There's been some talk about whether the Administration's use of Franklin the Turtle in various memes (e.g., "Franklin Becomes a Deportation Judge," shown above) is copyright infringement. My sense is that it probably would be: It uses a copyrighted character, and it likely isn't a fair use, despite its noncommercial character.
To oversimplify vastly, use of a work to make fun of the work itself (or to otherwise comment on it) generally tends to be fair use, see Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (1994): You just can't have an effective parody or commentary on a work without including enough of the underlying work. But use of a work to comment on something else, even in a humorous way, generally tends not to be fair use. See, e.g., Dr. Seuss Enterprises v. Penguin Books (9th Cir. 1997). The question for parody fair use purposes is generally whether the use is "reasonably necessary to achieve the user's new purpose" and "'needs to mimic [the] original to make its point,'" see Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (2023); that seems not to be so here. To be sure, the fair use inquiry is notoriously mushy, so it's hard to predict for certain; but that's my best guess.
At the same time, even if this is an infringement and not a fair use, the usual panoply of copyright remedies that would normally be available—including injunctions, potentially massive statutory damages, and potential attorney fees—will be largely unavailable. A federal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1498(b), provides that the exclusive remedies for this are just actual damages (or, if the owner elects, the minimum statutory damages, which will likely be $750), and that the plaintiff has to sue in the Court of Federal Claims to get them. No injunctions; no recovery of attorney fees or costs. And actual damages would likely just be a reasonable license fee:
Wednesday's opinion in Davidson v. State, by Texas Court of Appeals (Tyler) Chief Justice James Worthen joined by Justice Brian Hoyle, upholds the stalking conviction of animal rights activist Davidson for actions targeting Hicks.
Hicks owned dogs, and was also a "county extension agent [for Texas A&M]," whose job "entails advocating for agriculture, and his job duties include engaging with the public and encouraging members of the public regarding best agricultural practices, such as caring for animals. Davidson thought Hicks' dogs lacked adequate shelter in a severe winter storm, so she complained to the local police department. The department checked on the dogs several times, concluded that all was well, concluded Hicks wasn't violating the law, and "informed Appellant that Hicks was providing the dogs with adequate shelter."
But Davidson was apparently unsatisfied. She posted items on Facebook and sent private messages "comments, and private messages." She also apparently "drove past Hicks's residence and took photographs," as did other people. The police got 20 calls about Hicks, most apparently not from Davidson. "Hicks reported receiving an anonymous package in the mail that 'was a glitter bomb, like a prank package[ ]' that contained penis-shaped confetti and a card that said, 'you have a small penis.'" "Hicks told Smith that 'people were trying to contact his employer trying to get him fired.'"
During this time, someone stole Hicks' dogs. "Appellant was not the perpetrator, and the perpetrator did not mention Appellant's name when police interviewed him," but Appellant praised the thefts in a Facebook post, and "stated that someone saw over 3,000 shares of her Facebook post, drove to Crockett, and stole Hicks's four dogs from his yard." There were more incidents as well; see the (long) opinion for more details.
Davidson was convicted of stalking; "the trial judge assessed punishment at ten years of imprisonment, but suspended imposition of sentence and placed Appellant on community supervision for ten years." The relevant part of the stalking statute, as limited by the indictment (with some oversimplification by me), made it a crime to
The Supreme Court has granted cert in U.S. v. Hemani, which concerns the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), which forbids a person from possessing a firearm in or affecting commerce if he "is an unlawful user of … any controlled substance." The United States just filed its opening brief, stating: "At issue here is Section 922(g)(3)'s disarmament of a defined class of people—habitual users of controlled substances, i.e., those who regularly and unlawfully use drugs that are subject to the Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. 801 et seq. That restriction is temporary and limited: a person regains his ability to possess arms as soon as he stops habitually using drugs."
The ban applies only to someone who "is an unlawful user of or addicted to" a controlled substance, and the U.S. brief states:
courts of appeals have uniformly determined that a person is a "user" of a controlled substance within the meaning of Section 922(g)(3) only if he engages in the habitual or regular use of a controlled substance. That interpretation reflects the ordinary meaning of Section 922(g)(3)'s text. In this context, the verb "use" means "to take or consume (an alcoholic drink, a narcotic drug) regularly or habitually."
