forms of need-based aid, and some require it to be filed even by people without need before they can qualify for scholarship aid. There’s a more detailed and onerous form, the CSS, operated by the College Board and required by some schools. Filling these out is like doing your taxes, only more so. Typically, the forms are available in October, and schools may set filing deadlines in the fall so that they can deliver financial-aid awards at or near the time they send out acceptances.

Not this year. The FAFSA wasn’t even fully available until January 8, after the Department of Education briefly flicked on the lights on the form on December 30 just so it could claim that it launched in 2023. I was on two college visits over the weekend; one school said that it was just starting to receive the first batch of FAFSA need assessments for its accepted students, and the other had decided in the fall that this was going to be a disaster and pushed its date for students to commit to the school back from May 1 to June 1. For schools with rolling deadlines, that means that students who are ready to commit now will have a leg up on those whose decisions hinge on available aid. It also means that undecided students may end up wasting time visiting campuses they would otherwise have crossed off their lists by now. On Monday, Gavin Newsom signed an emergency law extending by a month the deadline for California students to apply for scholarships, and the state has already pushed back the commitment date to May 15.

From there, things get worse:

Even so, in late 2022, Republicans were willing to pony up more funding for the project, but with one condition: Not a penny of the money could be spent on Biden’s illegal student-loan-forgiveness program. Biden chose to turn down the money and let the FAFSA burn rather than accept that condition, and then the Supreme Court struck down his loan-forgiveness scheme anyway. Now, the bill for that brinksmanship is coming due, and college applicants and their parents are the ones who’ve been stuck with it.

Never underestimate Joe’s ability — or eagerness — to f*** things up.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES WELCOME: Why Aren’t Dems Talking About RFK Jr’s Dirtiest Not-So-Secret?

THE LATEST IN MY UNDERAPPRECIATED ALBUMS SERIES FOR PJ MEDIA VIP MEMBERS: ‘No One Is Really Beautiful.’

CHANGE? NCAA Wants to Ban ‘Prop Bets’ on College Games. “NCAA president Charlie Baker says that he is looking into a ban on prop bets, those bets on specific elements of a game rather than the outcome of the game itself, in college athletics. Thirty-eight states already prohibit prop bets in college sports, but Baker wants to extend those bans to all 50 states.”

PERESTROIKA? China’s Xi Seeks to Soothe Anxieties of American CEOs.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping, facing a slowing economy and a sharp fall in foreign investment, sought to reassure American chief executives that China’s economy hasn’t peaked and that the country is working to improve its business environment.

In a meeting with a group of more than a dozen U.S. business leaders and scholars on Wednesday, Xi also said the two countries should do more to overcome their differences and increase interactions, according to state broadcaster China Central Television.

The gathering in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing included the heads of two chip makers, Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon and Broadcom’s Hock Tan. Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, insurer Chubb’s Evan Greenberg and FedEx’s Raj Subramaniam also attended, according to readouts and footage from CCTV.

But: “The official readout of Xi’s comments didn’t include any references to the security concerns that foreign business groups had previously raised, including a series of office raids and staff detentions that rattled the foreign business community.”

BIDEN WON’T: Trump Will Attend Wake of Slain NY City Police Officer.

ALABAMA: Lands 62%, Powell 38% — After Democrat special election blowout, Republicans asking ‘what happened’?

NOW THAT SHE’S SOLVED THE BORDER CRISIS: Kamala Harris Will Save Us From This Dire Threat, and I Can’t Stop Laughing.

VICIOUS, OVERGROWN CHILDREN: Biden Cabinet secretary latest official to be targeted by protesters’ manure dump: ‘You ain’t s—-.’ “Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was also targeted by pro-Palestinian protesters who poured a ‘significant heap of manure’ in front of his Virginia residence.”