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Jones signed a fully guaranteed two-year, $12 million offer sheet with Oklahoma City, before the Nuggets matched the deal. 

A soon-to-be father was tragically involved in a hiking accident in Southern California on July 15.

Jurors deliberated for about three hours before returning the guilty verdict.

Vita Vea reportedly has a short geographic wish list as he seeks a trade from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Football analyst Ted Nguyen reported, citing a source, that the two-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle wants to join a California team or the Las Vegas Raiders. That would place the Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers,...

With his fourth straight start of at least six innings, Thornton earned his second career (and consecutive) win, leading the Mets to a 14-3 victory over the Braves Monday night at Citi Field. Aided by a late offensive explosion,

While A-list celebs from Ryan Gosling to Johnny Depp appeared at San Diego Comic-Con to promote their blockbuster studio projects, several brands launched free activations for fans downtown — with or without the pricey passes. Here’s a rundown of the top activations: HBO launched a “Lanterns” activation for fans. HBO Max promoted “Stuart Fails to...

While A-list celebs from Ryan Gosling to Johnny Depp appeared at San Diego Comic-Con to promote their blockbuster studio projects, several brands launched free activations for fans downtown — with or without the pricey passes. Here’s a rundown of the top activations: HBO launched a “Lanterns” activation for fans. HBO Max promoted “Stuart Fails to...

A 15-year-old has been arrested in connection with the senseless shooting, while cops said the whereabouts of a second suspect are still “unknown.”

A Mississippi man found dozens of Civil War-era relics, including 200 cannonballs, buried on his property. Harold Knight said he first stumbled onto the historical treasure trove while preparing a plot of land he owned along US Route 45 in Booneville, Mississippi for commercial development. “I found one cannonball laying on top of the ground...

Feds Charge Atlanta Man Who Gave Border Agents 'Self-Destruct' Password For Phone

A federal judge in Atlanta is weighing whether to throw out the evidence in what appears to be the first US prosecution of a traveler over a phone's built-in "duress password" - a privacy feature that erases a device when the wrong code is entered.

Samuel Tunick, an Atlanta resident and US citizen, was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 2232(a), which makes it a crime to destroy or damage property to prevent the government from seizing it. The offense carries up to five years. He has pleaded not guilty and is seeking to suppress the government's evidence, arguing the search and seizure that produced it were unlawful. A ruling is not expected before the end of October.

Tunick was returning from vacation on January 24, 2025, when Customs and Border Protection pulled him into secondary inspection at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. According to his motion to suppress, agents demanded access to his phone on the stated suspicion that it contained child exploitation imagery, without offering evidence to support that suspicion. They told him they did not need a warrant because he had not yet crossed into the country - the government's long-standing position that arriving travelers are not on US soil until admitted.

His lawyers say he asked for an attorney repeatedly and was refused, and that he was never advised of his rights.

Tunick provided a passcode. An officer entered it. The screen went dark, flashed repeatedly, and the device restarted with its contents gone. Agents seized the phone anyway and told him he was free to enter the country.

The indictment, returned in the Northern District of Georgia, alleges he knowingly destroyed, damaged, wasted, disposed of or otherwise acted to delete the phone's digital contents in order to impair the government's lawful authority to take the property into its custody. The document contains the typo "Untied States Code."

At a hearing last Monday, a Justice Department attorney and the agents who ran the stop characterized the encounter as an ordinary airport inspection. They were looking for "anything that's prohibited," CBP officer Larry Findley testified.

What Preceded The Stop

Three hours before Tunick's plane landed, a Homeland Security agent circulated an email carrying his name and photograph and stating that he was under investigation for suspected terrorism activities. It went to agents on CBP's tactical terrorism response team and to an officer with the FBI's Atlanta joint terrorism task force, according to The Guardian, which first reported the case.

Tunick's attorneys argue the child-exploitation rationale was a pretext, and that the real interest was his association with Defend the Atlanta Forest, the movement that spent years opposing the police training campus known as Cop City. The state's own sprawling racketeering case against 61 people tied to that movement was dismissed last year by a Fulton County judge, with the Georgia attorney general appealing.

CBP's tactical terrorism response teams were created in 2015 and have operated with almost no public visibility. The ACLU sued the agency in 2019 seeking records on the units, describing them as highly secretive teams that target, detain and interrogate travelers.

