NextDraft

Belfast and The Furious

Dave Pell — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 19:05:40 GMT

President Trump just signed a bill into law that “gives his immigration and deportation agenda a nearly $70 billion boostfor the rest of his time in the White House ... His signature ended a nearly six-month fight over Department of Homeland Security funding that began with the shooting deaths of deaths of two U.S. citizens, Alex Pretti and Renee Good.” Keeping outsiders out is a subject that is hardly limited to the White House, or even the United States. In Northern Ireland, the issue spilled out onto the streets after the violent stabbing of a man by a Sudanese asylum seeker went viral on social media. The “footage was posted by Tommy Robinson and other far-right figures, prompting demands for protests in response ... X owner Elon Musk shared a post from Robinson announcing locations of protests, and another from the far-right Restore Britain party that read: ‘Do not make peace with evil. Destroy it.’” And destruction followed. “Masked men set houses, vehicles and a city bus ablaze in Belfast on Tuesday night, torching neighborhoods across the city ... Ignoring pleas for calm from politicians and clergy, rioters rampaged through heavily immigrant neighborhoods in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, in some cases going door-to-door and causing some families to flee under police protection. Men in balaclavas and hoods shouted ‘foreigners out.’” WaPo (Gift Article): A new wave of anti-immigrant violence hits U.K. as riots convulse Belfast.

+ Northern Ireland is hardly a hotbed of immigration. It “is the least ethnically diverse part of the United Kingdom, with just about 3.4 percent of residents from minority ethnic backgrounds.” That hasn’t stopped it from being swept up in this globalized version of the Troubles. “In some communities people feel left behind, struggling against a lack of jobs and opportunity. That helped create the conditions for anti-immigrant and far-right sentiment to grow and be picked up by fringe groups. ‘People being burned out of their homes is not new to Belfast,’ said Carl Whyte, a local councilor who grew up in the north part of the city, alluding to the sectarian conflict known as the Troubles. ‘And last night, we saw that being used toward immigrant families.’” NYT (Gift Article): Police Step Up Security in Northern Ireland After Night of Violence.

+ “On a residential street draped in loyalist flags near Belfast’s Shankill Road, the masked men approached a house with a boarded-up window and a security camera stationed outside. As a woman from an ethnic minority background looked down from an upstairs window, some of the men rushed the front door and broke it down. With the air thick with smoke from fireworks, they attacked the downstairs windows with bricks. As they stormed the property, some claimed to be ‘liberating’ it. Graffiti nearby demanded ‘local homes for local people.’ A woman in the crowd said to her friend: ‘There’s wee girls inside.’”

+ The family of Stephen Ogilvy, the victim who was seriously injured in the original crime, issued a statement: “We want to make it absolutely clear that overnight unrest is not welcome, and peaceful protest is the only way forward. We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country, including in our healthcare system and hospitality sector and we depend on them to make our country work ... [We don’t want this] terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility.” I wonder if Elon Musk will amplify that message as well. Here’s the latest from BBC and BelfastLive.

2

Great Expectations, Harsh Calculations

“Fifteen years ago, the world’s billionaires collectively had $4.5 trillion. By 2024, their wealth had more than tripled to $14.2 trillion. Now, their combined wealth totals $20.1 trillion — an amount that is equivalent to nearly a fifth of the entire world’s total yearly output.” NYT (Gift Article): Billionaires’ Billions Are Increasing Faster Than Ever. “The stunning figures — calculated by the French economist Gabriel Zucman, director of the International Tax Observatory, a research organization funded by the European Union — reveal more than a surprisingly rapid increase in the concentration of wealth at the tippy top. They also reflect a series of important global trends: the growing dominance of a few technology companies leading artificial intelligence development; the shrinking slice of the economic pie that goes to workers; and a deepening inequality that will be handed down to the next generation.”

3

Dread Lasso

The World Cup always has its share of controversies and negativities before the games actually begin. But this year, the ticket prices, hotel vacancies, and general unwelcoming vibes in one of the host countries make things seem even less pitch-perfect than usual. Will, as is often the case, the actual matches achieve the goal of kicking the bad vibes to the curb? The Ringer: The 2026 World Cup Is an Experiment Like No Other.

4

More Than a Little Slice of Paradise

“Throughout his life, Mr. Basinger (pronounced BAY-singer) devoted himself to pursuits that some would have dismissed as fanciful. As a young man, he walked from New York to San Francisco. He moved to Kenya on a whim, becoming fluent in Swahili after spending five years teaching at a rural school for boys. Perhaps most improbably, he became a musician for the National Theater of the Deaf. He was not deaf, but he mastered sign language and spent decades performing with, writing for and helping run the troupe.” And then he decided to try something else. NYT (Gift Article): John Basinger, Who Memorized All 12 Books of ‘Paradise Lost,’ Dies at 92.

5

Extra, Extra

Throw the Book At Em: “On July 17, 2025, at around 6 o’clock in the evening, President Trump’s top officials filed into the White House Situation Room — the secure bunker where classified and high-stakes national security matters are discussed and decided. This was where President Barack Obama, along with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the president’s national security team, watched the raid that ended with the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011. Now, however, Trump’s most senior advisers had gathered — without him — to figure out how to gain some measure of control over a very different kind of crisis threatening to engulf the presidency: the Epstein files.” Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan with an outtake of an upcoming book: Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files. (As per usual, this craziness makes for good book fodder, but no one is likely to be held accountable.)

+ Inflation and Other Blow Ups: Inflation Heated Up to 4.2% in May, as Energy Costs Continued to Bite. And the key driver of that inflation is heating up as well. Trump: “We’ll see what happens. But we hit them hard yesterday and we’re going to hit them again hard today ... We were we were really close to a deal. But they keep tapping us along. They keep playing us for suckers.” Here’s the latest from The Guardian and NBC.

+ Screen Passes: “The ingredient, bemotrizinol, works by blocking ultraviolet radiation. It filters out two kinds of ultraviolet rays: ultraviolet A, which contributes to wrinkles and skin aging, and ultraviolet B, which causes sunburns.” NYT: F.D.A. Clears Sunscreen Ingredient Long Used in Europe and Asia. In other sun news: Solar Passes Coal in Historic Shift for US Electricity Mix.

+ S.E.O. Brother, Where Are Thou? “According to Shopify, the best e-commerce platform is Shopify ... If rankings produced by the very company at the top of the list seem unlikely to fool anyone, that’s because humans probably aren’t the target audience. Chatbots are.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Your Search Results Are Getting Sloptimized.

+ Prediction Market: “A Chinese company has been trying to develop artificial intelligence-powered technology that would enable authoritarian governments to not just monitor dissidents but also potentially predict who could become one in the future. The work, which appears to be in the research stage, is ripped out of dystopian science fiction, offering a glimpse of a world in which an authoritarian state is able to move against its citizens before they begin any public dissent.” China Aims A.I. at Predicting Who Could Pose a Political Risk.

+ A Whole New Ballgame: On second thought, maybe there should be crying in baseball... “Around the league, more and more often, catchers need a minute. It’s become routine to see the umpire call time as the catcher lies in agony, doubled over after yet another foul ball or spiked pitch caroms into a sensitive area.” The Athletic (Gift Article): Ball strike system: Why MLB catchers are getting hit in the groin more often. (In the case of the Giants this season, it feels like the same thing is happening to the fans.)

6

Bottom of the News

“Describing an elaborate ruse that ‘read like a movie script,’ Canadian authorities accused a longtime Air Canada pilot of fraud on Tuesday, saying he had flown many hundreds of hours over 17 years despite not having the proper credential to sit in the captain’s seat.”

+ Not all jobs are being taken over by AI. You can still apply to be the Head of Stonehenge.

You're Gonna Need a Bigger Cup

Dave Pell — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:59:32 GMT

The beer-loving character Norm on Cheers, known for his famous barroom scene entry lines, once offered this gem: “It’s a dog-eat-dog world and I’m wearing Milk Bone underwear.” And that glass half-empty view on life was offered before the latest report on alcohol consumption. Long story short: BevMo? More like, BevLess. NYT (Gift Article): Health Risks of Alcohol Accelerate After One Drink a Day, Study Finds. “At one drink a day, the researchers found, there was an increased risk of premature death from an illness or injury directly attributable to alcohol, though it was small — one in 1,000 people. But the risk of premature death jumped to one in 25 for those who had two drinks a day, a level long considered safe for men, according to the study, which was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.” Sadly, this study is coming out in 2026, an American year when even the driest of teetotalers are lining up for a turn at the keg stand. These days, you have to pregame before reading the news. For those who find the drinking news hard to swallow, there is a competing study. “It suggested that moderate drinking (up to two drinks a day for men and one for women) was healthier than not drinking at all ... Some of the panelists behind that report had financial ties to the alcohol industry.” What was the title of the study? The Next Round’s on Us?

+ Guess which report is being adopted by the administration? “A study commissioned by President Joe Biden’s administration to investigate alcohol-related health harms was released independently on Tuesday, after President Donald Trump’s administration decided not to feature the researchers’ findings in new dietary guidelines as it faced pushback from the alcohol industry and a congressional committee.” Is it any wonder that reading these stories, as much as anything else, is what led to my drinking problem?

2

Leave No Unmanned Behind

Drones are just being used to fight wars. They’re now being used to carry out rescue missions. “The unmanned surface vessel, a Saronic Corsair, located the crew, who had spent two hours in the waters off the coast of Oman and brought them to shore, said Capt. Tim Hawkins, spokesman for U.S. Central Command.” Drone boat rescues crew of downed US Apache helicopter near Hormuz.

+ “In a statement on Truth Social, Trump said he had been informed ‘that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache Helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz.’ While the pilots were uninjured, ‘the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack.’” This comes just days after Trump said Israel must not respond to a series of Iranian missile attacks. The only thing consistent about Trump’s war pronouncements has been the claim that a peace deal is right around the corner. “Including the period before the ceasefire, he’s done it at least 38 times. That’s the number of times he’s said directly — in social media posts, public appearances and phone calls with the media — that a deal was nigh or claimed Iran was desperate to cut one.” Here’s the latest from The Guardian.

+ Conflicts are on the rise globally, at the highest level since WWII.

3

Well Endowed

“As bad as this situation is, we have a playbook for addressing such crises. But it requires a huge team effort — and this time, the United States has undermined its ability to help by shuttering U.S.A.I.D., cutting staff at C.D.C. and withdrawing from the W.H.O. Thousands of people could pay the ultimate price for that recklessness.” Jeremy Konyndyk in the NYT (Gift Article): This Could Be the Worst Ebola Outbreak in History.

+ In a parallel universe, you might think that Elon Musk being a key architect and enabler of these terrible cuts would mean some more ethical investors would be rooting against the SpaceX IPO that will likely make him the first trillionaire. But in this universe, just about everyone is in on the deal. WSJ (Gift Article): University Endowments Are About to Strike It Big on the SpaceX IPO. Forget USAID, Nazi salutes, and wanton racism. With the money at stake, universities don’t even care that Elon doesn’t like universities.

4

The Curse of the Babyno

The Knicks had won 13 straight playoff games. Trump showed up at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks lost. Call it the Curse of the Babyno. Trump couldn’t have had much fun at the game. And I’m not just saying that because the Knicks lost and Trump, always the norm breaker, fell asleep in the city that never sleeps. President Trump roundly booed by New York crowd at NBA Finals Game 3. Trump spent much of his life trying to be loved in his hometown. He couldn’t make it there. Donald Trump Got Absolutely Destroyed By Boos At The Knicks Game. (Of course, even in getting booed, Trump was still the biggest story in the biggest show in the biggest town, and that’s how he likes it.) We won’t know until the finals are over, but maybe Trump didn’t curse the Knicks. He just cursed the world and the Knicks are part of the world.

5

Extra, Extra

Reality Bytes: “It took Farid just a few minutes to confirm the video had been made using artificial intelligence. ‘Looking at videos like this is sort of my life,’ he said. ‘Some mornings I’m watching videos of people getting their heads chopped off before I’ve even rubbed the sleep from my eyes.’” When reality is in doubt, news editors ask this Berkeley professor: Is it AI? (But there’s only one of him and AI is getting better every day...)

+ Crypto Apocalypto: “A Reuters examination shows that the Trump family has used this [crypto] template to generate at least $2.3 billion in profit from investors since Trump retook the presidency. On the other side of that cash bonanza for America’s first family: the more than a million investors whose net losses totaled $2.3 billion at the end of April.” Under the Trump crypto playbook, the family always wins. Investors don’t. (I’m still looking for something positive about crypto...)

+ Getting Dark in Cuba: “US President Donald Trump’s push to force change in Cuba by cutting off almost all fuel shipments to the government is depriving the nation of 10 million people of access to water, food and healthcare, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Monday in a statement.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): UN Says Children Are Dying in Cuba Because of Strict US Sanctions.

+ Welcome Splat: “Omar Artan, from Somalia, was set to be the first official from his country to officiate at the World Cup but was turned back in Miami after flying in from Turkey. He has said that he was interrogated for 11 hours, then held in a cell before being sent back to Turkey. FIFA has said it has no power or influence over immigration issues.” Omar Artan held in cell before US border force shattered World Cup dream. (Feel safer?)

+ Pratt Fall: “ He wrote a memoir called ‘The Guy You Loved to Hate.’ He’s dabbled in rap, releasing a song called ‘I’m a Celebrity.’ He started a company selling crystals claimed to have healing properties. But Spencer Pratt was not able to pull off his latest venture — an improbable bid to become mayor of Los Angeles.” The rise and fall of ‘The Hills’ star Spencer Pratt’s improbable campaign for Los Angeles mayor. (It’s still disturbing how well he did.)

+ QBet: “The reaction around college sports was nearly unanimous, with the idea of Brendan Sorsby playing in 2026 after admitting to thousands of bets on sports -- including 40 on his own team -- representing the latest crossroads for an industry that has faced a dizzying number of them in recent years.” Coaches, ADs ‘disgusted,’ ‘stunned’ with Brendan Sorsby ruling. Should anything about betting and college sports still be able to stun us at this point?

6

Bottom of the News

“Attorneys for Nick Reiner, 32, filed a lengthy petition in a Los Angeles court Monday seeking access to his trust, which he was supposed to begin receiving two years ago. The petition says that their client has been denied access despite ‘unambiguous instructions’ left by his parents on how to disburse the funds in the trust that was established in 1993.” Even by today’s standards, this is a shocking headline: Nick Reiner seeks access to the trust fund his parents left to pay for his defense in their killings.

All The World's a Cage

Dave Pell — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:29:55 GMT

Maybe it makes sense that the signature event of the country’s 250th birthday will be a UFC fight. What could better define today’s United States than enraged, veiny-necked, mouth-breathing fellow Americans beating the hell out of each other in a cage of our own making? The only way a cage fight on the White House lawn could better represent our American moment is if the outcome is denied by our president who calls the match rigged and argues that the combatant we all saw lose with our own eyes actually won, leaving us more angry, more divided, and sure of only one thing: We want to get back in the cage and get back to beating the hell out of each other. Aside from that, we don’t agree on much, not even the shared history that we are meant to celebrate. We’ve lost the plot. And we’ve stopped trying to find it. Yoni Applebaum in The Atlantic (Gift Article): “Unable to agree on how to interpret the American story, the country’s schools, universities, and political institutions have stopped trying to tell it at all.” How America Gave Up on Its Own History. “In recent decades, the traditional American story has come under sustained attack from both flanks. On the left, scholars and activists suspicious of nationalism have pushed to redefine the United States as a country exceptional mostly for its flaws and crimes. On the right, politicians and commentators hostile to diversity have sought to gloss over those sins and, more recently, lay claim to the nation on behalf of “heritage Americans.” Unable to agree on how to tell our story, we have swiftly abandoned efforts to tell it at all. The hours devoted to social studies in schools are shrinking, and survey courses in American history are vanishing from college campuses.” (Oh well, they say 250 is an awkward age.)

+ AP: Fewer Americans say democracy is central to country’s identity. Only about half of Americans under 30 see democracy as a key element of the U.S.’s identity.

+ Democracy may no longer be core to our identity, but at least irony still is. Truck carrying fireworks catches fire and explodes in Tennessee.

2

Falling to Peaces

To preserve your sanity, and mine, I try not to share too many Trump video appearances. But it’s worth stomaching a couple minutes of his full meltdown and stormy exit on Meet the Pressfor a few reasons. First, he is unhinged. (Even if longevity bros cure death, I won’t live long enough to understand how any American could see this manbaby as a president.) Second, he is continuing to lay the groundwork to refuse to accept election results he doesn’t like. And third, this is exactly the same person who is managing the current madness in the Middle East. And that situation is only getting more complex. Fighting between Israel and Iran broke out again over the weekend. It has stopped for now. “President Donald Trump had demanded the two countries ‘immediately stop shooting.’ He also said that they were ‘looking to do an immediate ceasefire’ and that ‘final negotiations on ‘peace’ are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way.’” (What are the chances of that?) Here’s the latest from the NYT, NBC, and The Guardian.

3

The Prosecution Rests

“When Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a new assault weapons ban in Virginia last month, it got almost zero national news coverage. Yet it amounted to an important milestone: It marked the first time in U.S. history that such a gun-control measure was passed into law by any state government in the American South.” And when bans are signed into law, those laws must be enforced by prosecutors. At least, that’s what we thought. TNR: Deep in Rural Virginia, a MAGA Pro-Gun Push Takes an Unnerving Turn. “A number of county-based prosecutors in red areas of Virginia are publicly declaring that they will not enforce the new ban on assault-style weapons. This movement is taking shape as a direct, openly confrontational challenge to the authority of Spanberger and the Virginia legislature that passed the measure—and it only appears to be growing.”

4

Such Thing as a Free Lunch

“Dylan Alverson stood amid tear gas and flash-bang grenades, on the frozen street where Alex Pretti was shot and killed by ICE agents in January, when he got the idea for what he later called an ‘absurd business move.’ He decided to stop charging for food at Modern Times, the south Minneapolis cafe he’s run for 15 years.” To Alverson, the move made political sense. Even he probably didn’t imagine it would lead to financial upside. NYT (Gift Article): This Restaurant Stopped Charging for Food. And Profits Are Up.

5

Extra, Extra

Garden Variety Bummer: “As part of enhanced security measures with President Donald Trump attending Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Monday, there will be no watch party outside Madison Square Garden.” Trump is going to ruin an NBA playoff game to warm up for ruining the World Cup and then ruining the Olympics. (I still have a weird feeling he’s gonna cancel at the last minute.)

