🕰️ Heads up: town hall and time off

👀 Watching: Backrooms

🇨🇴 Prepping: for Colombia

📰 Reading: about all of Kash Patel’s lawsuits

🕺 ICYMI: Friday’s video

It’s a big weekend for sports fans, which, as I joked earlier this week through the ‘Emo Fact Checker,’ may not be of huge interest to Local News International followers. But as I demonstrated in that same video, so much of sports these days is directly intertwined with politics. For example …

• The only game the Knicks lost in the last two months, before winning the NBA Finals Saturday night, was the game President Trump attended last week.

• While the FIFA Peace Prize winner actively works to keep people of color from entering the U.S. or applying for refugee status, most Americans are excitedly welcoming visitors to The World Cup. My favorite so far was nearby Lawrence, Kansas welcoming Algeria’s team and fans. I’m not surprised. My grandpa taught at KU for decades. It’s a good town.

• The UFC fight on the White House lawn took place last night on Trump’s birthday.

While Trump politicizes everything he touches, I think sports are uniquely political in our country. This isn’t to say that sports are apolitical elsewhere, but that our two-party system is directly affected by the ‘us vs them’ mentality that we gleefully promote on the field. It becomes difficult to shake that once you get to the ballot box.

Speaking of, what kind of coverage are you looking for in the midterms? Are there races in your neighborhood or state that deserve more attention? Let me know at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

And now … let’s unpack everything else on my mind this week.

🕰️ UPCOMING

Our FOURTH quarterly town hall is just around the corner. That’s right, we’ve been a company for almost an entire year. These are quickly becoming my favorite Zoom calls. In fact, they may be the only Zoom call I thoroughly enjoy (sorry everyone else that I talk to on Zoom). These town halls are available to all LNI members. For a full hour, you have access to me, Lauren, Micah, maybe even my dog Lola. My family likes to jump in and roast me too.

We’ll see you Wednesday night, June 17th at 8 p.m ET. Register here if you’re a member. If you’re not a member, join before Wednesday night.

One last reason to be a member: we’ve got stickers! Every three months, paying members get a new one. Here’s a preview of them in a super-secret unlisted video, as a treat:

The first stickers go out in July if you’re a member

Last bit of LNI housekeeping: we’re all off this Friday for Juneteenth. I’m taking Monday off as well. I’ll be enjoying the prolonged Father’s Day weekend at the pool with Mari and Lucia, walking Lola and finally finishing up an adult lego set or two.

It’s always very difficult for me to walk away from the social media video algorithms for a few days, without giving them a daily blood sacrifice, so please don’t let that stop you from engaging in our previous videos. If anyone gets unruly waiting from Thursday to Tuesday for a video, I’ll leave it to you all to calm them down in the comment sections. I look forward to checking in on the following Tuesday to see if we’ve reached 400,000 YouTube subscribers. Otherwise, I’ll be very much offline.

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Dave here in this message on behalf of our partner beehiiv, who are the reason this newsletter even exists! They’re launching a new product via their Summer Release Event on July 16. You can RSVP here. Or here. Or right here (I am just inserting the same link every time).

Hey it’s me, again, Dave. Remember? From before? Please don’t miss the Summer Release Event on July 16. RSVP here.

👀 WATCHING

I can only recommend the first 20 minutes of the new hit film Backrooms. That’s not because I didn’t like the rest, but rather … I didn’t see the rest. Right as Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character was checking the circuit breaker in the movie, the lights in our theater went out in real life. We thought it was part of the movie for a moment. Then as the emergency lights came on, it became clear that it was not the movie, but our geography. A severe thunderstorm with heavy winds and possible tornadoes had rolled into Kansas City, pulling trees out of the ground all over my neighborhood (we were spared).

AMC corralled everyone into the lobby, which was a really fun social experiment. Our theater was on the edge of our seats, while others were suddenly pulled off the roller coaster of Masters of the Universe or abducted from the alien-talking Emily Blunt in Disclosure Day. It was like we had all been yanked out of bed after vivid dreams and placed in a public dimly lit living room to discuss.

Shortly after, they told us we were getting refunds, but the power was still out and we had to go home. My friend Tim and I avoided all backroom exits and headed out straight through the main entrance. I’m excited to see the movie eventually. It’s the brainchild of a popular YouTuber Kane Parsons, AKA Kane Pixels, who has been making found-footage horror videos like this for years. It’s already received a ton of critical acclaim. Anyway, the first 20 minutes? Amazing. Highly recommend.

Side-note: somehow bringing it back to sports again, I got a chuckle out of World Cup fans in KC not knowing what a tornado warning is (they were all safe and fine, in the end).

🇨🇴 PREPPING

Many of you noticed my Colombia jersey in this week’s video. The Colombian fans in our comment section were a good reminder of the sheer number of our international followers, many of whom are from Latin America.

My wife Mariana is Colombian, and we will not be able to come to the phone Wednesday night, so please leave a message. If Colombia wins both games, they’ll be in Kansas City for the quarter final and we will be doing everything we can to get tickets.

📰 READING

President Trump is extremely good at suing people. It doesn’t always work out, but it’s shocking how often it does go in his favor. Even though the $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization” fund may not go through after all, Trump still largely gets what he wants out of these lawsuits. Remember: he sued the IRS because his tax returns were released - the ones that showed he hardly pays taxes, if at all. Now, no one is talking about this, they’re just discussing whether this lawsuit will give money to Jan 6ers. Both situations require our attention in their blatant corruption, but one completely eclipses the other and allows Trump to go on living his mostly tax-less life.

There are numerous examples throughout the years of Trump suing people into oblivion to muscle through construction projects, overreaching executive orders and everything in between. The highly underrated film The Apprentice (2024) outlines this strategy well, and indicates Trump picked up this playbook from the late, not-so-great Roy Cohn.

While Trump may have picked this up from someone else and run with it successfully, it is not working out for the rest of MAGA world. His own daughter and son-in-law are struggling to move forward with a $1.4 billion hotel resort project on an uninhabited Albanian island (stay tuned for a video on that this week).

The New York Times reported today that Kash Patel is zero for six on lawsuits against the media, including his lawsuit against the Atlantic for the massive report on his chaotic, drunken behavior as FBI director. “It’s time that I began fighting back,” Patel once said, before failing to reach even a settlement in any of his lawsuits against the truth. As I mentioned above, a successful lawsuit in Trump’s world doesn’t necessarily mean winning, just changing the narrative. Even that hasn’t seemed to work for Patel, who is apparently next on the White House chopping block.

What does this mean in a post-Trump era? Can my doppelgänger JD Vance march forward with the MAGA playbook, or will he have to find his own way? Will Marco Rubio remember how much he publicly detested Trump during the 2016 primaries, or stick to the fascist script? No one should be underestimated (or overestimated) in this equation. There are many paths to power. But I’m not sure Trump’s unique path is available to anyone else in his circle.

ICYMI

Our weekly AI Dave series has quickly become one of my favorite bits. There’s no lack of AI news (LNI co-founder Micah already flagged this Red Lobster story over the weekend) and I find it extremely therapeutic to act out the ridiculous people operating, overpaying for, and policing AI. Here’s the latest from Friday:

🌊 Reflecting Pool shenanigans

📺️ Trump interview fact-check

📚️ Obama’s new library

⚽️ Travel bans and the World Cup

🗳️ Maine Senate nominee controversy

Hi friends,

Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. The Trump administration did something remarkable this week by getting me to care about sports. If you know me at all, you know I will not be watching the World Cup. But it’s also impossible to look away from the racism and xenophobia at play in denying entry to various players and fans coming to the U.S. for these matches.

This, and lots of news this week, points to something I’m endlessly interested in: the inseparability of the culture we consume and the political forces shaping our daily lives. Sports and travel bans, Reflecting Pool renovations and corruption, presidential libraries and gentrification all speak to this. Dave’s covered it all this week, so let’s dive in after I remind you about the town hall next week. It’s Wednesday, June 17 at 8 p.m. ET. If you’re a member, the registration link is below. If you’re not a member, what are you waiting for?

Renovations and resolutions

• The Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. is still not American flag blue. President Donald Trump wanted it painted that color, but onlookers told NPR the color looks pretty much the same as it did before our government spent over $13 million on this. To be fair, that money was also supposed to fix leaks in the Reflecting Pool. But although there is new sealant in the pool, pipes taking the water from the Tidal Basin to the reflecting pool are still leaking underground. The Trump administration also hired a contractor for these repairs without a bidding process, which is almost definitely illegal.

• Algae will likely return to the Reflecting Pool with warmer weather this summer as global temperatures continue to rise. And speaking of climate, the Trump administration gave $700 million to “clean” coal plants, even though there is literally no such thing as clean coal. As Grist explains, coal “is the most carbon-dense fossil fuel and therefore a leading cause of the climate crisis when burned.” Trump is using wartime powers from the Cold War to fund this, even though the U.S. House of Representatives voted to end the war we are currently in. And speaking of Congress, the Senate voted last week to fully fund ICE through the end of Trump’s term. The same legislation passed in the House on Tuesday.

• The Trump administration is also regilding four horse statues through another no-bid contractor at the expense of $5 million taxpayer dollars. The president’s plan to build an arch is also moving forward without congressional approval, and it’s so tall that it could affect flight paths to the airport.

Fact-checking Trump’s NBC interview

• Trump says Iran is losing $400 million to $500 million a day. The claim has gone largely undisputed.

• Trump lied when he said he “didn’t guarantee” that he wouldn’t go to war. In his acceptance speech after the 2024 election, he said, “I’m not gonna start a war. I’m gonna stop wars.”

• Trump falsely said Iran has retained “maybe 21, 22% of their missiles.” The New York Times reported last month that Iran has retained about 70% of its missiles.

• Trump did correctly claim that the stock market hit an all-time high. The S&P 500 hit that milestone near the end of May.

• Trump once again alluded to the Obama administration paying Iran $1.7 billion. This was the settlement of a longstanding debt with interest as part of the Iran Nuclear Deal.

• Trump tried to downplay his role in Iran’s enrichment of uranium. He tore up the deal that limited enrichment, and experts say that’s when Iran advanced its nuclear program. Notably, though, there is no evidence that Iran has nuclear weapons or came close to having them.

• Trump claims to have built “a thousand miles” of a border wall. He built 452 miles in his first term, but only 80 of those were new barriers. He’s built 30 miles so far in his second term. And even that has had devastating impacts.

• Trump says all farmers support him. His support among rural voters has actually fallen sharply.

• There is, and I cannot stress this enough, no evidence that the 2020 election was stolen. There is also no evidence of voter fraud happening right now in California. It just takes a while to count votes in California because of widespread and legitimate mail-in voting.

Opening day at the Obama Center

• In the 1930s, FDR pledged some of his own estate in Hyde Park, New York, to establish a library with his personal and presidential papers. He really wanted the federal government to preserve them, an instinct I can understand after not deleting any of my texts from the last five years.

• Congress loved this idea so much that they passed three laws about it. The Presidential Libraries Act of 1955 provided “for the acceptance and maintenance of Presidential libraries.” The Presidential Records Act passed 23 years later, ensuring “the preservation of and public access to the official records of the President.” Eight years after that, Congress passed another law trying to reduce the cost of operating presidential libraries.

• That brings us to the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. It opens next week. When I saw it last month with Dave, we explored its basketball court, exhibits on U.S. history, playground and more. Former president Barack Obama and the team behind the center envision it as a community space. But there’s one thing getting in the way of that vision: deep concerns from the actual community around the center.

• Residents who live near the site have said they’re at risk of being displaced. Organizer Kyana Butler summed up what’s at stake to a Block Club Chicago reporter: “Now that the Obama Center is coming, all of these new buyers want to come in and take over the land … and kick out the people that have been here.” When Dave asked Obama why he chose this area, the former president cited Hyde Park’s formative role in his personal life and political career but did not mention the residents at risk of being displaced. The city of Chicago passed an ordinance to protect tenants from surprise sales and create more affordable housing, but has failed to follow through on those promises.

Travel bans and the World Cup

• An estimated 5 to 7 million people are traveling to the U.S. for the World Cup, which started this week in cities across North America. One of them was Omar Artan, a Somali referee who U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied entry to even though he had a visa. Trump imposed a travel ban on Somalia and other countries last year and called Somali immigrants “garbage.”

• CBP didn’t give details on why Artan didn’t pass their vetting process. NPR reports that an anonymous Trump administration official said Artan had ties to "suspected members of terror organizations” — a claim that’s drawn criticism from Somali officials who say Artan wouldn’t have been able to get a visa if that were true.

• Andrew Giuliani, the person running the White House’s World Cup Task Force and the son of this guy, said in a press briefing, “if you are inside the country legally, then you have nothing to worry about.” This is demonstrably untrue as the Trump administration has deported people who are legally in the United States. Others traveling to the U.S. for the World Cup, from an Iraqi team staffer to fans from countries on Trump’s travel ban list, have been denied travel visas. A player for Team Iraq was questioned for hours, and Iran’s team has been forced to move its lodging to Mexico.

• This brings us to this week’s media literacy tip from our friends at MediaWise! Big events like the World Cup usually come with a surge of misinformation and scams. Here’s how to spot them.

