Trump Sanctions Pivot Helps Iran Oil Tycoons Boost War Profits Sanctioned traders, including Hossein Shamkhani, have been able to move oil through the Strait of Hormuz and exploit higher prices.

“The US gave a hall pass to the networks we’ve been tirelessly degrading for the past decade,” said David Tannenbaum, a former official at the Treasury. “This is a major shot in the arm — to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars”

🎁 link via @bloomberg.com

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Anthropic’s Pentagon Showdown Is About More Than AI Guardrails The high-stakes conflict between the Defense Department and a $380 billion tech powerhouse goes to the heart of just how far AI can go in warfare.

The Pentagon has given the AI giant Anthropic until 5 pm Friday to remove guardrails that prohibit the use of its models for fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.

Katrina Manson, Maggie Eastland and I dug into the ongoing feud and what it means for the future of war.

🎁 link

Donate to Support for Washington Post international employees, organized by Michelle Lee Among the hundreds of journalists laid off by The Washington Post on … Michelle Lee needs your support for Support for Washington Post international employees

We have launched a new fundraiser to support The Washington Post's courageous international employees and local staff who were laid off, who are not eligible for Guild protections, and who face additional logistical challenges and security risks.

Please give & share widely:
gofund.me/e765aab9f

The Stories We Most Admired in 2025: Businessweek’s Jealousy List The stories we admired most this year.

The annual Bloomberg Businessweek Jealousy List, where we each identify the one piece of journalism from the past 12 months that we think is absolutely not to be missed. The only stipulation: We only pick stories from rival outlets, never the home team. 🎁 link:

www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

YouTube’s Right-Wing Stars Fuel Boom in Politically Charged Ads By Davey Alba Priyanjana Bengani Leon Yin Ashley Carman Julia Love Rachael Dottle Elena Mejía Technology Big Tech November 20, 2025 On YouTube’s conservative airwaves, podcast hosts tout products that let people buy into the MAGA crowd: Republican Red Winery vintages for toasting the “silent majority;” Black Rifle Coffee for caffeinating gun owners; XX-XY Athletics for workout clothes symbolizing opposition to the “lunacy of the left social agenda.”

The popularity of YouTube podcasts among conservatives is driving a boom in small businesses tailoring ads to their millions of listeners, paying hosts like Joe Rogan and Candace Owens to read out promotions in the hope that fans will place orders. The phenomenon has enriched both the hosts and YouTube, supporting further growth of the businesses using ideology to sell. A Bloomberg analysis of host-read ads across nearly 1,000 videos from eight of the platform’s top right-leaning podcasters found that advertisers on the shows routinely tapped into political identity in marketing. At least one host-read ad with a political message appeared in 91% of videos reviewed.

NEW: For months, my colleagues and I dug into YouTube's conservative airwaves and found a flourishing network of host-read ads on right-leaning podcasts. This phenomenon has enriched hosts, YouTube, and businesses that use ideology to sell. bloom.bg/3Kaio9w

He is, instead, a 59-year-old Long Island wine importer named Bill DeBlasio, who merely responded to an email from a journalist seeking his views on Democrat Zohran Mamdani’s policies. “I’m Bill DeBlasio. I’ve always been Bill DeBlasio,” DeBlasio said in an interview conducted Wednesday evening through his Ring doorbell in Huntington Station, Long Island, from his current location in Florida. “I never once said I was the mayor. He never addressed me as the mayor,” DeBlasio told Semafor Wednesday evening. “So I just gave him my opinion.”

I’m crying

www.semafor.com/article/10/2...

We dug into a similar situation in Colombia a couple years ago. Four children died and more than a hundred fell ill after receiving a drug that’s often used in chemotherapy treatment, @bloomberg.com found.

This shouldn’t keep happening.

🎁 link www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Argentina is going through one of its worst health crises: more than 100 people died after receiving contaminated fentanyl in hospitals in different provinces.

@elhilopodcast.bsky.social talks with the families who were forced to investigate on their own what happened to their loved ones.

Takeaways From Bloomberg Investigation of Hospitals Owned by TPG After a private equity giant was brought in to manage facilities in Africa and Asia, complaints piled up.

The idea of using private equity firms to manage foreign development is gaining steam. So we started digging into what happened after the Wall Street giant TPG took over hospitals in Africa and Asia. Here are the takeaways 🎁 link: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

A Private Equity Giant Took Over African Hospitals. Then the Complaints Rolled In TPG told investors — including the World Bank, the Gates Foundation and Bono — that it would expand access to health care. Whistleblowers say it put profit ahead of patient safety.

Journalism has brought me into contact with a lot of sources who tried to blow the whistle. Often, those people ask to be anonymous. This is the rare story of someone who took on a major Wall Street firm and is willing to tell her story. 🎁 link www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Important read from the always impeccable @azmatzahra.bsky.social among many other strong contributors. Every journalist, as well as open source researchers, should take a moment for this and take action now to defend press freedom in Gaza.

Wildfire Fighters, Unmasked in Toxic Smoke, Are Getting Sick and Dying

It would be unthinkable for an urban firefighter to enter a burning home with no mask.

But internal records revealed the US Forest Service’s rationale for not equipping firefighters with masks: to admit the dangers of smoke, triggering a cascade of costly changes.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/17/u...

Inside the Collapse of the F.D.A.

