Almost Daily Grant’s reports,

From CBS News local affiliate KDKA:

A Pittsburgh-area firefighter has been suspended by his own department after he was arrested and charged with setting four fires in the same community his department serves. 

The Arnold Fire Department announced early Thursday that they suspended 21-year-old firefighter Andrew Bischof his arrest on arson charges in connection to four suspicious fires in the New Kensington and Arnold areas over the weekend.

Amidst hostage scenarios, like the Hamas situation, it is important to remember why governments should not pay to have their nationals released. Paying for hostages to be released creates a perverse incentive in which more people are taken hostage to receive more payments. This is undoubtedly a subpar outcome.

Last month, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University announced that it was laying off almost all of its staff, in spite of having received almost $55 million in funds in the last three years. Critics have jumped on Kendi’s fall to renew arguments that he’s a grifter or a “midwit,” but there’s another underappreciated aspect to Kendi’s fall.

“Whenever and however [government] is instituted, the people must cede to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with requisite powers.” (emphasis added)

—John Jay, “Federalist No. 2”

“Like breathing, [government] is not permitted to depend on our volition. Necessity will force it on all communities in some one form or another.”

—John C. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government

Money supply growth fell again in August, remaining deep in negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in twenty-eight years. August’s drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years.