Maine’s Democratic Senate nominee has a Nazi tattoo

• Graham Platner, Maine’s Democratic nominee for Senate, will face off against Republican Senator Susan Collins in November’s midterm elections. Collins is running for a sixth term after vowing to only run for two terms, three decades ago.

• Platner has a tattoo with Nazi associations. He has said he covered up the tattoo once he learned its meaning, but an ex-girlfriend said he’s known about its Nazi associations.

• Platner’s wife also flagged sexually explicit texts between her husband and other women to his campaign. His campaign then confirmed to POLITICO that Platner had sexted other women while married.

• Three women also described volatile, toxic relationships with Platner to The New York Times. He was described as physically threatening in at least one instance. Platner disputed ever physically intimidating his partners.

Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the last week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. Dave, take it away!

Early last month, I had the opportunity to meet President Obama. You know, as you do. The Obama Foundation is very excited about the opening of the Obama Presidential Center and (smartly, in my view) reached out to a number of creators from various backgrounds to invite over for a sneak peek and ask Obama a question or two.

You saw my first question to Obama in this week’s video, but my second question was about misinformation and how it has grown ten-fold in the decade since he left office. He immediately dove into an answer, and seemed keenly aware of just how bad it has gotten. In a completely unexpected plot twist, former president Obama brought up the movie Idiocracy. 

“Has anyone here seen the movie … uhhh … Idiocracy?” 

“Yes, Mr. President. I am familiar with that film.”

It was a telling question. He drew very clear comparisons between the 2006 cult favorite and the current administration’s White House lawn UFC fights and general circus on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But he also didn’t seem to know that we had all been making that comparison online for a while now. I strive to be that disconnected from the Internet one day.

Best of all, Obama echoed what I’ve been saying as well: Idiocracy is prescient in predicting so much of today’s politics. But, Obama said, “it’s not a very good movie.” Unlike other Mike Judge creations like Office Space and Silicon Valley, the actual plot kind of sucks and the movie drags a bit. 

Anyway, I will look for a way to use these clips in future videos as well. What I’m most proud of from this little adventure is how we approached it. The other four creators, who don’t work in the news and therefore have no journalistic duty to their audience, were flown in and put up by the Obama Foundation. We were offered this but rejected any form of payment. LNI paid for the flight, the hotel, the Ubers and even the Chris, who met up with me to help shoot the video. 

New character unlocked: Construction Chris.

And unlike the other creators, the Obama Foundation did not get to look at our script or any draft of our video. It was published without interference, as is usually the case with honest newsrooms. I’m really proud of our work and our ability to obtain this level of access ten months into LNI’s existence, while still holding onto our journalistic standards. I hope you’ll continue to support us however you can, whether it’s watching our videos or subscribing to our newsletter or becoming a member. 

Thanks, Dave!

If you made it to the end of this newsletter, you get two rewards. The first is a pet picture from a loyal reader! This is Lolalou!

Your second reward is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt, in which I hide one non-news link somewhere above and reveal it down here. When recapping FDR’s quest to preserve his papers in the 1930s, I linked out to the IMDb page for “Spider-Noir,” a show I’m thoroughly enjoying to no one’s surprise.

Until next week!

Chris

👥 Prepping: for our next Zoom town hall!

🏛️ Studying: the Reflecting Pool discourse

🛩️ Choosing: my airline

⚽️ Anticipating: the World Cup in KC

🏀 Watching: the Knicks (and Spurs, I guess)

President Obama attends a Bulls-Wizards game in 2009 (Michael Reynolds/Pool via Getty)

It’s been another action-packed week. As we mentioned in Friday’s newsletter, and on a YouTube community post, we won big at the WAN-IFRA awards in Marseille. We took home the trophy for Best in Audience Engagement. It was very cool to win this on a global stage, and it made my trip through six airports in roughly 60 hours worth it (more on that in a bit).

Summer is officially upon us, so let’s all agree to go outside, touch grass and stare at the sun (with sunglasses on). But first, let’s dive into what’s coming up in LNI Land.

👥 Prepping

Our next Zoom town hall is coming up Wednesday, June 17th at 8 p.m. ET. This will be our fourth town hall since LNI started. It’s a members-only event, so consider becoming a member then signing up for an opportunity to ask me a direct question, four times a year. In every town hall so far, we’ve answered everything and everyone. So, don’t be shy: Sign up!

🏛️ Studying

I think I’ve been triggered, in the most classic, title-of-Donald-Trump-Jr.’s-book sense. Conservatives, or more specifically MAGA Trump supporters, have reacted to the Reflecting Pool being “finished” with dozens of snarky comments in our weeks-old TikTok video.

I’ve spent a lot of time (maybe too much time) trying to look inward and figure out why this is bothering me so much. I think I’ve managed to come to a logical, unemotional Spock-like conclusion. So much of what the right might consider being “triggered” is really just an annoyance at the lack of facts in MAGA’s response to this situation.

I would love if the president, or any president fixed long-term issues with the Reflecting Pool. The reason I have so many photos of the Pool from the Lincoln Memorial (featured in Friday’s video) is because, when I lived in D.C., I ran to the top of the Memorial Rocky Balboa-style, several times a week, for years. Like Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, I marveled at the monument and surrounding area like I was seeing it for the first time, every time. And this is exactly why I know the Reflecting Pool wasn’t fixed. For 80% of the year, it looks absolutely beautiful. Even in the winter, when it freezes over, it’s magnificent. Infamously, the local news once caught me illegally walking on it while filming a video for The Washington Post.

And for the other 20%, during the summer, algae accumulates slowly. This is what Trump saw that made him want to fix the Reflecting Pool - and I agree with him there. It looks bad when the algae is at full Super Mario Bros. (1993) movie fungus levels. But, as we explained in both videos, the fixes Trump made these last two months were temporary. It’s the pipes pumping the water from the Tidal Basin to the Pool that are leaking millions of gallons each year. And it’s that same water, basically normal lake water, that makes the pool reflect. It’s just opaque enough that the dark blue paint applied to the bottom has had zero effect on the look of the Pool.

The Reflecting Pool reflecting, as it always has, in November 2025. (Andrew Leyden/Getty)

And so all of these posts from people who have either never seen the Reflecting Pool, or are pretending for bonus social media points within the MAGA-sphere that it was fixed, really irked me. As I mentioned in a previous newsletter, I’m not really bothered by many of Trump’s projects. The Oval Office that looks like it was decorated by Goldmember from Austin Powers? That’s temporary. The UFC fight on the White House lawn? Also temporary, and paid for by advertisers and UFC itself, not taxpayers. Sure, these things are tacky, but they’re relatively straightforward and honest in their existence.

However, the Reflecting Pool, the ballroom, the Arch, the Kennedy Center and more are not transparent in their approach. They’re getting offered, without a bidding process, to contractors close to Trump. The administration is completely evading Congressional approval and/or using a panel entirely appointed by Trump to push them through. In typical Trump construction fashion, he’s bulldozing before he has permission, forcing the hand of many involved to meekly agree to his projects.

This is what “triggers” me most. Everyone is getting scammed. Including the people in the comment sections, mocking a factual video. As a journalist for the last ten years, it only gets more frustrating trying to present facts to a group of people who are just as negatively affected by a news story as anyone else.

This still cuts both ways, by the way. There’s plenty of Democrats, liberals and non-conservatives scamming people. As NPR reported (and I’ve seen with my own eyes), left-wing conspiracy thinking is only becoming more prominent. So, we’ll keep reporting on all misinformation at Local News International. I’ll also probably take a break from reading the comments for a bit.

🛩️ Choosing

I used to be a big Southwest Airlines guy. The flight attendants? The best. The service? Top-notch. Even when I was a victim of that computer malfunction three years ago over the holidays, they fully took care of us. We got tickets refunded and additional vouchers for new tickets and they covered the cost of our rental car and hotel we needed to get from Kansas City to DC. When I would board the plane, flight attendants often made sure I got a seat in the exit row, with its extra leg room for long-legged folks such as myself.

But that last perk no longer exists. The open seating that allowed for such accommodation is gone. The two free checked bags? DEAD. The major reasons I flew Southwest have disappeared.

Now I am a free agent. This may have been necessary anyway. Southwest doesn’t really do much international travel. With all the fun opportunities we’ve had lately with LNI, it’s been clear that my shift to a different set of wings will need to coincide with a more worldly airline.

For a minute, I thought that might be American Airlines. My wife and I often fly American, and its partner airline Avianca, to see her family in Colombia. But lately, Avianca has been removing some of those direct flights to her hometown. United Airlines has temporarily taken its place. And so, I flew United, and its partner airlines, to Marseille. It was a bit of a mess. Not terrible, but not great either. Then again, United is cheaper than Delta…

Anyway, as LNI co-founder and Delta fanboy Micah Gelman said to me last week during my 30-hour stint in Marseille, “you need to pick an airline and stick with it.” So, I’m looking for your unbiased and biased opinions, folks. Which airline is best? Which one makes you feel the most cared for? What airline doesn’t force you to talk to an AI agent that accidentally deletes your entire itinerary, almost leaving you stranded in the Denver airport? Let me know at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

⚽️ Anticipating

As is the case every month in Kansas City, we enjoyed another “First Fridays” weekend, walking around downtown from booth to booth, marveling at the many local artists and their creations. There’s a little extra energy in the air with the World Cup just days away.

I am convinced this city will surpass expectations as a host city for the World Cup. The traffic here is basically nonexistent, given the amount of highways. There’s construction, sure. But people here have never experienced the hour-long commute into DC from Northern Virginia. The food is good. The local celebrities, like Heidi Gardner, are doing all they can to promote the city. And most importantly, as we experienced walking around this last weekend, the people are just very very nice. I’m not talking about “Minnesota Nice,” which can sometimes (though not always!) have an artificial quality just below the surface. People here are just genuinely happy and excited to be a part of something bigger. It’s why, initially at least, we so endeared ourselves to the world as Super Bowl champions. Even now, burdened by our own football success and perhaps more divisive as a result, visiting NFL fans cannot deny the hospitality and complete lack of hostility to out-of-towners.

It’s going to be an exciting summer. Heck, I may even make a short sports video for once (which always fails miserably on every platform but maybe the 30th time is the charm?)!

🏀 Watching

Speaking of sports! The Knicks are up 2-0 in the NBA Finals, heading into Game 3 on Monday night. If you don’t care about sports, don’t worry. This section is really about politics. President Trump is attending the game Monday night. With that comes added security and some general anxiety and online outrage from non-Trump fans.

Mayor Mamdani has been enjoying the games too. He even “repealed bedtime” for New York City kids during the Finals. Also, he’s the mayor of New York City and a long-time Knicks fan. On the flip side, I am not sure the president is ready for the negative reaction he may receive in Madison Square Garden. The NBA is not necessarily a political hotbed, but it certainly has its share of outspoken players and teams.

Sports commentator and unserious White House contender Stephen A. Smith said “I don’t want him there.” He added that he wouldn’t want Obama there either, if he were the sitting president.

That led me to wonder, how often does a sitting president attend a sports event? Here’s a few!

President Reagan tosses the coin for Super Bowl XIX … from the Oval Office. (Mary Anne Fackelman/Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum/NARA)

• In 1969, President Nixon attended a Texas-Arkansas football game. Nixon even formally declared Texas to be the national champions afterwards, in the locker room (he has no authority to do so).

• In 1974, President Ford became the first sitting president to attend a NBA game. He watched Portland beat Buffalo.

• In 1979, President Carter went to Game 7 of the World Series in Baltimore. He presented the trophy to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the locker room.

• In 1985, President Reagan tossed the coin for Super Bowl XIX … but he did it from the Oval Office because it was Inauguration Day.

• In 1994 President Clinton attended a Duke-Arkansas college basketball championship. His team, Arkansas, won. Clinton didn’t get to present anything (sad!).

• In 2001, President Bush threw out the first pitch in Yankee Stadium during the World Series in the weeks after 9/11.

• President Obama attended at least 12 sports events during his presidency, most of them basketball (Sorry, Stephen A. Smith).

• In 2018, 2019 and 2020, President Trump attended two college football championships and a World Series.

There are many more for most of the presidents listed above. This really illustrates that it’s not that strange for Trump to attend a sporting event. However, given President Trump’s historically low polling numbers, and the location of the game, I am anticipating at least one extremely long paragraph on Truth Social after the game about the disrespect from Democrats in attendance.

📼 Trump’s weaponized DOJ wants Biden’s secret tapes

🪩 The “nonpartisan” concert run by Trump

🤖 When AI hacks a former president

✈️ Airport security updates

Hi friends,

Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. It’s been both a devastating and energizing week to be a journalist. On one hand, watching the decimation of 60 Minutes — a show I grew up watching that made me want to become a journalist — has been harrowing. (More thoughts from Dave on that later in this newsletter.) On the other hand, the news this week proves the need for the kind of work that the fired 60 Minutes journalists championed. From the nation’s top law enforcement agency continuing to go after the president’s political enemies, to bad faith AI actors, to ties between airport security and the prison industrial complex, stories that demand our attention aren’t going anywhere. Neither are the people dedicated to covering them.

Before we dive in, we’re excited to announce our next quarterly town hall is coming up. If you’re a member you can register at the link below! If you’re not a member, become one now so you can join us at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday, June 17.

