Welcome! Tom Brady dropped an expletive live on TV in reaction to a gruesome injury.
🚨 BREAKING: CNN, MS NOW, Politico to sue White House over blocked access - Axios
🇨🇳 AGAIN: China ousts top generals accused of corruption from party, military - Yahoo
🔥 NOTABLE: Farmers Are ‘Pissed’ Over Trump’s Moves on Beef and Tariffs - Washington Sun
‼️ NEWS: Paramount settled its lawsuit with California, paving the way for its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. - 𝕏X
➡️ STARTING HERE: “A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.” - Nikole Hannah-Jones at NYT (free)
👂 The Show Notes is my blueprint for radio but is only for subscribers. You can subscribe and listen here.
Lane Kiffen’s LSU Tigers lost to Ole Miss in Kiffen’s inaugural return to Oxford, Mississippi, after abruptly leaving Ole Miss for LSU before last year’s playoffs.
The national average for diesel hit an all-time high today at $6.51 a gallon, surpassing the June 2022 peak. Regular sits at $4.48, up from $3.18 a year ago.
DraftKings built an AI system to figure out which gamblers were most likely to respond to promotions by betting more and losing more money, according to a New York Times investigation based on internal documents and interviews with more than 40 former employees.
The model reportedly analyzed how often customers gambled, how much money they kept in their accounts, how much they typically lost, and even how likely they were to stop betting. The higher the expected losses, the more valuable that customer became for targeted free bets and bonuses.
Former employees say the company had enough data to build technology that could identify those risky behaviors and created a separate system that would have assigned gamblers “risk scores” to ostensibly protect the gambler from themself. DraftKings ultimately sidelined the project.
One former analyst summed it up this way: “If you lose more, we give you more, so you keep playing more.”
Full story at NYT (free) and a parallel story at CBS.
ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC are suspending pooled television coverage of President Trump after the White House blocked CNN from taking its scheduled turn in the rotation.
Rather than replace CNN, the networks decided there would be no TV pool at all.
The move follows Trump’s decision to bar CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House over what he called “purposely negative stories.” The three outlets are now suing to regain access.
Print, radio, wire reporters and photographers will still cover the president, but it is extremely rare for presidential events to proceed without a television pool.
President Trump wants a little gratitude.
At a recent closed-door meeting in the Oval Office, the president expressed deep frustration to advisers that prominent figures in Washington hadn’t publicly thanked him for trying to overhaul the Kennedy Center, according to a senior administration official.
Instead, Trump’s bid to affix his name onto the center’s facade and make sweeping changes to the cultural institution has been met with opposition from Democrats, patrons of the arts and the courts. On Tuesday, following his latest legal setback, the president threatened to block renovations at the performing-arts venue unless his name is put on the building.
Twenty months into his second term, Trump isn’t getting his way—and he isn’t happy about it, according to advisers, administration officials and others close to the president.
The president has objected in public and private to media coverage of his presidency for months. But his frustrations reached a fever pitch on Friday, when one of his closest aides, Natalie Harp, showed him clips of anchors on the cable network MS NOW criticizing his administration, according to people familiar with the matter. Hours later, Trump banned the network and two other news organizations from the White House.
Full story at WSJ (free). Also read the parallel story at Axios.
The cryptocurrency industry, furious at Democrats for blocking the passage of a major business-friendly bill last week, is beginning to wage war on the party’s midterm candidates.
The industry’s main super PAC, Fairshake, which is backed by some of the richest people in Silicon Valley, is starting to unspool a planned $30 million advertising campaign against former Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a Democrat running again for the chamber, the group told The New York Times.
The push is by far the crypto industry’s most aggressive move yet in the midterms, and it could have significant implications for the Ohio Senate race, one of this year’s top contests for control of Congress. Fairshake spent $41 million on advertising in 2024 to target Mr. Brown, a progressive critic of the industry who was then the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee. He lost, and many Republicans credit the crypto industry for helping them win.
Full story at NYT (free).
Few investors are feeling more pain from rising interest rates than America’s apartment landlords.
These property owners face a bill of more than $1.8 trillion in debt over the next decade. From this year to 2028, about $757 billion of those loans are coming due, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. That is the most of any commercial real-estate sector.
Nearly $300 billion of those loans are maturing in 2026 alone. This follows a record-setting 2025, when $310 billion in loans came due, the highest the sector had seen in a single year since the Mortgage Bankers Association started tracking. Another $223 billion is due next year.
Now, after the Federal Reserve raised rates a quarter point and with bond yields rising, that debt is about to become a much bigger burden. Landlords are having to refinance when borrowing rates are roughly twice the level of five years ago, when many of these loans were made.
Full story at WSJ (free).
Why Do Educated People Go to Church More? -
Ryan BurgeMany ex-aides to Harris betting against a 2028 run -
AxiosBitcoin hits highest level since January at $85,000, as the market debates whether the ‘crypto winter’ is over -
CNBCPatrick Clancy opens up about grief, the memory of his children and moving forward -
CBSTrump weighed strikes against Houthis in Yemen before holding off -
AxiosGoogle says its AI model gained unauthorized access to three outside systems -
NBCEveryone’s talking about ‘electability.’ Our poll shows where voters stand. -
PoliticoUS, Chinese officials talk trade, AI ahead of Xi visit -
SEMAFORSoccer superstar Kylian Mbappé on ending 20-year journey with Nike: ‘It was time to change’ -
CNBCLex in depth: Anthropic at $2tn isn’t far-fetched -
FT(paywall)
For years, I’ve warned about the dangers of big banks using the financial system to push political agendas. But thanks to Consumers’ Research and the Open Banking Rule, consumers have access to more competitive banking options than ever before. That’s why I’m proud to stand with Consumers’ Research as they fight to keep you in charge of your financial future, not big banks that discriminate against conservatives and crush competition. Learn more about their work here.
For years, my friends at the American Energy Institute sounded the alarm on the progressive war on affordable energy. But thanks to the Trump administration’s commitment to safe, reliable nuclear energy, America’s energy future is brighter than ever. That’s why I am partnering with my friends at American Energy Institute to drive economic prosperity through abundant, affordable, and reliable energy for everyone. Learn more about the bright future of American energy here.