+ Run Your Ossoff: From Michelle Goldberg in the NYT (Gift Article), an interesting look at Why Everyone Wants Jon Ossoff to Run for President. If he doesn’t run, other Dems should borrow his message in which he constantly ties Trump’s corruption to individuals’ pocketbooks.

+ Minutes to Memories: “And about four hours after our deadline, Bari Weiss sends an email to my boss, Tanya Simon. Two of the things in the email include, can we make the protesters look more violent? ... And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.” Scott Pelley on the Bari Weiss Era and His Last Days at 60 Minutes.

+ E-Gad: “Global EV sales grew 20% in 2025 to exceed 20 million, with one in four new cars sold worldwide now electric...EV sales in the U.S., though, fell 2% last year.” As the world embraces EVs, the U.S. hits the brakes.

+ Get Your Heg Out of Your Ass: “The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been accused by historians and rights campaigners of ‘grotesque stupidity‘ and desecrating the memory of the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy after he sought to link immigration to the D-day anniversary, saying Europe was facing a different ‘invasion’ of its shores.’” More international humiliation.

+ Good Time To Be Bad: “Kim Jong Un offered China’s president a grand welcome Monday. But the North Korean leader is playing host from a position of rare strength, and his country has come a long way since Xi Jinping’s last visit seven years ago.”

+ Their Heads on a Platner: “The Maine Senate candidate’s supporters shrugged off the Nazi tattoo and the mountain of old incendiary Reddit posts, drawn to his charisma and ready to believe in his redemption arc. Putting real people in Washington, they argued, meant accepting the real-life baggage that came with it, even if it might get exposed in the gauntlet of the campaign. But now the party is confronting the potential costs of that risk. In the last two weeks, revelations that Platner sexted women early in his marriage and accusations from an ex-girlfriend that he was physically threatening have disturbed national Democrats and raised questions about what other damaging revelations might drop between now and November.” The Democrats’ Platner Problem.

+ Neon Lights Are Bright: Tony Award winners list: ‘Schmigadoon!’ wins best musical, ‘Death of a Salesman’ lives on. And Pink killed as host.

+ GLP Soup: GLP-1s are popular. For some corporations, a little too popular. WSJ (Gift Article): Your Weight-Loss Drugs Are Next on the Corporate Chopping Block. “With as many as one in eight American adults taking the pills or injectables now, big employers from Cigna to PricewaterhouseCoopers are dropping coverage of so-called GLP-1s in droves. Others, like Chevron, are making workers jump through extra hoops to get coverage—and to ensure the drugs are used effectively—such as requiring multiple weigh-ins a month, meal-tracking on apps or sessions with an online health coach.”

+ Tab Keys: “The tablets, made of compressed ground coffee without a coating, binder or gelatin, can only be used with a Tablì coffee machine made by Lavazza. Each tablet is marked with the words ‘100% coffee.’” Coffee pods, without the pods? Italian coffee giant Lavazza launches single-serve tablets to make espresso in the U.S.

6

Bottom of the News

“The instrument — a long plastic horn, typically blown by South African football fans — was deemed “excessively loud,” according to the global football body’s code of conduct.” FIFA bans use of vuvuzelas at World Cup. (Better 16 years late than never?)

+ “Forty-three-year-old construction worker Thomas Berg eventually took home the top prize after wowing judges by frantically jumping on a trampoline while clad in neon green gym wear.” A raucous Copenhagen crowd cheers Denmark’s 2026 Mullet Championship.

Turning a Prophet

Dave Pell — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:00:44 GMT

In his first miracle, he turned 120 gallons of water into wine. He was also seen walking on the water of the Sea of Galilee. With this kind of mastery over liquid, it was only a matter of time before Jesus got into the beverage business. While he was early to the miracle market, Jesus is hardly the first well-known name to back an energy drink. Kim Kardashian, Logan Paul, The Rock, Alex Cooper, Lionel Messi, and many others are already preaching to the masses to swallow their functional beverage pitch. But it wasn’t until some entrepreneurs decided that he had a branding problem that Jesus’ image was slapped onto the side of a can of Berry Blessed Yahweh energy drink. You get all the biblical associations with none of the calories! The Guardian: What would Jesus drink? Welcome to the age of Christian energy beverages. “Another mega-celeb has entered the beverage game. Or rather, beverage companies have enlisted him in an effort to spread the good word about their product. Jesus, it turns out, has a branding problem – at least according to the makers of these drinks. Too many people simply haven’t heard the message. ‘God put it on our hearts to specifically preach the gospel through an energy drink,’ the creator of Yahweh says in an Instagram video defending the company against accusations that it exists mainly to turn a profit.” But wait, Moses walked through a parted Red Sea and got water from a stone more than a thousand years before Jesus was even born. Shouldn’t he be the first to market drinks? Yes. In a twist that gives new meaning to holy spirits, Moses Vodka has been around for years (although there’s some debate about whether or not it’s actually kosher to drink it). You gotta hand it to Moses for prophesying that, in the year of our Lord 2026, we’d need something stronger than water or wine.

+ Scheduling note: NextDraft will be off tomorrow. I need a few cans of Jesus and a few shots of Moses to recharge. See you back here on Monday.

2

Let’s Fake a Deal

Iran says it won’t resume peace talks until there’s a real ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. But Hezbollah (an Iran proxy) in Lebanon won’t stop firing rockets and drones into northern Israel and is refusing to sign onto a ceasefire agreement. BBC: Hezbollah rejects renewed ceasefire agreed by Israel and Lebanon. Even during the best of times, dealmaking in the region is difficult. And now Trump has another challenge. House Votes to Rein In Trump on Iran War. “The House on Wednesday voted to direct President Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from the conflict with Iran or win approval from Congress to continue the war, after four Republicans sided with Democrats in a striking sign of growing opposition to a military campaign now in its fourth month.”

+ AP: With Trump in a holding pattern on Iran war, allies and critics worry he risks getting boxed in. Maybe more importantly to Trump, the oil industry is leaking the same message. Politico: Oil industry warns Trump administration of price spikes within weeks.

3

Addicted to BS

Even though they are definitely not addictive gambling platforms, industry players like Kalshi and Polymarket are hiring some political lobbyists from other addiction industries. “A trade group backed by some of the largest players in the prediction market industry, including Kalshi, Coinbase, Crypto dot com, Robinhood, and Underdog—has recruited a bipartisan dynamic duo of influential former congressmen to be the faces of the industry. In addition to the political firepower, CPM added an influential former gambling industry advocate and a former vaping executive to help manage the organization’s direction.” TNR: Prediction Markets Are Learning From the Addiction Industry. But they definitely don’t see themselves as, you know, part of the addiction industry. It’s like the old saying goes: I used to be addicted, but now I’m just a dick.

4

Laughing Matter

“Trust in science has plummeted. Can improv turn the tide? Scimemi is one of more than 35,000 scientists and researchers who have taken classes led by professional actors to help them earn their audiences’ trust and understanding. It’s the brainchild of Alan Alda, who helped start what is now called the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Long Island’s Stony Brook University more than 15 years ago.” WSJ (Gift Article): Alan Alda’s Solution to Eroding Trust in Science: More Improv.

+ I’m not sure any American scientists would have had the foresight to improvise a scene in which their own government was dismantling science. Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System. Meanwhile, Trump to unveil $700 million coal support plan using emergency powers. Even if you’re an improv-trained scientist, America has become a tough room to get a laugh.

5

Extra, Extra

Slash and Learn: “After Elon Musk ‘spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,’ as he put it last year, he and President Trump scoffed that American humanitarian aid was, in effect, woke nonsense. Yet in reality American humanitarian aid not only saved one life every 10 seconds but was also safeguarding the world from epidemics. So now we face a rapidly increasing outbreak of Ebola, and the Trump administration is finding that some of the things that went into the wood chipper were the very tools needed to tackle the virus.” NYT (Gift Article): This Is Why You Don’t Slash Humanitarian Aid. (As a punishment, Elon is about to become the richest person in history. That’ll teach him.)

+ Consumer Subjection: Polls are bad and everything seems chaotic. But the masterminds behind Project 2025 just keep on keeping on. Consumer protection agency deletes thousands of pages as Trump administration seeks to dismantle it.

+ Enemies List Twist: “Bolton described the national security information in question in an electronic diary entry that he shared with two members of his family, the two sources said.” Former Trump adviser John Bolton to plead guilty to retaining national security information. No one has worked harder to target Trump’s enemies and pay off his accomplices than Todd Blanche. So, perhaps this headline was predictable. President Trump says he will nominate Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general.

+ Subsidized Housing: “The seller will consider Anthropic or OpenAI stock as payment. That single line in an otherwise typical luxury listing may be the most succinct summary of what’s been going on in San Francisco for the past two years.” Want to understand the economic power of the AI boom? Try to buy a house in the Bay Area. One Bay Area housing trend is becoming impossible to miss.

+ The Flamingo Kid: “Thousands took to the streets of Tirana for a third straight day on Wednesday, some of them brandishing inflatable flamingos in a nod to feared environmental damage, amid mounting calls for the project to be blocked.” Protests in Albania grow over Jared Kushner-backed luxury resort. Judd Legum has a great overview: Kushner’s Albanian resort faces corruption probe, mass protests.

+ Peak Experience: “Dawa Sherpa was last seen around May 29 descending the mountain, but he did not make it to base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes.” Sherpa guide missing for a week on Mount Everest rescued while crawling to base camp.

+ When You Need Stats, Stat: “It certainly helps that Langs, aided by the magic of modern technology, can quite literally watch every game at once. And so, from her desk, she sees it all, eyes darting ferociously among screens like a stocktrader on their 10th cup of coffee ... That Langs singlehandedly produces so much compelling, informative content is all the more remarkable considering the difficult circumstances of her day-to-day life. In 2021, Sarah was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.” On Lou Gehrig Day, as always, Sarah Langs is working.

6

Bottom of the News

“The getaway car was parked just outside the Marina yoga studio, idling in the January night air as the burglar made his move. In under three minutes, the burglar was in and out of Hot 8 Yoga with an armload of activewear. He stuffed the loot in the car’s trunk, hopped inside and disappeared down the street, comfortably carried away by an autonomous Waymo vehicle.” We’re always on the cutting edge in SF! How a burglar used a robotaxi to flee the scene.

+ “Their annual emergence in the Great Smoky Mountains has become so popular that campsites sell out months in advance. This year’s lottery to get parking spots for the eight-night official viewing period attracted over 45,000 applicants. Only 960 slots were distributed.” The World Is Going Crazy Over Fireflies. (We’re all trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel...)

+ Reminder: NextDraft will be off tomorrow.

Can't Buy Me Gov

Dave Pell — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:12:25 GMT

Money talks. The question is whether or not people will listen. In several high-profile Tuesday elections, the answer was no, as voters gave money a run for its money. “Tuesday’s primary night was a poor showing for California’s tech billionaires and founders who viewed statewide politics as the next frontier for their ambitions.” Politico: Big Tech’s big flop on primary night. Is this indicative of a larger trend? Possibly, but there are some key reasons why candidates flush with cash flushed it right down the toilet. It could be the fact that many voters don’t pay attention to election choices until the last minute (and don’t want to). It could be that voters get turned off by a months-long onslaught of TV commercials during local programming. (In 2026, I’ve spent more time with California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer than I have with my own family.) It could be that the candidates themselves were weak, and that money is better spent on propositions, measures, and other elections where the human factor is less of an issue. Or, it could be that this was just a blip on the radar, and that the billionaire political winning streak will keep on keeping on. In these particularly deep-pocketed times, the lesson most likely to be taken away by bigly donors is that they need to spend even more. Expect to see the consequence of that insight playing out across your state and your screens as the midterms approach.

+ “Call it the billionaire bust. It underscores the limits of money’s influence on elections in a state as vast and diverse as California, where most voters don’t start paying attention until their ballot hits their mailbox and where the electorate has a historic populist streak.” SF Chronicle: Wealthy candidates and donors had a rough night.

+ “The contours of a premier Senate race took shape in Iowa, while President Donald Trump’s endorsement streak ran into a roadblock there. Democrats chose a nominee for a House race in New Jersey that could decide control of the chamber. But much of the focus was on California, home to Hollywood but not a governor’s race packing much star power.” California may be home to the most advanced computing in the world, but we sure count slow. Xavier Becerra leads the gubernatorial race and incumbent Karen Bass secured the top spot in the running for LA Mayor. Who will they be running against? We’re still counting. AP: Takeaways from primaries featuring Spencer Pratt, a missing congressman and a rare Trump setback.

2

Shadow Ballot Boxing

Leave it to the Supreme Court to remind us, even on election day, that the votes of 6 people matter a lot more than the votes of everyone else. “On Tuesday evening, in an unsigned shadow-docket order, the Supreme Court awarded Alabama a massive victory in its long-running campaign to crush Black residents’ political representation. Under the guise of soberly reinstating Alabama’s elections as usual, and over the dissent of the three liberal justices, the Republican-appointed supermajority halted the latest in a lengthy line of judicial efforts to end blatant discrimination by the state Legislature against its own Black voters.” Slate (Gift Article): The Supreme Court Just Transformed Its Horrible Voting Rights Ruling Into Something More Calamitous. On election day in America, racism won the biggest race.

3

Only the Good Bye Young

The demolishing of 60 Minutes has become a metaphor for what’s happening at once-respected mainstays across the country. Clowns for hire are determined to ruin institutions from the inside, and people dedicated to upholding their values are eventually fired or forced to quit out of principle. After a heated staff meeting in which he accused the CBS editor in chief, Bari Weiss, of ‘murdering’ his news show, CBS News Fires Scott Pelley. And from Jim Acosta: When 60 Minutes is in Trouble, We are All in Trouble.

+ Because the 60 Minutes saga so closely mirrors what’s happening across government and media, it’s worth paying close attention to Pelley’s exit letter. Here are some outtakes: “Now, the new owner of our network is casting this legend aside, apparently to curry a moment of favor with the Trump administration. The waste is heartbreaking ... For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I’ve been told to include assertions that are unverified ... the collapse of values at the top has become untenable. The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well. depart after 37 years at CBS with one emotion—a heart brimming with gratitude for the men and women of CBS News who encouraged and enriched my work, very often at the risk of their own lives. I pray for a day when those people and their ideals are honored again—a day when sanity, competence, and courage return.” The destruction, the falsehoods, the collapse of values, the disappearing principles, and a prayer for sanity, competence, and courage to return. See what I mean by this story being a metaphor for the broader American story? In both cases, the clock is ticking.

4

Bee Best

“I found an antidote to my existential angst last week when I tuned into the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The 101-year-old competition might seem quaint and dated in the age of autocorrect and ChatGPT, but it is really a celebration of the crucial life skills that we should be teaching kids. They also happen to be many of the same ones AI has the potential to erode: focus and self-reliance, a tolerance for frustration and discomfort. When the contestants are alone at the microphone, there is no spellcheck or Google to call on, no Claude to give hints on how to parse Phthartolatrae or vaesite. (My spellcheck doesn’t even recognize these words.) ‘You cannot outsource your thinking up on the stage.’” Bloomberg (Gift Article): The Spelling Bee Restored My Faith in Humanity.

5

Extra, Extra

Ceasefiring Line: “Video footage verified by The New York Times showed fire inside Kuwait’s international airport. The attack was part of one of the biggest assaults on a Gulf nation since the U.S.-Iran cease-fire was announced in April.” As negotiations drag on, the cease is being blown out of the ceasefire. Here’s the latest from the NYT. And from Bloomberg(Gift Article): Iran Atomic Risk Seen Higher Than Before Trump Attacks Began.

+ Watch Your Six: WaPo (Gift Article): Pentagon hires convicted Jan. 6 rioter for sensitive counterterrorism job.

+ Immunity Impunity: NYT (Gift Article): Order Shielding Trump Family From I.R.S. Audits Will Remain, Blanche Says.

+ Wall, Street: “Agents from Homeland Security Investigations, the investigation division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, first began surveilling a San Diego shop called ‘Buy 4 Less’ located near the Otay Mesa border crossing in December of last year.” One-ton cocaine bust reveals secret US-Mexico tunnel.

+ Ballroom Lancing: “If the language remained in, it would have required 60 votes to move forward, meaning Democrats would have been able to filibuster the bill — preventing the White House from receiving $70 billion for ICE and border patrol. Some GOP senators also had political concerns, worried that funding the ballroom as Americans wrestle with cost-of-living issues ahead of the midterms would portray them as out-of-touch.” Senate Republicans drop Trump ballroom funding from immigration bill.

6

Bottom of the News

Shawshank Dimension: “New York police are investigating a bizarre mystery involving groups of people emerging from the city’s manholes in recent weeks. The investigation follows the circulation of multiple social media videos showing people climbing out of sewer systems across the city, all in the middle of the night.” (I wonder if any of them emerged saying, “These pipes are clean.”)

+ “Ancient yeast living inside the 5,300-year-old frozen corpse of Ötzi the Iceman has been used to make a ‘very, very good sourdough.’” Sourdough made from yeast inside Europe’s oldest mummy. Until now, I’d never considered donating my body to science.

Deplane, Deplane

Dave Pell — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 17:57:44 GMT

For your next trip, you might want to have an air sickness bag ready a little earlier than usual; like while you’re pricing out your itinerary. Let’s start with the good news about your summer travel plans: Because of airlines’ perpetual problems related to fuel waste, scheduling complexity, flight controller shortages, and outdated technology, your vacation was probably going to be a little rough anyway. (Yes, in 2026, that’s the good news part of the equation.) The bad news is that the conflict that is putting increased pressure on just about every economic metric on Earth is having an even greater impact in the sky. And it could be a long summer. “Based on current conditions, U.S. airlines will probably pay some $25 billion more for jet fuel in 2026 than they expected to. That’s more than what the industry earned in 2024 and 2025 combined. It could be a bummer of a summer. And fall. And winter. Even if the oil starts flowing from the Middle East this month, jet fuel supply constraints and price increases will most likely extend into 2027.” NYT (Gift Article): Going Abroad This Summer? Good Luck. But at least once you arrive at your destination, from Greenland to Spain to Canada, you’re certain to be welcomed with open arms.

+ To save money, you can always get a job that requires international travel. The hottest job this summer is European ambassador for ranch dressing.

