One new piece from me at The Athletic this week, my annual Minor League Prospect of the Year column, with this year’s honor going to Rainiel Rodriguez of the Cardinals.

I’m still mostly on Bluesky, Instagram, and TikTok. And yes, I’m overdue for a newsletter.

And now, the links…

• Longreads first: The Atavist has the incredible story of a family that worked to find a treatment for their daughter’s extremely rare kidney disease, a thirty-year effort that turned into a worldwide endeavor and that has already yielded two effective medications.

• Family separation under Trump 2 means deporting the parents and leaving their children, often babies, alone in the U.S. I’d love to hear how evangelical Christians who support this Administration rationalize this kind of exceptional cruelty.

• The parents of 17-month-old girl gave her raw milk, thanks to a recommendation from her chiropractor (of course), and the girl nearly died of an E. Coli infection. California has done nothing to the unlicensed dairy that sold the toxic liquid. No one even seems to expect the chiropractor to face any consequences; the quack’s office banned the mother from the Facebook group it runs when she explained what happened to her daughter.

• The New York Times looks at the collapse of a massive for-profit Montessori school chain that they call a Ponzi scheme, where the founders walked away scot-free and have already founded another school.

• The Texas Tribune has identified Gregory Feathers as the ICE agent who shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Aruajo in Houston this summer.

• We all got a good laugh at the clownery of Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) this week when he accused Jack Smith of being at an Atlanta Hawks game when Smith was actually at an Iowa Hawkeyes game. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Tony Messenger uses this to expose Schmitt’s ridiculous state lawsuit against China for supposedly hoarding masks during the pandemic – masks Schmitt claims don’t work, by the way – which is costing Missouri taxpayers millions of dollars.

• There’s a dengue fever outbreak in Florida, perhaps the worst-equipped state to deal with a public health crisis. Climate change is going to push more of these so-called “tropical diseases” into the mainland U.S. as the mosquitoes that spread them are better able to survive our winters.

• The Washington Post broke the story of Trump using money intended for memorials for fallen police officers to fund his campaign ads. These ads are illegal, by the way, almost certainly violating the Hatch Act.

• A 14-year-old boy in England chased a girl who refused to date him through a shopping area and then stabbed her. He received probation.

• The Cut has the scoop on how student journalists at Cornell broke open the story on the Chi Phi rape case, and a story written by Professor Kate Manne on the environment at Cornell right now.

• Tennessee was so eager to kill Christa Pike that they botched the execution, leaving her unconscious and on life support. It’s an indictment of every state that still uses the death penalty and everyone who supports this barbaric practice. Capital punishment is state-sponsored vengeance.

• California has passed a law to subsidize local journalism, offering large tax incentives for outlets that hire new journalists in full or even part-time roles. The article praises Gov. Newsom for signing it, but this is a rare win for Newsom after he’s vetoed all kinds of bills designed at protecting Californians from Trumpism, including a bill that would have protected medical providers there from prosecution by red states over abortion or gender-affirming care, and just the other day a bill that would have banned the use of ‘pervert glasses’ and other secret recording devices.

• Express-News columnist Mike Finger (a longtime reader as well) writes how NBA stars are lining up to endorse gambling sites at their fans’ expense. Of course, now the CFTC is suing states that are trying to block the probably-illegal gambling operations of Kalshi and Polymarket because Donald Trump Jr. is an investor in the latter.

• Ravenous looks at private equity-backed cookie chains like Insomnia and Crumbl, where the cookies are mid at best but the profits are huge. The obvious message: Find a local bakery. They’re everywhere, the cookies will be better, and you’ll be doing more good with your money.

• Todd Rundgren got the attention he sought when he claimed that Taylor Swift has ruined music. I’m not a Swiftie at all – I think she might have two songs I like – but this is some serious old-man-yells-at-cloud stuff. The flattening of popular music is driven by technology and by rudimentary capitalism, not by any one artist, who, by the way, is far from the worst out there (like, has he heard Stella Lefty?).

• From June, a church leader in Michigan is still under investigation for abusing dozens of children, with over 60 felony charges and counting. No trans people were charged.

• MAGA podcaster and noted plagiarist Benny Johnson is now being sued by two anti-ICE protesters he labelled as “terrorists.” Good.

• While arguing with the president of the local Building Trades Countil in a bar in his home district, Pennsylvania Rep. Aaron Bernstine (R) shouted a gay slur about his colleague Malcolm Kenyatta (D) and falsely claimed that Kenyatta has AIDS. Kenyatta has called on Bernstine to resign.

• A reader sent along this story about a controversy in the wine-writing world as the winner of the Pall Mall Awards’ short-form category was probably written by or with AI.

• Phil Williams points out how a publisher of white nationalist books is happily selling its content on Amazon and, until he called them out, via Target. As of Friday morning one of the two books Williams highlights is still up on Amazon, with a rating of 4.6 stars.

• Last week, I linked to Futurism’s story on an AI content farm that buys up legitimate blogs, shitcans the staff, and pumps out AI slop instead. Turns out one of that operation’s owners has extensive ties to Ghislaine Maxwell.

• The Minnesota Star-Tribune’s David Perry decries the University of Minnesota’s plans to cut $225 million from its budget over the next two years.

• Restoration Games has already raised nearly $1.5 million as of Friday morning for its Kickstarter for The Lord of the Rings: The King’s Gambit, the huge, special-edition reboot of 2000’s Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit. There won’t be a regular edition from Restoration after this one, so if you’re into this game, now’s your chance.

• Board & Dice has a crowdfunding page up on Gamefound for Thessaloniki (from Daniele Tascini) and Windmill Valley Duel (from Dani Garcia).