GrapheneOS

Tunick's attorneys have confirmed his Google Pixel was running GrapheneOS, a hardened Android replacement stripped of Google's tracking components. Among its options is a duress PIN - a second code, indistinguishable from the real one, that triggers an irreversible wipe. No warning, no confirmation prompt, nothing to give it away. Whoever types it cannot know what it is doing until it is finished.

GrapheneOS documents the feature as intended for people who may be forced to unlock a device, naming journalists, activists and travelers facing border searches - and warns in the same documentation that a triggered wipe could be treated in some jurisdictions as destruction of evidence. 

Matthew Dodge, an assistant federal public defender on Tunick's team, called the use of the statute in this context incredibly rare. Runa Sandvik, who runs the security consultancy Granitt, said she had never seen a case built on a duress password, though she has spent years walking journalists and activists through the scenario. Christophe Boutry, a French cybersecurity and surveillance specialist, said the prosecution mirrors what is already unfolding in France and Spain, where authorities have run into GrapheneOS on the phones of journalists, lawyers and political opponents. His argument is one of ownership: the device belongs to the user, and the state does not get to dictate how it is configured.

Unfriendly Venue?

The Eleventh Circuit may be the government's biggest advantage in the case. In United States v. Touset (2018) it held that border agents need no suspicion of any kind to search a device, forensic or manual, reasoning that if none is required to open a suitcase, none should be required for a phone. In the Fourth or Ninth Circuits the pretext argument would carry real weight - both require reasonable suspicion for forensic searches, and the Ninth confines border phone searches to digital contraband rather than general evidence of domestic crime. In Atlanta, the defense has to attack the scope of the search rather than the absence of grounds for it.

The statute, meanwhile, is also narrower than it looks. Section 2232(a) requires impairing the government's lawful authority to seize such property. Lawfulness is an element of the offense, not merely a suppression question, so an unlawful seizure could put the conduct outside the statute altogether. 

A Fourth Amendment win may not end the case regardless. The alleged offense occurred in the agents' presence, in response to the demand the defense says was unlawful, and courts generally hold that a new crime committed in reaction to an illegal search is not suppressible.

The Fifth Amendment may be the more promising route, because the act constituting the offense is speaking a passcode. If that was compelled in custody without warnings or counsel, the utterance itself may be suppressible. There is a wrinkle in Tunick's favor: the same circuit that is least protective on border searches is among the more protective on compelled decryption, having held in 2012 that forced decryption can be testimonial. Prosecutors will argue that secondary inspection is not custody and that "unlock it or we keep it" is not legal compulsion.

Then there is intent. Officers typed the code, not Tunick, so the government must prove purpose rather than infer it from a physical act - and the defense has pointedly declined to concede he meant to wipe anything. The evidence that a duress code was configured at all lived on the device that now holds no data.

We'll be keeping an eye on this one...

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 22:10

Slatten directly addressed their followers, with her speech noticeably slurred.

Slatten directly addressed their followers, with her speech noticeably slurred.

Jon Heyman joins Dexter Henry and Tyler Ward to preview the Mets trade deadline. Straight Outta Flushing –> https://youtu.be/mL82wv2BmHI

As parents, when we send our children to school each morning, we trust that the adults in charge are making decisions that put students first. Newly revealed documents suggest that trust may have been misplaced. According to The California Post, LAUSD’s own financial experts warned district leaders that bowing to union demands and approving substantial...

A witness said that the currents near the Venice pier were some of the “worst rips” he’d ever seen. 

There’s not one player who alone can replace the defensive versatility missing with them out of action. 

The 17-year-old student slashed the two teacher aides with a sharp object inside Howard Taft High School in Claremont just after 10:15 a.m.

Utility Profits In The Crosshairs Amid Affordability Concerns

By Herman Trabish of UtilityDive,Last month, protesters angry over high electricity costs disrupted a Las Vegas conference of executives for the nation’s biggest investor-owned utilities — a vivid example of growing public outrage that has forced the industry to again defend their legally guaranteed profit margins. 

As affordability concerns increase political pressure, several states have taken steps to lower utilities’ return on equity, either through regulatory or legislative action. Consumer advocates say these measures are long overdue, while utilities say suppressing their ROE could impact their credit rating, which would carry over into higher customer costs. 