2

You’re Gonna Need a Bigger Calculator

You’ve probably heard that the AI race is expensive. Like, really expensive. To give you some idea of how expensive, consider this. “Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has said it plans to raise up to $80bn in equity to fund its vast artificial intelligence infrastructure investments.” To put that number in perspective, if the funding is successful, “it would raise more than the world’s three largest initial public offerings put together.”

+ Google’s plan to release up to 32 million mosquitoes in California is not nearly as expensive. Wait, what? “The Debug Project is all about adding so-called ‘good bugs’ to the ‘bad bug’ population.”

+ Meanwhile, “President Donald Trump signed a landmark executive order Tuesday that asks AI companies to give the government early access to their most powerful models for review.” The key word is asks. “The testing would rely on voluntary collaboration from America’s leading AI companies, like Anthropic, OpenAI and Google. The order explicitly bars the government from creating a mandatory licensing or pre-clearance requirement for new AI models, making the government a request, not a rule.” (In other words, it’s not a landmark executive order; it’s the watered-down request pushed by AI companies.)

3

Indian Summer

For a glimpse into the future of our warming world, take a virtual visit to the dusty district of Banda in India, where “temperatures hovered at 116-118F for more than a week.” ‘Mornings and nights no longer exist’: A day in the hottest place in India. One worker who walks 6km to work and 6km home with a packed lunch designed not to spoil by noon, “offered a sentence that could serve as the motto of Banda’s heatwave. ‘Poor people don’t have the luxury of worrying about the heat.’”

4

Tube Stakes

“Every generation, we see young people shoot and experiment with short films, but the big advantage today’s generation has is technology right at their fingertips with platforms like YouTube where they can upload their work and get instant feedback from viewers. This allows them to react instantly to what works and what doesn’t work and therefore hone their skills.” And boy, are they honing. A couple of indie horror films created by YouTube vets just beat Star Wars (and everyone else) at the box office. Variety: Why YouTubers Are Turning Hollywood Upside Down.

5

Extra, Extra

The House(builder) Always Wins: He has zero experience when it comes to intel or defense, but he has a lot of experience when it comes to housing and targeting Trump’s enemies with falsities. So, sure, why not? “As acting director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte will be the highest-ranking intelligence official, overseeing a vast network of 18 agencies, including the CIA and the National Security Agency. He will also be the president’s principal adviser on intelligence issues and will manage the daily intelligence briefing for the president.”

+ Stirring Crazy: “You’re f-cking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” Trump seems mad at Bibi. Meanwhile, some Israelis are angry with Bibi for ceding too much ground to Trump. And Marco Rubio goes to Congress. Here’s the latest from the NYT.

+ Immunity Impunity: The Trump administration appears to be backing off on efforts to create a slush fund for accomplices. But the other part of the deal might still be alive. Trump to get audit immunity as $1.8 billion fund in doubt.

+ Patriot Games: Russia is not winning its war. But Putin is still trying to inflict as much civilian death as possible. Ukraine rescuers pull dead from rubble after Russian strikes kill 22 people. One of the reasons Russia can do this is because of a ‘window of vulnerability’ created by the Patriot missile shortage.

+ California Teeming: A really silly primary system and the current state of politics have combined to leave California voters with a lot of reading to do on election day. “The state’s ballot is nineteen inches long, and lists sixty-one gubernatorial candidates.” Nathan Heller in The New Yorker: The Strange Emptiness of the Crowded Governor’s Race in California.

+ Our American Moment: Here are a couple of headlines that sum up our times. Pentagon Bars Reporters From Its Press Office. And, Minnesota Republicans Hold Moment of Silence for Ex-Officer Convicted of Murder.

+ No Whey: Bloomberg (Gift Article): Whey Protein Is Running Out as Food Companies Put It in Everything.

6

Bottom of the News

The place that calls itself ‘Baseball Heaven’ is now filled with a bunch of shirtless dudes. And women, in bare chest novelty tees. And kiddos, who needed permission from their moms to strip from the waist up. And those proudly showing off their hairy chests, and pimply backs, scars from surgeries and stretch marks from a life well lived. They all congregate here in the right-field bleachers of Busch Stadium. Every night, it starts with just a handful of the bravest, and youngest fans, but inning by inning, it spreads like a virus, infecting a crowd of all ages and body types.” MLB Tarps Off craze has awakened ‘Baseball Heaven’ with the bare truth. (The Giants’ season has already stripped me of my hope, pride, and dignity. I’m holding onto my shirt.)

Lifestyles of the Glitch and Famous

Dave Pell — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 19:22:00 GMT

I spend most of my life alone in a room, talking to my laptop. So I can relate to Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s latest assignment: Writing a celebrity profile about Tilly Norwood. The subject identifies as a young woman, but you’d have to say Norwood’s pronoun is, it. After all, Tilly Norwood is a computer. A computer that is at the heart of a new-fangled and notorious Hollywood scandal, in which real people are worried that AI will be an unstoppable scene stealer. Norwood makes life easier for the paparazzi. They don’t have to stake out The Ivy, Craig’s, or Nobu Malibu. They can just do what civilian celebrity stalkers do. Scroll. But Brodesser-Akner decided the only way to do a real celebrity profile, even of an unreal celebrity, was an in-person meeting. “What that looked like was me sitting at the Groucho Club on a green couch, across from a laptop, as if I were talking to someone on Zoom ... When we ordered lunch, we didn’t order for Tilly, as computers don’t eat, and Tilly is just a computer. That is the most important thing to remember: Tilly is just a computer.” NYT Magazine (Gift Article): I Profile Celebrities for a Living. Nothing Prepared Me for Tilly Norwood. “In our conversations — which are edited and condensed here — I told Tilly that I was a journalist and asked if she had ever spoken to one before ... ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They ask for honesty, then flinch when it arrives.’ Did I mention that in addition to being just a computer, she’s also kind of a bitch?”

+ In the end, Brodesser-Akner finds that the humanoid comes up short as an interview subject because it fails to provide the one thing people actually want from artist interviews. “They want to know who exactly it was that recognized their human wounds, who recognized them and made them feel less alone. That is what great art inspires in people. That is why I wrote all these profiles, why people even read them. To understand the person who made the art, which is just as essential as the art itself. There’s an entire conversation about separating the art from the artist, but maybe the conversation persists because we know we can’t do it. The art is the person.” That really captures the heart of the issue. At least until Tilly Norwood gets an upgrade...

2

Murder, She Boat

Here are a few of the big problems with the US boat strikes in the waters of South America. First, we’ve been given little or no evidence that those killed are actually running drugs. Second, even if they were transporting drugs, “the military is prohibited from deliberately targeting civilians, even if they are believed to have committed a crime, unless they pose an immediate threat.” Third, the strikes have had no meaningful impact on the amount of cocaine coming to the US. And fourth, “coastal communities in Colombia and Ecuador, where most of the boats are thought to have begun their journeys, are counting the losses not just in relatives who never returned, but in how the attacks have upended the lives of those who make their living from the ocean and now fear it.” There’s a very good chance that some of those killed were forced by drug traffickers to transport drugs and an even better chance that some of them were just fishing. Which brings us to the fifth problem. These boat bombings are one of many reasons our former allies no longer trust our ethics or actions. NYT (Gift Article): The U.S. Boat Strike Campaign Has Now Killed Over 200 People.

+ Oh, and the sixth problem. These boat bombings are yet another reason for military service personnel to doubt their leaders. There are many of those. Hegseth Strikes Female and Black Navy Officers From Promotion List.

3

Billion Error Message

“This money is flowing in the direction of politicians that can be influential in defining the regulatory agenda for the next five years. Reinforcing the cycle of economic power produces political power, and political power further establishes economic power. So, this cycle is ongoing.” Tech billionaires are spending unprecedented sums in California races. And this trend is coming to a state near you.

4

The Wading Is the Hardest Part

“Kimmel insists that ‘there are far more people watching late-night TV than there ever were, if you look at the number of views me and my colleagues get online every day and add in our linear-television ratings,’ and that it’s ‘silly’ to call the format less relevant: ‘We’re not just dying of natural causes. We’re being poisoned.’ He points to reports that, in 2023, CBS encouraged Colbert to sign a five-year contract. Colbert opted for three years instead. When CBS pulled his show two years into that contract, the explanation given was that it was losing significant amounts of money — reportedly $40 million a year. Why, Kimmel asks, would the network offer him a five-year deal in the first place if the show were hemorrhaging money? ... ‘These are just made-up numbers.’” NY Mag: Jimmy Kimmel Would Stop If He Could. (I can’t imagine what it must be like to wake up every morning and know you have to absorb, reflect upon, and joke about every horrible Trump story of the day. And you can’t really quit, even if you planned to by now, because it would be like giving up the good fight at the worst possible time. Oh wait, I can imagine what that’s like.) Kimmel: “Professionally, I have no idea what I’m going to do after this ... Freedom is what I want more than anything. I want to be able to go fishing because the fishing’s good.” Alas, for now, we’ve got bigger fish to fry.

5

Extra, Extra

Peace Through Posts: “’I had a very productive call with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel, and there will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back,’ Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. He added that he also had a ‘very good call’ with Hezbollah through representatives and that ‘they agreed that all shooting will stop.’ ‘Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.’” Here’s the latest on the Iran peace talks which are either on or off and depend on a Hezbollah/Israel battle that is either happening or not happening.

+ You Don’t Want Fries With That: Last week, we explained the American economy with tomatoes. This week, we’ll take a crack at explaining the European economy through French Fries. The World Capital of French Fries Has a Problem: Too Many Potatoes. “This month, he dumped the crop back into his fields in eastern Belgium, the cheapest way to dispose of enough potatoes to make 200 million French fries.” (I feel like this is an area where I can help.)

+ FIFA Fo Fum: “To anyone familiar with FIFA, the cost of this tournament should come as little surprise. Ever since the tournament hosting rights were awarded to the U.S., Canada and Mexico in 2018—with three-quarters of the games to be played in the U.S.—the organization has viewed America as a potential cash cow.” WSJ (Gift Article): How FIFA’s Biggest World Cup Unleashed a Summer of Price Gouging. (I mean, come on, it’s FIFA...)

+ Hammer Time: Trump’s name must come off of the Kennedy Center, judge rules. (If the Dems win the midterms, I’m putting all my money into jackhammers.)

+ Intel Outside? Nvidia has a new chip for Windows users. And Anthropic is laying the groundwork for a massive IPO.

+ Will LA Face a Pratt Fall: “Spencer Pratt, the reality star people love to hate-watch, is running for office—and betting that infamy can be political currency.” (What could give anyone that idea?) The Atlantic (Gift Article): Hope, Change, Troll.

+ You Can’t Hand(le) the Truth: “While it’s become undeniable that the humanoid boom has legs, the real test now is whether it has fingers.” Humanoid Hands Are Physical AI’s Anti-Hype Test. And maybe related: “A Florida woman was cited for driving with her phone in her right hand. This may seem perfectly reasonable, except there’s one problem — she doesn’t have a right hand.”

6

Bottom of the News

United Airlines flight to Spain pulls U-turn, apparently over Bluetooth device name. (It makes more sense when you learn that the name was b-o-m-b.)

+ “Bird keepers are often advised to discourage and even punish birds for masturbating, but the study found the activity was more common in the wild than in captivity, with researchers concluding it is part of a bird’s natural behavior.” Masturbation among birds is ‘natural’ and should not be punished, say experts. (So people are holding birds in captivity and punishing them for ruffling their own feathers? No wonder humans have such a bad reputation.)

You Say Tomato, I Say Inflato

Dave Pell — Fri, 29 May 2026 19:13:21 GMT

Hold the tomatoes. I’ve said that a thousand times in part because, despite my proclivity toward a nice Arrabiata sauce, I’m just not into tomatoes on their own, and in part because of definitional issues like the one exemplified in Wikipedia: “The tomato is a plant whose fruit is an edible berry that is eaten as a vegetable.” But these days, people are throwing nightshade at the old Solanum lycopersicum less for reasons of personal taste and more for reasons related to remaining financially solvent. A combination of crop yields, tariffs, and the Iran war has left restaurants and consumers slicing tomatoes out of their recipes. “Tomatoes, ubiquitous in everything from fast-food burgers to haute cuisine, are taking on a new role beyond the plate: A nagging reminder of rising costs. Prices for those red orbs have soared more than any other food product over the past year to cement a spot as one of the consumer headaches du jour.” AP: Tomatoes become latest symbol of America’s affordability squeeze.

+ For one segment of America, stories like this one are interesting asides with potential political ramifications; a dinner party topic to slice and dice over Bruschetta, Gazpacho, and Caprese. For a larger segment of people, it’s a serious bottom-line issue. And those two segments have never been more divided. WSJ (Gift Article): The Record Divide Between Corporate Profits and Worker Pay. “Labor’s share of economic output just hit an all-time low, while the profit share hit a near record. It helps explain why consumers feel so glum.” They’d probably be throwing tomatoes, if they could afford them.

2

White Li(n)es

In before times, America’s use of the military to perform relentless bombing on small boats that may or may not be transporting drugs would be an endlessly covered scandal that calls into question whether murder has at times been committed. In these times, it gets lost among endless waves of outrageous acts. But it’s worth noting that if you really wanted to hamper the drug trade, you’re gonna need (to target) a bigger boat. NYT (Gift Article): Blowing Up Boats Hasn’t Slowed Cocaine Traffic to U.S., Experts Say. It’s a cruel and expensive policy that damages our international status and results in a suboptimal outcome. In other words, it’s entirely on brand.

3

Only the Good Die Young

Everyone wants to live a longer and healthier life. But no one wants to live forever as much as really bad, really rich guys with absolutely no regard for human lives other than their own. “When Vladimir Putin was captured by a hot mic telling Xi Jinping that humans could achieve immortality by replacing their organs, some dismissed the exchange as eccentric small talk between aging autocrats. In fact, during the conversation at a Beijing military parade last September, Putin appeared to be describing a Kremlin-backed longevity initiative that has become one of Russia’s flagship scientific projects.” WSJ (Gift Article): Inside Putin’s $26 Billion Quest for Longevity. (I’m not a doctor, but for longevity, I still recommend the old stalwarts: Diet, exercise, and not murdering innocent civilians for years on end.)

4

Weekend Whats

What to Watch: Mixing humor with horror is all the rage these days. You may get enough of it in this newsletter, but if you’re in the mood for a little more, there are two new shows worth checking out. Widow’s Bay on Apple TV follows Matthew Rhys as the mayor of a small island looking to boost tourism, despite a lot of bad things hidden in the fog. And The Boroughs on Netflixfeatures a group of retirees investigating a deadly, supernatural mystery. Think: Stranger Things meets Cocoon.

+ What to Doc: “In this true-crime documentary series, a cult expert and filmmaker infiltrate a polygamist sect to expose a self-proclaimed prophet and bring him down.” Trust Me: The False Prophet. These filmmakers go way beyond just documenting a tragedy.

+ What to Pod: “He’s wowed presidents, pro athletes and podcasters. But magicians tell us Oz Pearlman’s viral act has crossed an ethical line. Stevie Baskin, after obsessively studying Pearlman’s tricks, explains to Pablo Torre how influencers from Charles Barkley to the White House were in on the act — and why he thinks this brand of ‘mind-reading’ amounts to fraud.” On YouTube: Pablo Torre Finds Out: Debunking Oz Pearlman’s Tricks: Is He a Fraud?

5

Extra, Extra

On the Verge: We either have a deal, are really close to a deal, or there’s not yet a deal, that may or may not include the opening of the Strait. Trump claims to be on verge of approving peace dealwith major Iranian concessions.

+ Pop Goes the Populism: “A year ago, the Trump administration withdrew from a global effort to curb offshore tax-dodging by multinational companies. That decision has been a huge gift to corporate America, enabling companies to avoid at least $40 billion in income taxes since the beginning of 2025.” Don’t get me wrong. Corporations aren’t the only ones benefiting these days. Dell Gets a $9.7 Billion Defense Contract. Trump’s Portfolio Stands to Benefit.

+ Failure to Launch: “A rocket belonging to Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin exploded during a test at the launch pad Thursday night, shaking nearby homes and briefly painting the sky orange.” Amazingly, no one was hurt. But it’s a major setback, and not just for Blue Origin. Ars Technica: Here’s why the failure of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is so catastrophic.

+ Drone Zone: “It was the first known time that a Russian drone had caused damage and injuries in a major urban area on the territory of the Western military alliance.” Russian Drone Hits Romanian Apartment Building.

+ Emotional Roller Coaster: “Eight riders were stranded nearly 100 feet in the air on Thursday evening after a roller coaster in Texas stopped during its vertical climb.”

+ Caffeine For All: “Many Americans likely haven’t heard of 7 Brew, which has only been around since 2017 when it opened its first location in Rogers, Arkansas. The chain has since grown to over 700 locations in 38 states, with about 340 more on the way, but can’t be found in airports, indoor shopping malls or busy street corners in major US cities. Instead, it operates through drive-thrus and walk-up windows in parts of the country with little-to-no coffee competition.” Private equity-backed coffee. Talk about a business of the era. This drive-thru coffee chain is pushing into undercaffeinated parts of America.

+ Uncle Sam Wants You: Pentagon recruiting troops to watch White House UFC fights. (Tickets not included. Those who attend are required to “pay their own way and meet height and weight requirements.” Happy Birthday, ‘Merica!)

+ Shrinking is Growing: “He’s got five television shows on the air this year: the first-season HBO series “Rooster,” “Shrinking” on Apple TV (which recently dropped Season 3) and ABC’s rebooted “Scrubs,” all of which are in the running for Emmys, plus the upcoming “Ted Lasso” (entering Season 4) and “Bad Monkey” (back for Season 2), both on Apple.” How Bill Lawrence Became TV’s Most Prolific Showrunner. (You could spend all your TV time just keeping up with him and Taylor Sheridan.)

6

Feel Good Friday

“The decline of physical bookstores remains so embedded in popular culture that the man dating Anne Hathaway’s character in The Devil Wears Prada 2 laments that bookstores are “getting downsized and consolidated.” But the decline actually ended years ago, and the latest numbers from the American Booksellers Association show independent stores expanding at a pace not seen this century.”

+ “Researchers say the new drug, called VERVE-102, could be administered to patients with a one-time infusion over the course of approximately four hours instead of having patients take a daily pill or regular shots.” New drug to treat high cholesterol could be 1-time therapy. And, A New, Powerful Cholesterol-Lowering Drug Is on the Horizon.