Government secrecy vs. a weaponized DOJ

• About a decade ago, Joe Biden sat down with a ghost writer for a memoir. Conversations between Biden and the ghost writer were recorded. Then in 2023, a Republican-led congressional committee investigated whether Biden had mishandled classified materials. Notably, a special counsel was investigating President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents at the same time.

• In 2024, a different special counsel report concluded that Biden had “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials.” Basically, special counsel Robert Hur found that Biden kept documents about Afghanistan in his house, as well as other classified documents. But the report didn’t recommend charges against Biden in part because of his “limited precision and recall.” Recordings of Biden’s conversations with his ghost writer were used to draw those conclusions. Then, Biden used executive privilege to keep those recordings private. Executive privilege lets the president keep certain documents or information private from Congress and the courts.

• Now, Trump’s Department of Justice — an agency with a track record of going after the president’s political enemies — has vowed to make the tapes public by the middle of this month. The DOJ alleges that the tapes show Biden was hiding his cognitive decline as far back as 2016. In response, Biden’s lawyers are suing the Justice Department to stop the tapes from becoming public, saying it would be an “unwarranted invasion of President Biden’s privacy.”

What if we kissed at the Freedom 250 concert 👉👈

• We can’t, because a bunch of artists are dropping out. They’re saying they were misled to believe the concert on the National Mall celebrating America’s 250th birthday was nonpartisan, before they learned President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were behind the whole thing. Also I don’t wanna go.

• Why the confusion? Well, much like how I began planning my August birthday way back in April because I’m a Leo, Congress began planning America’s 250th birthday way back in 2016, when I was an incoming high school senior and Dave was publishing Hillbilly Elegy about to start working at The Washington Post. That’s when they established a nonprofit, nonpartisan group called America250 to plan the celebration. And many of the artists initially believed they were going to perform at a nonpartisan 250th birthday event, like the ones America250 is organizing. But in reality, they had signed up to perform at a concert organized by Freedom250.

• What is Freedom250, you might ask? It brands itself as another nonprofit, nonpartisan group planning America’s 250th birthday party. The chair of its task force just happens to be Donald Trump and the vice chair happens to be JD Vance. Trump signed an executive order establishing it in 2025. Its programming has included a “a national jubilee of prayer,” which featured almost exclusively Christian faith leaders. Relatedly, Christianity Today defines Christian nationalism as “the belief that the American nation is defined by Christianity, and that the government should take active steps to keep it that way.” The ACLU says Christian nationalism “rejects religious freedom and distorts both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy.”

• Anyway, remember how Congress established America250 but a Trump executive order established Freedom250? That means Freedom250 operates with far less oversight, and there’s lots we don’t know about who’s paying for its programming. But NOTUS reported that the parent group of Freedom 250 has gotten at least $68 million in taxpayer funds this year.

Local (and fake) News International

• Dave is currently on his way back from France, where AI generated videos said a coup took place last December. The videos gained 10 million views. Later, creators in the Netherlands used AI and actors in a disinformation campaign that took place in Canada. A media watchdog report found that they used “frequent and obvious lies.” More recently, AI videos promoting tourism to Australia have misled visitors about what to expect there.

• Why does this matter? Fake content travels much faster than real content on social platforms. It’s also hard to get it taken down. French President Emmanuel Macron reached out to Facebook, asking them to remove the fake videos about the coup in France. Facebook initially refused. Eventually, they did take the videos down, but other AI-generated fake news videos have long been surging on the platform.

• And Meta’s AI woes don’t end there. Hackers took over the White House Instagram account of former president Barack Obama and the official Instagram account of makeup company Sephora. All they had to do was say they forgot the password and ask AI to switch the email address of the account holder. You know what probably would’ve made it harder for this to happen? Having an additional 8,000 employees. But instead, Meta fired 8,000 employees after offloading platform support to AI.

• So, how are we supposed to survive in a world where Meta executives decide their profits are more important than the livelihoods of 8,000 people? Some are turning to a lucrative new career option: hacking accounts that can no longer be recovered with human support. Hackers often hold accounts hostage for money. If that doesn’t sound up your alley, don’t worry! There’s also plenty of cash to be made from ad revenue on AI slop that social platforms drag their feet on removing. And if neither of those things sound great to you, we can instead demand that real humans work on platform security. We can also demand that platforms be held responsible when ad dollars flow to bad actors.

• This brings us to this week’s media literacy tip from our friends at MediaWise! Here are some ways to tell if something on your feed is AI-generated.

Big year for people who forget to empty their water bottles at the airport

• In January, new scanners at the UK’s biggest airport allowed travelers to leave liquids up to two liters (roughly eight cups, for those of us who were taught to refuse the metric system) in their bags while going through security. But the new scanners also come with some drawbacks: their sensitivity has led some airports to do more bag searches by hand, according to a UK consumer group.

• More recently, Brussels Airport announced that in the future, travelers won’t have to take out liquids and electronics from hand luggage while going through security. Airport officials said new scanners facilitating this change will begin arriving in 2028, and the airport will have an entirely new screening system by 2029. Here in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security — which oversees TSA — announced last year that it would review the 3.4 ounce limit on liquids in carry-ons.

• Far be it for me to promote new surveillance tech as a unilaterally good thing, so let’s learn more about it together! The new scanners at Heathrow Airport in the UK include systems like Smiths Detection’s HI-SCAN 6040 CTiX. Smiths Detection has also fueled border surveillance and provided tech to prisons, definitionally contributing to the prison industrial complex. The company has also had to pay $100,000 in a disability discrimination lawsuit stemming from its Maryland location.

Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the past week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. Dave, take it away!

There are many parallels between the recent exodus of talent at 60 Minutes and the last couple of years for The Washington Post. Both entities are owned by soulless weirdos making cartoonishly villainous attempts to appease the Trump administration to gain more power and wealth. Jeff Bezos and David Ellison (and by extension, his billionaire dad Larry) remind me of the giant snakes in the mobile game, Snake.io. They’ve completely taken over, devouring everything in their path.

The worst parallel between 60 Minutes and The Post is the optimism of the journalists who remain. They still believe in the earnest, core mission of their newsroom, despite the clear ulterior motives of management. As I said when taking a buyout last year, The Post had already hit the iceberg, but not everyone on board seemed to understand what that meant. And in many cases, quite understandably, it was better to hope the giant ship hadn’t even hit an iceberg. Wouldn’t you look for optimism if your salary and health insurance were on the line?

Many Posties who rejected the voluntary buyout last summer were unceremoniously fired 8 months later. It was a twist of the knife to the journalists who only wanted to make The Post better. Last week, some of the journalists who cared most about 60 Minutes, who truly revered the institution, were fired with the wave of a hand.

In particular, the firing of Scott Pelley, with conflicting stories from both Pelley and CBS News boss Bari Weiss has underscored the complete rift between our former actual reality and the fantasyland billionaire owners live in. CBS News host Tony Dokoupil did run a fair, even kind piece on Pelley Wednesday night. Perhaps it’s my own scars, but this reminds me of the many manipulations of Post executive editor Matt Murray. Once every few months, Post leadership would put out a statement to show they were behind the newsroom, that their intentions were pure - only to fire half the people in that room months later.

Still, those who remain continue to push forward. Despite the completely inept management abilities of Murray, the shockingly out-of-his-depth opinions editor, and its Temu-astronaut owner, Washington Post reporters continue to produce incredible journalism every day.

I hope everyone at both institutions can overcome this period of shitty ownership. But if they don’t, if The Post becomes an aggregated bottom-of-the-barrel news site, if 60 Minutes gets canceled or is molded into some kind of weird safe space for conservatives who claim they hate safe spaces, I won’t despair. It’s not the iconic logos or the physical newsrooms that made these places work. It’s the people. Those people are still out there producing great journalism. Five of them work for Local News International. Many more will continue to find outlets that appreciate and nourish their talents.

After ten months, we at LNI have already found that, thanks to you all. Because you engage with our journalism, we are lucky enough to stand on international stages and accept awards. Thank you for your ongoing support. And thank you airport security for letting me take this shockingly heavy hunk of glass through customs.

‘GLOBAL WINNER: Best in Audience Engagement,’ pictured here three times and upside-down at least once.

Thanks, Dave!

If you made it all the way down here, you get two rewards. The first is a pet pic from a loyal reader. This is Harvey!

Harvey is rocking that hat.

The second is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt, in which I hid one non-news related link somewhere above. This week, while covering some high profile Hacks, I linked out to an official edit of Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland’s Get Happy/Happy Days Are Here Again duet over the final scene of the Hacks finale. If that doesn’t scream Happy Pride Month, then I don’t know what does.

Until next week!

Chris

👀 Revamping: this newsletter!

✈️ Flying: to France

💣 Reading: about the bluetooth “bomb”

🐕 Visiting: KC Pet Project

🎤 Dropping: out of Trump’s concert

A judge blocked Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center. Meanwhile, multiple artists dropped out of the America 250 concert.

It’s been another action-packed week at LNI, and to quote Freddie Mercury - Don’t Stop Me Now (I’m having such a good time). Last Sunday, I did a quick guest appearance on my favorite Survivor podcast with two of my favorite people, Mike Bloom and Liana Boraas. You can watch it here. At LNI, we debunked the Fox News masked man appearance, talked about the Trump $250 bill and my horrific Little Nicky-esque Biden impression made a return. Of course, Chris recapped all of this on Friday. 

👀 Revamping

We’re slowly plugging in new graphics to our newsletter. You may have noticed in last Friday’s newsletter (Thursday, if you’re a paying member!), that the videos were now wider thumbnail images that actively look like links. In addition to being more aesthetically pleasing on vertical, we’re hoping that this will decrease the amount of metadata in a newsletter. On gmail, this newsletter tends to cut off. You can still read the whole thing! But not everyone knows to click on this:

A cursed image.

So, while the newsletter will likely still cut off for most gmail users, the new video thumbnails should make it happen a little further down.

You’ll also notice our new subheading gifs, once again created by THE Sarah Hashemi, our former Post video graphics extraordinaire turrned current LNI video graphics extraordinaire.

Finally, many of the graphics have been squished to be shorter, which will hopefully allow for a better, less-metadata-y experience while still being easy to read. As an example, the graphic directly below this:

✈️ Flying

A few weeks back we won another award (!) for “Best in Audience Engagement” in the Americas division of the Digital Media Awards. These purty trophies are given out by WAN-IFRA, the World Association of News Publishers. Now we’re up for the GLOBAL award, against news outlets from Brazil, the U.K. and the Philippines. The winner will be announced June 2nd in France. Ten months into existing, we couldn’t be more delighted.

So, the three LNI co-founders are headed to Marseilles, France this week for the awards ceremony. Lauren and I will also be giving a talk on our work to a very international audience. I’ll also make some local news videos while there. Truly, a fitting week for a company cheekily called Local News International.

If you’ve got any news stories you’d like me to cover locally while there, let me know at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media. So far, I’m interested in this story about rioters in France this weekend celebrating a soccer victory. Who knew Philadelphia sports fans weren’t an anomaly?

💣 Reading

I really try not to promise a video before it comes out, but I keep doing it anyway (see: last week’s mask debunking newsletter). So, with a grain of salt that other more important news may make its way into the fold this week, I may make a video that provides the complete timeline of United Airlines going full parent mode and turning a plane around. Are you imagining a pilot looking to the back of the plane and saying “I will turn this plane around??” (which they literally said!) because I already am and this video is half-written in my head.

Best of all? So much of this took place on Reddit. As many as five Redditors claimed to be on the plane as passengers were continuously told to turn their bluetooth devices off. So what happened?

A 16-year-old had named his wireless speaker “bomb.” Maybe I should be treating this more seriously but I found it weirdly hilarious. As a four-year-old that once pulled the fire alarm at my sisters’ elementary school, I delight in emergency situations that turn out to be nothing. I also love that all three of my sisters, and 500 other students, had to do a fire drill right before school let out. Not many kids get to go to the principal’s office before they even attend the school. Anyway, I don’t know how “innocent” the bluetooth-bomb teen was … but I am excited to make a video about it either way.

🐕 Visiting

We are in the very, very early stages of considering possibly maybe getting a second dog. The problem is that our current dog is perfect. She’s sweet, calm, good with kids. Why would we want to add another dog to the mix? But it’s a tale as old as time. Lola is getting a little older and we notice just how much she lights up when she sees her dog buddies on a walk. It puts a literal pep in her step and her entire demeanor changes. She becomes a puppy again. We know she prefers a buddy. Back in covid, she truly bonded with two other dogs on our floor, Kylo and Pilot. It was really hard on her when we moved out of that apartment.

Lola (top) and Kylo, April 2021.

On Saturday, we visited the main campus of KC Pet Project. This rescue has their act together. After signing in and writing down what we were look for, a volunteer introduced us to almost a hundred dogs. Unless the pups very recently rescued, they have a ton of information on them (are they good with other dogs, protective, good with kids, why were they given up, etc). Our daughter loved the experience thoroughly. There’s a couple we thought might be good for Lola, so we’ll see! In the meantime, if you’re in the area and looking to rescue a dog, I highly recommend KC Pet Project.'

