Listening to the UnitedHealthcare earnings call and executives have repeatedly said they're working to end "fraud, waste and abuse." An executive just thanked Trump for his policies.

Zero secret leftist fellowship

Thanks for reading!

End Games | Corey Pein Mohammed bin Salman makes another foray into sportswashing—by flooding the video game industry with cash.

Fantastic piece of gaming criticism and reporting exploring why the Saudis are investing so heavily in the industry, and the writing is stellar to boot.

“This is an incredibly painful moment for the Hampshire community, and we are doing everything to support our students in completing their studies and assist our faculty and staff in navigating what comes next.“ — President Jennifer Chrisler

www.hampshire.edu/closure-info...

Thomson Reuters Fired Worker For Speaking Out About ICE, Former Employee Says “When I saw evidence that our products were being used to harm people and undermine the law, I did what anyone should do—I raised the alarm. Thomson Reuters’ response was to fire me.”

“When I saw evidence that our products were being used to harm people and undermine the law, I did what anyone should do—I raised the alarm. Thomson Reuters’ response was to fire me.”

End Games | Corey Pein Mohammed bin Salman makes another foray into sportswashing—by flooding the video game industry with cash.

Why is Mohammed bin Salman flooding the game industry with cash? In our new issue, @coreypein.bsky.social describes the next phase of the Saudi prince’s sportswashing enterprise.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announces it has found a buyer to keep the newspaper open Owners of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said they have found a buyer who had agreed to keep the newspaper open, less than a month before it was due to shut down.

The nonprofit that runs the successful, Pulitzer-winning Baltimore Banner is going to take over the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Of all the possible outcomes here, this is likely the best we could have hoped for.

apnews.com/article/pitt...

ProPublica journalists walk off the job in first U.S. newsroom strike over AI

On the picket line in New York, union leaders said they expect “more concentrated conflicts” over AI in the news industry.

www.niemanlab.org/2026/04/prop...

I own a cookbook supposedly for home use that includes a recipe that involves hanging a duck for a week in a fridge. This reminds me of that. But I would like to try the pasta.

Swollen RFK Jr. Warns Americans Not Eating Enough Bees Kennedy Vows To End ‘War’ On Stinging-Insect Diets

Swollen RFK Jr. Warns Americans Not Eating Enough Bees theonion.com/swollen-rfk-jr-warns-ame...

"To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago."

I guess it depends how often you'll be near this spot. I once had bees nest just above the main door and it was definitely a problem coming and going.

Cambodia unveils a statue of the landmine-hunting rat, Magawa, the only rat ever awarded the PDSA Gold Medal for animal bravery.

The giant African pouched rat, originally from Tanzania, helped detect over 100 mines and other unexploded ordinance covering an area equivalent to 20 football pitches

LA Times homepage looks like Google search results or something with all the sponcon up top.

NASA's Artemis 2 pilot Victor Glover listens to 'Whitey on the Moon' every Monday. This is why. "It ain't about racism. It's about the human condition."

Just learned that apparently Artemis 2's Victor Glover listens to the Gil Scott Heron song poem "Whitey on the Moon" every Monday and now I'm thinking about reposting my thread it, from like, five years ago, back when the conversation was about Mars.

What Happened to the SPLC—and Me Union breaking, Gaza, and fear of MAGA turned the SPLC into an organization that abandoned its own civil rights principles.

New: I wrote about how the SPLC let union breaking and fear of MAGA drive it away from its own civil rights principles.

After I spoke up about Gaza, the SPLC disciplined me and terminated my employment—leading to a discrimination settlement: substack.com/home/post/p-...

I haven't read the study but the real figure is 100 percent of the time. An LLM cannot discern truth or falsity. It cannot tell you if the president is lying.

A misty night in Hong Kong

Why were the Saudis keen to pay a premium to buy their way into the American gaming industry? EA was not Saudi Arabia’s first such venture into the medium. While few noticed, in 2023 the PIF became the single largest outside shareholder of Nintendo, the family-friendly Japanese gaming giant. Two years prior, the PIF also invested $1.4 billion into the U.S. behemoth Activision Blizzard. Critics noted the investments were of a piece with the country’s “sportswashing” strategy to improve its global image. In 2023, the Saudis angled to effectively buy out professional golf by merging its upstart LIV Golf League with the venerable PGA Tour—a deal that hasn’t been finalized, despite Trump’s blessing. And last year, the PIF attempted to force its way into the American TV and movie business with a Kushner-abetted bid for Warner Bros. by Paramount, controlled by Trump ally Larry Ellison. All of these ventures aim to help people forget that the Saudi government, enriched over decades through its relationship with American power, had agents who were involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks; that it uses American weapons to butcher Yemeni civilians; that its glittering malls and towers are built using modern slavery; and that, according to UN and CIA reports, MBS ordered the murder of Saudi-born, U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. This expansive soft power strategy, aided by the corrupt Trump family, represents the “Saudification” of America, as Khashoggi’s former Washington Post editor Karen Attiah put it in a November essay for the Guardian. The sale of EA is really about the decline of democracy in the United States and its replacement with a transnational oligarchy that can overwhelm any regulatory oversight with the power of sheer corruption. These new overlords have no regard for quaint concerns such as social equality, artistic integrity, and freedom of speech.

if you're a fan of games (and even if you're not) you gotta check out this great new piece in @thebaffler.com by @coreypein.bsky.social.

I also offer a mini-review of Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2 for my fellow Obsidian heads.

Follow @kevincortez.huffpost.com @coreypein.bsky.social and sign this petition 🙏

cc @playersalliancehq.bsky.social

End Games | Corey Pein Mohammed bin Salman makes another foray into sportswashing—by flooding the video game industry with cash.

For @thebaffler.com I surveyed the dystopian state of the games industry, beginning with the Saudi takeover of EA thebaffler.com/salvos/end-g...

Trump says the US military is planning to construct a large complex beneath the new ballroom he is building at the White House.

“The ballroom essentially becomes a shed for what's being built under"

u.afp.com/SbNX

Disturbing - this is a special accord between unions and ship owners re: stranded workers after outbreak of war

Hell yeah

Iran-linked hackers claim breach of FBI director's personal email; DOJ official confirms break-in Iran-linked hackers have ‌publicly claimed the breach ​of FBI ​Director Kash Patel's ⁠personal inbox, ​publishing photographs ​of the director and his purported ​resume.

Story here:

www.reuters.com/world/us/ira...

Updates TK:

I keep seeing media references to US escalation being contingent on the outcome of “talks.” There are no talks! This is just Trump regime propaganda, possibly to create a pretext for ground invasion: “the talks failed, so now we have no choice,” etc.