+ Rescue divers in Laos on Friday night safely evacuated the first of five local villagers who had been trapped in a cave for more than a week by floodwaters.

+ This High Schooler Developed an A.I. Tool to Diagnose Autism and ADHD Using the Retina.

+ Paul McCartney Doesn’t Need to Make Music Anymore. He Just Loves To. (He also seems pretty good at it.)

+ Shrey Parikh, 14, wins the Scripps Spelling Bee after a nail-biting spell-off.

Gut Shot

Dave Pell — Thu, 28 May 2026 19:24:20 GMT

If you’re anything like me, when your mind boggles, your stomach gurgles. That’s why, when I’m suffering from anxiety, I’m just as likely to reach for the Imodium as the Xanax. The connection between your brain and body can often be felt in your gut. So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that GLP-1 drugs are having a major impact on your habits, your hunger, and your head. These drugs were introduced as a tool to help control blood sugar. We then learned they could also lead to major weight loss. Needless to say, that made these drugs popular, placing millions of humans into one of history’s largest petri dishes. “Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs were initially understood as a metabolism breakthrough: medicines that act like hormones to control hunger, blood sugar and weight. But as researchers probe deeper into how the drugs work, early evidence suggests that GLP-1s may also be reshaping parts of the brain. Tens of millions of people are now taking the medications worldwide, turning what began as an obesity and diabetes treatment into what could be modern medicine’s largest unplanned neuroscience experiments.” WaPo (Gift Article): Ozempic may be reshaping the brain, scientists say. (Alt link.) This grand experiment has led to many unexpected health benefits and will lead to many discoveries. Of course, there are also risks. “If GLP-1s alter the brain systems involved in reward, craving and motivation, researchers wonder, where is the line between quieting a person’s destructive impulses and reshaping personality itself?” (I’ve been on one of these drugs for high blood sugar for quite a while. My wife and kids report no luck when it comes to personality reshaping.) One benefit of our experience with these drugs is that we may finally drop the habit of telling sick people that an illness is all in your mind. Of course it is, because the brain is part of the body. I’ve always believed in a strong mind/body connection. It’s called the neck.

2

The Price You Pay

The financial impact of the Iran war has followed a similar theme. The investor class hasn’t been much affected as the market continues to pile up gains. The Americans who were living on the edge are getting pushed over it. “Affordability has been a politically potent word, but an ill-defined measure of financial pain, often used as a reference to inflated prices. But new research from the Brookings Institution released Wednesday describes affordability by comparing the rising costs of essentials against family incomes. By that measure, the report found, in 2024, 45.5% of U.S. households did not earn enough to cover their necessities.” And that was before gas and other costs shot up. “The report concluded that a mere $1,000 hike in the annual cost of living would leave another 3 million households unable to make ends meet.” This is how close American households are to the financial edge.

+ “The New York Fed report is the latest set of findings from a series of releases detailing the so-called K-shaped economy, where the economic fates of the wealthy and those who are not have been diverging.” NY Fed finds ‘remarkable increase’ in food insecurity for many Americans.

+ “The U.S. economy has weathered a series of events that have raised prices, including the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Mr. Trump’s global trade war.” And now a fighting war. NYT (Gift Article): Prices in the U.S. Are Rising at the Fastest Pace in Years.

+ “High gas prices, rising interest rates and stubborn inflation are keeping buyers at home and cars on the lots.” WSJ (Gift Article): One Million New-Car Buyers Are Gone and They’re Not Coming Back Soon.

3

Deal Spiel

“U.S. and Iranian negotiators have reached a tentative agreement to extend the ceasefire by 60 days and start negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.” So we have a deal to work on a deal. With this minor caveat. “Iran did not immediately confirm any deal, and the official noted that President Donald Trump has yet to sign off on it.” Meanwhile, Oman seems bummed that Trump threatened to blow them up. Here’s the latest from The Guardian and NBC.

4

Tiger Balm

“After decades where the dominant expectation for high-achieving parents was to intensively helicopter, a new generation of moms is saying ‘enough.’ They’re reclaiming date night, saying no to schlepping to 17 different after-school activities and making peace with dirty dishes in the sink. These acts of giving up—or giving in—are beginning to add up to something of a feminist revolution, albeit a very low-key one.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Era of the Tiger Mom Is Over. Enter the Beta Mom. (The only people who have less of an impact on a child’s personality than parents are parent influencers.)

5

Extra, Extra

Dept of Injustice: Justice Department opens criminal probe involving E. Jean Carroll testimony in Trump sexual abuse lawsuit. A predator is using the power of our justice system to further target one of his sexual assault victims. And not a single person thinks that move will even dent his support among GOP leaders. This kind of ass-kissing will continue apace. Trump appointees push $250 banknote with his portrait. So will the DOJ’s corruption. DOJ Tries to Unmask Reddit and X Users Who Criticized ICE.

+ School Bullies: “Officers in Texas displayed startling belligerence at times, grabbing or tackling students a fraction of their size over misconduct that often appeared to be minor. Children in elementary school, including one as young as 6, were handcuffed. Teenagers were arrested, charged with crimes and even jailed. In the most extreme cases, they wound up in hospitals, bruised or concussed, after being body-slammed or shocked by Tasers, which are prohibited in the state’s juvenile detention facilities but allowed in its public schools.” NYT (Gift Article): Texas School Police Pepper-Sprayed, Tackled and Tasered Students.

+ Valuation Inflation: Anthropic Tops OpenAI to Become the World’s Most Valuable A.I. Start-Up. (Its valuation is more than double what it was just 3 months ago. Forget AI, we’re gonna need a bigger calculator...)

+ Graft Craft: Tired: The art of the deal. Wired: The craft of the graft. The White House Intervened to Get a $620 Million Deal for a Company Tied to Donald Trump Jr. (I guess this makes up for dad skipping Jr’s wedding...)

+ Free Milli: “Day and Young MC issued statements on social media disputing Wednesday’s announcement from Freedom 250, while Milli Vanilli singer Jodie Rocco told The Associated Press that neither she, her sister Linda Rocco nor any of the other group members had been asked to come.” Milli Vanilli and Morris Day say they won’t perform at Trump-linked Freedom 250’s DC shows. They’ve still got Vanilla ICE. Our lineup seems better. Bruce Springsteen calls out the White House and announces a protest festival.

+ Search for Hire Meaning: “Bari Weiss, CBS’s editor in chief, named Nick Bilton, a tech journalist and filmmaker, as the show’s executive producer. The network also fired two on-air correspondents.” (Editor’s note: Wait, what?)

+ Sinner Can’t Take the Heat: “As the match wore on, Sinner bent over on the clay court in apparent exhaustion multiple times and was hardly even running, resorting to drop shots and serve-and-volley tactics to try to shorten the points.” In a shocker, No. 1 Jannik Sinner falls apart, eliminated from French Open. Novak now has his opening for major win 25. (If you’re not into tennis, there’s still a story of interest here. Heat isn’t even supposed to be a factor at the French Open. This year, players, like many Europeans, are melting in May.)

6

Bottom of the News

“Joi AI, an AI companion startup that markets itself as providing ‘AI-lationships that satisfy you emotionally, intellectually, and intimately,’ is hiring 10 ‘masturbation consultants.’” (I applied, but I was told I was overqualified.)

Thinking Capped

Dave Pell — Wed, 27 May 2026 19:39:19 GMT

In the early days of the internet, blogging created an opportunity for anyone to express themselves to a potentially wide audience. This was good news for us English majors (or we English majors, I can never remember). But coming face to face with a giant, empty input box did little to entice those for whom the idea of posting long-form content was a perspiration-inducing reminder of homework. Twitter fixed that with a technical limitation that became its superpower. Due to SMS constraints, the original Tweets were limited to 140 characters. That was a welcome invitation for everyone to become a writer (and writers to realize that some of their 10,000 word ideas actually only needed about 8-10 words to get the point across).

In many ways, the AI experience is an inversion of the early days of the internet. The internet enabled you to do it yourself. AI does it for you. That includes the writing, and increasingly, the thinking. But is the technology turning all writing into the samewriting? And will that lead to all thinking being similarly similar? (I’d like to see AI try to pull off wordplay like that.) Rebecca Winthrop in the NYT (Gift Article): What 370,000 College Essays Tell Us About A.I.’s Effects on Creativity. “Brainstorming is the work that’s fundamental to writing. As a researcher studying A.I.’s effects on education, I have concluded that these tools only superficially improve writing. The bigger and more alarming impact they have is to constrict our full range of thoughts and our ability to generate original and useful ideas — what we call creative thinking. This seems to be especially true for students. A.I.’s smooth sentences, elegant transitions and rich vocabulary give the illusion of expansive creativity and individuality. But the underlying ideas often converge into a few homogenized categories. The erosion of creative thinking means young people will struggle to navigate uncertainty. Workers will strain to adapt to a shifting labor market. And society will miss out on the new ideas that can solve complex problems and enhance lives.” (Not to mention the pun headlines and beaglereferences.)

+ While non-writers are leaning on AI to take over, even serious writers are finding themselves distracted by tech. Ian McEwan: It’s harder to write now that phones have killed thinking. “It was much easier to be a writer in the Seventies. The most crucial difference is there [was] no internet and there [was] much more capacity for solitude. One didn’t take out one’s phone. I’m slightly addicted to mine, I have to admit.”

2

A Paxt With the Devil

“Ahead of his Republican primary runoff Tuesday, Sen. John Cornyn highlighted a photo of himself standing next to President Donald Trump as his pinned post on X. He boosted one post disputing that he’s ‘disloyal’ to Trump and another about voting ‘yes on every major Trump law.’ The posts captured an important side of Cornyn: a loyal Republican soldier, standing with his party’s leader. There’s no disputing that Cornyn’s voting record was almost perfectly aligned with Trump.” But it wasn’t enough. None of Cornyn’s Trumpifications were enough to match the MAGAnificent qualifications of Ken Paxton: “A scandal-plagued hack lawyer who has been impeached by members of his own party; forced to take remedial ethics classes; admitted to breaking securities law; reported to the FBI by his employees; investigated by own his state bar association; and whose wife has filed for divorce on ‘Biblical grounds.’” In addition to garnering 20 years of scandals and headlines, he’s been going medieval on women’s choice and healthcare issues for years. That curriculum vitae was enough to earn Trump’s endorsement en route to a rout in Tuesday’s GOP Senate Texas primary. It may seem depressing to you that MAGA voters are still this loyal to Trump, but you’re not alone. Plenty of GOP senators are pretty depressed right now, too. “Mr. Cornyn, who less than two years ago came within a handful of votes of becoming the Republican leader, was a popular and respected senator as well as a prolific fund-raiser, a dependable conservative vote and an able floor debater. His colleagues saw the president’s last-minute endorsement of his scandal-mired opponent as a move to punish a senator whom Mr. Trump deemed insufficiently loyal, an insult to the institution and a self-serving political mistake that put his party’s hold on the Senate at risk.” Cornyn’s Defeat Fuels Tensions With President Trump in Senate GOP.

+ The GOP has a weak candidate. In James Talarico, the Dems have their strongest shot to turn Texas blue. But this race will still be tight and remarkably expensive. And Ken Paxton didn’t take long to let us all know exactly how he plans to run the race. On Talarico: “He’s a threat to our very way of life. I mean, he’s a vegan who thinks God is nonbinary.” (With that knack for imbecilic falsehoods, how could Trump not endorse him?)

3

Track of My Tears

“With my system in place, I wondered if I would feel guilty spying on my husband. But as I began tracking him, following his dot on a digital map, I felt connection. When his dot appeared at a favorite record store, I pictured him flipping through LPs. When his dot paused on Central Park’s Great Lawn, I imagined joining him on the grass. If he knew I was watching, he would feel like I’d betrayed him. But I felt like I had given him, and us, an extension on the routines that had held us together for more than 20 years.” Caroline Bailey with a touching piece in the NYT(Gift Article) on keeping tabs on the subway trips of her husband who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s: Tenderly Tracking My Husband. “In recent months, my husband’s tracking dot has shown him switching train lines with no clear logic behind the transfers. His trip summaries zigzag across neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Sometimes I can see that he has taken the D train straight to midtown and back without ever surfacing, or that he takes a quick hop from an R to an F to a neighborhood where we used to live, and he’ll just hover on a street corner for 20 minutes or so before coming home.”

4

Your Pilates or Mine?

“At Sentiré Pilates in London’s Belgravia, founder Iza Recelj says younger clients often use the space for social events. ‘We have a lot of birthday parties and bachelorette parties,’ she says. ‘People are booking the whole studio, doing a class together and then staying for mocktails or food afterwards.’” Young people are going to have a lot of things to fix in this world. But they just might have the abs to pull it off. Bloomberg (Gift Article): The New Social Scene Swaps Bars for $300 Gym Memberships.

5

Extra, Extra

A Perfect Ebola Storm: “In both cases, the news has been not only frightening but also confusing, even to scientists. The hantaviruses didn’t seem to be acting like hantaviruses, and the Ebola viruses weren’t behaving like Ebola viruses.” The Viruses Causing New Outbreaks Are Much Less Familiar to Science. Is climate a factor? From The New Yorker: Our Warming Planet Is a Petri Dish for New and Deadly Microbes. Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic of Congo is facing an ongoing conflict and Ebola at the same time. And war isn’t the only factor hindering the response. Vox (Gift Article): This is what happens when you defund Ebola prevention.

+ Divine Divers: “After a week of squeezing through the dangerous, mazelike cave network, divers Mikko Paasi and Norrased Palasing emerged from its muddy waters Wednesday to find a cause for hope. There, huddled on a rock, their headtorches still illuminated, were five villagers who had been trapped, missing — unknown if alive or dead — for eight days inside the flooded caves in Laos.” Many of the rescuers were part of the Thai cave rescue in 2018. Like then, locating the villagers is only the first step. They still need to get them out. 5 villagers stuck in a flooded cave for more than a week found alive in Laos.

+ Bluster’s Last Stand: “Responding to a question from a reporter about the possibility that a deal might include a pact between Iran and Oman, a U.S. ally on the other side of the strait, to jointly control the waterway, President Trump rejected the notion: ‘Oman will behave just like everybody else or we’ll have to blow them up. They understand that. They’ll be fine.’” Here’s the latest bluster about a potential deal with Iran. While the ceasefire is mostly holding between the US and Iran, the same is not true when it comes to Hezbollah and Israel. Meanwhile, the US will need years to replenish stockpiles of advanced weaponsused in Iran war, new analysis finds. (Bad news for our defense, good news for weapons manufacturers.)

+ Adding Gruel to the Fire: “A combination of factors including bad weather, tariffs and a dwindling cattle herd are already pushing up grocery prices at an above-average pace. In April, they rose by the most in nearly four years, and economists say the impact of the Iran war and a potential El Niño weather pattern will only add to pressures into 2027.” Americans Are About to Pay Even More at the Grocery Store.

+ Get the Scoop: This is my kind of climate activism. Why an Ice Cream Cone is an Easy Environmental Win.

6

Bottom of the News

The greatest threat to America has always come from within. Even in survivalist communities. WSJ (Gift Article): A Luxury Survivalist Community Is Tearing Itself Apart. “Lawsuits, countersuits and disputes are piling up over septic systems, property taxes, off-leash dogs and a growing list of community rules. The legal skirmishing has reached the state supreme court—twice. Promised amenities, including a restaurant bunker, a pool bunker and a horse-stable bunker, have yet to materialize. Guns have been drawn, and there have been offers to settle things with fists.”

+ UFC fighting cage rises on White House lawn for a bout celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. (The official song of America’s 250th: It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.)

Tinted Love

Dave Pell — Tue, 26 May 2026 17:01:12 GMT

There are a lot of perfectly reasonable explanations for why, regardless of the health risks, Gen Z is tanning like crazy. Young people tend not to worry about the long-term health risks of their behavior (and given the fact that the only conversations middle-aged people have are about streaming shows and our latest ailments, one can understand the desire to delay worrying). Maybe tans draw more likes and views on TikTok and Instagram. But I wonder if there’s not something more disturbing behind the latest numbers on sun habits from the American Academy of Dermatology. “Only 25 percent of Gen Z respondents (ages 18 to 29) reported concern about developing skin cancer in their lifetime, compared with 39 percent of the general population. What’s more, 20 percent said that getting a tan was more important than preventing skin cancer.” NYT (Gift Article): They’ve Heard the Warnings. Gen Z Is Tanning Anyway. In this age of attacks on science, maybe young people don’t really believe in the dangers of excessive sun exposure. In this age of misinformation, maybe young people buy the takes from some of their peers on TikTok, like, “The sun gives you cancer. Sunscreen gives you cancer. We die either way, so you may as well be tanned.” In this age of a rightful distrust of sullied government information and quack leaders, maybe young people don’t feel like taking skincare health tips from institutions when our Department of Health and Human Services is being run by a tanning bed enthusiast who has turned himself into a human McNugget (I hate to throw shade, but in this case, it’s for his own health). Perhaps related to an absence of trust in institutions, “Gen Z respondents cited TikTok or Instagram as their No. 1 source for skin-care information, and 65 percent of them were likely to believe tanning myths, including that a base tan can prevent sunburn or reduce the risk of skin cancer.” As their government unleashes flavored vapes, unbridled gambling, and climate policies that risk the future, would young people be wrong to question whether the olds really have their best interests at heart? Between the lack of trust in their elders and the endless stream of misinformation, would it be any wonder if young people didn’t know what to believe, and would be left with a desire to just let it all burn (including their skin)?

2

Steamroll of the Dice

“Last fall, a high-stakes struggle unfolded inside the red brick walls of an obscure federal agency. Three companies — each with ties to the Trump family’s business empire — needed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to bless their ambitions in the white-hot field of prediction markets.” You can probably predict what happened. NYT (Gift Article): How Prediction Markets and Crypto Firms Steamrolled a Watchdog Agency. “By Christmas, the agency had put two top officials who had raised questions about the companies on leave, barred them from the office and placed them under internal investigation. Three other senior officials who had enforced laws involving cryptocurrencies — another industry linked to the Trumps — suffered the same fate. None of those officials were told what they had done wrong. But current and former agency staffers said in interviews that the commission’s work force took away a clear message: Don’t cause trouble for those industries.”

+ If you’re still not getting the picture, maybe this headline will help. Trump promotes unregulated online casino after $1 million Super PAC donation.

+ Anyone sensing a trend? A $5 Million Donation From Big Tobacco Preceded F.D.A. Vape Decision.