Also, the cats are super cute too.

Instagram post

🎤 Dropping out

Last Wednesday, nine specific musicians and “many more,” if the flyer is to believed, were announced as part of the Great American State Fair. It’s a multi-day event taking place on the National Mall as part of America’s 250th birthday celebration. Many of the artists that signed up did not know the event, put on by Freedom 250, had some highly partisan programming. Within days, and in some cases hours, of the event being announced, most of the the performers had dropped out.

Then on Friday, during the wave of cancellations, a judge said the Kennedy Center broke the law when they put Donald Trump’s name across the building (“yeah, no shit,” I said to myself while reading the story).

There’s a clear line to draw between these two events: art and artists, and even judges, are ruling against Trump’s attempts to claim art for himself. Like the Reflecting Pool turning twenty different shades of blue, art and Trump just do not get along.

Perhaps it has something to do with his complete lack of taste (let’s turn everything gold!). But I think it’s something more obvious, sweeter even. Art isn’t just for one person and their political ambitions. It’s for everyone. No matter what you do to try and make it for yourself, you can’t. This cuts both ways too. People can hate how a TV show ended and eviscerate it. The creators can’t do anything about that. It doesn’t belong to them. Though, for what it’s worth, I loved The Boys series finale.

The Boys subreddit has been melting down for weeks but I thought the final season (and especially series finale) was really good?? Why can’t people just enjoy something???

— Dave Jorgenson (@davejorgenson.bsky.social)
11:20 AM • May 29, 2026

President Trump’s reaction to both the Kennedy Center and wave of canceled artists was basically the same. “Cancel it,” he wrote about the concert on Saturday. On Friday, after the judge made his Kennedy Center ruling, Trump wrote, “I have no interest in continuing what could only be a hopeless journey into ‘NEVER NEVER LAND.’

To put a fine point on this, the judge didn’t cancel Trump taking control of the Kennedy Center. He only blocked Trump from making major renovations without Congressional approval. But that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care about making the Kennedy Center better. The point was never to promote art, it was to claim art.

What’s in today’s issue

🌎️ Iran War updates

📹️ AI surveillance network

🎭️ Man probably didn’t wear mask of himself on TV

📚️ Study of men in high-risk jobs

Hi friends!

Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. It’s been a week of peace talks happening alongside military strikes and counterstrikes, growing concerns around the AI tools used to surveil us, and a whole lot more. Dave’s covered it all, so let’s dive in.

Iran War negotiations

• Last Saturday, a peace deal in the US and Israel’s war on Iran began to emerge. It would extend a cease-fire by 60 days. President Donald Trump also hoped to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Its closure is a direct result of the US and Israel starting this war and has led to skyrocketing gas prices. Trump said Saturday that the deal had been “largely negotiated.”

• On Monday, Trump was “mandatorily requesting that all Countries immediately sign the Abraham Accords,” a set of treaties that would normalize relations with Israel. Also on Monday, the US struck Iran. The US called them “self-defense strikes,” while Iran’s foreign ministry said the US broke the cease-fire agreement. On Wednesday, Iran fired drones at a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

• As of Thursday morning, US officials had told Axios that negotiators had reached a 60-day memorandum of understanding. They say the MOU would extend the ceasefire, allow “unrestricted” shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and include a commitment from Iran to not pursue a nuclear weapon. Further negotiations would cover sanctions relief from the US and disposing of Iran’s uranium.

Just two more weeks to join our bundle!

Get 30 days of membership to Local News International, Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day and Kat Tenbarge’s Spitfire News for one low price!

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Surveillance company controversy

• Bipartisan criticism of surveillance company Flock Safety is growing. The company uses AI to track license plates on cars for speeding enforcement, but law enforcement can also use data the cameras collect for other kinds of enforcement, prompting concerns around the country of mass surveillance.

• Cities like Bandera, Texas have moved to end their contracts with Flock. Police elsewhere have used Flock cameras to track their partners and ex-partners or allegedly stalk people they wanted to have a relationship with.

• This also goes beyond local law enforcement. 404 Media has reported on ICE using Flock’s network and the FBI wanting to use it for warrantless surveillance.

• This brings us to this week’s media literacy tip from our friends at MediaWise! For more AI literacy tips, check out alt+Ignite to elevate your understanding.

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Fox News guest probably didn’t wear mask of his own face

• After retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward went on Fox News May 19, conspiracy theories that he wore a mask of his own face while he was on TV spread online. The theories largely stem from the shadows on Harward’s neck.

• But contrary to what you may have seen online, someone’s neck looking weird on camera is not proof of a CIA mask. It also does not address the pretty reasonable assertion that getting on TV wearing a mask of yourself would be a bananas thing to do.

• So, why does this guy’s neck look so weird? A Fox News spokesperson told Snopes that the shadow on Harward’s neck stemmed from lighting issues. And it’s always a good idea to not default toward taking Fox News at their word, but that does sound more reasonable than a guy going on TV wearing a mask of himself.

• Dave recreated this in his own studio by arranging one light above him at a 45 degree angle and another below him at a 45 degree angle. That, combined with compression issues on the footage of this demonstration, left him with a pretty mask-looking neck.

Could a $250 bill have Trump’s face on it?

• Officials in Trump’s Treasury Department have pushed staff to print Trump’s face on a $250 bill. But those staffers told The Washington Post that they were worried about breaking federal law saying only dead people can appear on bills. The artist who designed the bill that the administration is trying to get printed also told The Post that he talked to Trump about it.

• Putting living people on currency has been a longstanding tradition to avoid the appearance of a monarchy. It’s also been illegal since 1866, when a Treasury Department official put his own photo on banknotes and Congress got so annoyed by this that they passed a law about it. Since then, some living people have appeared on commemorative coins but not on anything actually meant to be used as money.

• The head of the bureau that would be tasked with making this bill tried explaining these complications to administration officials. Then, she was reassigned to another role.

New study on men in high-risk jobs

• A recent study of men in high-risk jobs, reviewed by mental health education group SOS Signs of Suicide and LNI partner Harry’s found that these men say their jobs make them feel invisible.

• The study found that commercial fishing “remains one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States.” One man in the mining industry said his job takes away from family time, and another who worked in construction said many colleagues were in denial over their substance abuse.

• The study’s recommendations include more time off and flexible work schedules, new equipment and verbal appreciation of their work.

• For suicide prevention resources, call 988 or visit 988lifeline.org 

Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the past week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. Dave, take it away!

I wasn’t alive for America’s 200th birthday. One of our co-founders may or may not have been alive. After all, he did recount in great detail what it was like to witness the OJ car chase earlier today. So anyway, I don’t know exactly what it was like, but based on photos, videos and press from the time, it seems to have been a pretty joyous occasion!

For America’s 250th celebration, I’m not sure this is the case. There are many factions today in politics, so please excuse this oversimplification I’m about to make, but I think it serves a purpose here. In one corner, we have Republicans, especially Trump Republicans (which, after another round of primaries this week is increasingly all Republicans), seem prepared to celebrate this momentous occasion. I imagine some people will happily pay several $250 Trump bills for a ticket to see the UFC fight on the White House lawn, then go for a stroll past the Reflecting Pool to take it all the shades of American Flag Blue it has to offer. 

And in the other corner, Democrats, and probably some moderate, independents and Never Trumpers, are all looking around at the U.S. in 2026 and not seeing much to celebrate. The Supreme Court continues to strip civil rights laws. Immigration enforcement remains largely unchecked. Gas prices are shooting up as the result of a war that Congress never even approved. And yeah, the Reflecting Pool looks like an abandoned art project. It may feel more like a funeral than a celebration for this faction.

As the actual 250th celebration date approaches fast, I’ll be looking for make more videos on this nationwide event. Do you have strong feelings either way? Let me know at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media. 

A quick aside and somewhat hot take: I think the UFC fight on the White House lawn is fine. It’s goofy as hell. It’s probably a little tacky. I haven’t even watched more than 7 seconds of a UFC fight in my life. But given the fact the UFC is footing the bill, I don’t really see an issue with it. There’s plenty of legitimate, permanent changes to the White House and surrounding buildings to be seriously concerned about.

Thanks, Dave!

If you made it to the end of this newsletter, you get two rewards. The first is a pet photo from a loyal reader. This is Batman!

The hero this city needs.

Your second reward is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt, in which I hide a non-news related link somewhere in the body of this email in an effort to get you to click on things. This week, in the blurb about the guy who almost definitely didn’t wear a mask of himself on Fox News, I linked out to an audio recording of Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock saying the word “camera,” which is how I always read that word in my head. I once went to dinner with LNI co-founders Lauren and Micah and told them I was allowed to watch 30 Rock when I was way too young. They both nodded vigorously and said “That makes a lot of sense.”

Until next week!

Chris

What’s in today’s May 24th, 2026 issue

🗞️ Bundling: Local Garbage Fire

👀 Watching: Project Hail Mary

📕 Reading: How not to make a jelly sandwich

🍔 Eating: Snack Shack

👨🏼‍💻 Analyzing: This guy’s neck

Robert Harward has made many appearance on Fox News, but one (middle photo) has people scratching their non-prosethetic heads.

A man wears many faces. At least, that’s what Jaqen H'ghar told Arya Stark on Game of Thrones while showing her around his super magical, kinda creepy, incredibly impressive human face prop room. And, in the end, Arya got really good at wearing those faces and never once appeared on live TV with the mask poorly affixed to her face.

“A man pays his debts … while wearing a mask on live television?”

But in real life, can a man convincingly wear a fake face for a long period of time? And can he do so repeatedly on Fox News over several appearances? That’s what some people think.

Twitter tweet

Naturally (and non-prosthetically), I’m going to discuss it in a video this week. But first, as I do every Monday (or Sunday, if you’re a paid subscriber), here’s an inside look at my professional and personal life this week.

🗞️ Bundling

The world of legacy journalists is both big and small all at once. Since going independent, I’ve been almost instantly connected to a world of similar people, happy to connect and even happier to help each other. Even specifically in the independent video world, I’ve hugely benefited from the generosity of so many of my far more successful peers (shout-out to practically every ex-Vox-er from Johnny Harris to Cleo Abram to Phil Edwards).

And sometimes, we can all help each other! That’s what the Local Garbage Fire bundle aims to do. If you’ve been on the fence about becoming a member of a newsletter, this is a chance to support us and two other independent journalists at one price - and it’s 50% off.

Let me tell you about both journalists and their newsletters!

Kat Tenbarge is truly the best at what she does, reporting on media, pop culture, internet culture and everything in between (and there is a lot between that she expertly covers). While I live in explainer video land, Kat is constantly breaking news and getting scoops, all with her signature voice and fearless reporting. Her newsletter is Spitfire News.

Similarly, Ryan Broderick is constantly diving deeper into tech and internet stories with the Garbage Day newsletter. Ryan and his team are often the first to make sense of big stories, way before much larger legacy media organizations figure it all out. I’ve used his reporting multiple times while making videos. He’s been independent since 2019, but even before that, I was following his work at Buzzfeed News.

Together with Local News International, we’re forming on Mighty Morphin News Power Ranger to form Local Garbage Fire. I hope you’ll give it a shot! Sign up here.

Make your inbox a little less professional

Garbage Day is an award-winning newsletter from tech reporter Ryan Broderick.

Three times a week (give or take), Garbage Day stuffs as much internet junk as possible into one email — so you don't have to find it yourself.

Memes, weird viral videos, internet drama, whatever the heck is happening with AI — it's all there.

Make your inbox a little less professional and remember what it was like to have fun online again. 

You can check it out here.

👀 Watching

Guys, I finally saw Project Hail Mary. What an absolute delight. I knew it was well-reviewed and received but I had no idea I would like it this much. It’s so well-crafted, which is unsurprising, given its directors. Phil Lord and Chris Miller are the geniuses behind many films, but most notably (in my opinion) The Lego Movie. Their thoughtful stop-motion style animation in that film, combined with their signature humor, birthed an entire franchise.

I am not advocating for a Project Hail Mary franchise. It’s a book after all. But I am advocating for the practical effects used in this film to create the alien. It was almost entirely a puppet, which I learned afterwards. We need more of this in films: practical effects that use CGI to enhance what’s on screen, not create it from whole cloth. This is the type of filmmaking that was missing from the latter Stranger Things seasons. Fully CGI demagorgons often made the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana feel bland and lifeless.

I’m also just a big Ryan Gosling fan. He’s more versatile than I think he gets credit for. Like Meryl Streep, he really can do everything.

So, go see it. Or rent it. Or stand outside a drive-in movie and watch it for free. It was a delight.

📕 Reading

A former journalist is opening a delightful bookstore in Parkville, Missouri, just north of Kansas City and I feel obligated to tell anyone in the area, or visiting the city. Typo’s is mostly kids books, though there’s a whole wall of adult books, too. We bought ‘How Not to Make a Jelly Sandwich’ for my daughter and absolutely love it.

And folks, best of all? It’s dog-friendly.

LNI co-founder Lola visits Typo’s, which sells dog treats, too.

🍔 Eating

Guys, guys, guys … guys. Guys. I ate maybe the best burger I’ve ever eaten? Granted, I was very hungry at the time. And it was Friday at the end of a long week. I also may be a bit of a labrador when it comes to my favorite things (usually the last thing that happened to me).