It is possible the combination of how vital electricity has become in the 21st century and its rising cost in the 2020s could lead to a turning point at this moment in the acceptable level of utility profits, experts told Utility Dive.

In a potentially pivotal and soon-to-be-decided Maryland rate case, utility executives said the matter should be left to state regulators, while consumer advocates said regulators should lower the utility’s profits closer to its costs for serving its customers. 

Utilities in the hot seat

Affordability has become a more pressing issue as national average electricity prices have outpaced inflation, and many people blame utilities. A March Pew Research poll found 85% of respondents saw utilities “wanting to make more money” as a reason for increased home energy prices. 

The impact of profits is not only a matter of public perception. According to a series of reports from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, prices charged by investor-owned utilities, which represent about 70% of national electricity sales, are higher and have risen faster compared to public utilities without strong profit motives.

The reports also found that IOU revenue requests are higher than they have been in decades – totaling $18 billion last year – and that over the past five years, regulators have approved, on average, 64% of the dollar value of these increases, compared to an average of 52% over the previous two decades. 

Energy affordability concerns have also merged with popular backlash to data centers and their huge resource demands. The resentment has stirred up a large, receptive audience for consumer advocates questioning the regulated utility profit model.

Utility profit margins are set by regulators around the country and averaged 9.7% in 2025, while fluctuating from 9% to 10.5%, according to Synapse Energy Economics. Unregulated economic sectors have ROEs within, far above, and far below that range, but do not have the obligation to serve and are not required to seek approval for their profits like regulated utilities, according to the Regulatory Assistance Project’s 2016 Guide. 

ROEs are a matter for state utility regulators, said Dani Marx, spokesperson for the Edison Electric Institute, the trade group for U.S. investor-owned utilities and utility holding groups.

“Independent state regulators work through open and transparent proceedings to evaluate infrastructure needs,” Marx said. 

Utility infrastructure often includes “an equity component, including a return on equity, to attract sufficient investment to fund these projects,” she added.

In December, California regulators lowered the ROE for its three largest investor-owned utilities by 0.3 percentage points each. Several states, including Pennsylvania, are weighing legislation to tie utility ROE to 10-year Treasury bonds, among other reforms.

ROEs get political

Some states, like Maryland, have begun chipping away at utility returns by passing laws requiring power companies to join regional transmission organizations in order to do away with so-called adder – additional ROE the company earns on transmission for being a voluntary member. 

Meanwhile, state leaders in Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have asked regulators to consider rate requests carefully, signaling they may take more direct action in rate cases. 

The issue has also gained momentum in Congress. Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, has gathered more than 20 cosponsors for the Lowering Utility Bills Act (H.R. 8568). The bill would require a utility to “calculate the return on equity at the lowest return on equity in an established range of reasonableness” determined by its regulators.

Reducing utility profits “saves all electricity users money on their bills,” said Mark Ellis, a former chief of strategy and economics with Sempra who now works as an independent consultant. 

In his opinion, today’s utility profits are “an unjust enrichment of utility investors at the expense of customers,” he added.

Utilities argue their profit margins must be set high enough to attract capital at low interest rates, which saves their ratepayers money in the long run while allowing utilities to maintain grid reliability.

If a utility’s authorized returns “are below those of comparable utilities, its ability to attract capital is at risk,” said Robert Leming, vice president of regulatory policy and strategy for Pepco Holdings, which is now engaged in a regulatory debate over profits at the Public Service Commission of Maryland.

Utilities need that capital “to provide safe and reliable service for customers,” he told Utility Dive in an interview.

An ROE case study

Some say the AI boom has introduced bottlenecks that are forcing utilities to consider alternatives to building, but others worry that the opposite is happening, and the hype cycle is fueling ill-conceived spending that will be on ratepayer bills for decades.

The current Pepco rate case offers an illustrative example of the state of the debate. The utility has proposed an ROE of 10.5%, an increase from its current 9.5% allowed ROE. The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel has proposed 7.7%.

The head of the OPC, David Lapp, told Utility Dive that many of the utility’s recent infrastructure investments could have been deferred. 

“Pepco is investing too much too fast and not in things that are cost effective and needed going forward,” Lapp said.