A radically-more expansive definition of "user" is taken by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF), and the United States does not even acknowledge or mention it in its brief. Defining "Unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance," 27 C.F.R. § 478.11 provides:
An inference of current use may be drawn from evidence of a recent use or possession of a controlled substance or a pattern of use or possession that reasonably covers the present time, e.g., a conviction for use or possession of a controlled substance within the past year; multiple arrests for such offenses within the past 5 years if the most recent arrest occurred within the past year; or persons found through a drug test to use a controlled substance unlawfully, provided that the test was administered within the past year. (Emphasis added.)
Drug use "within the past year" is a far cry from "the habitual or regular use" of a drug. ATF's regulation is one reason why the Fifth Circuit found § 922(g)(3) violative of the Second Amendment. In Hemani, the Fifth Circuit granted summary affirmance for the defendant based on its prior precedent U.S. v. Daniels (2025), in which the district court gave the ATF regulation as a jury instruction. The jury was told that one is an "unlawful user" based on use of drugs "within a matter of days or weeks" or based on a "pattern of use or possession."
As Hemani noted in his brief in opposition to cert, "Contrary to Petitioner's claim, the restriction as defined by Section 478.11 does not 'last[] only as long as the habitual drug use continues.' … To belabor the point, the term 'habitual drug use' is nowhere to be found in Section 478.11." His brief also points out that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) uses ATF's definition in determining whether to disapprove firearm transfers.
To be sure, the validity of the ATF regulation is not the ultimate issue in Hermani. As the Solicitor General states in his brief, "The only dispute is a narrow one: does the longstanding body of restrictions support disarming only people actively under the influence of alcohol or controlled substances, as the Fifth Circuit has held and as respondent contends? Or does the historical record also support temporarily disarming people who habitually use alcohol (and, today, controlled substances)?" The Court will resolve that issue based on its text-history method set forth in Bruen and applied in Rahimi.
But to support its argument that a person who "is an unlawful user" of illegal drugs is one who habitually and regularly uses drugs, the government should take this opportunity to disown ATF's overly-expansive definition, and however it resolves the case, the Court should do the same. The ordinary meaning of the statutory terms governs, not an administrative agency's expansive gloss on those terms.
The Court in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which reasserted the power of the judiciary to interpret the law and abrogated the Chevron deference doctrine, states that "every statute's meaning is fixed at the time of enactment." It recalled its reasoning in Abramski v. U.S. (2014) in construing the Gun Control Act (GCA) that "criminal laws are for courts, not for the Government, to construe," and that "ATF's old position [is] no more relevant than its current one—which is to say, not relevant at all." Abramski's further remark also applies here: "Whether the Government interprets a criminal statute too broadly (as it sometimes does) or too narrowly … a court has an obligation to correct its error."
More recently in Garland v. Cargill, the Court undertook a meticulous analysis of the GCA's definition of "machinegun" and held that ATF exceeded its regulatory powers by changing that definition. More broadly, the pre-Loper Bright handwriting has long been on the wall, as evidenced in U.S. v. Apel (2014), which flatly stated that "we have never held that the Government's reading of a criminal statute is entitled to any deference." As Justice Scalia wrote, concurring in Crandon v. U.S. (1990), "we have never thought that the interpretation of those charged with prosecuting criminal statutes is entitled to deference."
The bill that resulted in the GCA of 1968 originally would have made it an offense to violate "any rule or regulation promulgated thereunder." In Senate debate, based on the argument that only Congress should define crimes, the reference to regulations was deleted. 114 Cong. Rec. 14792-93 (1968). That remains reflected in the GCA today, § 922 of which makes certain acts unlawful and § 924 of which punishes violations of "this chapter," not regulations. Section 926(a) authorizes the Attorney General to "prescribe only such rules and regulations as are necessary to carry out the provisions of this chapter," but that only includes administrative matters like serial numbers and licenses.
Given the above, the Hemani case makes it all the more timely for the Attorney General, pursuant to the President's Executive Order of February 7, 2025, to "examine all … regulations … and other actions of executive departments and agencies (agencies) to assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens," including those promulgated by the Department of Justice and ATF. DOJ and ATF have in fact been conducting such review, which should result in repeal of the various definitions in § 478.11, like the one at issue here, that purport to expand the reach of the criminal law.