That said, the Snack Shack on Johnson Drive - a restaurant that didn’t exist when I went to high school just down the street - really delivered. It’s got all the magic of Winsteads, another local favorite. Even the menu is similar. But (and sorry about this, Winsteads), it tastes way better.

I got the ‘Down-Towner burger.’ I will be back.

👨🏼‍💻 Analyzing

Fox News has a long history of bringing on questionable guests, often bringing on people who completely lie about their backgrounds. This week wasn’t even the first time Fox has been accused of bringing on a masked guest lying about their identity. 

That said, they’ve never brought me on with my decrepit donkey mask I purchased from a KCK costume shop called “Have Guns Will Rent Costumes” …

… but they appeared to get pretty close last week.

Nothing could have prepared Fox News Nation for retired SEAL Robert Hayward and his weird neck line, which very convincingly made many people believe he was wearing a mask and we were all seeing the seem.

This Game of Thrones Faceless Men spinoff is weird.

In the world of misinformation and weird internet theories, this is the most inclined I’ve ever been to believe one, sheerly just because it realllly looks like the neck flap of a mask. Reddit is fully treating the face mask theory as fact, just based on Fox being an entertainment company that legally can’t be called “news” (fair enough).

But folks, as Snopes noted, it’s likely just poor lighting. Specifically, the lack of fill lighting. To avoid stark (or weird) shadows, studios will have lights from many angles. At least one of them is a “fill light” that helps avoid situations like this. I’ll demonstrate that in a video this week.

Hayward has appeared on Fox News multiple times. Here he his with a better lit normal neck. That same day, he went on Fox News from a different location and the lighting sucked again. No neck flap this time though, just sucky lighting. In other words, this isn’t a man-in-disguise problem. This is a guy that desperately needs better lighting.

Now, you may still be watching that video back and thinking, “c’mon Dave. This isn’t a fill light issue. It’s a flap!” I get it. It sure looks like it. So let’s pretend to ignore everything I said about fill lighting and follow that to it’s illogical conclusion.

If you’re in the cynical camp that Fox News would knowingly bring on a guy in disguise, then why Hayward? He’s not particularly offensive. He’s just another Trump supporter. There are literally thousands of ex-military Trump supporters that Fox could bring on. And if you’re realizing just now that you had no idea what he was even talking about in his #NeckFlapGate appearance, because you were too focused on the neck flap - you’re kind of proving my point. Conspiracy thinking gives us tunnel vision.

Let’s say you’re in the group that thinks this one time he was wearing a disguise, but the other times it was actually him. Why would Hayward be okay with that? What person, outside of a corny 90s sitcom character, signs off on that?

Even on Boy Meets World it was a stretch.

So while Snopes and other news sources are still waiting for comment directly from the source, we should also just ask the “why”s in this case. This is what happened with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a couple months ago. Not only did we debunk it, I also pointed out how strange it would be to fake his appearances. You may dislike Netanyahu or Fox News and think the absolute lowest of them, which helps you down the winding conspiracy path, but we have to keep asking why. And there is no good answer to “why?” in this case.

What’s in today’s issue

🔵 The DNC’s 2024 autopsy

🤑 $1.776 billion for Trump’s friends and allies?

🦈 Shark Tank host wants AI data center

Hi friends!

This is Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer. This week has seen a celebrity trying to develop an unpopular AI data center in Utah, politicians trying to establish slush funds to pay insurrectionists, and a whole lot more.

What’s in the DNC autopsy?

• After Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election, the Democratic National Committee put together a report trying to figure out how and why they lost. Then, DNC chair Ken Martin upset a lot of Democrats by saying he wouldn’t release that report. Months later, he released the full report, apologized, and said that he thinks it sucks. The report is unredacted, but includes annotations saying it reflects the views of the author and not the DNC itself. Annotations also flag parts of the report that are inaccurate or have no evidence to back it.

• Among the report’s findings: small margins of defeat show that Democrats should just tweak their strategy rather than overhaul it, President Joe Biden’s White House didn’t set Harris up for success, and there was no workable response to Trump’s attack ads against Harris’ stance on trans rights except for changing her stance on trans rights. As far as I can tell, the report makes no mention of the controversy surrounding the White House’s support for Israel amid its genocide in Gaza.

• Other data shows that Democrats win when they meaningfully stand up for trans people and that their voters largely oppose economic and military support to Israel. Polling also shows Democrats feeling frustrated by their own party while Democratic leaders have failed to protect healthcare subsidies, remain divided on abolishing ICE, and continue to support aid to Israel.

$1.776 billion for who?

• Years after Trump’s tax returns were leaked, Trump sued the IRS, alleging that former employees leaked the returns. Then, he settled the lawsuit. Now, the administration is using money from that settlement to establish a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund”.

• What is an “Anti-Weaponization Fund”, you might ask? It’s a huge amount of money that will be used to pay people “who suffered weaponization and lawfare,” according to a Justice Department press release.

• And who are these people who have suffered weaponization and lawfare, you might ask? A five-member commission will decide that, Trump’s former lawyer and current attorney general will pick who’s on the commission, and Trump himself can replace any of those commission members.

• While a whole lot of people alleging government wrongdoing could technically apply, Democratic lawmakers say the fund is intended to pay off January 6 insurrectionists. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche didn’t rule that out in a Senate hearing about the fund. Legal experts also say the fund lacks transparency requirements.

• This brings us to this week’s media literacy tip from our friends at MediaWise! Legal news can be tricky to understand, but news overviews and interviews with/content from legal experts can help.

  

Protesters work to shut down data center

• Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary wants to build a massive AI data center in rural Utah, where residents are largely protesting the plan. The planned data center will take up 40,000 acres across three different sites and one of those sites could reportedly generate up to 9 gigawatts of power, which is double what the entire state uses up.

• County commissioners approved resolutions in support of the project, then stopped talking to the press. It still needs state and federal environmental permits, as well as approval on its master plan. Protesters have already successfully halted part of the data center’s development.

• The data center will require a large amount of water, in a state where an extreme drought and large dying lake have already raised climate concerns. Dave’s video on this was sponsored by Ground News, which already has over 100 stories on this topic with information on the political leaning, factuality and funding sources behind each one.

Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the past week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. Dave, take it away!

The circumstances around President Trump’s deal with the IRS are still blowing my mind. And that’s saying something these days. He sued an agency he oversees and somehow “settled” with himself(?) for a $1.8 billion fund. That money will very likely go to people close to him, or who, at the very least, have been loyal to him. It’s not too far-fetched to wonder if some of that money will find its way back to Trump’s pockets.

None of the “settled” lawsuits were serious. There’s his lawsuit against the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election (there was, and continues to be - just look at the r/conservative subreddit!) and another lawsuit about the raid on Mar-a-Lago in 2023 (Trump was keeping classified documents in his home!). 

To cover this administration is to recognize that they believe they are above the law and can do anything they want. Reporting on that can be exhausting. We can keep yelling into the void, but do people even care about the blatant corruption? When my wheels stop spinning, and I take a moment after posting to think about it, I always go back to the same thing: we just have to keep reporting. The point is to exhaust everyone until they don’t care. I’m a red-blooded American Eagle Scout with a somewhat naively positive view of this country. So I’m always going to care.

As many of you know, one thing I do to relax is watch Survivor. I won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen it (though, hilariously Jeff Probst spoiled a major moment during the live finale right before they aired it) but the finale produced a satisfying winner. So here’s my broad thoughts without getting too specific.

I think the second-place person would have been just as deserving a winner, but this truly was a Lord of the Rings Oscar win. In other words, this winner was rewarded for their work over several years and appearances on Survivor. The fiftieth season was just the end of their run and the jury seems to have made their decision based on the collective seasons, not just this one. One jury member even said this on the red carpet.

We’re in a world where media moguls are vying over who owns what media company, which could one day have a direct effect on Survivor, a CBS show now under David Ellison’s watch. So, it was nice to see Survivor return to the live finale show with all its campy and awkward moments. I hope the show goes on forever. I also hope Jeff stops adding so many twists and just lets the players play. Are you a Survivor fan? What were your finale thoughts? Let me know at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

Thanks, Dave!

If you made it to the end of this newsletter, you get two rewards. The first is a pet photo from a loyal reader. This is Bricks!

Bricks is named after Lego bricks.

Your second reward is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt, in which I hide a non-news link somewhere above and wait until we’re down here to tell you where it is. This week, in the blurb about the Shark Tank AI data center, I linked out to Ava from “Hacks” railing against the forced inevitability of AI! I’m finally caught up on the show and have no idea what I’m supposed to do with my time now.

Until next week,

Chris

What’s in today’s May 17th, 2026 issue

🗣️ Talking about: why people trust independent journalists more

🍝 Eating: Everything in Little Italy

👀 Watching: this interview about AI use

📖 Studying: men’s mental health in 2026

👨🏼‍💻 Analyzing: why last week’s video was our most popular … ever

It’s been a busy week and we’re gearing up for the busiest summer of Local News International’s history (granted, we started LNI last July). We’ve got more travel coming up, a new long-form series show FINALLY coming to you very soon, and all the while I’ll continue to produce 4-5 short-form videos a week. I’ve never had a more hectic time in my career and I’ve never been more excited. Thanks for supporting us.

As always, if you have any feedback or answers to my weird questions in these newsletters, please shoot me an email at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media. With that, let’s dive into all things on my mind this week!

Why do people trust this guy?

🗣️ Talking about …

Yesterday, at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, I spoke to their brilliant alumni in a conversation moderated by my former Washington Post colleague, Simone Sebastian.

The alumni are spread across all kinds of newsrooms in all kinds of formats. But despite my hyper-specific role of vertical (and soon-to-be horizontal) video journalism, one pervasive question continued to crop up in this conversation, as well as many I’ve had in recent months: why do people trust independent journalists more than legacy media?

This isn’t just a feeling, it’s based on data. Trust in newsrooms continues to fall, according to Pew Research Center. This paper from Harvard Kennedy Center underscored the trust audiences have in news creators, and how the journalism industry is dwarfed by the creator industry.

And even if there weren’t data to back up it up, no one is really surprised by this when you mention it. I’ve seen the comments in my videos. In the months after leaving the Post, I found people constantly saying how happy they were to see “Dave unchained” and not “under billionaire ownership.” Believe it or not, the internet comment section is right! But as I told the audience in New York yesterday, my videos haven’t changed that much. They are longer and more in-depth, but that was my own decision and enthusiasm. No one would’ve complained if they got longer while I was employed at the Post.

The key clear difference is my use of language. When President Trump lies, I say he lied. When’s he’s racist, I call him a racist. In the welcome letter for this newsletter, I promised I’d do that (you can read our full Transparency and Ethics guidelines at the graphic at the end of the newsletter, or on our site).

At the same time, as was the case in last week’s video about the Reflecting Pool, I’m quite happy to highlight when Democrats don’t meet expectations. Legacy newsrooms are afraid that they will alienate the right if they call Trump racist or highlight when fascism rears its ugly head. But it turns out people just want the truth. They want you to speak plainly and clearly about everyone and everything. In my view, old school journalism has worked so hard to avoid a “liberal bias,” that they’ve twisted themselves into a knot to sugarcoat actual problems.

Local News International has a conservative audience. It’s not massive, but it’s there. Many of you read this newsletter, and I’m so appreciative of your email feedback, especially when I asked to hear from Never Trumpers last week. That first study I referenced from Pew explains how when it comes to local news organizations, Republicans have more trust than Democrats or centrists. This is one of our goals with Local News International: to have that local news feel you can trust, while still covering national and international stories.

One last thing I’d like to add that I also mentioned yesterday: our work doesn’t exist without the help of legacy media. The vast majority of our explainers are sourced from these stories, which I happily reference in every video. So when I talk about trust and what legacy media is getting wrong, I want to be clear: legacy media remains very important. My hope is that independent journalists, news creators and legacy media can work together and more closely to earn back the trust that has been lost.

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🍝 Eating

After speaking with the brilliant alumni at CUNY, I headed to Little Italy with my wife and daughter (they came along for an extended Mother’s Day weekend celebration). I’ve been to many corners of NYC, but had never experienced Little Italy. We ate at a touristy spot called Casa D’Angelo. It was outstanding. The veal, the pizza, the spaghetti … I just want an Italian family to take us in and cook for us every day. Is that too much to ask?

Mariana also took us through Elizabeth Street where she tried every perfume known to man, and tried some of them on her man. If you can smell me through your email, I wouldn’t be surprised (that’s bergamot, by the way).

👀 Watching

There’s a long list of journalists I admire for their coverage and Charlie Warzel is near the top of that list. I came across this clip of an interview he did with Chris Hayes. I thought it was a really thoughtful take on AI.

If you’re having AI do your brainstorming, “your brainstorming muscles are going to get weaker,” the MS NOW host Chris Hayes tells @cwarzel.bsky.social. They discuss the possible effects of letting AI take over creative and generative thinking: www.youtube.com/watch?v=da8U...

— The Atlantic (@theatlantic.com)
11:15 PM • May 15, 2026

This makes a ton of sense to me. In some instances, AI is getting dumber, as I discussed in a video this last week. On the flip side, as Hayes explains, AI is also making us dumber. It can be a solution to organizational problems, but it’s not a solution to your lack of creativity.

