The executive order added to existing ethics rules that prohibit state officials from using information unknown to the public to enrich themselves or family members, as recent huge payouts on Kalshi and Polymarket have raised suspicions of insider trading.

Users can place bets on everything from sporting games to pop culture and politics – and anonymous traders have recently made millions with shockingly accurate wagers related to US-Israeli strikes on Iran and the ouster of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday banned state-appointed officials with insider information from making bets on prediction markets. Anadolu via Getty Images

Newsom’s press office tagged Polymarket and Kalshi in a mocking tweet late Thursday, asking what the odds were that the guv would ban insider trading on such markets within the next 24 hours.

Kalshi replied that the “odds are 100%” because “Kalshi already bans insiders.”

“This makes sense, and we already do this. At Kalshi, insider trading violates our rules, and we enforce them when we catch insiders,” a Kalshi spokesperson told The Post, adding that government employees “should be aware” that insider trading violates the law.

Polymarket did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.

Will @CAGovernor Gavin Newsom ban CA officials & appointees from betting on predictive markets with insider info in the next 24 hours??

Can we get odds for this? @Polymarket @Kalshi

— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) March 26, 2026

Polymarket and Kalshi earlier this week added new guidelines to their platforms that seek to prevent insider trading – as members of Congress introduced a flurry of legislation targeting the companies, including a proposed ban on bets related to terrorism and war.

In his announcement of the new ban, Newsom took a swing at the Trump administration — the latest in a series of attacks from the lefty pol, who’s widely viewed as a likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender.

“At a time when Trump’s Washington is riddled with ethical failures and insider profiteering, California is drawing a bright line,” Newsom said in a statement. “We’re not going to tolerate this kind of corruption in California.”

Dems have criticized the Trump family’s ties to prediction markets. Donald Trump Jr. is an adviser to both Kalshi and Polymarket.

Users can place bets on everything from sporting games to pop culture and politics. maurice norbert – stock.adobe.com

Newsom is not the first lawmaker to take aim at prediction markets.

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) announced Wednesday that he has banned all of his office staffers from using prediction markets.

Sens. John Curtis (R-Utah) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) have pushed legislation to hand over control of prediction markets to state regulators, not federal ones, arguing that the companies’ new anti-insider trading guidelines are not enough.

Two separate bipartisan proposals introduced in the House and Senate this week seek to ban members of Congress and the president from placing bets on prediction markets related to politics.

Kalshi is being sued for refusing to pay out bets related to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s ouster. NurPhoto via Getty Images

Polymarket’s main trading platform is located offshore and the company does not technically allow American bettors to use the site, so it is able to escape CFTC regulations. 

But there are numerous online guides that detail how US users can skirt these blockages using a VPN, raising questions around how the rules are enforced.

Rival Kalshi – an American prediction market – has said it “doesn’t allow markets directly tied to death” on its platform, after suspected insiders made bets worth $54 million over former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s ouster.

Kalshi is being sued for refusing to pay out the bets after Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli air strikes.

The company also recently took its first punitive actions against alleged inside traders. It banned and fined a MrBeast employee who allegedly traded on contracts related to the YouTuber’s content, as well as Kyle Langford, a former GOP gubernatorial candidate in California who bet on himself to win.

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Researchers say the grade reflects a gap between how easy it is to place a bet and the rules meant to protect people from financial harm or addiction. The scorecard warns that “operators can offer bets to individuals demonstrating addictive gambling behaviors,” drawing attention to what it calls a major weakness in Ohio’s current system.

CASPR scorecard ranks Ohio 23rd nationwide for online gambling safety, giving the state a D grade and citing limited consumer protections. Credit: CASPR

Ohio legalized sports betting in 2022, launching retail sportsbooks and mobile apps at the start of 2023. Since then, wagering by smartphone has quickly become the dominant way residents place bets, mirroring a nationwide shift toward always-available digital gambling platforms.

Scrutiny on Ohio regulatory safety gaps as gambling market keeps expanding

According to the analysis, Ohio’s framework leans more toward allowing gambling than limiting its risks. The state collected 40 points for restrictions on online gambling but only 14 points for direct consumer protections, with almost no credit for tax structure or age-related safeguards.

The report also says several policies commonly recommended by public health experts simply do not exist in Ohio law. The scorecard states there are “no addiction or bankruptcy prevention protections,” and it notes that tools like mandatory loss limits, deposit waiting periods, and tougher advertising restrictions are missing.