The SG's brief in Hemani makes the welcome statement at the beginning: "For the Founders, the Second Amendment stood second to none among the Bill of Rights. They regarded the right to 'keep and bear arms' for lawful purposes as 'the true palladium of liberty' and believed that infringements of the right would put liberty 'on the brink of destruction.'" The further briefs that will be filed on both sides will shed light on whether § 922(g)(3) violates the Amendment. It would help clear the air and assist the Court if the United States would concede in its reply brief that the ATF's expansive definition in § 478.11 is inaccurate and does not represent the law.
Plaintiff and Defendant are attorneys who met seven years ago as summer associates at different prominent law firms in New York City…. [Plaintiff] alleges that Defendant violently raped and sexually assaulted her on the night they met, causing her physical, professional, and psychological damage. Defendant denies all allegations of nonconsensual conduct…. Defendant claims that he and Plaintiff engaged in consensual sexual activity in May 2018. Defendant attests that he was "terminated from [his] employment with a top law firm on October 13, 2025 as a result of the Plaintiff's Complaint and false allegations," and that he fears that it would be "nearly impossible" to obtain employment with his name attached to this lawsuit, He also claims to fear that his physical safety could be placed at risk….
Defendant sought to proceed under a pseudonym, but the court said no:
[T]he economic and reputational harms that Defendant has faced and may face as a party to this action, substantial though they may be, are outweighed by the public interest in access to judicial proceedings…. This Court agrees that "[a]llegations of sexual assault are paradigmatic examples of highly sensitive and personal claims." … Yet courts in this District routinely deny motions seeking anonymity brought in the context of sexual assault absent a heightened showing of harm. For example, with respect to claims brought by adult plaintiffs who allege they are the victims of sexual abuse, a claim that such victims have and will continue to suffer physical or psychological damage, an invasion of privacy, or reputational harm is generally not sufficient to entitle a plaintiff to proceed anonymously.
"The rule is the same for a plaintiff as for a defendant who is accused and who might want to keep his or her identity confidential." Any defendant accused of perpetrating a violent sexual assault potentially suffers harm to their reputation. Yet "[c]ourts have put weight on the right of the public to know the identity of the litigants as well as on the interest of the accused to be able publicly to confront the accuser." Accordingly, "something more is required to rebut the presumption of public access, at least in cases involving adult sexual assault." "[T]hat something more frequently has to be evidence of real (and not conclusory) harm that is substantial and that will flow directly from and is directly linked to disclosure of the party's name." "Were it otherwise, virtually all claims of adult sexual assaults would ipso facto proceed anonymously."
From last month's Pennsylvania appellate decision in Commonwealth v. Abdul-Rahman, written by Judge Anne Lazarus, joined by Judge John Bender and Judge Megan McCarthy King:
[T]he Commonwealth of Pennsylvania … [is] seeking review of the September, 29, 2025 order of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, which granted Defendant Muhyyee-Ud-Din Abdul-Rahman's petition to modify bail pending sentencing, reducing his bail to sign on bond, and placing him on "Strict Conditions of House Arrest on Electronic Monitoring." Upon careful review, we reverse the trial court's order modifying bail pending sentence and reinstate Defendant's original bail….
Defendant, who was 16 years old at the time, was arrested on August 11, 2023, and charged with multiple offenses, including attempting to build weapons of mass destruction that he planned to use to bomb the Philadelphia Pride Parade, before fleeing the country to join a terrorist organization in Syria. Specifically, as the Commonwealth recites in its Petition, the evidence established that Defendant: "(1) attempted to manufacture "TATP" (a potent explosive known as "The Mother of Satan") using a recipe he found online; (2) practiced bomb-ignition using 12 to 20 ignition devices; (3) conducted a series of online searches, including what the punishment was for homosexuality under Sharia law, what the route was for the Philly Pride Parade, where to find trash cans along that route, and how to build pressure cooker bombs (i.e., the same device used in the Boston Marathon bombing); and (4) communicated online with two state-designated terrorist groups (KTJ and HTS) in Syria, where he planned to flee[,] … all while living at his family's house and without their knowledge."
On August 12, 2023, Defendant additionally was charged with criminal conspiracy, attempting to build weapons of mass destruction, arson, causing/risking catastrophe, criminal mischief, possession of an instrument of crime, and recklessly endangering another person (REAP). In September 2024, the trial court set monetary bail at $5,000,000.00 (at 10%), which remained through trial.
