Back in 2024, voters approved Proposition 36 in a landslide, with roughly 70% voting in favor. The measure allowed prosecutors to charge a third repeated petty theft as a felony and a third repeated possession of hard drugs as a felony. People charged with drug violations, however, could avoid prison if they agreed to treatment, which, on paper, sounds like a pretty good deal.

Now, San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie is attracting criticism because his promised crackdown on dealers turns out to be much larger-scale arrests of users. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “The Public Defender’s Office criticized what it sees as criminalization of addiction at a ‘grand scale.’”

I’d say it’s criminalization of criminal behavior, which is certainly driven by addiction. There is a certain level of lawlessness that cannot be abided, even if it is driven by addiction, and San Francisco clearly hit its limit. As I mentioned on The Spiel yesterday, the point of a law like Prop 36 is to dissuade certain behaviors via the threat of genuine punishment. Part of drug enforcement is disincentivizing the market that those dealers exploit. A better way to write the Chronicle’s headline might have been: “Mayor Lurie’s plan to crack down on open-air drug use is working.”

Under Prop 36, third-time drug offenders are being offered treatment, so it’s not the cruel, lock-them-up, poorly thought-out scheme that led to mass incarceration. That there is no actual funding for treatment facilities is shameful, however. Around 1 in 5 people detained on Prop. 36 drug charges have been ordered into treatment, and fewer than 1 in 100 have actually completed it. But mass incarceration? California’s prison population now stands at a 30-year low.

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Welcome to the Gist List—a news roundup, things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.

Here’s what’s on my mind:

🚄 The calculus to get a high-speed train through a disgraced public figure’s territory.

🇧🇷 Why Jair Bolsonaro might go free sooner rather than later.

🗳️ Do voters REALLY want younger candidates?

🤒 Congress finally got sick of Casey Means.

🦜 A headline and a confusing picture.

The Gist List

Add a $1 Billion Detour for California High-Speed Rail to Cesar Chavez’s Legacy (S.F. Chronicle)

In other California news, a planned high-speed rail route through the Tehachapi Mountains was rerouted around the César Chávez National Monument, adding nearly $1 billion to the project. The detour was originally framed “as an act of preservation and a concession to the farmworkers’ movement,” but after a New York Times story revealed allegations that Chávez raped and abused women, the billion-dollar swerve is getting a second look. Naturally, this became a culture-war flashpoint, and Republican senators introduced a bill to strip the monument of its designation.

Moving his status from beloved icon to rapist icon should not change the calculus and logic of another costly delay in this seemingly never-to-be-completed project. The story includes the line, “The change, one of many to hobble high-speed rail over the years, stemmed from good intentions.” I disagree. Valuing the grave of a dead man over a billion-dollar bill to taxpayers is not the very best of intentions. Especially given the fact that the mountain already has 6 freight trains passing by every day on already-in-use tracks, and electric rail would contribute only slightly more noise and disturbance to the area.

Brazil’s Congress Approves Plan to Drastically Cut Bolsonaro’s Jail Term (BBC)

Brazil’s Congress has overridden Lula da Silva’s veto of a bill that could drastically reduce Jair Bolsonaro’s punishment for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election from 27 years in prison to just over two.

To be fair, 27 years is a long time for a 71-year-old. But the motivation is clearly more political than humanitarian. Interestingly, Bolsonaro’s party, Partido Liberal (actually far right, not at all liberal)has only 99 seats in the Chamber of Deputies out of 513, so it's not purely a case of loyalists thumbing their noses at the law. Brazil’s politics are notoriously coalition, another way to think of that is transactional, and other parties are trying to weaken incumbent Lula da Silva, plus doing some horse trading in order to put themselves in a better position should Bolsonaro’s son Flavio, within the margin of error against Lula in second-round simulations in October’s Presidential election.

Voters Say They Want Young Candidates. In Practice, They Do Not (Economist)

Voters may say they want younger candidates, but if Massachusetts is a case study for anything, it’s showing that voters are actually more interested in experience, incumbency, and ideological fit instead. In this case, Ed Markey, who would be 86 by the end of another term, is leading 47-year-old Seth Moulton in the race for the Senate despite making age a central talking point.

Of course, you’re thinking, “But what about Maine?”, where a 41-year-old beat back a septuagenarian governor in the Democratic primary. The answer is, when your example supports your premise, it’s a “case study” (as the Massachusetts example is called here). When your one example rebuts your premise, it’s an “outlier.” Interestingly, while a YouGov/Economist poll reveals that 46% of voters generally say they favor younger candidates, only 10% say they would choose the less experienced one, which is usually a proxy for “younger.”

Casey Means: Murkowski Sank My Nomination (Politico)

Casey Means’ nomination for surgeon general collapsed this week after Sen. Lisa Murkowski gave it an “It’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.” Okay, she didn’t really say that, but Means says Murkowski made clear she would vote no. Both President Donald Trump and HHS Secretary RFK Jr. blamed Sen. Bill Cassidy for blocking the nomination, though a Senate Health Committee account overseen by Cassidy said Means lacked the votes both in committee and on the Senate floor.

I don’t think Means was qualified to be Surgeon General, and I’m happy Cassidy got sick of it and did something. But she also wasn’t the craziest person in RFK’s orbit. I wouldn’t want her in this job, but I also wouldn’t write someone off as a loon if they listened to Means’ podcast and borrowed some of her better health ideas.

After all, there is something to this MAHA movement that Democrats could form a really strong coalition behind. That the movement became more anti-vax than pro-functional health is, I think, a symptom of our greatest sickness: how the media ecosystem selects for outrageous outliers. RFK’s vaccine stance won the attention war, and Means genuflected to that. However, there’s something at the left’s crunchy roots that works well with these functional medicine types who are advocating for a preventive approach to health by getting better sleep, eating well, and exercising. I know I’m supposed to say something about “eschewing processed food”…but I think they’ve become something of a boogeyman. I like yogurt, sourdough bread, coffee, and olive oil.

Mayor Jailed for Helping Son Hide Evidence of Raping Drugged Teen (Times of London)

Of all the photos included in this article, I’m confused about why they picked this one to be the hero image. Why is she dressed as a pirate? Is this a British thing?

ICYMI: The Boss’ Causes

This week, I had a piece about Bruce Springsteen in The Dispatch. More than just being a songwriter, he was a builder. Perhaps even in the literal sense, where he praised America for its industry rather than with cynicism over stolen land.

This newsletter was put together in collaboration with Kathleen Sykes. All mistakes belong to Mike Pesca.

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🤖 Is AI discriminatory, and how can we even know?

🌾 Why are MAHA moms upset at the Trump administration?

🗳️ How vulnerable is the U.S. to electoral vandalism?

🐕 What happens when dogs outnumber kids in San Francisco?

🐒 Why are Gibraltar’s monkeys eating dirt?

But first, here’s our top story:

Saturday night, a gunman was stopped attempting to breach the final security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Cole Allen, the alleged gunman, was caught, and a Secret Service agent was shot in the chest, but his tactical vest stopped the bullet.

Depending on your definition of success, security held. No shots were fired into the ballroom, and Allen was stopped before reaching President Donald Trump. But in a broader sense, multiple layers of security had already failed, according to Carol Leonnig with MS Now.

One of the biggest issues is that the Washington Hilton isn’t a secure events space… it is an operational business. With guests. The place was crawling with unscreened guests from bathing-suited families on vacation, to people visiting their grandmas, to potential assassins.

This piece by Leonnig is the strongest steel man you’ll find for the case that security failed. I’d say security did well enough anyway. Not just because the shooter never came close, but because the “best practices” her former-agent sources prescribe would elevate security concerns so far above everything else that no one could function in a president’s vicinity.

Success or not, Trump is using the incident to vociferously advocate for his plan to build a new ballroom, and Republicans are rallying. There is an Arrested Development angle to all this, via the character of J. Walter Weatherman, who served as a life lesson incarnate, saying, “This is why you need a ballroom.”

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Objection was founded by Aron D’Souza, who was previously involved in the lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker. It works by allowing users to file a claim to dispute a factual assertion in a news story, and then the system gathers evidence, feeds it to multiple AI models, and spits out an “Honor Index” score that rates the journalist’s credibility.

This very much reflects a tech guy’s way of viewing life. In reality, journalism can’t be adjudicated in this algorithmic way, especially when the system evaluates stories solely on submitted evidence and devalues anonymous sources. There are plenty of true and accurate stories that are driven by anonymous sources and plenty of bogus sources that are said to rely on the regulatory filings and official emails that Objection prizes.

I’ve criticized the overuse of anonymous sources before, which, if nothing else, just makes things confusing for the reader. But granting anonymity to sources serves an important purpose in journalism: helping reporters obtain information that is otherwise inaccessible through a FOIA request from people whose jobs, livelihoods, or even lives might be at stake.

And, as we know, AI can hardly be the neutral arbiter of truth in a human-judgment-heavy craft, especially when I have to fight ChatGPT, which will confidently and persistently tell me that the brother of the Wizard from The Wizard of Oz is William Wrigley of gum and Field fame.

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Welcome to the Gist List—a news roundup, things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.

Here’s what’s on my mind:

🚋 How San Francisco’s BART solved all its problems.

🎬 Local politics take a glamorous turn in L.A.

🎯 Man whose job is most likely to result in brutal butt goring surprised that he was brutally gored in the butt.

🤖 Why the government needs its AI to have a “no kill switch.”

👖 Why are all pants weird-looking now?

The Gist List

San Francisco Solved Metro Vandalism with One Neat Trick (The Atlantic)🔒

We’ve covered San Francisco’s BART a few times on The Gist List (here and here), and now The Atlantic is covering the simplicity with which the metro system is fixing its woes. It’s not through policing or social programs—it’s through good design and six-foot-tall, full-height fare gates instead of turnstiles.