How the new health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is dismantling the F.D.A. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/08/m...

“Delay, Interfere, Undermine” President Donald Trump has praised Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele as a crime fighter, but new reporting based on interviews and documents reveals how senior Salvadoran officials have impeded a U.S....

Eye-opening reporting from @tchristianmiller.bsky.social and Sebastian Rotella about how El Salvador’s government impeded a U.S. Probe of MS-13 www.propublica.org/article/buke...

Trump Administration Knew Vast Majority of Venezuelans Sent to Salvadoran Prison Had Not Been Convicted of U.S. Crimes Homeland Security records reveal that officials knew that more than half of the 238 deportees were labeled as having no criminal record in the U.S. and had only violated immigration laws.

The government’s own data, obtained by @propublica.org, @texastribune.org and journalists from Venezuela, showed that officials knew that only 32 of the deportees had been convicted of U.S. crimes and that most were nonviolent offenses

www.propublica.org/article/trum...

More from the people who helped make it happen www.linkedin.com/posts/lauren...

Spy Agencies Do Not Think Venezuela Directs Gang, Declassified Memo Shows

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 for the reporting, sources and #foia work that led to the release of this important memo, which further undercuts the Trump administration’s rationale for using the Alien Enemies Act to deport scores of Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/u...

"Washington Post review of websites operated by the National Park Service — among the key agencies charged with the preservation of American history — found that edits on dozens of pages since Trump’s inauguration have already softened descriptions of some of the most shameful moments of the nation"

For NPR’s Anas Baba, covering the war in Gaza also means living it The NPR producer is one of few Palestinian journalists working with a U.S. news organization to file dispatches from Gaza.

Incredible @laurawags.bsky.social profile of NPR's Anas Baba, whose bravery is unmatched

www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/...

East African Housekeepers Face Rape, Assault and Death in Saudi Arabia (Gift Article) East African leaders and Saudi royals are among those profiting off a lucrative, deadly trade in domestic workers.

For more than a year, my colleague Justin Scheck and I looked into why domestic workers from across East Africa, who are promised jobs and a better life in Saudi Arabia, continued to face abuse, starvation and death. Here's what we found.

America’s Food Safety Is Now in the Hands of Don Jr.’s Hunting Buddy As federal health agencies are gutted with abandon, a Florida attorney with a history of hunting with the president’s son has been put in charge of food safety at the FDA, overseeing the nation’s food...

Scoop: As federal health agencies are gutted, Kyle Diamantas, a Florida attorney w/ a slim resume + no prior gov't experience, is the new head of food safety at @US_FDA. Turns out, he's Donald Trump Jr.'s hunting buddy, @vanityfair.com is reporting exclusively: www.vanityfair.com/news/story/f... /1

SEC Official Sought Staff’s No-Politics Pledge on Musk Lawsuit The case went forward, but the unusual request has contributed to a growing sense of unease inside the agency’s enforcement division, according to people familiar with the matter.

NEW: The acting SEC chairman sought a pledge from staffers that their investigation of Musk was not influenced by politics, an unusual and jarring request that they rejected. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Incredible stuff in here: They ID'ed him, in part, by going to court hearings and watching him post

US Health Department Layoffs Expand to Medicare, FDA The Department of Health and Human Services laid off employees Saturday evening across some of its biggest agencies — the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Food and Drug Administration, ...

The Dep't of Health and Human Services laid off employees Saturday evening across some of its biggest agencies, including the FDA and CDC.

Those laid off included people who evaluate the safety of medical devices.
@rachelcohrs.bsky.social @bloomberg.com
Gift link:
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"The administration has put members of the team within USAID responsible for maintaining the notification system on leave or locked out those remaining...The move has put at risk the lives of US citizens & other aid workers in countries where the US has military operations, including Yemen & Syria."

“Recklessly shutting down such an important mechanism doesn't help any party that is involved,” said Michelle Strucke, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for global partnerships. “It's bad for the military. It's bad for aid workers. And it's bad for civilians.”

USAID Shutdown Imperils Humanitarian Convoys in Conflict Zones The Trump administration’s push to shutter the agency means it's unable to warn the US military where aid workers are operating

New story on one of consequences of the Trump administration’s cuts at USAID:

The system designed to alert the military about humanitarian aid workers locations in war zones is offline

🎁 link www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Musk’s DOGE Teen Was Fired By Cybersecurity Firm for Leaking Company Secrets Edward Coristine posted online that he had retained access to the firm’s servers. Now he has access to sensitive government information.

New from @bloomberg.com:

A 19-year-old member of Elon Musk’s squad that’s criss-crossing US government agencies was fired from an internship after he was accused of sharing information with a competitor.

Gift link:
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Most USAID Staff Across the World Will Be Put on Leave This Week Most employees of the US Agency for International Development will be placed on administrative leave starting Friday.

🎁 Gift Link: Most USAID Staff Across the World Will Be Put on Leave This Week www.bloomberg.com/news/article... by @jasonleopold.bsky.social and John Harney

Behind DOGE’s Standoff at USAID: Desk Searches and Elon Musk Calling Young staffers from Musk’s government-efficiency initiative gained access to sensitive information to cap a weeklong effort that puts the aid agency’s fate in question.

First post is a scoop: The “DOGE kids” and their confrontation with USAID on Saturday. w/ @jasonleopold.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...