Two years ago, I sat through a Washington Post town hall where someone literally said “AI is for people who can’t be creative but want to be.” This person said that with their full chest and complete sincerity. It never sat right with me. I can appreciate someone who wants to be more artistic. But I don’t understand why the solution is to then ask a machine to be creative for you. As long as you are creating something yourself, you are creative. It’s that simple! As Seth Rogen put it in another interview from last week, you shouldn’t be a writer if your instinct is to use AI.

For what it’s worth, I do not use AI in any of my work (also outlined in our transparency pledge!). I think there are totally ethical uses of AI and I look forward to seeing how AI, and legislation around AI, develops. For now, as a person making video, frankly … it drives me nuts.

📖 Studying

Our second of two videos on men’s mental health in high-risks jobs comes out this week. This part of our ongoing partnership with Harry’s razors (starting with our Will Dave Shave? series last year). No part of our partnership requires me to write about it in the newsletter. But honestly, the impact has been so immediate and big, that I just wanted to talk about it.

A still from this week's upcoming video on mental health.

The study Harry’s oversaw found suicide rates were especially high for men in these job for a few reasons:

• There are few, if any mental health resources at their jobs

• Leadership makes decisions that have massive, sometimes catastrophic impact on their jobs.

• The public has little respect of understanding for what they’re going through.

• The long days and hours keep them away from their families.

• Deaths of their co-workers, as a result of their job, are swept under the rug, with again, very few mental health resources for those affected.

After posting the first video, we heard from a ton of people in these industries in the comments, as well as family members confirming the impact these jobs have on their family.

The reaction here has driven me to read more on this topic, because the study from Harry’s. I’d love to hear from you all. Is there an area of mental health you’d like to see us cover? Shoot me an email at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

👨🏼‍💻 Analyzing

As of 11:31 am ET on Sunday, May 17th, this video about the Reflecting Pool “repairs” has almost 7 million views on YouTube, 1.8 million views on TikTok and 1.1 million views on Instagram Reels. And I’m still sitting here wondering: how?! Why? What about this video made it take off everywhere. It even did well on Threads. Nothing does well on Threads!

Don’t get me wrong. I loved this video. I had fun making it. I’m very happy with how it turned out and I felt it did a solid job explaining what was going on with President Trump’s Reflecting Pool American Blue dreams. But why did this one take off like it did?

From our YouTube Analytics page.

So much of my time after posting a video is spend analyzing what worked and what didn’t. So I thought I’d let you into my brain for this process in what has become our most successful video to date. Here’s my guesses as to why it worked:

• It was shorter than our average video. At around one minute, 40 seconds, it was a solid minute shorter than most of our videos these days. I won’t shy away from longer videos - I like to pack as many details as the 3-minute limit on YouTube and Instagram allows. But it’s a good data point to keep in mind.

• It had high engagement. While this video was shorter than my average video, it’s still longer than most videos on these platforms. If people are sticking around for a long-ish vertical video for the entire duration, the algorithms are going to be happy and show it to more people.

• It was published just as the story was becoming more prominent nationally. Up until I posted this video on Wednesday, it seemed like it was something really only taking off in DC and New York media circles. But the story had become more national by end of week.

• It’s one of those stories that people around the world love to guffaw at (and fair enough). So while our silly little pool project in DC has no international ramifications it’s interesting to an international audience. As of today, over 60% of the audience on YouTube for this video is non-Americans.

• Generally, it appealed to all audiences, possibly across the political spectrum too. Some videos naturally just find their way to a smaller audience, our own regular viewers, because of the subject material. This was not the case here. Everyone had an opinion on what was happening, if Trump was in the right or wrong, or if I had not placed enough blame on Trump or Obama or some other random factor.

The unusually even spread across audiences, from YouTube Analytics.

Whatever happened here, I’m glad it did! We’re only ten months in here at Local News International and these bangers help prove that our work can reach people all around the country and world.

What’s in today’s issue

🍾 Kash Patel controversy

🚗 Did illegal gifts fund an official’s road trip?

💧 Reflecting pool renovation

🧓 Why it matters that Congress is so old

🤖 AI shrinkflation

Hi friends!

Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. I field a lot of questions about how both I, individually, and LNI, as a whole, balance doing the news with being funny. My response this week would be to literally just look around. Our senior-most officials are allegedly getting too drunk to do their jobs, drawing watchdog complaints over family road trips, and trying and failing to turn the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool into a very specific shade of blue. It would sound like a sitcom if it wasn’t also terrifying that these people are in charge of our lives.

With that, let’s dive in.

The FBI’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week(s)

• Last month, The Atlantic published a story about FBI director Kash Patel. It shared sources’ accounts of Patel acting erratically, being frequently absent from his job, and drinking excessively. Then, he sued The Atlantic and the reporter who wrote the story, saying it included false information. Then, in what’s been described as an effort to make you forget about that Atlantic story and convince you the agency he runs is really cool and fun and hot actually, Patel posted what appears to be an AI-generated promotional video essentially plagiarizing a 1994 Beastie Boys music video.

• Two days later, MS NOW reported that the FBI launched a criminal investigation focusing on The Atlantic journalist who wrote the story about Patel’s drinking. Sources told MS Now the agents involved are part of a unit that typically focuses on officials who divulge state secrets or classified documents, not leaks to reporters. For those keeping track at home, this means the FBI director is simultaneously arguing that somebody leaked things that were happening inside of the FBI and that the story about those things is not true. Curious!

• The same day that MS NOW reported on the criminal investigation, The Atlantic published another story by the same reporter. In it, people in the FBI director’s orbit describe Patel traveling with personalized bottles of liquor as well as gifting these bottles to staff and civilians while on official business. A spokesperson insisted to the reporter that Patel was following ethical guidelines. When asked what those guidelines were, exactly, he did not clarify.

• And the next day, MS NOW published a story in which sources told them Patel had ordered polygraph tests on over two dozen members of his team, which I hope does not give Dave any ideas. The polygraph tests are reportedly meant to find leaks among his team. Patel testified before the Senate about all of this, leading to contentious back-and-forths with Democratic lawmakers.

I will turn this car around if you take illegal gifts

• Transportation secretary and aspiring YouTube star Sean Duffy is launching a web video series that raises some ethical questions. A forthcoming YouTube series will show Duffy and his family road tripping across the U.S. in honor of the country’s 250th birthday.

• But if I can’t afford gas, and you can’t afford gas, then who’s paying for Sean Duffy’s road trip? Reportedly, a nonprofit whose list of public sponsors includes companies with ties to the Department of Transportation, which Duffy runs. In other words, companies that a government official is supposed to regulate indirectly paid for that official’s family road trip.

• A government watchdog filed a complaint over this, alleging Duffy violated rules around gifts and travel. The group is urging the Transportation Office’s inspector general to look into whether taxpayer money went into promoting the show and whether Duffy solicited gifts.

• This is a wild sentence to write, but this is not the Transportation Secretary’s first reality series. Duffy was previously on “The Real World: Boston” in 1997 (before I was born, as Dave sadly noted in the LNI slack). He later met his wife on another MTV reality series called “Road Rules: All Stars,” also before I was born.

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What if we kissed in the flag blue reflecting pool 👉️ 👈️ 

• We can’t. Because it’s leaky, algae-ridden and not American flag blue. At least, that’s how Trump described it when he decided to renovate it.

• Trump’s reflecting pool renovation project is reaching a $15 million price tag, according to an ABC News review of federal contract records. $15 million is way more than the $1.5 million estimate Trump previously gave for the renovation.

• The contracts didn’t go through a competitive bidding process because the administration argued there was an unusual or compelling urgency to finish the project by the 250th birthday of the United States.

• As a result, the contractor renovating the reflecting pool is reportedly the same firm that Trump says works on his pools at his Virginia golf club.

• The pool is also, hilariously, still not American flag blue.

Why are members of Congress so old?

• If 92-year-old Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is reelected, he will be 101 when his next term expires. Trump is the oldest person to ever serve as president and regularly appears to fall asleep in meetings. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein died in office in 2023 at age 90, after months of questions over whether she was in decline. Five members of our current Congress have died in office, and they were all over age 65.

• Calls for age limits in Congress often draw critiques that such a policy would be ageist. It also points to a disparity between elected officials and the people they represent. Boomers and the Silent Generation make up almost half of the U.S. House of Representatives and two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. That’s way more than the general population, even if we exclude people under age 25 who aren’t eligible to serve in Congress.

• This brings us to this week’s media literacy tip from our friends at MediaWise! When journalists report on trends like how Congress keeps getting older, journalists ensure accuracy by citing experts. And you, too, can check the evidence behind a story to make sure it holds up!

  

If only I, too, could get dumber and more expensive

• AI is not immune to shrinkflation, which is when manufacturers make products smaller or lower quality without lowering prices.

• Inc. wrote that tech companies have paused signups for some AI tools, introduced more pricing tiers, and even admitted they’ve accidentally given users worse versions of their products than the ones they meant to provide.

• Behind all this are the rising costs of AI. People are using it way more and for more complex tasks. Nvidia develops most of the chips that are powering the AI boom, and they say that can now cost more than human employees’ salaries. More usage + higher costs for that usage = a problem for AI companies.

Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the past week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. Dave, take it away!

I fell down a 1990s reality TV rabbit hole briefly today while pulling footage of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and his now-wife Rachel Campos-Duffy.

There’s something so striking and innocent about their early TV appearances. There’s not really any political talk, at least that I could find. They’re just two young people enjoying life. There was the young Theo Von too! As a Survivor fan with way too much knowledge about former castaways, Elisabeth Hasselbeck also came to mind - a fan favorite on the second season of Survivor in 2001 who later became a co-host on The View and Fox & Friends.

This was a million years ago.

Today, we’ve just come to accept that these people, including our sitting president, got their start, or became far more famous thanks to reality television. But for the first time today I wondered, who are those people today in 2026? What reality TV show or YouTube series or Amazon sponsored Beast Games contestant will one day be making hugely influential decisions about millions of Americans? It’s impossible to know - like Duffy and Campos in 1997, there’s nothing on screen to suggest future political ambitions. But it’s fun to guess!

Who do you think is the next politician or political figure, for better or worse, that will come from reality TV? Is it Survivor 49 and 50’s RizGod or Savannah? Is it one of those goofballs on Love Island? Is Rob Rausch going to trade in his overalls for a suit and tie? Send me your thoughts at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

Thanks, Dave! If you made it to the end if this newsletter, you get two rewards. The first is a pet picture from a loyal reader. This is Spencer!

Spencer’s owner described him as a “senior tabby cat.” He’d fit right in if he ran for Congress.

Your second reward is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt, in which I hid a non-news related link in the body of this email and wait until we’re down here to tell you where it is. I cheated this week by linking out to an American Experience piece about the creator of Wonder Woman and the invention of the lie detector. What would Kash Patel have done without him?

Until next week!

Chris

What’s in today’s May 10th, 2026 issue

🙌 Celebrating: Moms!

🏝️ Reading: The Tribe And I Have Spoken

⛓ Assembling: a bench swing

🔪 Watching: The Sopranos

🐘 Examining: MAGA Republicans

Last week, I shouted out Aziz Ansari’s guest appearance on SNL as Ka$h Patel. He was already back again last night, alongside Colin Jost’s Secretary Hegseth and guest host Matt Damon as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (is it bad that I didn’t know if he was playing Kavanaugh or Chief Justice Roberts when I first saw the clip on social media?).

Meanwhile, my Friday video covered Patel’s week at the FBI. In Normal Times™️, he would’ve been fired months ago. But these times are not normal, and satire is just literally explaining what happened in a slightly different context.

I’m just glad I was able to make the “Kash money!” joke before SNL:

Thanks to all our new subscribers this week, many of whom did not know I had left the Post. The beauty of social video algorithms is that you’ve probably seen my videos since leaving The Washington Post. The downside is that no one (including myself) really looks at the @ once they see someone they recognize on TikTok. So, in many cases, longtime fans have no idea anything changed!

I’m glad you know I’m independent now. A lot has changed and you can see it reflected in our Transparency & Ethics Pledge at the bottom of every single email. One thing I’m most proud of that separates us from the Post? We don’t use AI to make our journalism.

I hope you’ll become a paying member if you haven’t already. We’ve got big, ambitious plans for the rest of 2026. Thanks for joining us on this ride and please don’t be surprised if I keep mentioning I left the Post in future videos, until everyone on the internet knows.

Okay, let’s get into the five most important things in my life today.

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🙌 Celebrating Moms

Thanks to all the moms in my life, including my own personal mom Mary, my sisters Katie and Ellen, and my wife Mariana. It’s the hardest job in the world, often with the highest expectations but not enough praise. You are appreciated!

Mary Jorgenson in her element.

🏝️ Reading

Since 2010, I’ve listened to Rob Cesternino talk about Survivor on his namesake podcast, Rob Has a Podcast. I loved Rob on season six of Survivor, and had just started getting back into the show with season 20’s Heroes vs Villains. As an early podcast adopter, it was like his podcast had been created for me. But it turns out it was for a lot of other people, too. Armed with a dream and some clout from his time on Survivor: Amazon, Rob built a reality TV podcast empire out of RHAP.