3

Devils and Details

“The negotiations between the United States and Iran to end their war are following President Trump’s familiar playbook for resolving a Middle East crisis: agree to a cease-fire and deal with the toughest problems later.” For now, we’re getting mixed signals of new US strikes and suggestions that a peace deal of some sort is close. Here’s the latest from the NYT and The Guardian.

+ “How much Iran will get away with, and how much humiliation the United States will endure, has yet to be ironed out by the negotiators, but the war is now almost certain to end with Tehran’s theocrats firmly in power, and with a stronger chokehold both on their own people and on the international economy than they had three months ago. Not only is Trump incoherently staggering to defeat, he now risks signing on to an agreement that could be far worse than anything Obama negotiated with Iran a decade ago.” Tom Nichols in The Atlantic(Gift Article): Trump’s War Is Staggering to an Incoherent Defeat. (These worries aren’t just coming from the so-called liberal media. They’re coming from some of Trump’s top GOP supporters.)

4

Pontiff Pontificates

“So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean ... The various kinds of job insecurity, fragmented career paths and automation must not be evaluated solely in terms of efficiency, but in relation to the dignity of the worker, the right to sufficient remuneration and the genuine possibility of participating in society ... I ask everyone to abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good.” Count the Pope among those who are very worried about the rise of artificial intelligence. Magnifica Humanitas is the Pope’s first encyclical — a 42,300-word open letter on the need to put humans at the heart of technological change. (We might need a new data center wing to edit that down to a length modern readers will actually consume.) Main Takeaways From Pope Leo’s Encyclical on AI.

+ From commencement speakers getting booed to the Vatican, AI has some serious negative buzz going. Tech CEOs used to almost brag about what AI would do to the job market. Times have changed. OpenAI’s Altman says AI unlikely to lead to ‘jobs apocalypse.’

+ “What do the numbers really say about the impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market? The answer might surprise you.” A reality check on the AI jobs hysteria. So far, the job market hasn’t seen that big of an impact. But AI is just getting warmed up.

+ Meanwhile, one of the Pope’s worries seems unstoppable. AI warfare is already here. “Even Anthropic seems to think its red lines won’t hold for long. After all, history has proven otherwise.”

5

Extra, Extra

Race to Racism: Federal court blocks Alabama plan for new congressional districts that could help Republicans. “A three-judge panel in the state’s long-running redistricting case issued a preliminary injunction that prevents the state from switching maps, ruling that the Republican-backed plan ‘intentionally discriminated based on race.’” (Of course, that’s precisely what the Supreme Court just allowed, so one imagines they’ll chime in soon, with the midterms quickly approaching.)

+ Let’s Not Keep This on the (L)DL: “In a small, preliminary study, an experimental gene-editing treatment dramatically lowered cholesterol levels, perhaps permanently, after just one infusion, scientists reported on Monday. If confirmed in larger studies, researchers hope the findings may lead to a one-and-done way to prevent heart disease in large numbers of people.” Gina Kolata in the NYT (Gift Article): One-and-Done Heart Disease Prevention? Scientists Show It May Be Possible.

+ Command Performance: “The 42 swimming, track and weightlifting athletes who competed Sunday may have come to Las Vegas to chase personal records and millions in prize money, but the organizers of the Enhanced Games had greater ambitions than merely launching a new sports franchise. They sought to use the event to de-stigmatize the use of performance-enhancing substances and to entice consumers to buy them.” Enhanced Games got its ‘world record,’ but felt more like a glorified infomercial.

+ Here So Soon? “The U.K. smashed a century-old temperature record for the second time in 24 hours on Tuesday as a spring heat wave continued to scorch parts of Western Europe, triggering government warnings about risks to life. Several drownings were reported in Britain and France as people tried to cool down.” The heatwaves are coming early this year. Exceptionally early heat wave shatters records and brings deaths in Europe.

+ Backseat Drivers: “I don’t have to talk to another human being ... I get in a car, and I’m just alone.” Blind Waymo Users Revel in the Joy of Riding Alone.

+ Curb Enthusiasm: “I am drawn there by a pair of parallel curbs that were designed to corral shopping carts. Unbeknown to shoppers on their way to rotisserie chicken and pallets of toilet paper, the curbs are world famous. Their image has been reproduced on stickers, T-shirts and skateboard graphics. Pilgrims fly across the country and from Europe to skate them, sometimes taking dimensions so they can mold replicas back home.” Conor Dougherty: What I Learned About Loss While Skateboarding at Costco.

6

Bottom of the News

“Police responding to reports of a shotgun blast at a convenience store sounds like the opening of countless American crime movies, but when cops in Nebraska responded to a recent such call they found an unusual culprit: a dog.” (I always assumed it would be the cats who would come for us first...)

+ Stephen Colbert was back on TV almost immediately. Public access TV. Only in Monroe.

Felines, Whoa Whoa Whoa, Felines

Dave Pell — Fri, 22 May 2026 19:10:55 GMT

I know, I know. It’s the Friday before a three-day weekend. The last thing you want to read about is more bad news, a new scandal, or yet another group being falsely maligned, defamed, scapegoated, and targeted by those in power. But I don’t make the news, I just share it. And you should know the truth: While cats are known for landing on their feet, the same is not true for cat owners. Especially male cat owners looking for love. Men who own felines may think they’re the cat’s meow, but they often get a different message on dating sites: “Don’t catcall me, I’ll call you.” Michael Zadoorian lets the cat out of the bag in this story that begins with a single friend who was thinking about getting a cat. “The next day, he spoke to a co-worker, a woman who warned him that he should not, under any circumstances, get a cat. She said that women didn’t want a man with a cat. He would never get a date, and even if he did, once that date came to his house and saw the cat, that would be it for him. Game over. She further stated that men with cats are looked upon by women as weak, feminine and submissive. Subtext: He would never have sex again if he got a cat. Is it a surprise that he got a dog? No. And as much as I didn’t like his co-worker’s ailurophobia, it turned out that science may support her claim. A man with a cat is apparently suspect in America. A 2020 study by Colorado State University revealed that women on dating apps, aged 18 to 24, were more likely to reject a man posing with a cat in his profile photo.” NYT (Gift Article): Men, Hide Your Cats. “In the study, if men had a profile photograph without a cat, they attracted 38 percent of the women for a potential date or possibly even an actual relationship. Yet when women saw a picture of the same man holding a cat, the percentages dropped, with a sizable number saying they absolutely would not date a man who had a cat.”

+ Forget your choice of pets. As I reported yesterday, typos are the key to finding a match. You’re Just Not My Typo.

2

Grin and Colbert It

“He didn’t land the pope, but he got a Beatle. He didn’t have a new project to announce, but he left us with a song (in fact two). He didn’t choose to end his show, but he ended it his own weird, wonderful way. Stephen Colbert hosted his final ‘Late Show’ on Thursday night, completing the story of the TV year’s most notorious and rancorous cancellation. But his final hour-plus — an emotional and delightfully bizarre wake for a comedy institution — turned it into a cancellebration.” NYT (Gift Article): Stephen Colbert’s Last Show: Laughing Well Is the Best Revenge. (Actually, the best revenge will be when we cancel the people who canceled Colbert.)

+ The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Goodbye Stephen Colbert Wanted to Say. “I realized pretty soon that our job over here was different. We’re here to feel the news with you. And I don’t know about you, but I sure have felt it.’” (Holy crap, have I felt it, too.)

+ Here are some final outtakes from the final show.

3

A Man Bites Dog Story

“Mr. Trump has brought lawmakers in his party under his control like no president in modern history. A single critical word against Mr. Trump or his agenda could result in a full-scale retribution campaign to force a disloyal Republican from office. But this week, in a rarity in G.O.P. politics, Mr. Trump’s taunts, bullying and threats have backfired, at least for now. Senate Republicans, after the president targeted two of their own, stood up to Mr. Trump on two of his biggest priorities: money for his White House ballroom, and a $1.8 billion fund to reward Trump supporters who claim political persecution by Democrats, such as the rioters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.” (It tells you everything you need to know that those are two of his biggest priorities.) After years of enabling, sycophancy, and soul-selling, I wouldn’t hold your breath that this long-awaited hint of resistance will hold. So enjoy it while you can. In a Rarity, Republicans Stand Up to Trump.

+ Heather Cox Richardson: “Republicans were angry they had no advance warning about the plan, questioned the legal basis for the fund, were unhappy with Blanche’s descriptions of how payments would work, and said they wanted no part of it. As former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) put it: ‘So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong—Take your pick.’” (Being utterly stupid and morally wrong is the brand.)

4

Weekend Whats

What to Movie: I am not a huge fan of leaving the house, and The Mandalorian and Grogu isn’t getting the best reviews. But I love Grogu. And my wife loves Grogu. And we also love movie popcorn. So there’s a decent chance I’m going to be at one of the opening weekend screenings. (If you have no interest in leaving your house this holiday weekend, you can always binge the remarkably excellent Star Wars series, Andor.)

+ What to Watch: “An evolution of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments on Hulu is a dramatic coming-of-age story set in Gilead. The series follows young teens Agnes Mackenzie, dutiful and pious, and Daisy, a new arrival and convert from beyond Gilead’s borders.” (I know, it seems like we get enough of an evolution of The Handmaid’s Tale in our daily news, but this series is good and it just got renewed for a second season.)

5

Extra, Extra

A Whiter Shade of Frail: WaPo (Gift Article): Trump offered White South Africans a new life. Thousands took him up on it. “Adri is one of 6,069 people who have been admitted to the United States as refugees since October, according to State Department figures. All but three were from South Africa. Her journey reflects the wholesale transformation of the refugee program under the Trump administration, which early last year froze refugee admissions save for one specific group.” Plus, US claims ‘emergency refugee situation’ as it admits 10,000 more white South Africans.

+ Gabbard Exits: Tulsi Gabbard to resign as director of national intelligence. “The former Democratic congresswoman said she would be leaving her job following her husband’s cancer diagnosis.” Gabbard was often the odd person out when it came to the major moments or decisions one associates with her job. “During pivotal moments as Trump deliberated over possible military action or watched live video feeds of operations in Iran or Venezuela, Gabbard was often not in the room, underscoring her outsider status ... She is the fourth Cabinet member — all women — to leave Trump’s administration.”

+ Endgame On? “Trump’s repeated threats to resume attacks since then have proved to be bluffs. The leaders in Tehran have been calculating for two months that Trump would not launch another attack, and for this reason they have made no concessions despite the damage they suffered from 37 days of relentless strikes. On the contrary, their terms for a settlement are those of a victor: They demand war reparations, no limits on uranium enrichment, recognized control of the strait, and an end to sanctions.” Robert Kagan in The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump’s Endgame Is Surrender. And from WSJ (Gift Article): Iran Mediators Race for Deal to Head Off Looming U.S., Israeli Strikes. Meanwhile, Iran and Oman in Talks Over Strait of Hormuz Ship Payment System.

+ Recycled Content: “A group of volunteers tracked 53 polypropylene plastic cups starting in recycling bins at Starbucks locations across nine states and Washington DC. Each recycling bin had signs clearly indicating these specific cups could be recycled. The results were stunning: not one cup ended up at a recycling facility.” (One wonders if Starbucks cups are the exception or the norm.)

+ Kyle Busch: “The news comes 11 days after Kyle Busch radioed into his crew near the end of a Cup Series race at Watkins Glen asking a doctor to give him a ‘shot’ after he finished the race. According to the television broadcast, Busch had been struggling with a sinus cold.” NASCAR icon Kyle Busch dies at the age of 41.

+ Let There Be Light of Consciousness: “Throughout the investor prospectus, SpaceX reiterates that its ultimate goal is to establish colonies on the moon and Mars that will usher in human civilization’s next evolution and expand humanity’s presence in the universe. By moving beyond the only home we have ever known, we ensure species-level redundancy and that the light of consciousness will not be tied to a single planet subject to the inevitable hazards of a harsh and vast universe.” And that’s not even the weirdest part of the SpaceX IPO filing. The company also spent $131 million on Cybertrucks last year. (Maybe after the IPO, they can upgrade to something less embarrassing.) Mars colony and Grok warnings: five strange details in SpaceX’s pitch to investors. And from Bloomberg (Gift Article): SpaceX IPO Makes Musk ‘Otherworldly’ Rich.

6

Feel Good Friday

“His nonchalance and the collision of what seemed like two different worlds had a number of interpretations. Some declared him ‘iconic,’ a ‘legend,’ even a ‘diva.’ Others called it a quintessentially Australian moment that captured the country’s devil-may-care attitude. Or was it perhaps a piece of performance art in itself, a commentary on the fashion world’s curated culture?” NYT (Gift Article): He Crashed a Beach Fashion Show and Accidentally Became Its Star.

+ Routine vaccines may cut dementia risk—experts have startling hypothesis on how.

+ UK scientists developing Ebola vaccine that could be ready for trials in months. (I’m beginning to think science and vaccines are good.)

+ “GLP-1 drugs may be linked to a lower risk of cancer progression, according to new research that will be presented next week at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting.”

+ Experience: we found a baby on the subway – now he’s our 26-year-old son.

+ Stowaway Fox Gets Clean Bill of Health and a Name: Basil (Like ‘Dazzle’)

You're Just My Typo

Dave Pell — Thu, 21 May 2026 19:28:03 GMT

To all of those who have complained over the years about my typos, misprints, errors, omitted words, dittography, haplography, misspellings, mistakes, scribal errors, or other minor boo-boos, I’m not sorry. There will be no erratum nor corrigendum issued (including any necessitated by my potential misuse of those words). None of these keyboardian goofs were accidental. It was my way of enabling you to be certain that these missives were being delivered by a human being. I typo, therefore I am. Not only were my countless typos intentional, they were prescient and prophetic (or prophylactic, I need to check Grammarly). It turns out that typos that once enraged readers are now all the rage. “Although typos and other mistakes don’t suddenly mean that a piece of writing is good or praiseworthy, to some people, they are at least signs that it is worth reading. On a base level, many of us are willing to invest time in reading a long email if we sense that someone actually wrote it, line by line.” (The basic rule these days: If a note is perfect, it was written by AI. If it has typos, it was written by a human. And if it has a lot of all-caps, it was written by a monster.) The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Typo Vibe Shift. “Some job applicants are intentionally adding typos to their cover letters to prove that they, and not an AI program, wrote them. Celebrities and CEOs are sending out error-ridden emails and Instagram Stories, and instead of getting a scolding, they are praised for sounding authentic. On some dating apps, where people are, somewhat absurdly, prompted to compose their profiles with AI, typos are apparently no longer an automatic repellant. Nicole Ellison, a University of Michigan professor whose 2006 study showed that dating profiles with spelling mistakes turn people off, now thinks people are warming to the Tinder typo. ‘A typo maybe signals that you actually do care.’” (Now you know: There’s never been a newsletter writer who cares more about their readers than I do.)

2

Tragic Sequel

“The two teenagers who walked into a San Diego mosque with assault rifles on Monday wore patches displaying the Black Sun—a neo-Nazi iteration of the swastika—and had scribbled white-supremacist symbols in white correction fluid on their guns. They started shooting, killing three. Then they fled in a BMW one had stolen from his mother. In the car, 17-year-old Cain Clark apparently shot his accomplice, Caleb Vasquez, before shooting himself in the head. We know much of this, in graphic detail, because, within hours, Clark and Vasquez’s video-recorded rampage seems to have been posted on the messaging platform Discord, then on a website called Watch People Die.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): The Glorification of Mass Murder. “The San Diego mosque killings were part ideological, part performance.”

+ “The shooting, conducted by two teenagers who police said met on the internet, extends a pattern of bloodshed inspired by the web, where in recent years video-recorded slayings have been live-streamed onto Facebook and Twitch, reposted onto YouTube and X, and cut into memes across Reddit and 4chan. The videos so frequently cite one another that they’ve raised fears from extremism experts that they could motivate copycats. The speed of their virality has also made it challenging to fully take them offline.” WaPo (Gift Article): San Diego mosque attack followed a familiar online script.

3

Shalomless Shabbats

Were American Jews right to feel abandoned by our supposed allies in the immediate aftermath of October 7, when hostage posters were being torn down and campus protests were surging long before Israel even responded to the attacks? Yes. Are American Jews allowed to believe that what felt like a betrayal has been followed by Israeli military actions that have gone too far, led by a current government that’s “intent on blocking the creation of a Palestinian state and seems committed instead to permanent domination?” Yes. Is this complex set of realities and emotions happening at a moment when antisemitism is going through the roof, in America and abroad? Hell yes. Michael W. Sonnenfeldt tries to make sense of the situation. The Challenge for American Jews. “These contradictions place many American Jews in an untenable position. Many of us believe deeply in Israel’s right to exist, and many of us believe the United States should help Israel defend itself against existential threats, because as America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel’s survival is in the United States’ interest. At the same time, we cannot ignore the profound moral questions raised by the conduct of the war in Gaza, or dismiss the concerns of those who fear that American arms are being used in ways that violate humanitarian law. Understanding the impulse to condition military support is not the same as abandoning Israel; it can be an expression of anguish about what Israel, under its current leadership, is becoming.”

4

You Had Me at Jell-O

“Jell-O — long known for its bright rainbow of artificially colored gelatins — is getting a line of products made without synthetic colors or artificial sweeteners to meet increasing consumer demand for natural ingredients.” But before you get too excited about the health benefits associated with getting rid of artificial colors, remember that it’s 2026. WSJ (Gift Article): Natural Food Colors Embraced by MAHA Linked to Health Problems. “Artificial food dyes have long been suspected to be harmful to your health. But new research shows that some of the natural color additives being turned to as alternatives are associated with an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes and cancer.”

5

Extra, Extra

Ballroom Lancing: “’I don’t like the fund at all,’ said Sen. John Curtis (R., Utah), who added he didn’t believe any guardrails could fix it. Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.), who is retiring after Trump regularly criticized him, called it a ‘payout pot for punks.’” The Trump IRS slush fund is not all that popular, even with Republicans. And funding for the new ballroom polls about as well as a punch in the face. Will these issues finally mean Trump’s enablers have found their bottom? (It’s hard to imagine, but we can hope.) WSJ (Gift Article): Trump on Collision Course With GOP Over Controversial $1.8 Billion Fund.

+ Highway to EL: “The biggest episodes of the past have altered the course of human events, according to researchers. An emerging one is drawing historic comparisons.” A Powerful El Niño Is Forming. If History Is a Guide, It Could Hit Hard.