Now, vandals and muggers will also be skilled in the Fosbury flop, which could lead to more entertaining attempted getaways.

But in reality, this small (albeit expensive) change resulted in a 41% drop in crime rates across the system, nearly 1,000 fewer cleanup hours over six months, and a projected $10 million annual increase in revenue. This tells us that not only are the people who are likely to jump turnstiles probably also the people who are vandalizing the transit system (or at least that they’re less likely to do so if they have to pay to access the space), but that implementing an “architecture of good behavior” can make the world more pleasant for everyone.

L.A. Production Crisis Now Mayoral Race Flashpoint (Hollywood Reporter)

All over the country, local politicians defend local industry. In West Virginia, it’s coal. In Montana, it’s cattle. In Idaho, it’s potatoes. In Los Angeles, it’s Baywatch.

A sharp decline in film and TV production has become a political liability, with candidates scrambling to show they can bring Hollywood back to Hollywood. Mayor Karen Bass faces an uphill climb after her handling of last year’s fires, and the production slump has become another convenient line of attack against her. Council member Nithya Raman, who has long focused on housing, is now emphasizing the need to cut red tape and eliminate fees for smaller shoots.

Also running: Spencer Pratt of The Hills. The premise of a reality TV villain campaigning on making it easier to film television is a little surreal, but the policy ideas are not nothing: slash permit fees, fast-track approvals, and keep the city out of smaller productions altogether.

Predictions in this race are all over the place, with Bass leading in the most recent polls, Pratt in second in a few, but Raman atop the prediction markets. The LA Times ran an article about a poll that contradicted the others consistently showing Bass leading, calling it controversial (journalism’s wiggle word for bullshit).

‘I Had a Rough Night’: Matador Recovers from Bull Goring (Times of London)

Spain’s most celebrated matador, José Antonio Morante de la Puebla, came out of retirement, only to be gored right in the ass by a bull named “Clandestino.” The picture tells all of the story minus the scream of “Yeeeaoooww!” :

The Times’ write-up, in delicate British fashion, says that he was gored in the “posterior” but goes into details about the injury, which damaged the sphincter muscles and perforated the rectum. Morante told The Times, “I had a rather rough night.”

When asked for comment, Clandestino said that he was upset with his performance. “I need to be a better closer if I’m going to be a championship bull. We literally let him off the hook.”

Anthropic: No “Kill Switch” for AI in Classified Settings (Axios)

The U.S. Government is racing to integrate AI into its defense systems, but has been in a legal battle with Anthropic, arguing that the company poses a supply chain risk and could be inappropriately involved in military operations.

In a new court filing, Anthropic said it has no “kill switch” for its AI once deployed in Pentagon systems, meaning that, like most software, it loses control of it as soon as someone else implements it.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is positioning himself as the more cautious voice in AI, but even the “responsible” version of this technology comes with the same limitation: once it’s out there, it’s out there. If the future is trillionaires in gated compounds surrounded by AI-powered defenses, he does seem like the more humane one to be in charge. Also, isn’t the “kill switch” whatever mechanism launches the weapons themselves?

What Pants Are in Style Now? You Won’t Like the Answer (WaPo)

It’s true. I don’t like the answer. I have gone on the record before, saying that pants these days that the pants are too damn big, but apparently, that is not the only problem. According to The Post, all pants are in style now—barrel jeans, mom jeans, capris, balloon pants, circus pants, cargo pants, track pants, skinny jeans—which means that nothing is in style now.

At one point in our history, fashion at least had the decency to be collectively wrong about mullets, low-rise jeans, velour tracksuits, and acid wash anything. But now, social media algorithms are supercharging our fashion confusion.

ICYMI: Were the Libertarians Right All Along?

A few weeks ago, on Not Even Mad, Nick Gillespie and John Ganz joined me in a discussion on libertarianism and whether they got Donald Trump right all along.

This newsletter was put together in collaboration with Kathleen Sykes. All mistakes belong to Mike Pesca.

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🥚 The government cracks some eggs (and their prices).

🎙️ Why would anyone watch a podcast?

🏚️ Berkeley’s overabundance of historical landmarks.

⚽ The $150, 20-minute train ride for the World Cup.

⛪ Why the Pope sounds less like a wizard these days.

But first, here’s our top story:

Earlier this month, FBI Director Kash Patel had what insiders called a “freak out” when he attempted to log on to an internal computer system, couldn’t, and automatically assumed he had been fired. He then started calling aides and allies, panicked. Aides’ relief that he had potentially been fired was short-lived when they found out it was user error; he being the user.

This entire anecdote has all the hallmarks of boiling down to the time Kash forgot that his password was Ka$h.

Even so, The Atlantic uses this anecdote to kick off a pretty good tale of Patel’s tenure as FBI director, which it describes as impulsive, paranoid, and prone to jumping to conclusions without evidence. The sources in the article say that Patel frequently drinks to the point of intoxication at private clubs in D.C. and Las Vegas, and that meetings start late due to his being hungover and security staff having a hard time waking him up.

Patel has also reportedly made himself unreliable and unreachable; at one point, officials considered using “breaching equipment” to get into a room where he was behind locked doors.

Despite all of this (and his penchant for making announcements like having a suspect in Charlie Kirk’s murder before even verifying the facts), Patel still has support from the White House due to his willingness to target perceived enemies of the president and purge people who are anything less than loyal to the president.

Of course, Patel sued The Atlantic for defamation. It should be noted that a successful suit will require Patel to disprove the article's assertions. Cases like this have a very high legal bar, requiring him to not only prove the allegations were false but also to establish that there was actual malice involved, which includes a complete disregard for the truth. With the article citing numerous sources and The Atlantic standing by its reporting, it’s a difficult case to win, especially if the facts check out better than the login attempt.

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The plan would have required polluters to pay for emissions to fund clean energy projects, but the state missed a 2024 deadline to detail the regulations and thus has not launched. The state is also estimating that the program could cost some households over $4,000 annually if implemented now.

New York is only one example of a national trend. Rhode Island is looking to delay renewable energy goals from 2033 to 2050, and Connecticut reduced its 2030 renewable energy target from 40% to 29%.

While states aren’t abandoning their environmental goals entirely, the winds of the political wind farms have changed direction. Between skyrocketing gas prices and residential electricity costs (including the strain of AI data centers) increasing 27% between 2019 and 2024, lawmakers have to prioritize near-term economic relief, especially if rising utility bills could cost them an election.

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Welcome to the Gist List—a news roundup, things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.

Here’s what’s on my mind:

👂 The Liberal Patriot is no longer with us.

🤖 Andy Mills’ exclusive interview with the man who tried to kill Sam Altman.

🗿 Kentucky legislature gangs up on the governor.

🛒 Can anti-surveillance pricing laws do anything?

🦞 The environmental activist who killed a “lobster” they were trying to free.

The Gist List

We Urged Democrats to Change. They Wouldn’t Listen (Boston Globe)🔒

Last month, I was very disappointed to see that one of my favorite Substack publications, The Liberal Patriot, was ending its run. They cited several reasons for signing off, but as John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira wrote for The Boston Globe, one of the biggest is that the Democrats had failed to learn from their failures in the 2024 election.

The Democrats lost massive ground among key demographics. Moreover, they have become detached from working- and middle-class voters by focusing their efforts on cultural issues, progressive economic policies and “resistance” politics. Ruy and John are probably a bit more to the right than the median Democrat is, and more to the right than Democrats were when they started, but they’re fairly aligned with the median voter, and that’s the point, isn’t it?

That said, in the 2026 midterms, the Dems will do very well, not giving the Liberal Patriot crew a chance to say “told you so.” But in 2028, I predict the party will wish they had more in-house Red Teaming from the middle.

The Liberal Patriot

No Learning Please, We’re Democrats!

Last July, I wrote a piece asking, in the wake of Democrats’ catastrophic defeat in the 2024 election and the obvious need for serious party-wide change, “Is Our Democrats Learning?” At the time, I saw little evidence that Democratic learning was, in fact, taking place…

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a month ago · 1177 likes · Ruy Teixeira

I Spoke to the Man Accused of Trying to Kill Sam Altman (The FP)🔒

You may remember my last interview with Andy Mills about his new podcast, The Last Invention, where he explores how AI is changing our world and how people are reacting to it, including those who vehemently oppose it.

On Friday, 19-year-old AI skeptic and one of the people Mills’ team interviewed months ago, Daniel Moreno-Gama, was arrested and charged with attempting to murder Sam Altman. Longview discovered him posting on an anti-AI discord server under the name Butlerian Jihadist.

When they spoke to him, they discovered that despite posting about violent action, his views were not fringe beliefs and mostly echoed concerns raised by some mainstream AI researchers. Moreno-Gama faces 19 years to life in prison. The Last Invention has surpassed 2 million downloads. It’s truly worth a listen.

KY Legislature Overrides Beshear Vetoes of McConnell Statue, Lawmaker Pay Raises, More (Lexington Herald Leader)

In a chaotic end-of-session push, the Kentucky state legislature overrode almost all of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s vetoes, including ones blocking a proposed statue of Sen. Mitch McConnell in the Capitol rotunda, removing a $25 million annual cap on state funds used to match federal disaster aid, and objecting to legislator pay raises.

The overrides were possible because Republicans hold a veto-proof supermajority in both chambers—limiting Beshear’s ability to stop legislation, even when he objects. But not every issue is breaking along clean partisan lines. In a notable twist, Republican lawmakers are also advancing efforts to study ibogaine, a psychedelic that advocates say could treat addiction and mental health disorders. It was the Democratic governor who opposed it. The push reflects a willingness to explore unconventional solutions to the state’s addiction crisis, which explains the pro-psychedelic stance from the overwhelmingly Republican statehouse.

