~Bitcoin News of the Day

• Holdings MicroStrategy has increased its Bitcoin holdings to 331,200 BTC, following the acquisition of 51,780 BTC for approximately $4.6 billion. The company now has an average purchase price of $88,627 per Bitcoin. This comes just after the purchase of 27,200 BTC for around $2 billion.

Global Trade & ~Econ

• Powell’s extra caution compared to 2016 is striking, given that Trump’s policies are expected to reignite price pressures, and Fed officials are still working to finish off their toughest bout with inflation in four decades. How much further they can lower interest rates will still depend, at some point, on how they see the cross-currents of tax, tariff and immigration policies affecting the economy.

~Politics_and_Law

• Similar bans targeting trans people using bathrooms associated with their gender identities, particularly in schools, have sparked controversy in recent years – with supporters arguing that the measures protect students while critics say that they are dehumanizing and unnecessary.

~Stacker_Sports News

• The Lakers announced Monday that they have commissioned a statue to stand in Star Plaza immortalizing the coach who won four championships with the "Showtime" Lakers of the 1980s. Riley also won championship rings with the Lakers as a player and an assistant coach.

~Tech & ~Science

• The US Patent and Trademark Office banned the use of generative artificial intelligence for any purpose last year, citing security concerns with the technology as well as the propensity of some tools to exhibit “bias, unpredictability, and malicious behavior,” according to an April 2023 internal guidance memo obtained by WIRED through a public records request. Jamie Holcombe, the chief information officer of the USPTO, wrote that the office is “committed to pursuing innovation within our agency” but are still “working to bring these capabilities to the office in a responsible way.”

~History with Mystery

• Shortly before midnight on March 12, 1928, the ground north of Los Angeles started to rumble. Houses trembled. Windows rattled. Stirred awake by a barking dog, Chester Smith heard trees and utility poles snapping in the distance. Although a minor tremor had shaken California’s San Francisquito Canyon two days earlier, the rancher knew this was no earthquake—but a man-made catastrophe. Having survived a flood in the past, Smith raced barefoot to higher ground while shouting to his family, “The dam is broke!”

~Entertainment World

• In a court filing to the judge overseeing Combs’ bail hearing on Friday — his third since a mid-September arrest and incarceration at the notorious Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn — several prosecuting attorneys with the Southern District of New York tell Judge Arun Subramanian how Combs has obtained multiple inmates’ phone lines in attempts to evade scrutiny, control witnesses and influence testimony while jailed. They also allege that he uses a non-authorized messaging app to communicate with the outside world and coerced his family to create a birthday message intended for the eyes of potential jurors before his sensational trial begins in the spring.

Thanks for reading 🙏