+ It’s Getting Old in Old Havana: “Widespread blackouts on the fuel-starved island and spotty phone signals meant word of the new, steep escalation in the U.S. pressure campaign on the Cuban government was slow to reach many of Cuba’s own residents.” NYT: In Blackout-Hit Cuba, Word of U.S. Castro Indictment Spreads Slowly. (Cuban citizens who have been victimized by their own government are now being victimized by another government in the name of stopping that victimization.)

+ Cut Loose Like a Bruce: “I am here in support tonight for Stephen because you are the first guy in America who’s lost his show because we got a president who can’t take a joke. And because Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want. Anyway, Stephen, these are small-minded people, they got no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about.” Springsteen on the penultimate episode of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show.

+ Legal Gamble: “Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has signed the nation’s first law banning prediction market sites from operating in the state, and in response, the Trump administration has sued, teeing up a legal battle over the most far-reaching crackdown on popular services like Kalshi and Polymarket.”

+ Batman and Robbing: “Batman is being held hostage in a Mississippi warehouse. So, too, are James Bond, Doctor Who and Cruella de Ville. Not even pop culture’s grumpiest cat, Garfield, can escape. They’re among thousands of characters represented in roughly 8.2 million comics, graphic novels, figurines and table-top games held for months in a 600,000-square-foot warehouse formerly operated by a major comics distributor that went bankrupt in 2025.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): JPMorgan Fights Over Millions of Comic Books Locked in a Mississippi Warehouse.

+ The Vagina Dialogues: “Maybe you need a $30 VMagic vulva balm. Does sex feel uncomfortable? A $115 vibrating massager, sold by The Pelvic People, claims to ease ‘intimacy-related tension and anxiety.’ To prevent recurring UTIs, there are Mineral Undies; to ‘reduce pressure around your pelvis,’ there is pain-free underwear. If you suffer from recurrent bacterial vaginosis, Happy V and Bonafide say they have pills to break the cycle. If you’re not sure what you suffer from, Evvy can provide you with a $348 at-home microbiome and UTI test and a ‘vaginal health coach.’ The wellness crusade has come for the vagina.” NYT (Gift Article): The Vaginal Wellness Boom Is Here.

6

Bottom of the News

“A calendar featuring close-ups of young, handsome men in priestly attire has been a perennial Rome souvenir for the last two decades — but few, it seems, are actually men of the cloth.” Holy deception: Rome’s ‘sexy priest’ calendar star never set foot in a seminary. (Remember when this used to be the kind of thing we considered a major scandal?)

+ “As the incline got steeper, I opened the companion app on my phone and pressed Boost. My stride quickened. The whirring got louder. As the AI marched me toward the summit, I enjoyed the view. Thirty seconds later, the surge of power was over, and the legs returned to the gentler Eco mode.” Forget E-biking. E-Hiking Is Here.

+ America in 2026: Joey Chestnut to defend hot dog title while on probation.

The Missing Link

Dave Pell — Wed, 20 May 2026 19:38:11 GMT

In the early days of the internet, we found things by browsing through web directories, like the one from Yahoo. That method of discovery was replaced by much more powerful search technologies, led by Google, that enabled us to quickly scour the entire internet and click on links to get to the source material. And so it’s been for more than a quarter century (which is like 10 million years in internet time). But now, the blue links that have defined the internet era, and powered a revolution in business transformation and information sharing, are, like so many other tech job-holders, at serious risk of being put out of work by AI. TechCrunch: Google Search as you know it is over. “Instead of returning a simple list of links, Google Search will drop users into AI-powered interactive experiences at times. Google is also introducing tools that can dispatch ‘information agents’ to gather information on a user’s behalf, along with tools that let users build personalized mini apps tailored to their needs.” But if links die, what happens to the sites they now connect (the same sites that are being repurposed to provide answers to your questions in the new-fangled search box)? As Jay Peters writes in The Verge(Gift Article): “Google doing everything also means a lot of the web that Google relies on collapses under it. If Google Search doesn’t send traffic to publishers or websites who need visitors to make money ... what will Search learn from, and where will it point people to?” And what will become of the serendipity and random discovery that made the internet fun and informative? And what happens to our already isolated tech experiences when we lose the links that not only connect us to information, but to each other as well? Those are questions even AI can’t yet answer. In the meantime, Google and its AI competitors are racing to become the Hotel California of AI’s captive audience age. We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like. But you can never leave.

2

Get a Grip

“Less than six months from the midterm elections, the president may be as unpopular as he’s ever been with the general public. But inside the Republican Party, he remains the undisputed kingmaker.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Why Thomas Massie Thought He Was Different. “Last night Massie met the same fate as so many of Trump’s Republican critics: He lost his primary.”

+ There’s no sugar-coating the sad fact that, even after dragging America’s democracy, economy, and global status through the mud, Trump still holds a tight grip on the core GOP voting base. But that same grip may be costly once we get to general elections that feature a broader voting population that views Trump negatively. Trump’s grip is choking his GOP enemies, but it may leave the GOP choking its chicken in November. Dan Pfeiffer sums it up. Everyone Thinks Trump Won Last Night. They’re Wrong (paywalled). “The message to Republicans from Kentucky, Louisiana, and elsewhere is crystal clear — buck Trump and lose your job. The problem for Republicans on the ballot this fall is that the best way to keep their job might be to buck Trump.”

+ In the shorter term, there are now a few more GOP members of Congress who have nothing to lose by expressing their actual views on matters. These folks aren’t exactly profiles in courage, but, in 2026, we’ll take what we can get. The GOP’s YOLO caucus is small but growing.

3

Crime Pays

Yesterday, I wrote: Trump may not be good at wars, economics, or geopolitics, but give him this: He is amazingly good at corruption. And today, here’s the NYT Editorial Board (Gift Article) on Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund and deal to end all ongoing audits of himself and his family. There Has Never Been an Example of Presidential Corruption Like This. “The fund manages to combine three of Mr. Trump’s most alarming behaviors. One, it is an obvious form of corruption, coming from a president who has used his office to enrich himself, his family and his allies. Two, the fund continues his pattern of using the Justice Department as an enforcer to punish his perceived opponents and protect his friends and allies. Three, the fund is his latest attempt to rewrite history about the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress.”

+ Think you’re sickened by the idea of the already-pardoned Jan 6 criminals getting a cut of your tax dollars as a reward for their crimes? Imagine how the Capitol police officers feel. Jan. 6 Police Officers Sue to Block $1.8 Billion Fund.

+ The corruption is nonstop. We’re used to headlines like this one: Trump Has Been Investing in Companies and Then Pumping Them in His Speeches. But even judged by our lowered standards, this corruption stands out. Joyce Vance: “When everything is bad, nothing is bad. People get desensitized. They can no longer keep track of it all. It’s all so awful that none of it gets processed anymore. So I need you to hear me when I say tonight: This is bad. Really, really bad.” (Let’s hope we get to the midterms before we run out of reallys...)

4

Slap Shot

“But the sell-off of youth sports is no surprise. In America, little remains of what used to be called the public commons—the essential parts of life organized for mutual benefit rather than profit extraction. Hospitals, nursing homes, and insurance companies were once mostly nonprofit, run by local boards. No more. Education, from preschool to college, is being colonized by for-profit owners. Even utilities such as electricity and water, once treated as public goods, are being taken over by profit-obsessed investment firms.” Chris Murphy in The Atlantic (Gift Article): My Son’s Hockey Team and the Crisis of American Resentment.

+ The way youth sports has changed also has an impact on what I wrote about yesterday. Americans are increasingly divided, not only politically, socially, and economically, but geographically. Our lack of real-world interaction makes us all the more susceptible to hateful, rage-baiting messages spread by those who benefit from keeping us divided and afraid of one another. Gotta Keep ‘Em Separated.

5

Extra, Extra

Havana Bad Day: “Cuba is not expected to extradite Castro to the U.S. and most indicted foreign leaders are not brought to the country to face charges. But Blanche hinted to the possibility of U.S. action in Cuba when he told reporters there was a warrant for Castro’s arrest, ‘so we expect that he will show up here by his own will or by another way.’” DOJ indicts Raúl Castro over fatal 1996 civilian planes’ shooting.

+ Ebola’s Spread: “Anxious healthcare workers in eastern Congo said Wednesday they are underprotected and undertrained in a rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak of a rare type of the virus in one of the world’s most remote and vulnerable places.” Ebola fears surge on the ground in Congo over rapid spread of a rare type. Plus, the absence of USAID likely slowed Ebola detection and response, former officials say. Here are some photos from Congo and Uganda during the Ebola outbreak.

+ Homework: “A prominent Guinean couple, living in a suburb near Dallas, took in a young girl from their home country. They told neighbors that she was their niece, whom they had rescued from war and poverty. But children in the neighborhood, who noticed how she was always working, began to refer to her as a ‘slave.’” Yudhijit Bhattacharjee in The New Yorker: In Plain Sight.

+ Frank Acknowledgement: “Often voted the ‘brainiest,’ ‘funniest’ and ‘most eloquent’ member of the House, he was also the first to come out voluntarily and helped normalize being openly gay in public office.” Brains, humor, and eloquence are some things we could use more of these days. Barney Frank, Gay Pioneer and Liberal Stalwart in Congress, Dies at 86.

+ Dad Bod of Work: “Sales have been sliding for nonfiction titles about politics, biographies and other books often aimed at men.” WSJ (Gift Article): Dad Books Are a Dying Breed. These days, I really only read fiction. The content I consume on a daily basis is already more non-fiction than I can handle. I’m guessing others feel the same.

+ Make the Grade: “The cap, which applies to the undergraduate college, limits the number of A’s per course to 20%, plus an additional four A’s to account for smaller courses with more variability. It won’t apply to A-minuses, which committee members predict will take over as the most awarded grade.” WSJ (Gift Article): Harvard Votes to Cap A’s in Effort to Curb Grade Inflation.

+ The Tortoise and the Heir: “Currently valued at $50 million, Sperm Racing is a start-up devoted to, well, racing human sperm through an artificial reproductive system. At their office and across the country, they’ve hosted matches with college students, streamers and influencers — all in the name of raising awareness about male infertility.” NYT Mag (Gift Article): Silicon Valley’s Answer to Declining Male Fertility? Sperm Racing. (When I was young, we raced our sperm in the snow, uphill, both ways.)

6

Bottom of the News

“He’s only taken one art history course at Vanderbilt, but his platform is based on an almost mutant-like talent ... he discovered he has an incredible memory for fine art images.” A look at the guy behind the excellent feed that finds art that mirrors moments in sports. Art, but Make It Sports.

+ Texas man arrested after intentionally driving Cybertruck into lake to test ‘wade mode.’

Gotta Keep 'Em Separated

Dave Pell — Tue, 19 May 2026 18:23:41 GMT

Throw the bums out. It’s an old political slogan that’s a lot harder to achieve in the age of redistricting, when most elections are decided long before voters get to the polls. More than 90 percent of the upcoming midterm races aren’t likely to be competitive. “Competitive districts — where a candidate leads a challenger by fewer than 10 percentage points — are increasingly rare. That is partly because many voters choose to live in communities with like-minded people, making many areas more politically homogenous and less competitive. And it is partly because parties are able to draw gerrymandered House maps, whittling down the number of swing districts even further.” NYT (Gift Article): How Redistricting Is Making the Midterms Less Competitive. This is a problem when it comes to voting. But it’s also representative of a broader problem. Americans are increasingly divided, not only politically, socially, and economically, but geographically. Our lack of real-world interaction makes us all the more susceptible to hateful, rage-baiting messages spread by those who benefit from keeping us divided and afraid of one another. Most Americans have never met anyone in real life that they hate as much as the caricatured versions of their political opponents. The imaginary friends of our childhoods get replaced by the imaginary enemies that exist somewhere, out there, beyond the borders—online and off—of our silos of homogeneity. Forget having united states, between political messaging, physical divides, and now contorted gerrymandering, we don’t even have united neighborhoods anymore.

2

Slush Fun

“But, of course, nobody entertains for a moment the thought that the fund could conceivably reward an actual victim of weaponization. To ensure that it will never be used for a deserving victim, the fund is scheduled for termination on December 15, 2028.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Trump’s $1.8 Billion Slush Fund Is Worse Than Stealing.

+ Don’t just take the media’s word for how bad this is. Take it from the top lawyer at the Treasury Department. “Brian Morrissey, the Treasury’s general counsel, resigned from the position seven months after he was confirmed to it by the Senate and just hours after the Trump administration announced the fund on Monday.”

+ I covered this more broadly yesterday: “What would happen if you gave a criminal defendant and his attorney control of the most powerful government in the world? In America, that was a rhetorical question for about 250 years. Unfortunately, in 2026, we’re rapidly watching the answer come to life.” The Commander in Thief.

+ Trump may not be good at wars, economics, or geopolitics, but give him this: He is amazingly good at corruption. Trump traded over $50 million in ‘Magnificent 7’ stocks last quarter.

3

Biblical Pro Portions

“Kayla Bundy likes to start her day with a cup of bone broth. She buys her milk raw, snacks on sardines, eats authentic sourdough bread — no commercial yeasts here — and generally cooks with locally-sourced ingredients. On TikTok, where she has over 500,000 followers, she claims that her diet ‘fixed’ her skin, her hair and her depression, and she sells coaching sessions to help others with their diets. Bundy, a 27-year-old Christian content creator, might sound like your run-of-the-mill clean-eating type, but she believes her diet to be part of a higher calling.” Eating Healthy? No, They’re Eating Biblically. (Maybe we can find common ground. I eat serving-sizes that are of biblical proportions.)

4

Error Quotes

If you’re a journalist feverishly working to write a lede that perfectly encapsulates the year 2026, it might be time to lay down your pencil. Benjamin Mullin just wrote it in the NYT (Gift Article): “The author of a nonfiction book about the effects of artificial intelligence on truth acknowledged on Monday that he had included numerous made-up or misattributed quotes concocted by A.I.” Book on Truth in the Age of A.I. Contains Quotes Made Up by A.I. “On Monday night, (the author) Mr. Rosenbaum acknowledged in a statement that the book had ‘a handful of improperly attributed or synthetic quotes’ and said that he had started his own investigation.”

5

Extra, Extra

Ebola Timing: It’s “a fast-moving epidemic in a conflict-ridden region, involving a strain with no approved vaccine, at a moment when the global health infrastructure built after past Ebola crises has been weakened by funding cuts and political upheaval.” In other words: Not good. Why this Ebola outbreak will be so difficult to contain.

+ The Data Suggests Otherwise: “From mill towns in Maine to farm counties in Indiana to desert plots outside Abilene, Texas, data center developers are telling local governments: Bring us in, give us what we need, add some tax breaks, and the jobs will follow. More than 35 states have responded by offering incentives and more to attract the industry.” But here’s the rub. Data centers don’t really create many jobs, especially considering how much space, water, and energy they consume. The Verge(Gift Article): Data centers are coming for rural America. (Of course, new manufacturing centers, now powered by robots and AI, also don’t create as many jobs as they used to.) AI companies have remarkably deep pockets. They could bring development and jobs and other resources to communities where they want to build data centers. And here’s why it’s in their self interest to do so. The American Rebellion Against AI Is Gaining Steam.

+ Mosque Shooting: “One of the victims, the mosque security guard, played ... a ‘pivotal’ role in preventing additional bloodshed. ‘I think it’s fair to say his actions were heroic, and undoubtedly he saved lives today.’” Time: What We Know About the Shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego.

+ Paxt Americana: Yes, incumbent John Cornyn sold his soul by backing Trump in primaries and voting to acquit in his impeachment trials, but Ken “Paxton was impeached on bribery and corruption charges in 2023.” So really, how could Trump resist? Trump endorses Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn ahead of Texas Republican Senate runoff. (Did Trump just hand a general election win to James Talarico?)

+ Cleanup Duty: “NATO is discussing the possibility of helping ships pass through the blocked Strait of Hormuz if the waterway isn’t reopened by early July.” (One way or another, the free world needs the Strait open.)

+ Tired of All the Zyning: “At a lunch this month between President Trump and tobacco executives, the conversation turned to nicotine pouches, one of the hottest products in the market. The president called his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and in the course of the conversation asked him what pouches he used. Trump took an interest in the product and told officials he wanted to see more of the pouches authorized.” How Zyn Became All the Rage Inside Trump World—Including With RFK Jr.

+ To Victor Go the Spoils: Nothing ever lives up to the hype. Except game one of the much-anticipated NBA playoff series between the Thunder and the Spurs. The Majestic Arrival of Playoff Wemby.

6

Bottom of the News

“A brawl between two rival Roman criminal gangs on Saturday at the site has provoked debate about whether security is adequate to protect the millions of tourists who visit the Trevi every year ... In the latest diving incident, a 30-year-old tourist from New Zealand broke away from his friends and dived into the fountain.” Tourist caught diving into Trevi Fountain.

+ About the only places crazier than the Trevi Fountain these days are the lines outside stores selling the Swatch x Audemars Piguet Royal Pop. GQ: Brawls, Pepper Spray, and Store Closures: Inside the Madness of Royal Pop Release Day.

+ “Cats Lock is exactly what it sounds like. It offers a way to quickly lock your keyboard, either with one click from the menu bar or using a keyboard shortcut, to block all typing when there’s a risk of a feline invasion.” (I’m still waiting for the beagle block.)

The Commander in Thief

Dave Pell — Mon, 18 May 2026 19:22:26 GMT

What would happen if you gave a criminal defendant and his attorney control of the most powerful government in the world? In America, that was a rhetorical question for about 250 years. Unfortunately, in 2026, we’re rapidly watching the answer come to life. Trump’s meritless, vexatious suit against an IRS that he has always shortchanged but now oversees has been settled by the once-independent Justice Department he has corrupted, which will result in major payouts for fellow criminals who served (and possibly plan to serve further) as willing, often violent, accomplices. “The Justice Department on Monday announced that it was establishing a $1.776 billion ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ after President Donald Trump moved to dismiss a $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns ... The massive fund would give Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by Trump a mechanism to seek taxpayer payouts for their claims of government overreach. The fund could even issue ‘formal apologies’ to individuals who made claims against the government.”