Does Maryland’s Measure on Surveillance Pricing Do Enough? (Supermarket News)

States across the nation are looking to ban surveillance pricing, in which some retailers will price certain groceries at higher rates for some people than for others on grocery delivery apps. In this case, Maryland has passed the Protection from Predatory Pricing Act (H.B. 895), which would ban retailers from using personal data to set individualized prices. As of publication, this bill is currently headed to the governor.

The bill is packed with industry-backed loopholes, for example, like retailers not being allowed to charge you a completely different price entirely, BUT they can give you a coupon and not give it to another person, based on their consumer data. There’s also going to be pretty weak enforcement. Customers can’t sue the retailer directly (only the AG can do that), and enforcement doesn’t even begin until a store has been given 45 days to fix the problem.

OK, with that in mind, let’s actually answer the two questions posed in the article’s headline and subhead:

Does Maryland’s measure on surveillance pricing do enough? (Supermarket News)

And will it be signed into law?

The answer might be no and yes. It might also be yes and yes. It could be no and no. There is no possibility that the answer is yes and no.

‘Lobster’ Thrown Into Sea Is Dead, Says Restaurant Owner (Times of London)

An animal rights activist and marine biologist, the questionably named Emma Smart, took what she thought was a lobster from a restaurant tank and threw it back into the sea to free it. Except it wasn’t a lobster, it was a crayfish. Also, that crayfish is now dead.

The owner of Catch told The Times, “Under the auspice of caring about wildlife,” she threw the crayfish “like a cricket ball from the harbour side into the water, where the drop is 12ft. So the temperature shock and the velocity have clearly killed the crayfish that we nurtured,” he said.

Kudos to Catch for their crayfish nurturing program, which seeks to provide all manner of crustacea the lives they deserve of safety, tranquility and a send-off in a manner consistent with crayfish belief systems, which call for a dignified boiling followed by generous amounts of butter and a side of rice pilaf.

ICYMI: What Kind of Autocrat Loses an Election?

Viktor Orbán has been defeated. That is good for Hungary, good for Ukraine, and good for anyone who believes the will of the people should mean something. It is also, if we are being honest, a problem for a certain kind of political analysis—the kind that spent years insisting Orbán was something that the election results now suggest he wasn’t…

This newsletter was put together in collaboration with Kathleen Sykes. All mistakes belong to Mike Pesca.

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🦛 Colombia takes drastic action against Pablo Escobar’s hippos.

📞 Is this Democratic nominee’s wife getting rich off of ICE?

🪢 No more smoking rope in Texas.

🏚️ Chicago has a reparations town hall meeting.

🕴️ Why Russia is cutting corners on prison security.

But first, here’s our top story:

After 16 years, Viktor Orbán is out, and Péter Magyar and his Tisza Party won in a landslide in Hungary’s election. And this victory isn’t even one of those tricky “he lost, but he still won” sorts of scenarios. Hungarians turned out in record numbers, and now the Tisza Party won 53% of the vote and took over two-thirds of parliamentary seats.

But before I move on to exactly why Orbán lost, I need to make you aware that the Hungarian word for “Hungarian” is “Magyar”—as in Péter Magyar, the guy who just won. This is kind of like if Timmy America won the presidential election in the U.S., or if Pierre Français won in France. Or if Marine Le Pen won in Pennsylvania. Or if Eric Adams changed his name to Albert Ania to run in Albania. Or if Philip Peens won in…you get it.

Either way, this is less of a pro-Tisza win and more of an anti-Orbán win. Under his rule, the economy stalled, EU funds were frozen over rule-of-law violations, and Orbán’s handling of relations with China and the EU left Hungary politically isolated. Moreover, his administration was also plagued by scandal when he pardoned a public servant who had been convicted of covering up abuse in a children’s home.

Peter Hungary now has the daunting task of restoring checks and balances and uprooting any entrenched Fidesz appointees across institutions, but beyond that, the party is still in its formative state: a vague catch-all party that doesn’t have any clear policy stances beyond “We’re not Orbán.”

And now… The Gist List

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The New York Times’ write-up of this phenomenon has voters rebuking lawmakers, and in turn, legislatures “striking back” against the will of the people.

Contrast that with how the Times often covers ballot initiatives in blue states. In this story about California’s proposed billionaire tax, wealthy opponents like Sergey Brin and Peter Thiel are funding competing ballot measures, adding layers of complexity to an already crowded ballot.

They have also covered stories about the dark side of signature collecting, like when Bay Area signature gatherers have been caught offering cash and food, like $5 bills and pizza slices, in exchange for signatures, sometimes targeting homeless and vulnerable individuals.

Usually in these Times stories, you’ll recognize the themes of confusing ballot language, voters having to choose between too many ballot initiatives, and special interest groups dominating the democratic process. They will often even cite experts who say that too many ballot initiatives can be harmful for the very reasons stated above, even though they remain popular with voters.

Critiques of the ballot initiatives as a bona fide check on power that reflects the will of the people are unevenly applied. When voters use ballot initiatives to bypass Republican legislatures, it’s democracy in action. When the same process proliferates in places like California, it’s a system overwhelmed by money, confusion, and competing interests.

For the record, if I were a resident of one of these red states, I would vote for Medicaid expansion, paid sick leave, abortion protections, and minimum wage increases. But readers don’t always get the most consistent message on how ballot initiatives shape governance, regardless of which party is ramming through and which is on the receiving end of a rough referendum.

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Welcome to the Gist List—a news roundup, things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.

Here’s what’s on my mind:

💉 Man who didn’t pull the trigger still faces death penalty in Texas.

🎓 Does an Ivy League education really get you that much more? Yes. (🔒)

🔪 When journalists omit important details about the Gilgo Beach killer.

🇭🇺 How Viktor Orbán could lose but still win.

⛽ Why are the Irish blocking gas for cheaper gas?

The Gist List

Court Denies James Broadnax’s Appeal, Cousin’s Confession in Dallas County Death Penalty Case (Dallas Morning News)

James Broadnax and Demarius Cummings were convicted of killing two men during a robbery in 2009. Broadnax is now set to be executed on April 30 after Texas’ highest criminal court refused to reconsider his case, even after Cummings claimed responsibility for the murders, saying that he pulled the trigger, but he successfully convinced Broadnax to take the blame because he had a lighter criminal record.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that there was no due process violation and dismissed the appeal because Broadnax had confessed multiple times and never recanted.

The Dallas Morning News write-up includes the claim that Broadnax and Cummings “set out to rob the two men, but left with only $2 and a 1995 Ford.” I get underscoring the tragedy of a murder if it only yielded $2. Successfully robbing a car does not justify murder. In terms of justice, it is also a violation (I looked it up). But what’s with the claim that the attempt at robbery “only” yielded a 1995 car? I get that even in 2009, a 1995 car was a 14-year-old Ford. But they robbed a car. Just say they robbed a car, not that they “only” robbed a car. And what’s the $2 doing in there? These, along with “Why are America and Japan the only Western democracies that still have executions?” are the right questions to be asking.

What an Ivy League Education Really Gets You (The Atlantic)🔒

It’s one of those classic tropes: A fancy-pants writer at one of the most respected media institutions will tell you that it doesn’t really matter where you go to college. But it turns out it does, and if it weren’t, you wouldn’t be reading that writer’s byline in The Atlantic or the New York Times Magazine. According to The Atlantic’s Rose Horowitch (SUNY Oswego Class of 2021), studies are proving that an Ivy League education will make you a lot more money.

The Ivies and near-Ivies (defined narrowly: Stanford, Chicago, Duke, and MIT, not Emory or Washington University) account for 0.5% of undergrads but produce 12% of Fortune 500 CEOs and 13% of the top 0.1% of earners. A decade after graduation, Ivy League graduates earn about $101K more annually and have significantly higher acceptance rates to elite grad school programs and companies.

This is only surprising because it’s not surprising, but we’ve been told so often that it is surprising. Just ask Rose Horowitch, editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News, who would have had to shop this article to the print arm of News 12 Long Island if they had to settle for SUNY.

How ‘Gilgo Beach Serial Killer’ Rex Heuermann Lured His Victims to Their Deaths (News 12 Long Island )

Rex Heuermann, a Long Island architect, was discovered to be responsible for a series of murders that spanned over 30 years, dubbed the Gilgo Beach killings. He pleaded guilty to seven counts of murder and admitted to an eighth. In June, he will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In most coverage of this crime, the reporting explains clearly how Heuermann committed these crimes and how he found his victims, but this particular write-up repeatedly avoids plainly stating how the victims and killer connected: these women were sex workers, or more plainly, prostitutes, since sex work can include strippers, phone sex operators, or OnlyFans entrepreneurs.

Instead, the language gets slippery. Three are described as “escorts,” which is close enough to be a useful description; another is identified as a sex worker, but the circumstances that put several of the victims in initial contact with Heuermann are not mentioned. One victim is said to have been contacted after Heuermann viewed her “advertised services.” What services—bookkeeping? Dog walking? Lawn care?

There’s an understandable instinct to avoid stigmatizing women involved in prostitution. But euphemism risks obscuring a key part of the story. Many of these crimes happened decades ago, and sex workers are particularly vulnerable to violence, often unable to report their assailants. Clarity doesn’t diminish their dignity. It helps explain why they were targeted and how these crimes could continue for so long.