Without those guardrails, researchers say mobile betting platforms can accelerate losses because wagers, deposits, and promotional offers happen instantly. Separate industry research has also warned about where gambling money ultimately goes, finding that 74% of U.S. online gambling revenue flowed to offshore platforms rather than regulated domestic operators.

CASPR’s report raises a similar concern about economic leakage. It estimates Ohio could see more than $533 million in annual net economic outflows tied to online betting. As the study explains, “online gambling apps route losses to out-of-state operators and vendors, creating large net leakages from state economies.”

Ohio officials have taken some steps to tighten oversight. Regulators have pursued action against prediction-market style products tied to sports outcomes, and Governor Mike DeWine has recently pushed regulators to review and potentially limit certain proposition bets that critics say can raise integrity and addiction concerns.

Meanwhile, lawmakers are also debating whether to expand the industry further by allowing full online casino games and poker. Even as that discussion moves forward, the CASPR report says Ohio still permits “24/7 sports gambling apps,” while many stronger consumer safeguards remain absent.

Featured image: Canva

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Yes, you read that right: It wasn’t diplomacy, and it wasn’t backroom deals among bigwigs inside some posh chalet here at the World Economic Forum.

Instead, it was the bond market that solved the Greenland crisis, IMHO and in the opinion of my Wall Street sources, persuading the president to settle for a “framework” that merely puts a few more US military bases on the ice-covered island.

I know what you’re thinking: I’ve jumped the shark on this one, so caught up in my fixation on ­finance that I can’t see the broader geopolitical forces that made it impossible for our president to send in the Navy SEALs to seize all that strategically positioned tundra.

True, Trump upset the world when he said he sees Greenland as a piece of the US and aimed to make it happen by any means necessary.

While the island is inhospitable and barely inhabited, it’s also a territory of Denmark, a country that is a NATO member.

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That means we have a treaty — ratified by Congress — not to mess with it.

All of which just proves my point.

While The Donald was blowing smoke about sending in troops, he more seriously brandished his preferred weapon of coercion — massive tariffs — on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland.

They would either hand him Greenland or face an additional 10% tariff rate on their goods, later ramping up to 25%.

Europe went nuts — but so did the US bond market, with yields spiking and prices falling.

Stocks sold off, too, but their declines can be traced to the more serious tanking of bonds, spurred by the prospect of inflation caused by tariffs.

Strong signal

When bond prices fall and interest rates rise, that’s a strong signal that bad things are coming for the economy.

Higher rates mean higher borrowing costs for consumers, who in turn cut back on consumption. It also means we need to pay more money to finance our massive budget deficit.

We’ve seen this movie before.

Remember those onerous “Liberation Day” tariffs?

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The reason they never destroyed the economy as many predicted can be traced to a massive sell-off in bonds.

Recall that the minute Liberation Day was announced, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent faced all of the above.

The yield on the all-important 10-year Treasury bond skyrocketed, heading to 5% — a dangerous level that signals a steep recession even with Trump’s big plans for tax cuts and deregulation.

Traders, so-called bond vigilantes, kept selling until Bessent ­announced the whole exercise of “liberation” was on hold.

In fact, bond prices didn’t stop tumbling until Bessent began to cut trade deals with the world including our arch-nemesis China, taking tariffs to much lower levels.

The markets then resumed their upward trajectory, put in motion by the president’s deregulation and tax cutting.

We didn’t have quite the same scenario when Trump announced his Greenland tariff scheme, but it was starting to head in that direction. The 10-year note spiked to above 4.3% and stocks sold off, and hard.

Exit ramp

That is, until Trump on Wednesday announced here at Davos that he had a new deal, his Greenland “framework,” or exit ramp — where he appears to have gotten nothing really new since Denmark has been largely compliant about letting the US military set up shop on its turf.

Markets didn’t care — in fact, they celebrated.

Bonds recovered, as did stocks.

In other words, the vigilantes struck again.

Former President Bill Clinton famously summed up the power of the bond markets years ago, back in the early 1990s, when he was told by one of his economic advisers that he needed to raise taxes for deficit reduction or bonds would collapse and interest rates rise.

He was flirting with recession.

His exact words to Robert Rubin, as reported by journalist Bob Woodward (which I later confirmed with Rubin, then the National Economic Council chief) went like this: “You mean to tell me that the success of my program and my re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of f–king bond traders?”

Rubin said yeah.

Now, those f–king traders are even more important to Trump and Bessent.

The debt and deficits of the Clinton years were minuscule compared to what we have now: Annual budget shortfalls of close to $2 trillion.

