For subscribers to the Athletic this week I posted an updating ranking of the top 70 prospects still in the minors.
I sent a new issue of my free email newsletter last weekend, and hope to get another one out Sunday or Monday. For social media shenanigans, you can find me primarily on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok.
And now, the links…
- From three of my colleagues at the Athletic: how ESPN’s Matt Miller may have scammed readers out of tens of thousands of dollars.
- How the hell is there an anti-sunscreen movement? I see some of these videos from wellness grifters and they should all be forced to lie in the sun for hours every day without sunscreen.
- The Wall Street Journal reports on how Israel is spending $50 million to try to influence American voters, even as colonizers in the West Bank continue to commit violent acts against Palestinians and the IDF bombs funerals.
- West Virginia Assistant Majority Leader David Elliott Pritt (R, of course) was arrested for allegedly raping an eighth grade girl he groomed via Roblox.
- Francesca Hong is running for Governor of Wisconsin. In 2021, the Democrat was a new state rep, and she wrote in Bon Appetit about how running a restaurant prepared her for public service.
- By now you’ve likely seen or read about Madison (WI) Police executing a Black man by shooting him three times while he was restrained and lying on the ground.
- The Trump Administration is gutting evidence-based programs for reducing teen pregnancies in favor of religious-based, ineffective abstinence programs and programs aimed at increasing birth rates.
- Bo French is the Republican candidate for a spot on Texas’ Railroad Commission, despite a long history of racist & antisemiticposts and posts sharing conspiracy theories. Texas Monthly also has more on how the party is silent on his hatemongering.
- The developer of a data center in southern California said numerous times over many months that the project would not use any water from the Colorado River. He lied: He’s suing the local irrigation district to get access to 260 million gallons every year from the drought-stricken river.
- The Seattle Times explains why Costco stocking Indian mangoes is such a big deal.
- Estonia seemed to defeat the scourge of fentanyl, only for new, more dangerous synthetics to take its place.
- My home state of Delaware requires that any organizations engaging in political advertising in the state disclose the names of donors who give over $100, regardless of where the donors live. The Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a Koch-backed anti-government group, sued the state over this transparency law and lost. Good.
- Oklahoma is experiencing a drop in vaccination rates even after the number of measles cases there rose in the last year, thanks to false information parents are reading online.
- Measles can cause all kinds of serious complications short of death. It’s not a binary construct.
- A SEPTA (Philly transit) officer shoved a man into another man who was using a wheelchair, knocking the second man over. There’s video of the incident and SEPTA Is now investigating.
- The Times’ editorial board points out that the second home tax is a net positive for New York – and underscores the lies that wealthy homeowners told to try to dissuade lawmakers from passing laws that ask them to pay their fair share. I’d go much further: I don’t think mortgage interest should be tax-deductible on any residence after your primary one.
- A New York City sculptor spent $100,000 to make a statue of Charlie Kirk. No one wants to buy it.
- The board game publisher CMON has been struggling for several years now, but NFTs are not the answer. They’d planned to invest $2.1 million in an NFT video game maker, whatever the hell that means, but backed off that plan when, I assume, they sobered up.