Why Hungary’s Voting System Could Decide the Orbán-Magyar Showdown (TVP World)

Even if Viktor Orbán loses this upcoming election, he could still win. How? Endorsement deals! No, actually, because Orbán warped Hungary’s elections to keep his party in power. A two-thirds vote is needed to dislodge the president from Orbán’s Fidesz party. Plus, Hungary has a mixed electoral system where 106 seats are decided by local districts in a winner-take-all scenario, while 93 seats are allocated proportionally from national party lists, where voters vote for a party. There’s another catch: These remaining 93 votes use the D’Hondt method, which means parties that don’t meet a certain threshold will be excluded, so even if a party wins the popular vote, it can still lose power.

Fidesz is well organized and has strong support outside of major cities, so it has an advantage over Péter Magyar’s Tisza party. In order to flip any seats, he can’t just win votes overall; he also has to flip key district seats, especially Fidesz’s strongholds. That said, Tisza is counting on the D’Hondt method and enough raw votes to overcome these impediments.

‘We Have a List of Demands’—Fuel Protest Organizer Says ‘Breakthrough’ in Talks Reached but Disruption to Continue (Irish Independent)

In Ireland, anger over the price of petrol has, ironically, fueled protests island-wide. Protesters have blocked access to major fuel depots and the country’s only refinery, which seems a way to guarantee that prices remain high.

The immediate first-order effects of the protests are that over 100 gas stations have run out of fuel. The second, third, and so forth orders are that people have started panic buying gas, emergency services have been disrupted, and people haven’t been able to get to work or run their businesses.

Obviously, the government should listen to the protesters’ demands… except that the protesters do not have a coherent platform, which is part of why the government isn’t engaging directly. Officials say a relief package is in the works, but only once the blockades end. As one minister put it, “Nobody knows… what their asks are.”

Funny You Should Mention: This Man Could Be a Genius

“I read Ulysses three times, but I also poured coffee on my balls twice in one week.” Comedian Raanan Hershberg joins this week on Funny You Should Mention to discuss his new special, ‘Morbidly Jewish,’ and the delicate art of balancing highbrow intellect with lowbrow humor.

This newsletter was put together in collaboration with Kathleen Sykes. All mistakes belong to Mike Pesca.

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🤝 Dark degrees of separation of Jeffrey Epstein.

💨 Who has worse flatus: men or women? And why did scientists want to find out?

💣 Trump is very clear about his intent, but less clear about his actions.

👀 The Baltimore Sun is keeping a close eye on Wes Moore as he keeps a close eye on the presidency.

🎤 The congressional hopeful that keeps showing up at quinceñeras.

But first, here’s our top story:

Shelly Kittleson, a freelance American journalist reporting across the Middle East, was kidnapped in Baghdad on March 31. U.S. and Iraqi officials believe the kidnappers are the militia Kataib Hezbollah, although they have not claimed responsibility or offered any proof of life.

If Kataib Hezbollah sounds familiar to you, then you are a very observant Gist List reader or The Gist listener because this is the same paramilitary group that kidnapped Elizabeth Tsurkov and held her for over 900 days. She came on the show, and you can listen to her interview here.

In Tsurkov’s case, the Biden administration treated the group like an international group that could be negotiated with, but they were never able to get her out. Trump’s tack was to treat them like thugs and apply direct pressure to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani.

Tsurkov’s rescue was a remarkable accomplishment, but it may also have inadvertently signaled that the U.S. is open for hostage-negotiation business.

Officials suspect that Kittleson’s kidnapping was a strategic one designed to deter future U.S. airstrikes, which, as far as we are aware, has worked because airstrikes in the area have paused since the abduction. While Kataib Hezbollah is technically part of Iraq’s state security apparatus, it answers to Iran in practice, causing a geopolitical chess match.

If you’re interested in what this negotiation might look like, Global Reach CEO Mickey Bergman also came on the show recently to discuss the ins and outs of international hostage negotiation. At the center of it: knowing exactly what the hostage taker wants. You can listen to part 1 here and part 2 here.

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⚱️ Why this funeral director knows where the bodies AREN’T buried.

🌑 There is no reason why anyone should know what the back of the moon looks like.

🏚️ Why it might be cheaper to not have home insurance.

⚖️ Is Trump intimidating SCOTUS?

🍫 Like boners for chocolate.

But first, here’s our top story:

Thousands of commercial sailors are stuck in one of the world’s most dangerous waterways—yet the story is barely registering. Regular Gist List readers know this is a recurring theme: maritime workers are often abandoned or exploited with little accountability.

As tensions escalate around Iran, nearly 20,000 seafarers are stranded in the Persian Gulf after Iran effectively blocked passage through the Strait of Hormuz. At least 20 commercial vessels have been attacked, and 10 sailors have been killed, with others injured or missing.

Many face a brutal tradeoff: refuse to sail in a conflict zone, or lose their livelihood. For Filipino workers in particular—who make up about 7,300 of those stranded—these jobs are often the path out of poverty.

There is, technically, a way out—at a price. Iran is reportedly charging ships from friendly nations for safe passage, sidestepping U.S. sanctions by accepting Chinese yuan or cryptocurrency.

The Gist List, Boner Chocolate, and the Unsettling Backside of the Moon

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💣 An Israeli Air Force Major’s Polymarket bets went TOO far.

🐯 Inside Dallas’ furry convention.

☕ A cup of coffee that costs HOW MUCH?!

🛬 What happened in the LaGuardia plane crash?

🏈 The horseplaying, antisemitic, biting football star with room to grow.

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When Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, launched The Primary School, it was pitched as a philanthropic model for education: tuition-free, community-focused, and backed by billionaires to help shape the next generation. Now it’s shutting down after their charity cut funding—without explanation.

Why this sudden change is anyone’s guess, but it did come shortly before the Zuckerberg/Chan’s move to Miami, so it could be part of a broader restructuring of their philanthropic efforts and a focus away from the Bay Area… Or, if you noticed the timing with California’s newly proposed billionaire tax, you’re not alone.

The bill would place a one-time 5% tax on the assets of California billionaires and certain trusts. Critics, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, argued that it will take billionaires’ investments out of state and, possibly in this case, their charities.

The fallout from the school defunding has been immediate. Local districts are scrambling to absorb roughly 400 students, many of whom relied on services that went beyond education—health care, family support—that public schools aren’t equipped to replicate.

Now, residents will have to cover the costs above the $10 million per year that Zuckerberg has pledged over the next 5 years. Just like he pledged to fund the school. The district placed a $70 million bond on the ballot.

For Paid Subs Only—The Gist List: Furries, shady Polymarket bets, overpriced coffee and more!

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Earlier this year, Seattle was ordered to pay a $30.5 million verdict to the family of a teenager killed inside the Capitol Hill Organized Protest (CHOP) zone during the protests during the summer of 2020. Antonio Mays Jr. was shot inside the zone by an unknown gunman, and emergency services refused to enter. Now, the city is asking for a new trial, arguing the verdict was legally flawed and the damages far too high.

The main argument is that there was at least a 90% chance Mays would have died anyway, even with immediate medical care. How they came to this number, I do not know, but even so, isn’t preventing shooting victims from incurring 90% fatal bullet wounds why we have the police in the first place?

In any given city in the U.S., there are going to be a number of shootings per year, and we need emergency services whether or not those victims stand a ~90% chance of dying. And the presence of police prevents at least 90% of the shootings that might happen in lawless zones.

If I were a Seattle taxpayer, I would understand the city wanting to wriggle out of a $30 million liability. On the other hand, I would not have faith that my government actually understands how governance works.

The city is also arguing that the jury should have been instructed to allocate some of the blame to the unidentified shooter acting as “security” in CHOP.

Yes. This is why we have the police in the first place.

The city also blamed the jury for improperly considering the idea of deterring future negligence when calculating damages.

But police can’t very well deter crime if they are self-deterring from stopping crime in CHOP.

This is definitely not a situation where Seattle has learned its lesson.

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Welcome to the Gist List—a news roundup, things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.

Here’s what’s on my mind:

🤖 The Trump administration uses the legal strategy of stalling in the Anthropic case.

🗑️ Two stories that show you that NYC is disgusting.

🍯 Food manufacturers struggle in the age of Ozempic. Marmite hardest hit.

🩴 Croc is basically printing money.

🐻 Californians outraged over mama bear euthanasia.

The Gist List

Anthropic Wins Preliminary Injunction in DOD Fight as Judge Cites ‘First Amendment Retaliation’ (CNBC)

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from blacklisting Anthropic after the Pentagon labeled the firm a national security “supply chain risk.” The ruling prevents the administration from enforcing President Trump’s order banning federal agencies from using Anthropic’s AI while the lawsuit continues.

A “supply chain risk” is a designation usually reserved for foreign adversaries, but in this case, the dispute seems to have come from the Defense Department wanting broad access to the company’s models for any lawful purpose, which Anthropic wasn’t willing to offer because it could be used for autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance.

And, no, the designation doesn’t make sense, but the Trump administration doesn’t usually have a solid legal theory when it comes to winning cases. The strategy appears to be seeing if they can draw things out for a few more weeks to buy themselves some time. Everyone knew this wouldn’t fly, and as soon as it touched the courts—WHICH STILL HAVE AUTHORITY—the whole thing was bound to fall apart.

NYC’s Newest Hobby Is Cleaning Up Trash and Documenting the Filth (WaPo)🎁

New Yorkers are finding common grounds, coffee and otherwise, in picking up garbage with groups like Pick Up Pigeons and Litter Legion. Some of these groups have collected 15,000+ pounds of trash over several years, consisting of everything from dentures to sex toys.

This hobby is only outpaced by New York’s oldest hobby, making trash, by millions to one.

But, of course, this is what it means to live in the Big Apple. Even the NYC Health Department office can’t seem to keep things tidy, and employees have started an Instagram account, @miceofworthst, chronicling their building at 125 Worth St. as being Biblically plagued by mice, cockroaches, and waste.

I’m not sure what the point of the account is—other than to further undermine everyone’s faith in institutions—but at least we know they are subject matter experts.