Our debt is at $38 trillion, a whopping 125% of economic output.

And that is how a bunch of ­“f–king bond traders” — not a huddle of power players in Davos — solved the Greenland crisis.

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The timing isn’t a coincidence. The results come at a time when gaming commissions in several states are debating whether these markets should fall under their authority, a decision that could change how the platforms work.

The survey was run by Axis Research from September 18 to 23, 2025, and included 1,219 voters from across the country. According to the memo cited by Kalshi, “Even if I don’t participate in these types of markets, I believe all Americans should have access and the option to decide for themselves,” reportedly earned agreement from 89% of respondents. The company says the results show broad public support for keeping prediction markets available.

Kalshi-backed poll chart showing most demographic groups favor federal regulators over state gaming commissions for overseeing financial and prediction market activities. Credit: Kalshi

According to the study, 70% of people in the survey said Americans should be able to invest in specific outcomes, including elections and agricultural futures. The memo says support crosses party lines, with approval from 75% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats.

The poll also shows that most respondents see prediction markets as financial tools rather than gambling as 89% said buying stocks, mutual funds, and commodities contracts is a financial investment rather than a form of gambling. When asked who should regulate prediction markets, 79% preferred federal regulators, while only 21% chose state gaming commissions.

Kalshi’s Head of Corporate Development, Sara Slane, said the results make a strong case for keeping prediction markets under federal oversight through the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. “Americans want access to prediction markets reliably regulated by financial experts in the federal government, not 50 different ill-equipped state gaming commissions,” she said.

“American voters want the freedom to choose how to invest their own money without state-level bureaucrats interfering.” Slane added that “the current federal regulatory structure is best equipped to oversee this financial activity, not an unpredictable state regulatory patchwork,” and said the company supports a system in which “every American, no matter where they live, should be able to make financial decisions for themselves without state casino regulators getting in the way.”

The poll also found that many people are worried about what could happen if regulation shifts to the states. The memo says 82% agreed that having 50 different state rules would create a messy patchwork that puts extra burdens on consumers and makes things harder for middle and lower income households. While 83% said inconsistent state rules would cause confusion, and another 83% agreed that a state by state approach could end up with looser rules that open the door to corruption.

Context and potential bias of Kalshi poll

Since the data was released by Kalshi, a platform that would clearly benefit from staying under federal oversight, some observers may see the poll’s framing as supporting the company’s own goals.

The press release points out public agreement with statements that describe state regulation as confusing, corrupt, or not well equipped, while presenting federal regulators as competent and fair. When questions are framed this way, the results can end up reinforcing the sponsor’s preferred regulatory outcome.

Regulatory dispute

Adding to the context, Kalshi is also dealing with legal fights in several states over whether its contracts should be treated as sports bets that fall under state gambling rules rather than as federally regulated event contracts.

States such as Nevada and New Jersey have issued cease and desist orders, and Kalshi has responded by suing the regulators and arguing that its contracts fall entirely under the CFTC’s authority. At least five state lawsuits claim that Kalshi’s products are actually illegal sports wagers dressed up as financial derivatives.

Featured image: Kalshi

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The premises have previously been involved in a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and National Indian Gaming Commission case into Jonathan Cernek, the former chairman of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana.

Now the gaming division of the Louisiana State Police has confirmed that Cernek and others are part of a wider ongoing financial misconduct case, and a shooting was reported at the home of the current Coushatta Tribe Chairman, David Sickey.

Louisiana State Police confirm Coushatta Tribe casino case

Lt. Robert Dowdy, with the Louisiana State Police Gaming Enforcement Division, was interviewed by the Louisiana Illuminator and replied to the case involving the Coushatta Casino Resort as “ongoing.”

In a dramatic addition to an already complicated case, a shot was fired at Sickey’s home, traveling through his child’s bedroom window. No injuries were reported in the 11:15 p.m. shooting, but a slug was recovered from the scene by the Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriff’s Office.

We reported the initial case involving the alleged actions of Cernek, but the other individuals under investigation by the FBI and the National Indian Gaming Commission had not been named.

According to documents obtained by the news outlet, the case has spanned months of investigation into Cernek and other individuals close to the resort’s financial mechanisms.

They include former employees, Paula Corliss, the venue’s purchasing manager, and Todd Stewart, who served as the general manager and chief financial officer.

More details in the casino case come to light

According to documents linked to the case, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor received submissions from Stewart as part of an independent audit that showed credit card misuse.