Following a jury trial, on September 17, 2025, Defendant was found guilty of attempting to build weapons of mass destruction (F-2), possessing explosive materials (F-3), risking a catastrophe (F-3), and REAP (M-2). After the jury rendered its guilty verdicts, the Commonwealth filed a motion to revoke Defendant's bail or, in the alternative, maintain bail at $5,000,000.00, and the Defendant filed a motion to modify bail to house arrest…. [T]he trial judge …. entered an order granting Defendant's motion for modification of bail, modifying bail … "… to $5,000,000.00 Sign Own Bond with Strict Conditions of House Arrest on Electronic Monitoring." …
From State v. White, decided by the Louisiana Supreme Court Thursday, in an opinion by Justice John Michael Guidry
The State charged the defendant with three counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon after parole officers found [two] guns in the house where he lived with family members….
Defendant was convicted as to these two guns, and sentenced to seven years in prison, but the Louisiana Supreme Court reversed:
To convict [under state felon-in-possession law], the State is required to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant had: 1) possession of a firearm, 2) a prior conviction for an enumerated felony, 3) an absence of the ten-year statutory period of limitation, and 4) a general intent to commit the offense…. Defendant's 2020 drug conviction and the fact that the ten-year cleansing period between the prior conviction and the current offense did not lapse are undisputed….
Possession … can be either actual or constructive…. "'[C]onstructive possession' is a term of legal art, describing the situation in which a person, not in physical possession of a thing, can, nevertheless be considered to be in legal possession of the thing." Constructive possession of a firearm occurs when the firearm is subject to the defendant's dominion and control, even if only temporarily or shared….
The court concluded there wasn't enough evidence of defendant's dominion and control over the guns:
The jury found the defendant guilty of attempted possession of the firearm found in the master bedroom that he shared with his wife. Notably, the gun was found in a dresser drawer that contained clothing items that in color and design appeared to belong to a woman. Kimberly, the defendant's wife, testified that the drawer containing the gun also contained {her underwear, bras, and girdle} and an electronic gaming device she stated belonged to her.
"[The coach's alleged statement] can reasonably be inferred as ... defamatory ... about Clary—that Clary himself was greedy and only interested in money and, as a result, abandoned [his] team and refused to play for Penn State."
Clary v. Pennsylvania State Univ., decided Dec. 2 by Chief Judge Matthew Brann (M.D. Pa.), involves a claim that the Penn State basketball head coach Michael Rhoades defamed Kanye Clary, the team's student captain. The court concluded that two statements were sufficiently alleged to be actionable:
Paragraph 41 alleges that Rhoades, in January and February 2024, "spread rumors to staff, media and surrounding people that [Clary's] father, Anthony Clary, was after more money which is the reason why [Clary] did not return." … [A]lthough the statement only references Clary's father, it also states that Clary refused to return to Penn State due to the desire—whether his or his father's—for more money. This can reasonably be inferred as a defamatory statement about Clary—that Clary himself was greedy and only interested in money and, as a result, abandoned [his] team and refused to play for Penn State…. [And] it may be reasonably inferred that this statement damaged Clary; the statement created a stigma related to Clary that forced him to play at a less prestigious university and directly led to financial losses and the "derailment" of his basketball career….
The court concluded that a retraction likely wouldn't breach any publication contract, and that under the circumstances a temporary restraining order would be especially unjustified given the publisher's First Amendment rights.
Self-controlled case series (SCCS) is a novel study design uniquely equipped to ethically quantify the safety of vaccination. We sought out to perform a meta-analysis on all SCCS assessing mortality associated with COVID-19 vaccination in the immediate post-vaccination period. We included SCCS investigating the safety of COVID-19 vaccination and reporting all-cause and cardiac-related mortality. Three SCCS were located, totaling approximately 750,000 patients.
The pooled hazard ratio (HR) revealed no significant association of COVID-19 vaccination with all-cause mortality (HR = 0.89, 95% CI [0.71, 1.10], p = .28). Regarding cardiac-related mortality, the pooled HR suggests that COVID-19 vaccination is associated with an increased risk of cardiac-related mortality (HR = 1.06, 95% CI [1.02, 1.11], p = .007). Subgroup analysis showed that the male gender is significantly associated with an increased incidence of cardiac-related deaths (HR = 1.09, 95% CI [1.02, 1.15], p = .006). In conclusion, COVID-19 vaccination may be associated with a small increase in cardiac-related mortality, especially among males.