Big Food’s Troubles Go From Bad to Worse (The Economist)🎁

After years of riding inflation-fueled price hikes, big packaged-food companies are now facing a sharp reversal. According to The Economist, which included the photo below of Marmite, the blame is threefold: consumers are increasingly health-conscious, they’re buying cheaper private-label items, and weight-loss drugs are making people eat less.

Of course, when anyone has tasted any alternative to Marmite, they have always preferred that, regardless of Ozempic. And I’m also not convinced consumers are seeing higher prices and deciding the solution is to stock up on a 90-jar case of Kirkland-brand “yeast extract.”

Outside the Marmite industrial complex, companies are pivoting toward health-focused products such as yogurt, frozen “healthy” meals, and meal replacements. It’s estimated that GLP-1 use will eat into (or rather, not eat into) sales by $12 billion over the next decade. Additionally, as governments begin to step in to curb the production of hyper-processed foods, food manufacturers will have to change their strategies.

Crocs’ Prince Charming (Sherwood)

Ten years ago, Crocs made a strange, quirky-looking $10 million purchase of Jibbitz, which makes plastic charms that snap into the fittingly strange, quirky-looking shoes. This has turned into a money-printing machine for Crocs because, even though it accounts for only ~8% of the company’s sales, its profit margins are incredibly high. The charms now generate roughly $260–270 million in annual revenue, and roughly 3 in 4 Crocs buyers also purchase Jibbitz—the fourth person being too ashamed to admit that they own Crocs.

Fun fact: The costume designer of Idiocracy had a limited budget and needed cheap shoes that both looked like they were from the future, but too stupid for an enlightened society to wear, so she settled on an upstart brand: Crocs. Much like everything from that movie, the future came a lot sooner than any of us anticipated, and everyone is wearing them now.

SoCal Suburb Enraged After Beloved Mama Bear Is Killed: ‘Blondie Didn’t Deserve to Die!’ (L.A. Times)🔒

A beloved black bear known (perhaps sarcastically) as Blondie was euthanized by California wildlife officials after being linked to two incidents where she swiped at residents.

Blondie was designated a “Public Safety Bear” after DNA linked her to two encounters involving minor injuries to residents, meaning she was considered too dangerous to the public. She was captured and euthanized on March 15.

This sparked outrage in the community, including protests and a memorial walk, especially since she leaves behind two cubs. This is understandably sad, but it is also undercut by the article’s subhead, which says, “Blondie’s two cubs, believed to be 2 to 3 months old, will spend the rest of their childhood in captivity…” Bears don’t have childhoods.

ICYMI: The Pitt’s AHoles**

The Pitt is riveting television. The characters are compelling, the action is nonstop, the medical verisimilitude feels exact, and the humaneness is omnipresent.

Also, every asshole is white.

Debuting The Pitt Asshole Tracker™️:

This newsletter was put together in collaboration with Kathleen Sykes. All mistakes belong to Mike Pesca.

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🍄 The mushroom heralding the apocalypse and downfall of democracy.

🚌 Why are these airlines selling bus tickets?

📈 These prediction markets seem a little TOO well timed.

🤣 How did Bill Maher get the Mark Twain prize when the Trump administration said he wouldn’t?

🐽 Restaurants selling tails and snouts or: offal is awful.

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It’s like something right out of a Pixar movie: a pack of dogs, led by an adorable corgi, escaping their meat market captors and walking 10 miles home to their quaint Chinese village to be reunited with their owners.

The story generated more than 90 million views across Chinese platforms such as Weibo before spreading globally to TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram. People began adding details to the Homeward Bound narrative: the German shepherd in the middle was injured, the other dogs were protecting it, and the group had escaped from a meat transport. The kind of story that could unite warring nations.

Except that’s not what happened.

If you’re anywhere near as skeptical as I am, you probably found yourself thinking, “How on earth was anyone able to confirm any of this? Did they ask the dogs for comment? How would the guy filming them know they walked 10 miles? Did he follow them the entire way? Did he note their origin and destination?” You were probably also not surprised to hear that this was just a bunch of dogs going walkabout, and that the German shepherd was in heat, so the dogs were mostly distracted rather than protective.

Which brings us to another viral video that spread widely this week.

A confrontation at San Francisco International Airport circulated online showing plainclothes agents restraining a crying woman, Angelina Lopez-Jimenez, as a child stood nearby. Many posts accompanying the video claimed the girl was a U.S. citizen, though that detail has not been independently confirmed.

Jessica Yellin of #NewsNotNoise reposted the video to her Instagram with the caption:

*Eye witnesses say this woman was detained by ICE agents at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday night. The woman was at a domestic terminal — where passports are not required for travel — and according to witnesses was accompanied by her daughter, who is a U.S. citizen.

Because SFO utilizes private security rather than TSA, ICE is not typically deployed at security checkpoints.*

The post suggests this may have been part of a broader effort to expand ICE enforcement at airports. But like the dog story above, how much of this narrative was actually confirmed—and how much was filled in by viewers trying to make sense of a disturbing clip?

According to reporting by the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, Lopez-Jimenez was not randomly tackled while trying to board a domestic flight. Instead, her name appeared on a passenger list that triggered an alert because she had a final removal order dating back to 2019 after missing an immigration court hearing when she and her daughter entered the U.S. illegally. TSA systems flagged the information and alerted ICE ahead of her trip to the airport.

Federal officials also say she attempted to run from agents and resisted arrest.

The video is obviously dramatic and unsettling, and there is a legitimate debate about whether the TSA should share passenger data with immigration authorities. But the viral version of the story left out much of that context.

In other words, this probably would have remained a minor local news story—if the internet hadn’t already written a more compelling version of it.

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🐂 A 15-year-old sells a cow for $1.5 million.

😢 Traumatized Democrats and wealthy orphan play up childhood for the 2028 presidential race.

🥴 Why is this Republican Senator driving his GOP colleagues insane?

🧬 Why did DNA convict this guy when it should have exonerated him?

🐦 Blue tits, butts, great thick-knees, and other PERFECTLY safe-for-work content.

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Democrats may have dominated California politics for decades, but now two Republicans, Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, are leading the polls for the governor’s race.

Have Californians finally got fed up with liberal politics and now want a change of pace? No. California has a “jungle primary,” meaning that anyone can join the fray and the two highest-voted candidates advance to the general election, regardless of party. In this case, there are only two Republican candidates and EIGHT Democrats, who are spreading their two-thirds majority support among themselves.

California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks recently urged weaker candidates to reconsider their campaigns and drop out to avoid a scenario where the party misses the general election entirely. Meanwhile, the party is doing some polling to see which candidates they should pressure out of the race.

The reason this is necessary is that California voters might prefer Democrats to Republicans, but they barely like any of the candidates. No contender has a favorability rating above 40%. Hilton sits at 17%, Bianco at 16%, and the top Democrats are Eric Swalwell (13%), Katie Porter (13%) and Tom Steyer (10%), with the rest polling below 5%.

Still, the flood of headlines suggesting that Republicans are suddenly taking over California—and that we should all stock up on canned goods as we await the purge—may be a bit much. The Los Angeles Times alone ran two ominous headlines: “Democrats face the possibility of a historic upset in California governor’s race” and “Scary time for California Democrats.”

But the situation is less apocalyptic than advertised. If a few Democratic candidates bow out and voters consolidate around one or two contenders, the supposed Republican surge could disappear as quickly as it appeared.

Although they should do that before Friday, which is the deadline to have their names officially removed from the ballot.

And now… The Gist List (Plus the completely SFW butts and blue tits at the end)

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Unfortunately for parents, the schools will not be providing any alternative child care, though Troy Polamalu, ever the community staple, has promised to babysit anyone who beats him in a footrace. One parent told the Post-Gazette that the district has relied on remote days too frequently since the pandemic and should plan better for predictable events—especially one that has been on the calendar for two years.

Instead of calling this “closing the schools,” Pittsburgh should rebrand this as a learning bye week. Terry Bradshaw, Hall of Fame Steelers quarterback, was once (unfairly) derided as so dim that he couldn’t spell “cat” if you spotted him the C and the A. He clearly was a role model to the youth.

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Welcome to the Gist List—a news roundup, things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.

Here’s what’s on my mind:

🪙 Trump gets his face stamped on a coin.

🌹 No more roses for the Bachelorette.

🤼 The unbelievable story of a man forced to fight in the Cartel Olympics.

🎭 FINALLY. The Opera that will make Timothée Chalamet eat his words.

🐈 It’s raining cats.

The Gist List

Trump 24-Karat Gold Coin Approved by Hand-Picked Federal Panel (BBC)

A federal arts panel has approved a 24-karat commemorative gold coin featuring President Donald Trump. You might be wondering why we are minting a solid-gold coin with Trump’s likeness on it, other than to stroke his ego, but it is to commemorate the United States’ 250th anniversary.

As with many things the president does, it was not without controversy because federal law traditionally prohibits living presidents from appearing on U.S. currency. The only other president whose likeness was struck on a coin was Calvin Coolidge, and that also caused controversy at the time. (Not that he would have said anything about it.)

Democrats in Congress have attempted to block the idea with legislation dubbed the “TRUMP Act” (Restrict Ugly Money Portraits), but it has not passed. (The Gist List investigative team looked into it, and we can’t find the “T” of the “TRUMP Act. Maybe it’s silent.)

But who is this “hand-picked” panel? The arts panel is mostly of Trump appointees, but notably, it includes:

1. Rodney Mims Cook Jr.—A bespectacled gentleman who wears his eyeglasses on his nose.

2. James McCrery II—Bespectacled AND bow-tied gentleman who wears his eyeglasses on his face.

3. Roger Kimball—A man who, like McCrery, also wears his eyeglasses on his face and praised one version of the coin for having a “statesmanlike quality, to the coif of the hair.”