A request by the National Indian Gaming Commission ordered the Coushatta Tribe’s casino oversight panel to review both Stewart and Corliss’ licenses. Neither was renewed.

The National Indian Gaming Commission issued a letter to the panel regarding Stewart’s license and called for its revocation on multiple grounds.

The regulatory body stated that Stewart did not “disclose suspected fraud to the external auditors” and did not make a potential lender of $150 million for a construction project involving the casino aware of this either.

Featured image: Coushatta Casino Resort via YouTube

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Where does a joke end? The last decision an artist makes is deciding when a piece is finished, when one more brushstroke might ruin the painting. When it comes to the freedom of expression, the right wing in America has dropped the curtain. The right’s podcasters, TV stars, agency heads, and presidents have decided that the joke is over.

Jimmy Kimmel was ripped off the air this week because a few sensitive people can’t take a joke [ed. note: or are pretending they can’t] and a series of companies are trying to make a profit. The hypocrisy and shortsightedness of this shouldn’t be a shock. Those profiting from art have rarely been willing to compromise cash for values. Now though, there’s little safe haven in independent art either, where podcasting and comedy have welcomed truly noxious voices that are eager to remake themselves as Wormtongues in the halls of power.

To those who have been aghast at the the genocide in Palestine and have watched for years as protesters are snatched off the streets and deported, the hope that the powerful might find moral courage has long fallen away. But for many, Jimmy Kimmel’s cancellation is ringing fascism alarm bells for the first time, and bringing into focus just how eagerly pliable many Americans are.

Kimmel was canceled at the end of a Rube Goldberg machine that started with a podcast appearance. Free speech hypocrite and Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr appeared on a right wing podcast on Wednesday, and was mad at one of Kimmel’s late night jokes that mentioned dead podcaster Charlie Kirk. Carr called the joke “the sickest conduct possible” and suggested that the FCC could revoke ABC’s affiliate licenses in retaliation, forcing Disney to punish Kimmel. Nexstar, an affiliate group that owns 197 TV stations across the US, heard the call and threatened to stop airing Kimmel, which tipped the hand of ABC’s leadership at Disney.

Nexstar is trying to merge with Tegna, another large media company, a deal which will need federal approval. And if you’re surprised Disney isn’t doing the right thing, I have a magic castle to sell you.

No matter what you’re fleeing, a right wing heel turn will welcome you in and give you access to a lot of money.

It doesn’t matter to any of these people that the joke wasn’t made at the expense of Kirk, but was instead about how the Trump administration is using his death as an excuse to shut down criticism. The content of the joke wouldn’t stop the state reprisals that were already in the works. Days earlier, the Vice President had taken over Kirk’s podcast to announce their planned crackdown on the left, a holy war in the name of a recent martyr, taking advantage of our collective lack of reading comprehension.

So many podcasts. And suddenly they’re powerful, influential enough to take down a late night network show and to announce a major national program of retaliation. Comedy podcasts, especially those typified by the Austin stand-up scene, have become a haven for canceled creeps and the fascist-curious, and a big part of the culture of anti-woke, reactionary guys. These edgy podcasts claim that it doesn’t matter what you say, as long as it’s funny, and built a parallel meritocracy of the aggrieved around this worldview, where you’re judged on your ability to cross certain lines and toe others. It’s a stable ecosystem with a lot of money, which is exceedingly rare in creative fields.

In practice this approach only cheapens the form. You don’t have to believe what you’re saying, as long as it gets the right reaction. It sets up a perverse loop where the content of jokes or takes no longer matters, not really. People who don’t care about saying horrible things, things they don’t believe in, can get laughs and get paid. But people who do care about horrible things and want to see them happen in the world, can voice their beliefs out loud, and be rewarded with laughter and applause. A world where nothing and everything is a joke.

Naturally cancellation doesn’t penetrate this bubble as you might expect, but insofar as the cries of cancel culture were only ever the privileged fearing their own downward mobility, it’s not that surprising. No matter what you’re fleeing, a right wing heel turn will welcome you in and give you access to a lot of money and the most powerful people in the world.

This world has become so powerful that it’s escaped containment, riding alongside Trump’s blitzkrieg and lashing out at the rest of us. Carefully avoiding stepping on their toes doesn’t seem to help. Look at Jimmy Fallon, who steered clear of the wrong jokes and tousled the right hair, and is still catching all-caps strays on Truth Social. I wonder if this is the moment when the comedian, who went on yet another podcast to blame an online “gang-mentality’” for his choice to be “never too hard on anyone,” will finally see that there’s no middle way out of this bind.