Here's the court's summary of plaintiff's factual allegations and the procedural history, from Marchand v. Taylor & Francis Group LLC, decided yesterday by Judge Diane Humetewa (D. Ariz.):
Marchand is a surgeon in this state, practicing gynecologic medicine, and a researcher with more than 120 published articles. T & F is a publisher of journals and books centered on topics that are academic, scholarly, or scientific. One of the journals published by T & F is called Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics (the "Journal"). The Journal publishes research on vaccines and immunotherapy with its primary audience being those in various medical professions and related fields. Marchand's article about the relationship between Covid-19 and death inducing heart disease was selected for publication by T & F on June 25, 2023. He paid T & F $3,175.00 to have it published for free online, or have it be an open access publication.
The journal received and published two letters to its editor criticizing the article and its methodology. Marchand was allowed to respond to the first letter and T & F published it as well. The second letter triggered corrections to the article. A back and forth ensued between the parties about the sufficiency of the corrections and whether the corrected article would be published.
At some point, during the back and forth on corrections, T & F told Marchand they might retract the article entirely. They also told him he could submit a response detailing his position on T & F's concerns by November 24, 2025. On that same day, Marchand filed his Complaint and the TRO [temporary restraining order] currently pending before the Court. He asks that the Court grant his TRO to prevent T & F from retracting his article. For reasons explained below, the Court will not do so….
During the first week of December, I spent several days doing speaking engagements in Mexico. Although I have previously visited several Latin American nations, and even twice served as a visiting professor in Argentina, this was my first-ever visit to our southern neighbor. I spoke on a panel on "Migration in the 21st Century" at the FIL Guadalajara International Book Fair (one of the largest book fairs in the Spanish-speaking world), and gave two talks on democracy and political ignorance at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (Tec de Monterrey), one of the country's leading universities. The experience gave me some interesting new perspective on our vitally important neighbor to the south.
Before continuing, I should emphasize I am not an expert on Mexico, and I speak little Spanish (though my wife, who came with me on the trip, is fluent in the language). In addition, I obviously did not encounter anything like a statistically representative sample of Mexicans. This post, therefore, can provide only very modest insight. But that modest insight might still have some value.
At least when it comes to Guadalajara and Monterrey, Mexico seems a much more affluent nation than many Americans might assume. My family and I saw little, if any of the grinding poverty that is commonplace in many poor countries I have been to, such as China, Russia, El Salvador, and Uruguay. For example, we saw almost no homeless people or beggars.
Guadalajara and Monterrey are two of Mexico's wealthiest cities; thus not representative. But, in many poor countries, poverty is evident in relatively affluent areas. Mexico's economic progress is also evident from per capita GDP statistics, which show rapid gains in recent years. The country is no longer the cesspool of poverty some in the US imagine it to be.
This progress was, also, in some ways, in evidence at the FIL Guadaljara book fair, when I spoke there. Not surprisingly, the other panelists and most audience members were sympathetic to my pro-immigration and anti-restrictionist perspective. But one of the panelists - prominent Mexican political consultant and former diplomat Gabriel Guerra - noted that Mexico itself has been facing an influx of migrants in recent years, and the government's treatment of them has sometimes been unjust and indefensible. Mexico has gone from being the biggest source of migrants to the US, to itself being a magnet for migrants from Central America and Venezuela. The Mexican government's flawed policies do not justify those of the US (and vice versa). But these issues do throw a wrench in the traditional view of the US-Mexican relationship, when it comes to migration. The changing migration patterns, obviously, reflect Mexico's increasing relative affluence.
Not all is rosy in Mexico, by any means. Mexican academics and policy experts I spoke to are deeply concerned about the state of the US-Mexican relationship, given Donald Trump's unleashing of massive new tariffs, and harsh immigration policies. After the Guadalajara panel, I spoke at length with Guerra and others, including Arturo Sarukhan, former Mexican ambassador to the US. They noted that Trump's policies have not yet generated a "nationalist backlash" in Mexico (their term, not mine), but that such a backlash was likely to develop. They noted that many Mexicans have friends and relatives among Mexican immigrants in the US, who are feeling the effects of the new administration's policies of racial profiling and expanded detention and deportation. That, along with the trade war, is bound to cause anger and poison relations between the two countries.