4. Chamberlain Harris—An attractive 26-year-old former Trump executive assistant described as having less previous arts experience than anyone in the panel’s history. She was also involved in the Mar-a-Lago document scandal.

‘The Bachelorette’ Season Canceled After Leaked Video of Assault (NYT)

An upcoming season of The Bachelorette starring Secret Lives of Mormon Wives star Taylor Frankie Paul was canceled after a video of a 2023 assault surfaced online. Disney executives decided to scrap the season just days before its planned premiere.

In the video released by TMZ, Paul is shown putting Dakota Mortensen in a headlock and peppering him with metal chairs as a visitor to the midway might patronize the ring toss. One chair struck Paul’s five-year-old daughter in the head. Officers responding to the scene reported Mortensen had scratches, swelling and a neck laceration. Paul later entered a 36-month plea in abeyance for aggravated assault.

The decision to scrap the season comes as a surprise to absolutely everyone except Gist List editrix and Utahn Kathleen Sykes, who has spent the last four months wondering why on earth The Bachelor franchise would put someone accused of domestic violence on a reality dating show—especially when this was widely reported by local news outlets. Canceling the show will be costly for ABC, but perhaps also a little avoidable, considering this was common knowledge.

Paul released the following statement via a spokesperson (annotations added):

“Taylor is very grateful for ABC’s support (to cancel her show?) as she prioritizes her family’s safety and security. After years of silently suffering extensive mental and physical abuse as well as threats of retaliation (from the network?), Taylor is finally gaining the strength to face her accuser and taking steps to ensure that she and her children are protected from any further harm (from her?).”

According to Utah court records, Mortensen has filed a protective order against Paul.

The Incredible Story of the Cartel Olympics (The Atlantic)🔒

McKay Coppins is back with an even crazier story than the one he published about doing gambling for journalism. In this piece, Coppins tells the story of Mauricio “Mau” Morales, a Mexican man who claimed he was kidnapped by a cartel, tortured, and then forced to coach and compete in a secret inter-cartel sports tournament where losers were executed, and winners went free.

A Las Vegas talent manager was dazzled by Morales’s story, bought his life rights to make a movie, and connected him with Coppins, who began investigating the tale. Several people seemed to back Morales up—until Coppins discovered that some of those sources were completely fabricated. He also found that Morales’s supposed Olympic credentials collapsed under scrutiny. Neither the Colombian nor the Mexican Olympic committees had any record of his having competed.

As it turns out, Morales was tied to an elaborate scam involving a nonprofit affiliated with the Non-Violence Project, including forged celebrity connections, fake memorabilia, bogus investment opportunities, and hundreds of thousands of dollars wired into accounts he controlled. He spent about 18 months in prison awaiting trial (which explains why he had “disappeared”), and some of that experience appears to have been transformed into his “Cartel Olympics” myth.

To Coppins’s credit, he recognized early on how ridiculous the story sounded. Perhaps the detail about cartel bosses organizing a flag football tournament tipped him off. As we know, the cartels are famously concerned about CTE.

Finally, an Opera About Economics (Bloomberg)🎁

This is one of those stories that might make people think, “Hmm… maybe Timothée Chalamet was right.”

The New York Philharmonic is presenting a new oratorio (not an opera, as Kathleen needed to point out) based on Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, the 1776 economic treatise that helped shape modern capitalism.

One section emphasizes Smith’s idea that economic systems arise from individuals pursuing their own advantage, guided by the “invisible hand,” a dynamic that can create both prosperity and inequality. No doubt, every seat will be filled.

Putting a New Spin on Why Cats Fall on Their Feet (Times of London)

You might recognize that we covered this on The Gist List last week, but we have an important follow-up:

We found the video of a scientist dropping a displeased-looking cat onto the ground. In case you missed the news, scientists in Japan found that cats have ultra-flexible spines, which help them land on their feet. That is, unless you are Gnocchi Pesca, who will just fall to the ground with a loud thud when he wriggles out of my arms.

This newsletter was put together in collaboration with Kathleen Sykes. All non-Opera, reality show, Utahan mistakes belong to Mike Pesca.

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🚓 The Forbes-30-Under-30-to-prison pipeline. (🔒)

💸 Why did these victims’ mothers get such a high bill?

🇲🇽 How El Mencho’s successor is causing U.S. law enforcement an administrative headache. (🎁)

🤖 In the battle of ChatGPT and Claude, who is the winner?

🛒 Are you paying more for groceries than your neighbor?

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The pro-Israel lobbyists, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), got a split result in Illinois Democratic House primaries on Tuesday. Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss—a fairly moderate progressive with comparatively tame views on Israel, whose mother is Israeli—won the Illinois 9th District Democratic primary for the U.S. House despite heavy spending by AIPAC on attack ads against him.

AIPAC’s preferred candidate, Laura Fine, finished third. But the group’s most loathed candidate, the 26-year-old social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh, came in a very close second. Abughazaleh, the blonde Jamal Bowman, fell just short after a barrage of late-stage ads.

Much of the post-election coverage framed the result as a disappointment for AIPAC. But I’m not so sure.

A long-shot candidate named Bushra Amiwala suddenly began receiving support from an unknown source in the form of some pretty slick ads that seemed perfectly engineered for progressives. The effect was to put Abughazaleh in a tight spot and siphon off some of her votes.

Amiwala quickly disavowed the ads, saying they came from AIPAC and that, as a Muslim Pakistani woman, she rejected their support. The disavowal was widely covered, and AIPAC’s involvement was exposed.

But in the end, Amiwala wound up with about 6,240 votes, and Abughazaleh lost by 4457 as of this counting.

So was this really a failure for AIPAC? If the tactic helped keep the inexperienced, Anti-Zionist descendant of both Republican activist Texans out of Congress, then maybe AIPAC won by losing. In fact, it might actually have been a clever move. I mean, after watching those ads, there’s something about that Bushra Amiwala. She really hates billionaires! I like the cut of her jib.

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🌬️ The massive wind farm project off the coast of Massachusetts. (🔒)

🌳 Why is this town going to have to give up the title “The City of Trees”?

🫘 Why was this man taken into ICE detention for carrying… pinto beans?

🇲🇽 Who deported more Mexicans: Trump or Biden? (🔒)

🫀 How old is too old to be an organ donor?

But first, here’s our top story:

Kristi Noem is out, and Sen. Markwayne Mullin is beginning the confirmation process to replace her, but one big—some might say supermax—question is looming over him: Will he continue with Noem’s warehouse detention center priorities? The policy has attracted bipartisan concern, with Republicans like Sen. Tom Tillis questioning the high costs for the facilities.

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Today is a paid issue, so here’s a sneak peek of what’s beyond the paywall:

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👞 The shoe that Trump is obsessed with, even though the company sued him.

👶 Abandoned baby reconnects with the women who found her.

🎲 What happens when a churchgoing dad starts gambling for science reasons?

🏢 Why are Dallas officials throwing away a perfectly good building?

🥤 How the disputed country of Somaliland got a deal with Coca-Cola (and Israel).

But first, here’s our top story:

Iran might not have much left, but it does have one trick up its kameez: shutting down in the Strait of Hormuz and waiting it out until oil prices skyrocket. Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei (don’t worry, your old Ayatollah T-shirts still work for this one), made his first public remarks since succeeding his father, declaring that the Strait of Hormuz should “remain closed” as a way to pressure the U.S. and its allies.

The IEA has agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from member countries’ reserves, but the organization is still warning that the war has created “the largest supply disruption in history.” None of this seems to be bothering President Donald Trump. In fact, he’s thrilled! He took to Truth Social, saying:

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To blunt the price spike, the International Energy Agency (IEA)—a consortium of major energy-consuming countries that coordinates responses to global energy crises—has agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from member nations’ strategic reserves. The agency hasn’t specified when the oil will hit markets, only that each of its 32 member countries will release stockpiles according to its own circumstances.

The move underscores the scale of the disruption. Analysts say even the largest emergency release the IEA can coordinate cannot fully replace the oil that normally flows through Hormuz. In other words, this is more of a Band-Aid, specifically a Band-Aid with just the sticky part and not the gauze. Meaning oil prices rose 5% following the announcement.

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Welcome to the Gist List—a news roundup, things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.

Here’s what’s on my mind:

🎫 The DOJ surprises the states with a Live Nation/Ticketmaster settlement.

☕ Another millionaire flees to Florida after a new tax law

🌹 Trump is losing some Latino love from voters. (🎁)

🔫 Defense rests in the Prairieland shooting case after not presenting a case.

🐈 Scientists toss cats in the air, discover they land on their feet.

The Gist List

DOJ Comes to Surprise Settlement With Live Nation/Ticketmaster. Leaves States to Fend for Themselves (Bloomberg Law)

The attorneys general of the U.S. were psyching themselves up for their day in court with Live Nation and Ticketmaster, ready—perhaps—for revenge after paying $47 in service fees to see Sting in concert. Then the DOJ pulled the rug out from under them and reached a settlement.

In 2024, the Justice Department originally sought to force Live Nation to sell Ticketmaster, arguing the company monopolized concert promotion, venues, and ticketing. In fact, this has been a major populist antitrust talking point in recent years.

The settlement requires that Live Nation must allow rival ticketing platforms to sell up to 50% of tickets at some events and that their service fees have to be capped at 15%. Exclusive ticketing contracts will be loosened, and rival promoters could book shows at Live Nation amphitheaters. The company could pay up to $280 million in damages if all states sign on, and the agreement still requires a federal judge to approve it.