If all of your fantasies are imagined confrontations, whether in roast battles, or campus debates, or first-person shooters, you are not so secretly rehearsing for the chance to fight and punish your enemies.

We’re the only ones who can save ourselves. I’m inspired by the music world’s antifascism, where the only option was mutual aid and direct action. Did the cops care that white power bands were playing a bar show for a couple dozen people? Of course not, so it was up to the punks to chase them off. Protect your friends and your spaces, or lose them.

Large parts of the comedy world didn’t learn this lesson—I’ve written before about how comedy failed us. There are some who have been ringing the alarm. Seth Simons has been relentlessly documenting comedy’s right wing for years. And Kliph Nesteroff’s 2024 book Outrageous on the culture wars is excellent too. I returned this morning to the section on the German cabaret artist Werner Finck and his Nazi foe Joseph Goebbels, who sneered that “we do not permit ourselves to be ridiculed” and “Comedians have no right to be jocular about such things as the Nazi four-year economic plan or Adolf Hitler’s demand for colonies because they are too important and require too much careful thinking on the part of big minds.”

Marc Maron has been great these days too, calling out fash-adjacent comics and even taking some of the blame for the rise of Rogan and his ilk. This is the sort of solidarity we need right now, when our neighbors are being dragged out of the country, our trans friends are being vilified for everything, and our Kimmels are getting booted off the air. I’m glad to see unions stepping up today: The American Federation of Musicians, SAG-AFTRA, and the WGA spoke out, calling this “state censorship” and decrying the “abuse of governmental power” and “acts of corporate cowardice.”

How does the joke go on? How do you satirize a moment like this? I was reminded today of a short Connor O’Malley made seven years ago called “Outlet Mall Special Ops,” about a guy defending a strip mall from ISIS because he saw the Benghazi movie too many times. This character is on our feeds every day now, appearing as ICE goons cosplaying as tactical bad boys, or people standing outside screaming with 8.5”x11” printouts, or anyone else breathless with flailing rage and holes bored in their psyches from Facebook posts.

There’s a line in O’Malley’s “Outlet Mall Special Ops” where his character says, “I do hope there is an attack though, if I’m being honest. I mean I don’t want to fucking come down here for nothing.” If all of your fantasies are imagined confrontations, whether in roast battles, or campus debates, or first-person shooters, you are not so secretly rehearsing for the chance to fight and punish your enemies. Trump and his hogmen have built a permission structure of anger that’s allowed our worst podcasters to be at the center of the action, where they’ve always imagined themselves to be.

The world is being ravaged by these cosplayers. Podcasters on the right (and the reactionary center) normalize fascism by cosplaying at concerned free speech warriors. Israel pummels Gaza by cosplaying at self defense. ICE kicks in doors and disappears our neighbors by cosplaying at Marvel cartoons. But for the rest of us, it’s no longer a LARP, and the joke is getting less and less funny every day.

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Kelly is a former librarian and a long-time blogger at STACKED. She’s the editor/author of (DON’T) CALL ME CRAZY: 33 VOICES START THE CONVERSATION ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH and the editor/author of HERE WE ARE: FEMINISM FOR THE REAL WORLD. Her next book, BODY TALK, will publish in Fall 2020. Follow her on Instagram @heykellyjensen.

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Despite the legal precedent of “local control” in Florida’s statutes related to book bans in public schools, the State Board of Education has been threatening legal action against districts that don’t remove 55 books they deem inappropriate. It began with Florida’s Education Commissioner and Attorney General writing letters to leadership at Hillsborough County Public Schools. The Education Commissioner’s letter stated that the district had two books deemed “pornographic” in the collection that needed to be removed immediately. The two books are Call Me By Your Name and Jack of Hearts and Other Parts. The Attorney General’s letter added four more titles: Choke, Beautiful, What Girls Are Made Of, and Breathless, which he called “patently pornographic.”

The removal of those six books–done without formal review per both school policy and state policy–then led to the agreement by the Hillsborough County Schools superintendent to pull 49 more books without review, following a heated meeting with the state Board of Education. Among those books was a title that the district had already had a challenge to and that went through the formal review process. It had been retained for certain grade levels.

Targeting Hillsborough was intentional. Florida’s State Board of Education has taken on the role of statewide book censors, despite not having the legal mechanisms in place that states like Utah and South Carolina do. While Florida’s Department of Education requires that each school submit to them books removed from their libraries and why annually, those lists aren’t used to then demand removal of those books from additional schools (as in Utah).