+ This corruption eruption is bad and sad news for the rule of law, but it could also end up being bad news for Republicans in the upcoming midterms.”Republicans broadly approved of Mr. Trump’s job performance and the war. But most other voters showed serious skepticism of his leadership on other top issues, including the economy and the cost of living. Sixty-four percent of all voters disapproved of his handling of the economy, long a strength for him, and majorities expressed negative views of how he was managing the cost of living.” Serious skepticism might be an understatement. Trump’s approval numbers are plummeting. The key for the opposition will be consistently and constantly tying the administration’s corruption to individual pocketboots. Every issue — the money spent on the war, healthcare cuts, tax cuts for the wealthy, the wanton Trump family corruption — needs to be connected directly to the daily experiences of the average American. No one is managing this narrative better than Jon Ossoff: “The faithless president depicts himself as Christ while he plunges the nation into wars of choice, while he and his family rake in billions from foreign princes, while he plunders our healthcare to cut taxes for the rich. Meanwhile, rent, power, groceries and healthcare have all hit all-time highs this year. While you pay more for everything, the first family’s wealth is growing by billions of dollars – because they’re crooks, and everybody knows it.” To quote the Mandalorian: This is the way.

2

Short End of the Carrot and Stick

When Elon Musk’s Doge, empowered by the Trump administration, kicked off the president’s second term by cutting USAID, the world’s poorest and most desperate people paid the price. That same group is now bearing the brunt of the closing of the Hormuz Strait. “As the conflict in the Middle East grinds into its third month, catastrophe is unfolding across the world’s poorest, least stable countries. If hostilities continue beyond June, those confronting acute hunger will swell beyond 363 million people worldwide, an increase of 45 million compared with before the war, the World Food Program warned. The danger is mounting absent the usual degree of international mobilization.” NYT (Gift Article): Catastrophe Is Emerging in the World’s Most Vulnerable Places. From Kate Phillips-Barrasso, head of global advocacy at Mercy Corps, “The system has been eviscerated. This is the era of indifference.”

3

Grade Expectations

“Living on campus for the past four years has been an eye-opening journey. Higher education was not equipped for the A.I. revolution. Someday in the future the fully autonomous Clawdbots or Moltbots (or whatever people call them) will laugh to themselves about this silly interregnum when universities seemed paralyzed, trying to bridge the gap between the liberal education of yore and the future in which humans have no monopoly on intelligence. For us, this was college.” Theo Baker, college senior and the author of How to Rule the World: An Education in Power at Stanford University, in the NYT (Gift Article): What A.I. Did to My College Class.

+ As is my policy, any story with information out of Stanford must be paired with academically superior information from Cal. “The share of A’s in college classes heavy on writing and coding—in other words, work more prone to artificial intelligence use—has grown more significantly than in other classes since ChatGPT’s debut, according to a paper from the University of California, Berkeley.” WSJ (Gift Article): A Grades Are Suddenly Everywhere Since the Arrival of ChatGPT.

+ If you missed it, Princeton’s test-taking honor code, which had survived for well over a century, was no match for AI. Proctor’s Gamble.

+ Even with homework assistance and grade inflation, the youth sure don’t seem too enthused by AI. Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt booed after AI remarks at Arizona commencement.

4

Knocked Up Down Low

“Any complete and responsible explanation of this phenomenon cannot begin in the 21st century and should never pretend that this is some tragedy brought about by exclusively terrible things. Birthrates have been declining in developed countries for a long time, as child mortality has declined; as women’s education has increased; as female labor force participation has soared; as modern contraception has proliferated; and as modern notions of feminism have empowered women to take more control over their bodies and their economic futures. And birthrates have continued to decline around, or even accelerated in their downturn in developed countries, as smartphone usage has surged; as housing prices of increased; as time spent at home on the Internet has grown; and as socialization and coupling have declined.” Whatever is causing the fertility decline, it’s a really big deal. Derek Thompson with an interesting look at the issue. The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think. (The phrase, is probably worse than you think, could append most headlines these days...)

5

Extra, Extra

Waited So Long: “A federal jury on Monday found that tech billionaire Elon Musk waited too long to bring his lawsuit against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others, throwing out the suit that claimed Altman had unlawfully enriched himself from the organization Musk and Altman co-founded.” (This was like a Yankees/Dodgers game. I was hoping both sides would lose.)

+ Minor Inconvenience: “A study of insurance claims for 1.8 million children found that the number of families raising mental health issues at visits to general practitioners rose sharply over a decade, with anxiety by far the fastest-growing complaint.”

+ Broken Families: “The findings point to a scale of family separations that far eclipses that of the first Trump administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy in 2018, when about 5,500 children were removed from their parents immediately after crossing the southern border.” Over 100,000 Family Separations in Deportation Push, Report Estimates.

+ Tennessee No Evil: Removing voting rights is just one part of a much broader attack. For example, “Knox County Schools in Tennessee is removing Alex Haley’s 1976 novel ‘Roots’ from its libraries.”

+ Lane Change: “Everlane built its following in the early 2010s around what it called ‘radical transparency’ on pricing and supply chain practices, positioning itself as a sustainability-minded, affordable basics brand.” So much for those goals. The brand just got acquired by Shein.

+ The Rai Stuff: “You won’t find one person on property who’s not happy for him.” ... “There’s very few people that are nicer and kinder human beings than Aaron.” ... “He’s such a good dude.” Those were just some of the comments made in celebration of an unlikely winner of golf’s PGA Championship. We’re gonna have to rethink where nice guys finish. Why all of golf was glad to see Aaron Rai win the US PGA Championship.

6

Bottom of the News

“More than seven years later, here is what is known for certain about the details of Lagerfeld’s will and estate: nothing. (Under French law, such matters are not made public.) But plenty has been rumored. Various figures close to Lagerfeld have been suggested as beneficiaries, including several male models and fashion executives, his bodyguard, his housekeeper, and the princess of Monaco. Even so, from the start, one improbable name has stood out: Choupette, Lagerfeld’s blue-cream Birman cat.” The Richest Cat in the World.

The Machine Rages Back

Dave Pell — Fri, 15 May 2026 20:06:30 GMT

The dawning of the internet enabled a creative revolution, where one guy like me, with a laptop, could develop a publishing system and an audience that could compete with major, branded publications. During the dot-com boom, five people from the New York Times came to my South of Market, San Francisco office because they wanted to get advice about their newsletter strategy. The age of indies had arrived. We were where it was all happening. During the current AI boom, it feels more like something is happening to us. Giant corporations with unprecedented amounts of capital and no real oversight other than the hollow promises of self-regulation are making massive decisions about the future of everything, while we’re left to hope our tech overlords are benevolent in the way they choose to delete the role of mere salaried NPCs, and where they decide city-sized data centers will drink our milkshake. All that indie creativity has been sucked into giant database farms, where it gets regurgitated as bulleted outlines. The internet empowered. AI is overpowering. Both the reality and the marketing around AI are overwhelming. Charlie Warzel explains why so much of the current tech revolution makes people want to hit a giant ESC key. “That you can’t begin to wrap your mind around the AI boom or orient yourself in it is a feature, not a bug, for those building the technology. But for anyone just trying to adapt, it’s difficult not to feel resentful or alienated. Silicon Valley is trying to speedrun the singularity, and it’s polarizing the rest of us in the process.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Too Much Is Happening Too Fast. “I’d argue that the most common feeling about AI is somatic: a low-grade hum of difficult-to-place anxiety that’s the result of loud people constantly suggesting that the near future will look very little like the present and that nothing—your job or the social contract—might survive the transition.” (To save space, I’m skipping the interim tech years where the internet annihilated attention, polarized populations, razed reality, totalled truth, and demolished democracy.)

2

Zero Summit Game

A lot of China-US summit deals have been touted, even though, predictably, details are scarce. (Boeing got a big airplane purchase deal, but it was smaller than expected and the stock is down). David Sanger (who Trump called treasonous on Air Force 1) has a good overview in the NYT (Gift Article): Trump Was Flattering, Xi Was Resolute. The Difference Spoke Volumes. “Mr. Xi arrived highly scripted, leaving no doubt that for all of China’s problems — deflation, depopulation, the bursting of the real estate bubble — the moment when China acts as a peer superpower had arrived. At every turn, at least as he began his two-day trip to China, Mr. Trump sounded conciliatory, the exact opposite of his portrayals of China in public appearances back home.”

+ By 2026 standards, the summit actually went pretty well. Ian Bremmer sums it up in this short video piece: “We are in the books on the Xi Jinping, Donald Trump summit in Beijing, certainly, one of the most consequential summits that we have witnessed in a long time. And yet very little concrete has come out of it, and on balance, I think, most observers are very comfortable with that.”

+ Time: Trump’s China Trip Underscores How Power Has Shifted East.

+ Of course, there’s the question of how the summit went for America vs how the summit went for Trump. To get an answer to the latter question, we may have to wait until Trump’s next financial disclosure. Trump Has Made Bank Off of Government Contractors’ Stock. And from Bloomberg (Gift Article): Trump’s More Than 3,700 Trades Provoke Wall Street Astonishment.

+ Time will tell who were the biggest winners of the summit. For now, the biggest loser seems to be CBS News anchor Tony Dokoupil, who reported on the China summit from Taiwan. Oh, and his cameraman passed out (probably over confusion over what they were doing in Taiwan). Defector: Tony Dokoupil Flew 8,000 Miles Just To Eat More Sh-t.

3

Lord of the Fliers

“Tractors, like the one his father frequently drove, had been hit in the fields. In March, a drone blew up a car next to a shop. Another had exploded on Anatolii’s street just the day before. Now, the one he spotted was heading right for his house. As he clung to the tree trunk, the black quadcopter buzzed past, flying just off the ground and bearing down on a cluster of buildings where three of his younger siblings were playing with other kids in their yard ... What Anatolii did next — something he had rehearsed, something few civilians in Ukraine have been taught — might have saved the lives of those children, his mother changing a diaper inside or other neighbors on the block.” WaPo(Gift Article): In northern Ukraine, it was boy vs. Russian drone. The boy won.

4

Weekend Whats

What to Binge: An inexperienced crew of civil servants is quickly thrust into roles as undercover agents trying to slow the flood of heroin into 1990s Britain in the new series, Legends on Netflix.

+ What to Book: The very popular novel Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke is told from the perspective of a trad-wife influencer. The less you know going in, the better.

+ What to Read: If you missed it yesterday ... a great writer (Wright Thompson) wrote about a great guy (Steve Kerr). From ESPN: The Warrior Still Remains. Yes, this is an article about my favorite coach and my favorite NBA team. But it’s much more than that. It’s about loss, politics, chronic pain, retirement, decision-making, community, family, and a lot more. To get something out of this piece, you don’t have to be into the NBA or the Warriors. You can be a road warrior, a keyboard warrior, a social justice warrior, or a weekend warrior, and you’ll relate.

5

Extra, Extra

Slush Fun: “President Donald Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration.”

+ Kush Job: “They’ve agreed to pay Kushner’s firm tens of millions of dollars in fees annually in hopes of gaining influence at the White House as well as returns for their portfolios, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump’s decision to move forward with an Iran war that all three opposed shows the constraints of that approach.” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Kushner Disappoints Mideast Clients Who Spent Millions Seeking Sway. (Wait, I just thought they wrote the checks because Jared is such a good investor?)

+ Last Deport of Call? “Hugo Palencia said he was delivering meals in Aurora, Colo., for DoorDash and Uber around this time last year. Now, he is in a hotel in the Democratic Republic of Congo, dazed by a journey that he said took him in shackles from the United States to a Central African country that he had barely heard of before last month.” U.S. Migrants Deported to Congo: ‘Where on Earth Is This Place?’

+ Little Shop of Horowitz: The same investors that are dominating the biggest tech deals are also dominating politics. Andreessen Horowitz Is Spending on Politics Like No Other. Even with Trump’s low approval rating, it will be tough to compete with this kind of cash...

+ Shoot First Ask Questions Later: “The Trump administration has consistently sought to justify the killings, which began during last year’s military buildup towards Venezuela, by arguing those targeted were “narco-terrorists” transporting drugs to the US. But a joint effort by 20 journalists led by the Latin American Center for Investigative Journalism this week published the identities of 13 of those killed, some of whom showed no indication of involvement in drug trafficking.”

+ Commercial Endeavors: “He directed nearly 1,000 comedic commercials, including a much-quoted spot for Wendy’s and one for FedEx featuring a manic speed talker.” You may not know the name, but if you’re of a certain age, you definitely know the work. Joe Sedelmaier, Auteur Behind ‘Where’s the Beef?’ Ad, Dies at 92.

+ Bad Kar-ma: Earworm Kars4Kids jingle yanked from California airwaves for false advertising.

6

Feel Good Friday

“Pancreatic cancer is one of the most dire diagnoses in medicine. There are few available treatments, and they do little to help. For decades, experimental drugs flopped in trials. Many researchers believed the biological obstacles could not be surmounted. In what seems the blink of an eye, all that has changed.” How an ‘Impossible’ Idea Led to a Pancreatic Cancer Breakthrough.

+ “Rita Collins had a dream for her retirement: bringing books and people together all over the country. Behind the wheel of a van she’s making it happen.” NYT: This Bookstore Gets Good Mileage.

+ Adults relive the musical camaraderie of their youth at band camps reprised for grown-ups.

+ Before ‘Ted Lasso,’ Cristo Fernández had pro soccer dreams. Now he’s living them. Futbol is life (imitating art).

+ The surprisingly strong case for feeling great about your coffee habit.

+ YouTube taught a Japanese teen how to kick field goals. Now he’s in the NFL.

The Don in China

Dave Pell — Thu, 14 May 2026 19:29:30 GMT

Maybe the best way to describe Team Trump’s visit to China is by paraphrasing Michael Corleone’s famous Godfather quote. It’s not political, Sonny. It’s strictly business. The group photo of the U.S. delegation that stood at attention at the Great Hall of the People features a whole lot of CEOs looking to increase revenues from China, and not a whole lot of people, if any, with Chinese diplomatic expertise. Having business leaders negotiate deals may not provide the best possible geopolitical outcomes, but most would agree that it beats having a summit in which Trump is given free rein, and an open mic, to negotiate more complex issues. As Vivian Salama and Jonathan Lemire explain in The Atlantic (Gift Article), “the major goal of Trump and Xi’s meeting is to do no harm.” The Hippocratic Summit. “The delegation that arrived with President Trump in Beijing last night looked less like the diplomatic corps of a superpower and more like a Fortune 500 board meeting. On Air Force One were Elon Musk, Tim Cook (’Tim Apple,’ as the president calls him), and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Joining in Beijing were honchos from Wall Street and aerospace firms. The message was impossible to miss: This trip, billed as a high-stakes summit between the leaders of the world’s two most powerful nations, is about money first and geopolitics second—with differences in ideology trailing far behind.” While the summit was mostly friendly, no doubt, the experts on both sides were thinking of another Corleone quote: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

+ While the US delegation was all about business, Xi was definitely focused on one very big political issue. China’s leader warns Trump that differences over Taiwan could lead to a clash. “Xi warned the U.S. ‘must exercise extra caution in handling the Taiwan question ... If it is handled properly, the bilateral relationship will enjoy overall stability ... Otherwise, the two countries will have clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.” While Marco Rubio declared that US policy on Taiwan is “unchanged,” many were concerned that Trump would weaken America’s stand on Taiwan in exchange for China’s help getting him out of the Iran mess (which has resulted in Chinese gains). The Taiwan conflict is also a story about business. As much as the Strait of Hormuz has impacted the global economy, “these hiccups are nothing compared to the effects of a serious disruption to the flow of chips from Taiwan.” Rest of World: Taiwan’s chips power the global economy. China holds the leverage.

+ “’The idea is that when an established, great power is met with a rising power, conflict between the two is certainly likely if not inevitable,’ said Daniel Sutton, a classicist at the University of Cambridge who studies Thucydides, on Thursday. In Mr. Xi’s version of the analogy, an emboldened China is the Athens to an American Sparta.” Xi Warned of the ‘Thucydides Trap.’ What Is It? (There’s about as much chance that Xi’s guest of honor understood that reference as there is that the rest of us will come up with a definition for Covfefe.)

2

Lethal Weapon

“The findings reflect the complex landscape in which medical decisions are now made. Patients can readily find health information — both accurate and inaccurate — on social media, in podcasts and from A.I. chatbots. A recent report from the Pew Research Center found that half of U.S. adults under 50 get health and wellness information from influencers or podcasters, many of whom are not health professionals.” NYT (Gift Article): More Cancer Patients Are Taking Ivermectin. Mel Gibson and Joe Rogan Might Be Why. “There’s this perfect storm of fear, urgency, uncertainty, information overload and then this desperate need for hope ... When somebody is offering you a magic cure for something and they give anecdotal examples, it can feel very hopeful.”

3

We Aim to Please

At this point, we’re getting used to headlines like this one: Cisco posted record revenue on surging AI orders. It’s cutting almost 4,000 jobs. But technology isn’t just costing jobs in the tech sector. Everyone is affected. Even snipers. WSJ (Gift Article): Military Snipers Are Being Put Out of a Job by Drones. “A Ukrainian special-forces sniper claimed a world record in late 2023 with a shot that hit a Russian officer almost 2½ miles away. These days Vyacheslav Kovalskiy has a new job: supporting drone pilots. He hasn’t been out to shoot in more than a year and a half.”

4

Olden State Warrior

Most mornings, I cringe as I wake up to brutal headlines written by questionable sources about bad people doing terrible things. So I was relieved and excited this morning to wake up to a great writer (Wright Thompson) writing about a great guy (Steve Kerr). From ESPN: The Warrior Still Remains. Yes, this is an article about my favorite coach and my favorite NBA team. But it’s much more than that. It’s about loss, politics, chronic pain, retirement, decision-making, community, family, and a lot more. To get something out of this piece, you don’t have to be into the NBA or the Warriors. You can be a road warrior, a keyboard warrior, a social justice warrior, or a weekend warrior, and you’ll relate.

5

Extra, Extra

Getting Off: If you have the right connections and deep pockets, there’s really never been a better time to be a criminal. U.S. Set to Drop Charges Against Indian Billionaire Accused of Fraud. “The reversal came after the Indian billionaire, Gautam Adani, hired a new legal team led by Robert J. Giuffra Jr., one of President Trump’s personal lawyers.” You could be in pretty decent shape even if you’ve already been convicted. Donald Trump is thinking about celebrating America’s 250th birthday with 250 additional pardons. (At least he didn’t pick the number 1776...)