It’s not a terrible settlement, but 27 states and Washington, D.C. say the settlement doesn’t go far enough and plan to continue the lawsuit, arguing that it doesn’t actually address the monopoly at the center of the case. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian was furious because the settlement was signed on Thursday but not disclosed in court until days later. He called the move “absolute disrespect for the court… entirely unacceptable.” He then beseeched the aggrieved parties, “If you love somebody, set them free,” before leaving to have hours and hours of tantric sex.

Starbucks Founder Howard Schultz Leaves Seattle for Florida the Same Day Democrats Pass Washington Income Tax (570 KVI)

After more than four decades in Seattle, Howard Schultz, the most recognizable face of Starbucks, other than this sea-babe, announced he is moving to Miami, coincidentally on the same day Washington lawmakers approved a new tax targeting high earners, specifically 9.9% on annual income above $1 million.

As you might remember, these aren’t the first million/billionaires to flee towards more tropical pastures after a wealth tax passes. Steven Spielberg moved to New York, and Mark Zuckerberg is eyeing a property in Florida after California proposed a similar law.

Starbucks is also, apparently, shifting away from Seattle, the city where they got their start, and moving some operations to Nashville. But does a full-on corporate HQ relocation make sense in the face of a personal income tax? According to this, only the CEO, though that’s base compensation, without stock options. Also, according to this board member, Andy Campion’s favorite Starbucks drink is a Nonfat Latte with Sugar Free Vanilla Protein Foam. No word on the tax implications for the Barista who can’t afford to have his nose ring removed to comply with dress code requirements.

Lost Latino Love Could Cost Republicans the Midterms (Economist) 🎁

In 2024, Trump got the highest share of Latino voters that any Republican candidate ever got—la friolera de 48%, up from 36% in 2020, but now a recent poll found Trump’s approval among Latinos fell from 41% to 22% within a year.

The sudden drop can be explained by two things: backlash from the way the Trump administration has handled immigration and the economy.

While many Latino Americans voted for Trump based on his immigration platform, which promised to get rid of the worst of the worst, it has mostly disrupted local economies that rely on immigrant labor. In some cases, immigration checkpoints have increased, requiring motorists to show documentation.

Many Latino voters supported Trump because they also believed he would rapidly bring down prices, especially after the inflation spike during the COVID-era recovery. Polls now show Latino voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy and inflation by about two to one. Voters can overestimate how much control the president has over prices, but as we’ve seen this week, sudden spikes in gas prices are not the product of imagination.

Defense, Prosecution Rest in Federal Trial for Prairieland ICE Facility Shooting (CBS News)

What a saga the Prairieland ICE shooting trial has been. It has gone from being an underreported incident, to going through a mistrial BEFORE the trial even began, to both sides resting their case—the defense resting its case MUCH faster than the prosecution.

In total, the prosecution called 51 witnesses and built a case, linking the defendants to antifa. The prosecution said the group vandalized property, launched fireworks, and shot at responding police officers, one of whom was hit and survived.

The defense, on the other hand, did not call a single witness. This might sound dumb, and maybe like they didn’t have much of a case to begin with, but there is also the chance that their strategy is to not say anything at all and let the prosecution reveal their own weaknesses. For the government’s strategy to work, the jury has to believe this was an organized, terroristic antifa cell—not just a ramshackle coterie of people sharing sarcastic text messages about antifa.

Flexible Feline Spines Shed Light on “Falling Cat” Problem (ARS Technica)

Japanese researchers are trying to understand one of nature’s most famous (but perhaps most well-documented) tricks: how cats manage to twist mid-air and land on their feet when they fall. The researchers studied several cadaver spines (a big thanks goes out to those cats that donated their bodies to science) and found they were unusually flexible in the upper spine.

They also used a massive sample size of two living cats, dropping them eight times each and photographing the surprised-looking felines with high-speed cameras. They found that each cat showed a slight preference for turning to the right and performed some complicated mid-air choreography to whip its body around, somehow without actually violating the laws of physics.

The Gist List investigative team could not reach the cats in question, but when asked for comment about his thoughts on the experiment, my cat Gnocchi just stared at me and then knocked his food bowl off the counter.

Listen to How To!

You may have noticed that we at Pesca Inc. have yet another NEW show in our portfolio: How To! Every week, we take a listener’s question and find an expert to help them resolve it. And this isn’t some “how to change a tire” show—we’re taking on those questions you’re afraid to ask; the weird things you are curious about; and even the questions you didn’t know you had. For example: How to rid yourself of an ancient Assyrian ghost or how to move abroad as a throuple.

I was the subject of our most recent episode:

This newsletter was put together in collaboration with Kathleen Sykes. All mistakes belong to Mike Pesca.

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Have a story you want us to talk about or an opinion you want to share? Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com or share your thoughts in the comments. We might give you a shoutout in our next newsletter or on the air.

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If you’re a regular Gist Lister, you know that Mike knows the value of a good headline—particularly if it’s easy to make fun of. So today, I present you with a roundup of some of the more interesting ones that we have covered over the last year.

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Welcome to the Gist List. Today is a special roundup of funny and interesting headlines we have covered, including a few that we originally put behind the paywall.

Want to get more stuff like this? Subscribe or upgrade your subscription today.

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The Gist List

Most Boring Headline: 2SLGBTQ+ Advocates Say Legal Challenges Will Continue Despite Alberta’s Bill 9 (Source)

The Alberta government introduced Bill 9 this week, which would invoke the notwithstanding clause to shield three transgender-related laws from Charter challenges for five years. The bills in question would:

• require parental consent for students under 16 to use preferred names or pronouns;

• restrict girls’ and women’s sports to female-at-birth athletes;

• ban gender-affirming care for trans-identifying youth.

Bill 9 would also lift the existing court injunction blocking the ban on gender-affirming care. It’s a high-stakes, low-trust showdown between the legislature and judiciary—a constitutional brinkmanship tool Canada created as a compromise, but rarely wields this aggressively.

And amid all that intensity…somehow the headlines are still mind-numbingly dull. The gold standard remains the New York Times’ famously boring 1986 headline, “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative,” once hailed as the most boring headline ever written—despite the fact it covered a major story: Canada proposing a free-trade zone with the U.S. I believe “Canadian Province Contemplates Use of Notwithstanding Clause” blows the Worthwhile Initiative out of the frozen waters of Lake Athabasca.

The “You Don’t Say?” Headline: Iran’s Leaders May Survive Protests. But Anger Will Likely Persist (Source)

After weeks of nationwide protests and violent crackdowns, Iran’s ruling class is still in power, and might still survive this round of protests—at least in part because the not-so-figurative nuclear meltdown possibly waiting on the other side is a reality.

But let’s talk about this headline:

Why do these two clearly plausible outcomes even need to be spelled out with conditionals? To brace the reader? In what universe does Iran’s ruling class remain in power, and people are not furious after years of poverty, violent crackdowns, mass killings, and forced hijab enforcement? Any headline buttressed with enough conditional statements to make the opposite occurrence impossible is a useless headline.

For example:

• Minnesota Might Not Burn to the Ground. “ICE Officer” Still Unlikely to Be Popular Halloween Costume.

• Earth May Survive for at Least Another Week. Greta Unlikely to Crack Smile.

• Patriots Might Lose This Weekend. Jets Fans Still Likely to Be a Miserable Group.

Some things are just statements of obvious continuity.

And a Roundup of Betteridge’s Law-Style Headlines:

Every day, we run into headlines that end in a yes or no question. Betteridge’s law states that if it does, it’s most likely to be answered with a clear, resounding “NO.” Here are some of our favorites:

Can You Shoot Down a Drone Hovering Over Your Property in Michigan? (Source)

No.

Why Is the French Government Spending Millions on Art No One Sees? (Source)

There’s a journalistic rule that says if a headline asks a question, the answer is usually no. Something similar applies in France: if the question is “why are they funding this?” the answer is usually “because they’re French.” Such is the case with Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), the branch of the Ministry of Culture that supports living artists because inefficiency and obsession with aesthetics is a national pastime.

Over the years, CNAP has steadily acquired new works and kept many of them out of public view. A recent audit found that 24,472 works—about a quarter of the collection—have never been exhibited, and 46,386 are currently in storage. CNAP spends about €12.8 million a year on operations and €5.4 million on acquisitions. This pales in comparison to the Musée du Louvre’s roughly €300 million annual budget—some of which, no doubt, goes toward tracking down a few notable items that are ALSO no longer on display.

Of course, the French are getting plenty of value in their other national pastime of public outrage. Nearly 1,000 art-world professionals signed an open letter in Le Monde condemning the audit as ideological rather than analytical, arguing that Emmanuel Macron’s government—along with elements of the far right—now treats culture as something that must justify itself economically.

Did Romania’s ‘King of TikTok’ Really Sway a Presidential Election? (Source)

Betteridge’s law of headlines strikes again! But this time the answer is, “Well, it depends on what you mean by ‘swayed an election.’”

A Romanian TikTok gifter (not grifter—though critics might argue otherwise), Bogdan Peșchir (a.k.a. Bogpr), spent lavishly through TikTok’s creator-gifting feature to boost influencers promoting far-right candidate Călin Georgescu, who surged from ~1% in the polls to winning 22.9% in the first round. Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the election and ordered a revote, banning Georgescu from running. If “swaying an election” includes getting it canceled, then yes—mission accomplished.

Prosecutors say that over the 10 months leading up to Romania’s November 2024 vote, Peșchir spent nearly $900,000 on TikTok gifts to more than 250 influencers. In the final stretch, he concentrated his giving on accounts backing Georgescu. Authorities argue the gifts functioned as undeclared campaign contributions and “corrupted voters by electronic means,” even if no explicit quid pro quo appears in the messages.