I pointed out that Trump will not be in power forever (or perhaps even for very long), and a future administration might well revoke his policies. My Mexican interlocutors were not mollified. They emphasized that much damage has already been done to the US-Mexican relationship, and that it will be difficult to reverse.
I do not know to what extent they are right about this. But, regardless, alienating our most populous neighbor and biggest trading partner isn't Making American Great Again. Exactly the opposite, in fact. The more we damage relationships with neighbors and allies, the harder it will be to counter adversaries like Russia and China.
The general sense of progress and rising affluence was also partly offset by the - in Guadalajara - ubiquitous posters depicting "desaparecidos" - "disappeared" people believed to have been abducted by drug cartels (or, in some cases, to have joined them voluntarily).
Sadly, the cartels are indeed a significant presence in Mexican society, even in relatively affluent cities. One prominent Mexican academic recounted a story of how he had been "mugged" by cartel operatives who searched him "like professional security guards." He was, he said, relieved they "only" took his smartphone, and nothing else. The government estimates there are over 130,000 "disappeared" people in Mexico, as of July 2025, many of them believed to be taken by the cartels and other organized crime groups.
These revelations do not shake my opposition to the War on Drugs. In both Mexico and elsewhere, criminal cartels have the power they do because prohibitionist policies have created a vast black market for them to exploit. Legalization would undermine the cartels, and eliminate most of the violence associated with their operations, just as the end of Prohibition largely eliminated the role of organized crime in the sale of alcoholic beverages. But, whatever policy lessons, the impact of the drug cartels on Mexican society is a significant one.
After Guadalajara, we went to Monterrey, where I gave two talks at the Tec de Monterrey, and also met with law and social science students and faculty. These events were organized by my graduate school classmate Gabriel Aguilera, who is now the Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Government there.
I offered a range of different lecture topics within my areas of expertise, such as issues related to migration rights, federalism, property rights, constitutional theory, and more. But Gabriel and his colleagues chose to have me do both talks on issues related to political ignorance. In recent years, I see growing interest in this topic around the world. One might say it has been "made great again." But, in truth, it goes beyond any one one nation or political movement, and has long been a major challenge for democracy.
When I first started writing about political ignorance over 25 years ago, many scholars and others argued that voter knowledge levels are not a significant problem, because voters who know very little about government and public policy can still do a good job thanks to information shortcuts, the "miracle of aggregation," and other workarounds.
Such optimism is far less prevalent today. In Mexico, as in recent talks I have given about political ignorance elsewhere, virtually all the questioners presumed that voter ignorance is indeed a serious problem, though some took issue with my proposals for mitigating it. That happens despite the fact that I always make a point of including shortcuts and related issues in my presentations about ignorance.
Voter ignorance is, in fact, a serious problem in democracies around the world. But at least there is growing cross-national recognition of its significance. In Mexico, concerns about this topic have recently been heightened by the government's erosion of judicial independence, which has weakened a significant check on demagogic populist leaders and political majorities.
My time at Tec de Monterrey also gave me some new perspective on Mexican academia. A number of the law and social science faculty I met are not from Mexico or elsewhere in Latin America, but from countries around the world, including some from east Asian nations, such as China and South Korea. I asked Gabriel if these non-Hispanic academics already spoke Spanish before being hired, or were required to learn after taking up their positions. He noted that many of them actually teach and write in English, which is the language in which many social science courses at Tec are taught. If this is any indication, Mexican academia is becoming more cosmopolitan, and is a competitor for hiring talent from around the world. Gabriel himself came to the US as a poor immigrant, held a number of academic positions at American universities, and returned to Mexico to take his current high-level post.
On a less academic/intellectual note, I don't think I've ever seen a university anywhere in the world that has as many peacocks and deer on campus as Tec does:
Deer at Tec de Monterrey (Ilya Somin)
Peacock at Tec de Monterrey, Mexico (Ilya Somin)Gabriel Aguilera.
Annapolis Mayor Jared Littmann fired City Attorney D. Michael Lyles, effective immediately, as part of his effort to clear the way for a new administration, Littmann said Wednesday.
The firing comes a day after plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis and the City of Annapolis accused the city's counsel of including fabricated citations and quotes in a motion, which they called "hallmarks" of artificial intelligence use.
Lyles is the first major departure since the mayor took office Dec. 1…. However, the mayor said in an interview that his decision to end Lyles' employment was "unrelated to any particular legal case," and that he is looking for a city attorney with a "fresh perspective." …