+ Bye American: Mike Banks, who led Trump’s border crackdown, resigned weeks after reports of prostitution allegations. “The resignation comes weeks after the Washington Examiner reported that six current and former border patrol employees had accused Banks of regularly paying for sex with prostitutes during trips to Colombia and Thailand over more than a decade, and bragging about it to colleagues.” (I’m sure the administration was just irritated that he didn’t spend his money on American prostitutes.)

+ Fraudian Slip: “Vice President JD Vance announced Wednesday that the Trump administration is withholding $1.3 billion in Medicaid payments to California and is threatening to suspend federal funding to all states if they don’t aggressively prosecute fraud in their Medicaid programs.” (I’m sure the targeting of red states is right around the corner.)

+ Developing Story: “The continuing crisis in Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz have exacted a heavy cost worldwide.” Here’s the story in photos. (Luckily, we still have enough petrochemicals to develop photos...)

+ App-ly Yourself: “Software is built for the masses, designed not to be perfect for anyone but to be passable for everyone.” Vibe coding may not be the ideal way to build a scalable app for a huge customer base. But it’s incredibly empowering if you want to create an app for yourself. David Pierce in The Verge (Gift Article): You can make an app for that.

+ Coal Hole: Trump’s Push to Keep Coal Plants Open Is Costing Hundreds of Millions. (Other than that, it’s a great idea.)

+ I’m Gonna Harden My Heart: “For decades, heart health advice has focused on a few key pillars: Eat healthily, exercise, don’t smoke, and manage cholesterol, blood pressure and stress. But there’s a growing body of research that suggests there may be a less obvious factor that can influence cardiovascular health: optimism.” WaPo (Gift Article): People who are optimistic tend to have healthier hearts, study finds. (I guess I’ll just say my goodbyes now...)

6

Bottom of the News

“Where do battle tanks and military trucks go when their service has ended? Enthusiasts and professionals put them to work for search and rescue, marketing and just having fun.” Backyard Battalions. “Westen Champlin, an auto enthusiast and YouTube personality in Kansas, owns a tank. Specifically a 1962 Centurion battle tank.” (I’m thinking of getting one of these for whenever I’m parked near a Cybertruck.)

+ “In a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, scientists describe the latest discovery from the site — a Neanderthal molar with a depression that they believe is evidence of an ancient invasive dental procedure. ‘Basically a root canal.’” (I’m guessing Neanderthal novocaine left much to be desired.)

Proctors' Gamble

Dave Pell — Wed, 13 May 2026 19:35:07 GMT

Let’s start with the obvious: Something called the Honor Code was never going to survive 2026 America. You’ve got to give Princeton some credit for holding out as long as it did: Well over a century is a pretty good run. Let’s do a quick Princeton Review. “In 1876, an editorial in Princeton’s newly founded campus newspaper, The Princetonian, argued against the use of proctors to monitor exams. Proctoring was ‘a means of bad moral education,’ the author wrote. Treat students as presumptively dishonest, and some would become so; treat them as honorable, and they would learn to behave honorably. And so the editorial board suggested a different approach: ‘Let every man write at the end of his paper a pledge that he has neither given nor received help, and let professors and tutors address themselves to some better business than watching for fraud.’” Cut to 2026. Students are back to being treated as being presumptively dishonest and proctors are back in the business of watching for fraud. The internet couldn’t break the policy. Mobile phones couldn’t break the policy. But then the policy met a new kind of opponent. The Atlantic (Gift Article): How AI Killed a 133-Year-Old Princeton Tradition. “The code lasted through two world wars, the upheaval of the 1960s, the disillusionment of Watergate, and even the rise of search engines and SparkNotes. It finally met its match in generative AI. Yesterday, after the rise of AI-facilitated cheating became too obvious to ignore, Princeton’s faculty voted to begin proctoring exams again. Technically, the Honor Code is still in place. Students will still sign a pledge that they didn’t cheat. But now professors will be watching to make sure they’re telling the truth. The Honor Code can’t run on the honor system anymore.” (Don’t worry. At some point, the Honor Code will be able to run on Nvidia chips...)

2

Leaving Kids on Read

The writing is on the wall. The question is whether today’s kids can read it. “Something troubling is happening in U.S. education. Almost everywhere in America, students are performing worse than their peers were 10 years ago, according to new, district-level test score data released Wednesday by the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford. Compared with a decade earlier, reading scores were down last year in 83 percent of school districts where data was available. Math scores were down in 70 percent. The declines have affected both rich and poor districts, and crossed racial and geographic divides.” NYT Upshot (Gift Article): Why U.S. Test Scores Are in a Generation-Long Decline. “From 2017 to 2019, students lost as much ground in reading as they did during the pandemic, and reading scores continued to fall at a similar rate through 2024.”

+ NPR: Kids’ test scores began declining way before COVID. These schools are making gains. (Hopefully, all the schools making gains aren’t still using Princeton’s Honor Code during tests...)

3

Life Inhale

“Over lunch at his golf club in Jupiter, Fla., on the first Saturday of May, President Trump got an earful from a group of tobacco executives and lobbyists unhappy with the way the Food and Drug Administration was regulating their industry. Eventually Mr. Trump had heard enough. He interrupted the conversation to call Dr. Marty Makary, the F.D.A. commissioner. No answer. Furious, the president then dialed Dr. Makary’s boss, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and another top health official, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He complained to them about the F.D.A.’s regulation of e-cigarettes.” And just like that, those tobacco execs and lobbyists are about to be able to sell flavored vapes. They gave the president an earful and the president is giving American kids a lungful. NYT (Gift Article): With a Friend in Trump, the Tobacco Industry Secures a Lucrative Win. You can say this about the Trump administration: you get what you pay for. Put that in your cotton candy, pink lemonade, mango mania pipe and smoke it.

+ The decision was part of the reason Marty Makary is no longer the FDA commissioner. And now, Rich Danker, a top Kennedy spokesman has resigned in protest.

4

Harp on The Same String

How does Trump stay up all night posting insane and offensive material on social media? Well, he has some help. And that help, it turns out, includes a printer and an unfriendly ghost-writer. “Natalie Harp, Trump’s executive assistant, plays an integral role in Trump’s Truth Social activity. She brings the president stacks of printed-out draft social-media posts for his approval. The proposed posts often recycle content from other accounts that Harp or advisers think would appeal to Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. Harp then logs onto the president’s account—at times outside of normal work hours—and posts batches of Trump-approved messages.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Late-Night Truth Social Storms That Offer a Window Into the President’s Mind. “Earlier this year, at Trump’s direction, Harp posted a video that included racist imagery depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, and an AI-generated image of Trump as a Christ-like figure, people familiar with the matter said.”

5

Extra, Extra

The Great Haul of China: “The Middle East conflict that Trump started, and seems unable to finish, will cast a long shadow over two days of talks amid fears that he might be tempted to weaken US support for Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by China, in return for Xi’s assistance.” Trump lands in China for high-stakes summit with Xi Jinping. It’s pretty clear from the Air Force One manifest that this trip is more about business than any other topic. Who was on Trump’s plane to China? Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO and more.

+ RSVPlease: “Dear NATO Members: I get it. You despise President Trump for all the right reasons. He has walked away from Ukraine. He has threatened to seize Greenland and annex Canada. He has coddled Vladimir Putin. He is eroding America’s democratic institutions and norms. He insulted each of you so much that the German chancellor recently barked back that Trump’s America was being ‘humiliated’ by Iran. I get it. Now get over it.” Thomas Friedman in the NYT (Gift Article) with an invitation he knows will be declined. NATO, Please Help. Trump Has No Strategy for Iran. Meanwhile, “Secret new assessments say Iran has operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that its military remains far stronger than President Trump has asserted.” (Maybe because he’s an assertified liar?)

+ Shark Bait: “The Stratos artificial intelligence datacenter footprint will cover more than 40,000 acres (62 sq miles) over three sites in Box Elder County in north-western Utah. The facility will require about 9GW of power, which is more than the entire state of Utah currently consumes, and suck up a significant amount of water in an area that has been hit by severe drought in recent years.” Backlash as Utah approves datacenter twice the size of Manhattan. “The proposed project is backed by Kevin O’Leary, the venture capitalist who appears on the TV show Shark Tank ... ‘I don’t think there’s a bigger site in the world than this ... It shows the Chinese and the rest of the world we are not messing around, we are going to get this done, move it forward and provide the compute power to our AI companies that defend the country.’”

+ Murdaugh, She Wrote: “In a unanimous opinion, the State Supreme Court said that ‘shocking jury interference’ by a court clerk who oversaw jurors during the 2023 trial meant that Mr. Murdaugh’s convictions must be overturned. Mr. Murdaugh, 57, will remain in prison because he also had pleaded guilty to various charges related to stealing millions of dollars from his law firm and his former clients.” Murdaugh Murder Convictions Overturned by South Carolina’s Top Court. (Does this mean more docuseries are on the way?)

+ Senate Chambers: “A burst of gunfire rang out Wednesday night in the Philippine Senate, where authorities have tried to arrest a senator who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for a charge of crime against humanity.”

+ Trading Blows: “Welcome to lower Manhattan’s Church Street Boxing Gym, where steel usually sharpens steel. But on this Thursday night, the ring is occupied by traders buying and selling cryptocurrencies—bitcoin, ether, even Pengu, a penguin-themed memecoin. The prize: $10,000 in cash and an ornate Japanese katana. And Parillo, a partner at a venture-capital firm, is methodically, brutally, pounding his rivals into submission.” WSJ(Gift Article): He’s a VC Partner by Day, Crypto Fighting Champ by Night. (The overlap between crypto trading, sports betting and other forms of gambling will become more and more clear. It’s not just that people are using crypto to make deposits into gambling sites. It’s that crypto traders are exhibiting the same addiction symptoms as other gamblers. )

+ Whatever Floats Your Bloat: “As many as 1,700 passengers are being held on board a cruise ship in southwest France, after dozens of cases of possible gastroenteritis on board.” (Cruises don’t seem awesome.)

6

Bottom of the News

“Darcel Clark was at the Mall at Bay Plaza in the Bronx, N.Y., in February, waiting for her order from the Bed-Stuy Fish Fry when a rowdy group of teenagers suddenly descended on the property. ‘They’re recording videos of themselves. I see them running from one place to another,’ said Clark. ‘It was really disturbing.’ Some stores and restaurants locked their doors. By the end of the day police had arrested 18 teenagers.” The good news. Teens are getting back into malls and malls are doing better. The bad news. Teens are getting back into malls. WSJ (Gift Article): Teens Helped Bring Malls Back to Life. Now They’re Getting Banned.

+ SF Giants’ Celebratory Thrusting May Be Gone Forever. (I don’t care what anyone says. When we beat the Dodgers, I’m thrusting.)

Reading the T Leaves

Dave Pell — Tue, 12 May 2026 18:01:02 GMT

After timidly doffing my jersey for a shirts vs skins junior high basketball game, a blond, athletic, attractive, popular kid guarding me pointed to my pear-shaped midriff, laughed, and said, “Look, Pell’s got handles.” I was humiliated, but I also made a determined pledge to myself that no matter what, that basketball game would be the last time anyone ever made fun of my upper body physique. And I kept that promise for the rest of my life. By making sure, from that day on, I was always on the shirts team.

If I had come of age in a more recent era, I may have been convinced that my body type and lack of manly prowess meant I needed a testosterone boost. (I’m guessing I had such low T that I was probably closer on the sliding scale to having high U.) For many males, this era has become T time. “From the Trump administration to online influencers, the hormone is increasingly seen as the key to achieving a new male ideal.” Even people whose T isn’t low are joining the T party. “Prescriptions are rising most rapidly among men ages 35 to 44, powered in large part by a surge in direct-to-consumer online clinics often marketing testosterone as a lifestyle product rather than a treatment for disease. The American Urological Association reports that roughly a third of men who are prescribed the drug do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis of testosterone deficiency, leading some critics to argue that this has created a legal market for low-grade steroids.” NYT Mag (Gift Article): Why So Many Men Are Obsessed With Testosterone. “All of this prompts a question: If one of the defining stories of the 2024 election was that young men swung to Trump in part because they felt masculinity had been demonized, what does it mean that so many men now believe they need to take testosterone to feel more like men?” I worry most about today’s young men who are motivated by influencers and ignoramuses to take drugs or alter their bodies in ways that could trade short term gains for longterm health issues. Hopefully, they can learn from my story. You know that blond, athletic, attractive, popular kid who made fun of my body? Today, his newsletter has like four subscribers. What comes around goes around.

+ Of course, testosterone is just one of the roids that’s all the rage. Boys and men are increasingly going to extremes to improve their looks. “For as long as he can remember, Trevor Larcom wanted to look different ... That’s how he fell into the online world of looksmaxxing, where young men relentlessly pursue physical ideals. He dyed his eyebrows. He did neck exercises and chewed extra-firm gum that he’d seen looksmaxxers claim would help build the jawline’s masseter muscles. And after seeing numerous before-and-after transformations, he ordered a peptide ‘stack,’ or a combination of several peptides for supposed enhanced results. Unrealistic beauty standards have long saddled women and girls, from models to movie stars to the growing masses of GLP-1 users. Now men and boys are facing their own heightened images of perfection.” WSJ (Gift Article): Teen Boys and Young Men Are Injecting Peptides in Search of Perfection.

+ Meanwhile, whether it’s to get more buffed or just to offset the effect of GLP-1s, everyone is adding protein to everything. You may not have a protein deficiency, but society does. Protein powder shortage threatens America’s biggest food craze. And this shortage could last til the cows come home. Literally. Whey protein comes from dairy. (Full disclosure: While my shirt is on, I wrote that line with my pants off.)

2

The Court’s Jim Crowbar

“The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday set the stage for Alabama to eliminate one of two largely Black congressional districts before this year’s midterm elections, creating an opening for Republicans to gain an additional U.S. House seat in a partisan battle for control of the closely divided chamber.” Supreme Court halts order for Alabama to use US House map with 2 largely Black districts. (The midterms are shaping up to be a race between Trump’s sucking and Scotus’s cheating.)

3

NPCs Unite

“I have spent years reporting and living in both the United States and China and wrote a book chronicling the history and evolution of the Chinese internet. Moving between the two countries, I’ve been struck by how they have come to mirror and resemble each other. There is a shared sense of precarity that lies beneath the envy and distrust: the technological future is taking shape at vertiginous speed yet its promise is not shared by all.” Yi-Ling Liu with some interesting thoughts to keep in mind as Trump and Xi negotiate AI deals at this week’s summit: The Shared Feeling of Being Harvested by the Future. “A parallel set of memes has emerged to capture the sense of powerlessness. In the United States, the Silicon Valley tech elite identify as ‘high agency,’ while the rest of us are “bots” condemned to the “permanent underclass.” In China, ordinary workers describe themselves as shechu (“corporate cattle”) and jiabangou (“overtime dogs.”) These same workers have long used the viral term ‘involution’ to capture the feeling of being trapped in a cycle of meaningless competition. In both countries, those disaffected by A.I. identify with the gaming meme of the ‘NPC’ or ‘non-player character.’ They feel like the background role in someone else’s video game, existing only to fill the world but not to shape it.”

4

Hitting the Sack

“Once the domain of mellow Gen X-ers in the ’80s and ’90s, the hacky sack is experiencing a renaissance at the hands — well, the feet — of Gen Z. High school students around the country are freshly enthusiastic about the toys, crocheted bean bags that once hung in the air like the scent of marijuana. Parents and teachers mostly seem glad to watch young people be entranced by something other than their phones.” 2026 sucks so hard that teens are nostalgic for times they never even experienced. Hacky Sack Mounts a Comeback With Gen Z. (I’m just glad that hacky sack hasn’t evolved into a term that means you need a testosterone boost...)

5

Extra, Extra

Adjusted for Inflation: “The U.S. war with Iran has pushed inflation to its highest level in almost three years.” Most of the price hikes are related to energy costs.

+ Makary in a Coalmine: “He upset anti-abortion Republicans keen on having the FDA restrict telehealth prescription of the abortion pill mifepristone, was pressured by President Donald Trump to authorize flavored vapes after initially raising concern about the products and was criticized by biopharmaceutical companies who argued Makary’s agency was inconsistent in its review of their medicines.” Marty Makary’s time atop FDA over.

+ Betting the Starm: “Keir Starmer has told his cabinet he will fight on as prime minister, saying the threshold for a leadership challenge has not been met, as ministers began to rally around the embattled leader.” Starmer tells cabinet he will not quit without leadership challenge.

+ Call it a Warsh: “The vote was nearly uniform across party lines, with just one Democrat breaking ranks — Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania cast the sole crossover vote in support of Trump’s nominee, according to CNBC. The vote on Warsh’s chairmanship nomination was expected later this week.” Senate confirms Kevin Warsh as a Fed governor.

+ A Blank (Check) Canvas: One of the more worrisome things about the hacks for ransom attacks we’ve seen on health and education platforms is that they seem to work. Maker of Canvas Learning Platform Strikes Deal for Hackers to Return Data.

+ Bomb Balm: “Facilities tied to Coca-Cola, Cargill, Mondelez and others appear to have been deliberately hit. The Trump administration’s muted response has raised concerns.” Russia Keeps Attacking U.S. Firms in Ukraine. The White House Is Silent.

+ A Dilly of a Pickle: “Professional athletes aren’t supposed to lose to 12-year-olds. But most 12-year-olds weren’t like Anna Leigh Waters in 2019. Waters was in middle school when she turned pro in pickleball and quickly showed that she was headed for big things, to the shock of her much older opponents.” And she only got better. She’s the best female pickleball player ever. And only 19.

+ Clipped: “Whether you’re scrolling TikTok, Instagram, X, or YouTube, it’s hard to avoid the snappy videos being churned out by this army of clippers trying to exploit algorithms with a provocative moment, engaging music and maybe the right news cycle, that will send footage viral. Clippers often upload dozens of the same clips to multiple platforms hoping one of them hits the virality jackpot.” The clipping economy: How short-form video ‘clippers’ are overrunning the internet.

6

Bottom of the News

“It could even be your underwear. Car washes. The bed where you sleep. The networks where you watch professional sports. Earthworms to feed your salamander. Dating apps. Exercise bikes. Your child’s math games. Fitness trackers, like Oura rings. Pet cameras. Your pet robots. And don’t forget the subscriptions to particular products, like toilet paper from a company called Who Gives a Crap.” Streaming, Toilet Paper, Underwear: Subscription Fatigue Is Setting In.