The threats made toward Hillsborough were meant to make other districts not-so-silently remove titles before they, too, became state targets. The Commissioner of the Board has gone so far as to use Twitter to demand book removals and issue threats against state school districts.

The Florida State Board of Education is appointed by the governor. The new Commissioner, Anastasios Kamoutsas, was appointed in June by the governor.

Literary Activism

News you can use plus tips and tools for the fight against censorship and other bookish activism!

Now, just weeks after the gross overreach by the state into policies at the local school district level, eight additional Florida public school districts have capitulated. Each has agreed to remove any of the 55 titles on their shelves deemed to have “sexual content.” Removals will be done without formal review of the titles.

These eight districts represent only those on the record having agreed to the removals. It’s likely others have agreed or will remove the titles quietly so as not to catch the attention of the State Board of Education. The districts who have agreed to removals publicly include Hillsborough, Broward, Columbia, Escambia, Orange, Osceola, Pasco, Palm Beach, Pinellas, and St. Johns. Each district joining in the effort to ban books without review is another district bowing to a state-level committee, rather than meeting the needs and interests of their own community. Each district joining in the effort to ban books is another district making clear they’re more interested in showing their loyalty to the state than their obligations to taxpayers.

Escambia County remains one of the most censorious districts in the nation, and it is currently defendant in two separate lawsuits over book bans.  

It comes as no surprise that the majority of books on the list of 55 are by or about queer people and/or people of color. The same books that have been in the crosshairs from the start of this wave of book censorship remain there. Here’s the full list of books being banned right now in Florida schools, despite the state not having the authority to demand their removal at the district level:

There may also soon be three more books on the list. State Commissioner Kamoutsas demanded via Twitter late last week that Hillsborough–and by extension, all Florida public schools–remove Trans Mission by Alex Bertie from shelves, as well as to prepare to remove Blankets by Craig Thompson and Identical by Ellen Hopkins.

How does this list compare to the state-sanctioned banned book lists in Utah and South Carolina? Florida’s list includes 13 of the 18 titles banned in all schools in Utah. Florida’s list includes 12 of the 21 titles banned in all public schools in South Carolina.

Florida’s list does not include the third installment in Sarah J. Maas’s five-book “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series, A Court of Wings and Ruin, a reminder of how arbitrary and haphazard this list is.

Florida’s lawmakers failed to pass new legislation this year that would change the state’s working definition of obscenity. That failure helped tee off this round of censorship.

The Florida Freedom to Read Project asks public education and intellectual freedom advocates to continue showing up to school board meetings, continue asking questions about why districts are making these decisions, and to alert districts who haven’t agreed to blanket removals without review that they’re being watched by taxpayers.

The post Under Threat from State, Florida Public Schools Are Banning These 55+ Books Without Review appeared first on Our Story Insight.

At 17 State St., which RFR has owned for 25 years, five renewals totaled 68,362 square feet. The largest was for Alphadyne Investment Management, which renewed early on 43,872 square feet.

Rosen, who’s shored up his formerly under-siege empire one property at a time, also signed deals with three new tenants totaling over 12,000 square feet, including AI-powered life insurance tech firm Optifino.

At 17 State St., which RFR has owned for 25 years, five renewals totaled 68,362 square feet. RFR

The 4,300 square-foot amenities space on the third floor. RFR

Meanwhile, 17 State launched a new, 4,300 square-foot amenities space on the third floor. The Liberty Lounge and Conference Center boasts a lounge, cafe, library, screening room and ornamental foliage as an homage to nearby Battery Park.

As per CoStar, the tower is 89% leased. Asking rents range from $65 to $75 per square foot.

The reinvestment and repositioning of 5 Penn Plaza continues to pay off for investor-landlord Stephen Haymes. The 1916 structure between West 33rd and 34th streets landed another new tenant — Fireblocks, a blockchain security platform that helps to store, transfer and manage cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.

The firm, which is moving and expanding from 441 Ninth Ave., signed for 35,000 square feet on the entire 23rd floor and part of the penthouse with a wraparound terrace.

The building  boasts a new lobby, open views, an amenities center and a dog-friendly roof terrace,  and is more than 85% leased. Asking rents are in the $70-$80 per square foot range.

A JLL team led by Mitchell Konsker represented the landlord.  Newmark’s Aaron Ellison and Adam Spector repped the tenant.

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