While my own job is not recapping reality television, I’ve always looked up to Rob and the example he sets every single day, producing podcast episodes nonstop. His hard work, persistence and resilience are unmatched to any content creator I know. This is not hyperbole! He’s a machine.

On top of that, Rob has made a very clear impact on Survivor, creating an army of strategists that know the game inside and out. Over time, this impact leaked into casting, as the show went from casting one to two superfans a season to casts that were almost entirely made up of superfans. And what do most of those superfans listen to? Rob Has a Podcast.

This is a ton of build up to say that I was thrilled to see Rob had released a book on the definitive history of Survivor. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it so far and I’m glad that this book, by default, properly gives him credit for his contributions to Survivor.

I also love all the illustrations. This Rob Animorph, showing him transform from college student to Survivor contestant to podcaster took me out.

What a transformation!

⛓ Assembling

Just in time for the warm weather, I swapped out our rotting unpainted bench swing in the back with a brand new bright orange swing. This is where I will go now in the morning to stare deep into the Missouri woods and come up with whatever weird video I’m making that day.

Orange is the new brown.

We got this half price from Wayfair. We are not sponsored by Wayfair. But maybe we should be?

🔪 Watching

I don’t know if you all have heard of this little tiny TV show that started in 1999 but it’s called The Sopranos and it turns out it’s pretty good? Who would’ve known that the show that is arguably responsible for the the longform cinematic television we experience today is actually brilliant writing, acting and storytelling?

Anyway, we started watching The Sopranos this last week. It’s the first time I’ve gotten into a show that is nearly three decades old without having seen any of it before. So, it’s a little strange experiencing something “new” for the first time that is clearly dated in its clothing and references. But it really holds up. Even the poor taste jokes technically “hold up” because they’re usually coming from morally corrupt people.

Despite its 27-year existence, the only thing I’ve been spoiled on is the controversial ending. But to be honest, with good storytelling like this … who cares? It’s not the cut-to-black destination, it’s the early 2000s journey.

As our toddler re-learns sleeping through the night for the tenth time, we will likely finish this episode-by-episode over several months. What show did you “discover” after it had been on for decades? Let me know at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media. Maybe it’ll be our next show, if we haven’t seen it already.

🐘 Examining

One distinction I noticed news orgs making far more consistently in the last few years is the “Republican” and the “MAGA Republican.” The latter is shorthand for saying “this Republican is in Trump’s corner and was likely endorsed by him.”

This made sense for awhile, especially in the early days when the majority of the party still seemed a bit bewildered by the overwhelming support for Trump. Anyone else remember when Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz all openly hated Trump and called out his bad behavior? I do! Even in 2020, the Never Trumpers seemed determined to eradict Trump from the party once and for all.

But today, a “Republican” politician and “MAGA Republican” politician are one and the same. All the Republicans that found the courage to fight Trump were voted out. Or in some cases, they were already retiring and wanted to save their footnote legacy in the history books on the way out (people don’t forget, Mitch McConnell!).

Today, Republicans are working to bend every rule in the rulebook, fighting (and winning) the gerrymandering battle against Democrats. This scorched Earth tactic may or may not result in a Republican majority. The line has been drawn in the sand, and gerrymandered on the map. Whatever happens in the midterms, I think it’s safe to say there won’t really be any non-MAGA Republicans left in the House or Senate after 2026.

But while non-MAGA Republican politicians may be erased, will non-MAGA Republican voters remain? Most of the 2020 Never Trumpers left the party altogether. Some are actively running as Democrats. But what about your neighbor who tells you they hate Trump but could never vote for a Democrat?

I could ask the following question in the r/AskTrumpSupporters subreddit, but these days, it’s mostly trolls on both the left and right.

So I want to ask you: are you, or someone you know, in this boat? A Never Trump Republican that also happens to remain loyal to the party? Shoot me an email at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

You’re still here?

A fun fact for you: while I was making a somewhat cheap joke about some photos of Kash Patel when I crossed my eyes in Friday’s video, I actually have that condition.

The screen grab below is what my left eye actually does when I’m not wearing contacts or glasses. It’s been that way since I was 18 months old. My mom said she looked at me and thought “I need to take him to the eye doctor” and “oh good, he can’t be drafted!”

Finally something I don’t have in common with JD Vance.

What’s in today’s issue

✈️ The fall of Spirit Airlines

🎮️ GameStop’s confusing eBay bid

📜 New mental health study

Hi friends!

Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. Over the past week, I’ve flown from Chicago to New York and have been taking a big train trip back! This started out as a cute, fun way to visit friends on the way home, but it also proved to be really practical as a major airline fell apart and fuel prices continued to skyrocket, lol!

Dave’s covered all that and more while I’ve been on the train. With that, let’s dive in.

Requiem for a budget airline

• Spirit Airlines went under during a week when I luckily decided to live lavishly and fly basic economy on American. The airline and the Trump administration discussed a $500 million bailout that ultimately didn’t pan out.

• That deal would have handed over control of the airline to the federal government. But sources reportedly told CNN that officials worried about giving that much money to an airline with a shaky financial record.

• Why did they go under now? Skyrocketing fuel prices because of “recent geopolitical events,” according to Spirit Airlines court filings. Those geopolitical events likely include the war in Iran, which has caused fuel prices to drastically rise.

• In an effort to make those prices go back down, President Donald Trump announced a plan to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that’s important to the world’s oil supply and that’s been closed throughout the war. Trump then said his plan is no longer happening. NBC News reported that’s because Saudi leaders wouldn’t let the US use its airbases.

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Can GameStop buy eBay?

• GameStop made a $55.5 billion bid to buy eBay. GameStop’s market value is only about $11 billion. And I’m no mathematician, but that looks like GameStop does not have enough money to buy eBay. People who have way more experience covering the business world than I do are describing this using words like “baffles” and “stunt” and “unsolicited.”

• GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen hasn’t really cleared up answers about it. CNBC asked him how he would afford the deal, and he responded “it’s half cash, half stock.” That does not answer how he would come up with the money he does not have. It’s also how I’m going to start justifying buying a coffee out every day. If this deal does happen, Cohen could get richer off of it. If GameStop boosts its market value, its CEO stands to make a lot more money.

• This brings us to our media literacy tip of the week from our friends at MediaWise! If you (like me) don’t understand a blessed thing about the economy, find a summary or explanation from a trusted creator who speaks in terms you do understand, then dig deeper into the details. That’s why I watched Dave’s video five times before even attempting to read a CNBC article!

• LNI sponsor Harry’s partnered with Signs of Suicide on a study of construction workers, miners and fishermen. It found that men in these fields experience depression at a much higher rate than the national average. These professions are also much likelier to die by suicide.

• Factors like high stress, being stereotyped, and being disconnected from the people making decisions about their jobs all contribute to this, according to the study. A lack of healthy tools to deal with their coworkers dying by suicide or overdosing also fuels this crisis.

• What can be done? The study recommends peer support, more counseling, and expanding awareness around exisitng employee assistance programs. If you or a loved one need support, you can find resources here.

Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the past week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. Dave, take it away!

Well, I finally did it. I bought a green screen suit. Here’s some important takeaways and thoughts:

🧍🏼 They should sell slightly taller green screen suits. 

Stretched to the limit.

This is an issue I have with full body costumes in general. The longest green screen suit I could find was for 6’2” people, so the suit was quite snug on my 6’4” body.

💡 The more lighting, the better. 

Unaltered shot, initial keying, and then some finessing.

Keying green screen is hard enough with a green screen backdrop. With a green screen suit, there are so many additional shadows just from my body being three dimensional. Still, these shadows helped create an outline around the “invisible man” effect I was going for in this video, so it worked out.

🪜 Set up your shot before putting the green screen suit on. 

“Don’t mind me, neighbor. It’s a video about mental health!”

For one thing, you can’t see that well once the suit is over your face. And once it’s on, especially if you have one that’s two inches too short, it’s very hard to take it off.

Also, now my neighbors are even more confused by my job, having seen me climb a ladder to my roof in a full body green screen suit … all for a 4-second clip.

🧼 Wash the suit after every use.

Gonna need Harry’s to send me more shaving cream.

This is especially important if you putting shaving cream all over it. It’s very hard to get that off.

🎥 Try not to shoot in front of a green wall.

What the shot looked like after I keyed out the green and before I did a lil movie magic.

I know better than this, and still did it for the shot in my office. There are work arounds and I made it work, but it was a headache for sure.

Overall, I’m very pleased with this purchase and will be expensing it to Local News International’s parent company, Family Loser LLC. Yes, that is what I named our company. I will not be taking any further questions at this time.

If you made it all the way to the end of this newsletter, you get two rewards. The first is a pet picture from a loyal reader. This is Killian!

This picture unsettles me and I’m trying to interrogate why. Killian did nothing wrong.

Your second reward is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt. Every week, I hide a non-news related link in the body of this email and wait until down here to tell you where it is! In the blurb about GameStop’s bid to buy eBay, I linked out to Lisa Simpson urging Marge to buy something and saying, “You don’t need to rationalize everything.” Words the GameStop CEO seems to have taken to heart.

Until next week!

Chris

What’s in today’s May 3rd, 2026 issue

🏝️ Reviewing: Survivor 50 so far

🍕 Reminiscing: about Book-it! (which is returning)

📰 Tweaking: this newsletter!

✈️ Reading: stories about Spirit Airlines’ last day

⛽️ Wondering: your favorite gas station

A still from a 2022 video about a potential Spirit and JetBlue merger.

Before we get into things, a shout-out to Aziz Ansari as Kash Patel on Saturday Night Live this weekend. Not all celebrity stunt casting on SNL works, but I though Ansari nailed the voice, buggy eyes and overall demeanor of the FBI director.

Instagram post

Because everything I talk about eventually leads back to Amy Poehler’s award-winning Good Hang podcast, I recommend listening to Aziz Ansari’s episode from last year. Some other favorite episodes of mine (with some obvious recency bias): Jon Hamm, Rachel Dratch, Nick Offerman, Sarah McLachlan, Jonathan Groff, Aubrey Plaza, and Judge Judy. But also, I recommend every single one of them.

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🏝️ Reviewing

Some small spoilers ahead on Survivor 50. If you aren’t watching the show, please quickly go back and watch all 50 seasons before reading the following paragraph. If you don’t have an extra 600+ hours to do so, just know some of my review below may require further context.

There’s only three episodes left in the landmark 50th season of Survivor (they film two seasons a year). As a longtime Survivor fan, I feel mostly “fed,” as the youth say. This season brought back some iconic players I’d been dying to see play again in Christian, Mike White, Dee, Devens, Genevieve, Coach, and Angelina. It also brought back players who I thought couldn’t possibly contribute more to the show, including Ozzy, Cirie, Colby and Aubry. But remarkably, those fourth and fifth(!) time returnees are the best part of the season. There’s something to be said about them knowing this is likely their last time and playing their best games.

But no one is playing a better game than Cirie. Have these other players even watched Cirie in her previous seasons? Did they see her in Big Brother or Traitors? Don’t they know she will crush them if you don’t vote her out the second she appears on the island? Apparently, they did not get the memo, or, like Dee, got the memo but set the memo on fire once Cirie’s charisma took effect. And for that, I am thankful.

I am also thankful for … wait for it … Mr. Beast? His recent inclusion on the last episode worked out perfectly for production, not just in the result, but in the accidental years-long story it told. Following Rick Devens’ coin flip that doubled the pot to 2 million dollars, people began uncovering Devens’ tweets over the years about Mr. Beast. This Tweet from 2022 acted as a prophecy:

The prophecy was fulfilled on Wednesday night.

And the weird “controversy” over Devens and his son picking up Feastables at Walmart a few years back came around in the best way.

Instagram post

See, kids? If the internet tries to cancel you over something trivial and dumb, you may just get your revenge on national TV a few years later.

And unlike Zac Brown, Mr. Beast’s inclusion in Survivor 50 felt natural, but not invasive. He was happy to be there, but understood it wasn’t his show. There are plenty of reasons to dislike Mr. Beast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, but I couldn’t find a single one in last week’s Survivor episode.

If I had one critique of the “New Era” (seasons 41-49), it’s that they were trying to force fun, with Jeff at the center of it, acting like a parent who had over-prepared for a child’s birthday party. What’s great about 50 is all the fun is coming naturally from the contestants. I have formed something of an internet friendship with Rick Devens over the years. Before he left to film 50, I texted him a good luck message. He responded, amongst other things with, “gonna have fun no matter what.” And boy, did he deliver on that promise.

The sign of a good Survivor season is when you’re near the end and would be happy with a majority of the remaining cast taking home the prize. That’s the case now with nine players left. That said … I do hope Joe, and his over-the-top “honorable play” mantra, is not rewarded at the end.

🍕 Reminiscing

Pizza Hut announced it’s bringing Book-it! back this summer. A child of the 90s, I read many a book just to earn that personal pan pizza, sitting in a red plastic booth, underneath the stained glass Pizza Hut lights, adjacent to the delicious salad bar croutons. Like a wizened employee getting off of a long shift at work, I enjoyed all four slices of my Book-it! pizza, knowing I had earned every pepperoni.