Pepco Holdings’ Leming disagreed. “Maryland’s ambitious climate and electrification goals require investment to modernize and upgrade the system,” he said.

Ellis, Lapp and others see high utility ROEs as a perverse incentive because it biases utilities toward expensive investments that add to a utility’s base of financed costs that earn ROEs and increase rates.

In addition, Lapp argues Pepco’s ROE is “inflated” by a financial strategy called ”double leveraging,” involving Exelon Utilities, Pepco’s parent corporation and only investor.

OPC contends that Exelon’s lower cost debt is being used by Pepco as higher cost equity, allowing it to borrow more lower cost debt.

Double leveraging “is not illegal if regulators approve it,” Lapp said. But if Pepco counts Exelon’s debt as equity in its capital structure, it raises the total ROE and, as a result, customer rates, he added.

“Exelon’s role does not change Pepco’s ROE needs,” Pepco consultant Adrien McKenzie told Maryland commissioners. Equity to support Pepco operations “must be raised in the capital markets,” based on returns competitive with “risk-comparable alternatives,” he added.

If Exelon debt to be paid back in 10 years is invested by Pepco in 50-year assets, Exelon would not be reimbursed soon enough to meet its debt, Pepco’s Leming added.

To justify the proposed 10.5% ROE, McKenzie presented multiple quantitative analyses and “a proxy group of risk-comparable electric utilities.” Credit ratings for Pepco of Baa1 from Moody’s and A- from S&P were central to his conclusion, McKenzie testified.

“Rating agencies and potential debt investors tend to place significant emphasis on maintaining strong financial metrics,” McKenzie told the commission. And this emphasis on financial metrics and credit ratings is shared by equity investors, he added.

Pepco’s Leming told Utility Dive he is focused on utility operations.

“Affordability is one of Pepco’s top priorities right now,” he said. Recent rising rates are linked to investments that have made Pepco highly ranked for customer satisfaction, he added.

But Pepco must be adequately funded to meet today’s “unprecedented” demand with new infrastructure, Leming continued. “That underscores the importance of having a competitive ROE to attract capital,” he said.

Lapp said his focus is customers.

“Everyone agrees investors in utilities should have the opportunity to earn the same return as an entity with a comparable level of risk,” he said. “But Pepco’s proposed 10.5% ROE is unfair to customers because its cost of equity is not just a little bit less, but significantly less.”

A ruling on Pepco’s ROE is expected in August.

Finding solutions

Reducing ROE can in fact impact a utility’s credit quality. Several Connecticut utilities, including Eversource and Avangrid, saw their credit ratings downgraded by credit agencies citing an inconsistent and unsupportive regulatory environment.

But that impact can be offset, Ellis said. “Increasing the equity portion of the debt-equity ratio and lowering the ROE produces ratepayer savings” without significantly altering the utility’s credit ratings, he added.

Ellis is a proponent of “competitive direct equity” as the “structural and political solution,” he said. “It would replace administratively set ROEs with a supply and demand-determined cost of equity through a competitive auction that would fundamentally change the utility incentive structure,” he explained.

In today’s rate cases, ROE determination “is a charade that is not calculated consistently or accurately,” Ellis continued. “The utility says it should be 11% and the consumer advocate says it should be 9% and the regulators compromise at 10% and move to the next proceeding.”

Utilities are accustomed to obtaining satisfactory ROEs through rate cases adjudicated by their state regulators and have no widely proposed alternative political solution. They warn regulators that reducing working capital puts reliability at risk.

But utilities’ rate case filings, like Pepco’s, typically include complex formulas for calculating ROE that overwhelm regulators and conclude that the utility needs an ROE increase, said Karl Rabago, a former Texas utilities commissioner and a frequent rate case intervenor on behalf of consumers.

“The original focus on balancing cost-of-service and earnings anticipated regulators would substitute for the forces of competition, and that has been lost,” Rabago said.

Tyler Durden Mon, 07/27/2026 - 21:45

The Giants hosted some familiar names for a tryout and signed two relative unknowns.

Jon Heyman discusses his plan to fix the Mets and why trading Francisco Alvarez should be a part of it. Straight Outta Flushing –> https://youtu.be/mL82wv2BmHI