Coyote Makes Astonishing Swim to Alcatraz—The Start of a Prison-Island Pack? (Source)

In other San Francisco-based news about life, death and a means of traversing water: a tourist’s video has captured what scientists say is the first documented case of a coyote successfully swimming to Alcatraz. Of course, if you remember the Clint Eastwood classic Escape from Alcatraz, you know that Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin were never confirmed to have successfully survived swimming away from the island, making it pretty remarkable that a coyote managed to swim to it at all and live to tell the tale.

But back to the headline. The Times did ask experts whether the coyote could start a whole new pack on the island—but Betteridge’s law applies. Even with food sources like rodents and nesting birds, a pack by definition requires more than one animal. And even if the coyote were pregnant—like the one that swam to Angel Island in 2017—Alcatraz is far smaller. Inbreeding, a single bad ecological shock, or defective products from the ACME corporation could wipe out any would-be prison-island pack quickly.

A Billionaire’s Son Sold Investors on the ‘Ultimate Man Cave.’ Was Any of It Real? (Source)

Betteridge’s law of headlines would stipulate that any headline ending in a question is usually “no.” I have a corollary about a specific subset of headlines that pose questions. When the query is something like: “Is any of it true?” or “Was any of it real?” the answer becomes “yes, but not nearly enough.”

A 33-year-old entrepreneur, David Bren (son of real-estate billionaire Donald Bren), pitched “The Bunker”—a $14,500/mo ultra-luxury car club with Ferraris, Bugattis, private lounges, and A-list “founding members.” Investors dropped several six-figure sums, but the money allegedly went to personal expenses—luxury homes, car leases, and travel—instead of development costs. When investors demanded refunds, Bren wrote bad checks or sent token payments, and not this kind.

The Times reports that some people close to Bren say that his intentions were genuine, but that sentiment did not seem to be shared by his father, who released a statement saying, “We do not have a personal or business relationship with this individual.“ This might prompt Bren the younger to ask, “Was Any of My Father’s Love ever real?” The answer, as per Pesca’s Corollary: “yes, but not nearly enough.”

Can Urban Turkeys Smell Your Fear? (Source)

Betteridge’s law of headlines strikes again! The answer is no. But they CAN recognize you. After being chased twice by wild turkeys in her Twin Cities suburb, Lili Korbuly-Johnson of St. Louis Park is starting to suspect that this time, it’s personal. While attempting to dispose of her compost waste, a turkey approached her, puffed up its feathers, chased her into the street, and forced her to flee.

Dominance established.

According to Roy Churchwell of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, turkeys aren’t necessarily becoming more aggressive—they just ARE aggressive. People, on the other hand, are becoming a bit more stupid. Turkeys can recognize faces and remember individuals and keep secret hit lists. The experts say if this happens to you, make sure to act assertively, puff up your feathers, and bring a broom to shoo them away.

This newsletter was put together in collaboration with Kathleen Sykes. All mistakes belong to Mike Pesca Kathleen this week.

Listen to The Gist, and upgrade to Pesca Plus for the ad-free version.

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Have a story you want us to talk about or an opinion you want to share? Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com or share your thoughts in the comments. We might give you a shoutout in our next newsletter or on the air.

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Chatbot-style AI is also making its wartime debut, as reports have emerged that the Pentagon used Anthropic’s Claude model. According to the Wall Street Journal, just hours after President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s tools over the company refusing to drop its safety guardrails, the military used it to launch its attack. Clearly, it can still be used in its current form in lethal military operations, but Anthropic says it doesn’t want the technology used for mass domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons that could kill without human oversight.

We’re also getting a better grasp on the war’s prognosis. Or perhaps less of one. Now that Ayatollah Khamenei is out of power, Iranians can’t agree on what kind of government they want in its place, ranging from a nostalgic return to monarchy to a federal republic.

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Welcome to the Gist List—a news roundup, things you should know, and my thoughts leading up to today’s podcast episode.

Here’s what’s on my mind:

🦈 Sharks are NOT to blame for the transatlantic internet cables getting ripped out of the ocean.

🗳️ Chaos and mass confusion in the Texas Primary.

⚡ Seattle housing projects being foiled by electric lines.

🔫 Should parents be held accountable for mass shooters?

👭 A polygamist town gets a modern-day makeover.

The Gist List

Say Goodbye to the Undersea Cable That Made the Global Internet Possible (Wired)🔒

It’s the end of an era. The nearly 600 subsea fiber-optic cables running across the ocean floor, pumping internet into your computer, are getting ripped out of the seabed. Engineers are dismantling TAT-8, the first transatlantic fiber-optic cable installed in 1988, which helped make today’s global internet possible, connecting the U.S., the U.K., and France.

At the time, this was the peak of technological achievement (not the same level as Claude running autonomous drone strikes on Iran, but still). Without them, everyday digital activities like calls, streaming, financial transactions, and messaging would not function on a global scale.

Some people might tell you the reason the cables are getting pulled out is that sharks are wreaking havoc, pulling them out of place, and keeping you from streaming Love is Blind, but engineers assured Wired that this is rare (though apparently still possible) and exaggerated. As it turns out, sharks were unfairly blamed in the early stages of construction because shark teeth were found near affected wires. To be absolutely sure that this wasn’t the case, AT&T funded some research at aquariums where they let sharks get a little hungry, and tried to feed them delicious wires. They weren’t interested.

‘Mass Confusion’: How Election Day Went Awry for Dallas County Voters (Dallas Morning News)

For nearly a decade, Dallas voters could cast ballots at any voting center in the county, but this year, voters were required to vote only at their assigned neighborhood precinct. The Dallas County Republican Party pushed for the change, arguing it would reduce opportunities for voter fraud, even though countywide voting on election day requires both parties to agree, which did not happen. The result was major confusion for voters who showed up at the wrong polling places, which were already understaffed and had long lines.

The most closely watched primaries were for U.S. Senate, in which Jasmine Crockett lost to James Talarico for the Democratic nomination, whereas on the Republican side, John Cornyn and Ken Paxton are going into a sudden death round (A.K.A. a runoff).

Because of the chaos, a judge ordered polling hours extended from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. to allow more people to vote, but Paxton appealed the decision with the state Supreme Court overturning the extension.

Seattle’s Climate and Housing Efforts Bottlenecked by … Power Poles? (Seattle Times)

Seattle has passed ambitious policies to tackle housing shortages and climate change, but one thing stands tall and proud in the way: power line poles.

Seattle and Washington state recently passed laws encouraging “middle housing” (fourplexes and sixplexes) to increase density and ease the housing shortage, AND they also passed new energy rules pushing homes toward EV charging capability. This means that each lot is going to require a LOT more electricity than the single-family house it replaces.

Seattle’s existing power poles can’t safely handle the heavier wires and larger transformers needed for these multi-unit, fully electrified homes. Also, to avoid overloaded poles snapping during storms, the utility now requires new multi-unit housing to connect through underground power lines, which ALSO causes problems. Undergrounding is incredibly expensive and is setting many of these projects back. Just one small fourplex project took more than two years just to get power connected, and a 24-townhome project added $700,000 in undergrounding costs.

The whole idea doesn’t seem feasible. The city is looking for creative solutions, but many of those could result in uglier neighborhoods, building delays and requiring residents to obsess over their neighbors’ electricity use.

Apalachee Shooting Suspect’s Dad Convicted in ‘Novel’ Case (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

After the 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School carried out by a teenage boy that killed four people, a Georgia jury convicted the father of the gunman, Colin Gray, of second-degree murder and more than two dozen additional charges. Prosecutors argued Gray ignored years of warnings from relatives, counselors, and others about his son’s mental health and violent obsessions, but despite this, he allowed his son access to the rifle and ammunition used in the attack.

Gray has become at least the third parent in the U.S. to be convicted on charges related to their child’s alleged crime. 60 Minutes also did a segment this week, highlighting another case where parents were held accountable.

Polygamous Sect’s Sway Has Dwindled in Twin Towns on Arizona–Utah Line. Residents Enjoy New Freedoms (AP)

In Colorado City, a town that is neither in Colorado nor the second place you’d guess, Utah, and neighboring Hildale (which is in Utah), the grip of the FLDS polygamist sect over local politics is starting to loosen. For decades, the community functioned almost like a religious theocracy under church leaders Rulon Jeffs and, later, his son Warren Jeffs.

Activities such as sports, public celebrations, and holidays were banned. There were strict rules about what people could wear, and families could be split up, with wives and children assigned to other men. The group also controlled most local property through a church-run land trust. In practice, this meant the church could decide where people lived and could evict anyone who was excommunicated.

As you can imagine, this was not the most legally ironclad system. Warren Jeffs’ criminal prosecution triggered legal scrutiny and lawsuits that placed the towns under court supervision, resulting in the trust being transferred to a community board, which now allows private property ownership. The community is changing, and businesses such as coffee shops, bars, banks, and even a winery have opened.

How To!: How to Bust a Ghost the Old Fashioned Way

This week on How To! Enid Baxter Ryce asked for help with her little ghost problem. She lives on a massive, decommissioned military base. Think empty barracks, long corridors, forgotten institutional spaces. It’s quite similar to conditions that gave rise to the Philadelphia Mass Turbulence of 1947.

Here to help: Dr. Irving Finkel, curator at the British Museum, Assyriologist, and author of The First Ghosts. As an expert in ancient Mesopotamian ghosts and ghouls, he explains the administrative ins and outs of busting ghosts the old-fashioned (read: ancient) way.

This newsletter was put together in collaboration with Kathleen Sykes. All mistakes belong to Mike Pesca.

Listen to The Gist, and upgrade to Pesca Plus for the ad-free version.

Subscribe to The Gist

Have a story you want us to talk about or an opinion you want to share? Email us at thegist@mikepesca.com or share your thoughts in the comments. We might give you a shoutout in our next newsletter or on the air.

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