United States Customs and Border Protection is asking tech companies to send pitches for a real-time face recognition tool that would take photos of every single person in a vehicle at a border crossing, including anyone in the back seats, and match them to travel documents, according to a document posted in a federal register last week. The request for information, or RIF, says that CBP already has a face recognition tool that takes a picture of a person at a port of entry and compares it to travel or identity documents that someone gives to a border officer, as well as other photos from those documents already 'in government holdings.' An agency under the Department of Homeland Security, CBP says that its face recognition tool 'is currently operating in the air, sea, and land pedestrian environments.' The agency's goal is to bring it to 'the land vehicle environment.' According to a page on CBP's website updated last week, the agency is currently 'testing' how to do so. The RIF says that these tests demonstrate that while this face recognition tool has 'improved,' it isn't always able to get photos of every vehicle passenger, especially if they're in the second or third row....

More than half of the capital raised was allocated to Ares' credit group, as investor appetite for private credit continues to surge. The firm's Q1 results include $1.09 in after-tax realised income per share and $367.3m in fee-related earnings. Ares declared a quarterly dividend of $1.12 per share for its Class A and non-voting common stock, alongside a $0.84375 dividend for its 6.75% Series B preferred shares. 'We reported strong first quarter results with robust fundraising and investing activities,' said Michael Arougheti, CEO of Ares. 'Assets under management surpassed a half a trillion dollars, reflecting 20% or more year-over-year growth in many of our key financial metrics.' CFO Jarrod Phillips added, 'With a record amount of assets under management not yet paying fees of nearly $100bn, we remain well positioned to make attractive investments in a volatile market environment.' Subscribe to our Newsletter to increase your edge. Don't worry about the news anymore, through our newsletter you'll receive weekly access to what is happening. Join 120,000 other PE professionals today....

Everyone who follows American politics is going to spend a lot of time thinking about presidential and judicial power over the next few years. But to really understand the coming clashes between the president and the courts, and the constitutional environment in which they're taking place, we have to pay attention to what isn't happening in our system of government almost as much as to what is. Congress is not doing its job, and the vacuum that its dereliction has created is encouraging presidential and judicial overreach. Congress's weakness is our deepest constitutional problem, because it is not a function of one man's whims and won't pass with one administration's term. It is an institutional dynamic that has disordered our politics for a generation. It results from choices that members of Congress have made, and only those members can improve the situation. It is hard to imagine any meaningful constitutional renewal in America unless they do. A weak Congress is not the norm in the American system, and a Congress this weak would surely have surprised the authors of the Constitution. They were far more concerned about excessive congressional strength, worrying it might muscle out the executive and the judiciary. 'In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates,' James Madison wrote. Looking around at the 13 state governments in the late 18th century, he observed that 'the legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.'...

Mars, one of our closest planetary neighbors, has fascinated people for hundreds of years, partly because it is so similar to Earth. It is about the same size, contains similar rocks and minerals, and is not too much farther out from the Sun. Because Mars and Earth share so many features, scientists have long wondered whether Mars could have once harbored life. Today, Mars is very cold and dry, with little atmosphere and no liquid water on the surface ' traits that make it a hostile environment for life. But some observations suggest that ancient Mars may have been warmer, wetter and more favorable for life. Even though scientists observing the surface of Mars conclude that it was once warmer than it is today, they haven't been able to find much concrete evidence for what caused it to be warmer. But a study my colleagues and I published in April 2025 indicates the presence of carbonate minerals on the planet, which could help solve this puzzle. Carbonate minerals contain carbon dioxide, which, when present in the atmosphere, warms a planet. These minerals suggest that carbon dioxide could have previously existed in the atmosphere in larger quantities and provide exciting new clues about ancient Mars' environment....