I hope this program is back for good. I hope even more that reading programs thrive across the country. After all, with so many schools loaning out iPads, and hundreds of library apps available to everyone, books have never been better, cheaper and more accessible (even the new Book-it! has a mobile app).

P.S. Does anyone remember Accelerated Reader? Was that just in the Shawnee Mission Public School system?

📰 Tweaking

Just like our short-form content, I’m always look for small and big ways to improve the experience. In the coming weeks, you’ll see some improvements on the look of the newsletter and hopefully the user experience as well.

Got any suggestions? Send me an email at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

✈️ Reading

I must confess that the original headline for this newsletter was far more cynical. I chuckled to myself and typed, “Spirit Airlines can’t hurt you anymore.” Then I started reading more about the aftermath and the people affected.

It’s true that Spirit was the most hated airline in the United States. I counted myself amongst this group of haters, having booked a roundtrip flight from Baltimore to Ft. Lauderdale in 2017. I paid the unexpected fees (carry-on and checked bag), and suffered through the website experience (I accidentally created a membership that Spirit would repeatedly charge me for in the year to come until I committed half a day to tracking down someone in customer service). I crammed my 6’ 4” body into a seat and ultimately gave into the experience. After the fact, I looked up an American Airlines flight conveniently out of DCA and realized it would’ve cost the same in the end with far less headaches (and a free in-flight refreshment).

But Spirit Airlines served a purpose - it was an option for people who needed to get somewhere cheap and fast. In the years after my Spirit headache, I still recommended it to anyone who was traveling light and understood the “vibe” (it’s like a bus, but you’re flying through the air). Also, as I understand it, the website experience got better over the years. Sadly, today, the website looks like this:

Around 17,000 people lost their jobs as a result of Spirit winding down its operations. Out of this devastating result came some bittersweet moments that are worth highlighting, starting with the Spirit pilot who was supposed to be flying his final retirement flight on Saturday. When Spirit ended operations at 3 am on Saturday, he had to catch a flight home with his son, who happened to be a pilot for Southwest. When the crew caught wind of his story, they sent him off properly:

Instagram post

Meanwhile, CNBC reported on several fond farewells from the tower as the final planes came in. And several airlines picked up the slack, offering capped “rescue fares” for former Spirit passengers in need of return flights. American and United Airlines quickly created a job portal for former Spirit employees. After Spirit’s union president sent a letter to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, asking for help paying former flight attendants, he announced that relief measures were coming.

If I make a video about Spirit’s demise, I will certainly poke fun at the airlines’ shortcomings, but I appreciate its contribution to society, especially the jobs it created and the people with a tighter budget that were able to fly because of Spirit. Also, I just want to thank Spirit for the story that allowed me to make this video with Chris three years ago:

⛽️ Wondering

Rising gas prices may have contributed to taking down Spirit, but that hasn’t stopped me from stopping by QuikTrip for a coffee and hotdog on a near weekly basis. I’ve made it no secret that QuikTrip is my favorite gas station. That’s because it’s not just a gas station, it’s an experience. A small market filled with anything you could ever need. Employees are encouraged to build their careers there, with solid salaries and retirement plans as managers designed to make what may have started as a summer job, a sustainable career.

But as a QuikTrip fan, subscribed to the QuikTrip subreddit (obviously), I’ve seen an increasing number of posts from former employees who claim management, and by proxy, the stores themselves, have gone downhill. I’m putting the “local” in Local News International and looking into this over the next few weeks. If you have any connections, thoughts, or tips on QuikTrips stores, send me an email at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

Also, in my decade in D.C. I came to understand that many people felt this way about Wawa and Sheetz. Even some midwesterners swear on Casey’s, in part due to their excellent carry-out pizza. You can also shoot me an email to make your case for why your gas station is better than QuikTrip. I will do my best to put my bias aside while reading them.

What’s in today’s issue

🗳️ Voting rights

✅ Fact-checking Correspondents’ Dinner conspiracies

📺️ Trump-Kimmel feud

🤑 Soldier charged with betting on classified info

⛽️ Economy grows, energy prices still high

Hi friends!

Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. In the past week, we’ve seen voting rights gutted, conspiracy theories spread, and broadcasters threatened with censorship. Sound familiar? This all keeps happening, and Dave has you covered with videos about the latest. Let’s dive in.

Supreme Court guts voting rights

• The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Louisiana election map was "an unconstitutional racial gerrymander" because it used race as a factor to create a majority-Black congressional district.

• The ruling undermines an important part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Section 2 of the law was meant to protect minority voters’ political power. After this ruling, it’s not clear how much of that provision is still in tact.

• A group of Black voters had previously sued over a 2022 Louisiana congressional map that only had one majority-Black district. The voters argued that map violated Section 2.

• A federal judge agreed and ordered the state to draw a new map that created another majority-Black congressional district. That new map is the one that the Supreme Court just struck down. The ruling could affect this year’s midterm elections. Democratic leaders fear it could allow red states to redraw maps that would help them gain 19 seats.

Fact-checking Correspondents’ Dinner conspiracies

• The White House press secretary’s prediction that “there will be some shots fired tonight” was a reference to the customary comedy roast at the dinner, not to actual gunshots.

• One official said he wasn’t aware of the dinner ever being designated a National Special Security Event. In other words, there wasn’t a sudden downgrade in security that allowed the shooter through.

• People did place bets on what would happen at the dinner, but one bet that’s gotten attention on whether anyone would get kicked out does not mention a shooting, specifically.

• Searches for the shooters’ name only trended after the shooting, despite false claims circulating online.

• Photos of the shooter wearing an IDF shirt were likely AI generated. So are other photos of him you may have seem.

• A tweet with the shooters name from 2023 is real, but it’s not clear whether there’s a connection to the shooting.

• This brings us to this week’s media literacy tip from our friends at MediaWise!

Trump wants Dave’s Webby opponent fired

• Late night host Jimmy Kimmel joked that Melania Trump had “a glow like an expectant widow.” Since then, the first lady has called for ABC to fire Kimmel, criticizing his joke as a “call to violence.”

• Kimmel refused to apologize, explaining the joke was about the age difference between the first lady and the president rather than a call to violence.

• This is more than a feud between Kimmel and Melania. FCC chairman Brendan Carr is reviewing ABC broadcast licenses following the joke, earlier than that review was supposed to take place.

• Local ABC affiliates have previously stopped airing Kimmel’s show, then reversed course.

Soldier charged with betting using classified information

• In January, hours before U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, someone placed an online bet that U.S. forces would capture Nicolás Maduro. Curious!

• Last week, the Justice Department arrested special forces soldier Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who was involved in the operation. The DOJ charged him with using classified information to make the bet and win more than $400,000. He has pled not guilty to those charges.

• Prosecutors say Van Dyke made a series of bets. They also allege he sent most of the money he made to a cryptocurrency vault and then a new brokerage account. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also filed a separate complaint against Van Dyke. They say he engaged in insider trading on Polymarket.

• Van Dyke’s not the only one in hot water over placing these kinds of bets. Kalshi, another prediction market, fined and suspended three people running for Congress for betting on their own races. All of this raises broader questions around how the government should regulate prediction markets — questions made even more interesting by Donald Trump’s social media app launching its own Polymarket competitor.

The economy is growing but gas is still expensive

• The U.S. economy grew 2% in the first three months of 2026! Woohoo! What does that mean?

• A new Commerce Department report says it’s because private investment, consumer spending (like the guava danish I bought while writing this) and government expenditures were in good shape before the war with Iran. After that, rising oil prices hindered growth a bit.

• Across the pond, European policymakers are also grappling with rising fuel costs because of the war. The Bank of England maintained interest rates but warned that inflation could rise soon. European Central Bank officials said something similar.

Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the past week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. Dave, take it away!

My sunny disposition has been challenged this week, watching creators with huge platforms buy into conspiracy thinking, promoting the baffling concept that the Trump administration is competent enough to stage a fake shooting. This particular post from a popular political influencer really grinded my gears this morning:

People with very large platforms are doing a massive disservice to their audience, facts and rational thinking.

— Dave Jorgenson (@davejorgenson.bsky.social)
12:28 PM • Apr 30, 2026

The more I’ve used the internet, the less interest I’ve had in publicly shaming people. It seems like 99% of the time, it’s really more about the person doing the shaming than the target of the internet’s ire. 

So, I hope you’ll understand that my desire to call this out is not for personal clout, or to feel smug about my own stance. I am not looking to shame popular creators for promoting this. Rather, I want people with big voices on these platforms to maintain their creditability and not fall into the Left’s version of QAnon. Without credibility, we lose the trust of those across the political spectrum. That trust is so, so important now in the AI-generated age of misinformation.

Have you struggled to walk someone off the ledge this week over this story, or another? Have you sparred in the comments of Reddit, like the Redditor who bravely posted our video to r/GenZ? Let me know! Send me your emails at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

And to tease Monday’s newsletter (or Sunday, if you’re a paid subscriber!), I’m going to dive deep into the Scrubs reboot, which was recently renewed. I’m also going to talk about Survivor 50, and why I thought Mr. Beast’s inclusion on the latest episode was the only good celebrity cameo so far. I know, I’m as shocked as you are.

If you made it all the way down here, you get two rewards. The first is a pet picture from a loyal reader. This is Captain!

:,)

Your second reward is the answer to this week’s link scavenger hunt, in which I hide a non-news related link above and reveal it down here. This week, I linked out to an episode description of The Dick Van Dyke Show, whose star shares a last name with the soldier charged with betting on classified information! Imagine that!

Until next week,

Chris

I’m going to break format a bit for our top-of-the-week newsletter and focus on just one topic today. But before I do, another thank you for helping Local News International win our first Webby after just nine months of existence. We also snagged a ‘Best in Audience Engagement’ award in Bogotá, Colombia at the WAN-IFRA Digital Media Awards, beating out our competitors in North, Central and South America.

Ok, onto the main event … which was not staged!

Trump stands above the people he’s ridiculed for a decade in politics.

Before they were able to serve President Trump a well-done steak with ketchup, a gunman fired shots Saturday night outside the Washington Hilton ballroom and Trump was rushed out of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Law enforcement officials say the 31-year-old suspected shooter was from California and exchanged fire with security at a checkpoint.

Naturally, many people online are openly speculating that this entire shooting was staged. The comments are all over Reddit, Instagram, and TikTok. No platform is safe from this speculative commentary. And before it sounds like I’m riding my anti-misinformation high horse, I completely get where they’re coming from. It’s very easy to take moments before, during and after the event and compile a picture that supports that argument.

Suddenly Karoline Leavitt saying “shots will be fired” in describing Trump’s prepared remarks take on a new meaning (never mind she was very clearly discussing the roasting aspect of the dinner).

FBI Director Kash Patel casually standing around doing nothing is being interpreted as evidence he knew another secret plan was happening (despite copious amounts of evidence that he is just completely unqualified for his job).

Removing Vice President Vance seconds before President Trump is apparently evidence of foul play (if you watch the video, it’s clear that Vance’s Secret Service detail was just moving faster as Trump has far more men gathering to surround and protect him.).

As I discussed in last week’s video, connecting these moments is how conspiracy thinking works. It’s taking all the aspects that fit and ignoring the rest.

Here are the facts that we know now:

1. The suspected shooter was taken into custody without being shot or killed, despite early social media speculation.

2. As a result of quick action, attendees were understandably confused, having heard a disturbance but with no visual confirmation. This is why …

3. You see a lot of people still casually eating and drinking after the fact.

4. We don’t yet know the shooter’s motive, but the reporting says he was likely targeting administration officials.

Most importantly, there is no actual evidence this shooting was staged.

HOWEVER, there is plenty of evidence that this dinner should never have happened, and in my opinion, should never happen again, at least in its current format.

Don’t get me wrong, in my decade in D.C., I thoroughly enjoyed attending the events surrounding the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Especially in my long-ago youth, it became a game to see how many of the before and after parties we could sneak into without invitations (all of them). I’ll never forget, in 2018, running into the most important people at the Washington Post, including Executive Editor Marty Baron, at a party I was definitely not invited to, just months into my employment. I quickly bolted for the exit.

So, the accusations of this being “nerd prom” are completely accurate, earned and even celebrated. All in all, it’s a very good idea to celebrate the press in our nation’s capital! But the event itself is a complete disservice to the press and the trust it so desperately needs to reestablish.

Kind of a perfect metaphor for the media and the role they've played over the last ten years

— Mike Drucker (@mikedrucker.bsky.social)
2:31 AM • Apr 26, 2026

I mentioned in last week’s video that Obama accidentally foreshadowed Trump’s presidency at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, but he also accidentally demonstrated the problematic optics of this annual event.

It’s a lose-lose situation. Either the president is chummy with the press, which makes an outsider question how much the administration is being held accountable. Or, as has been the case in Trump’s first and second term, the very invitation of the president to the event is a complete slap in the face to the First Amendment - which Jake Tapper has literally rolled into his suit pocket in yet another perfect, unfortunate metaphor.

Just make sure the president can’t see it!

As I pointed out on Bluesky and Threads, inviting Trump to the event because every president has always been invited “for more than 100 years” perfectly encapsulates why trust in the media is at an all-time low. The very man who willfully, happily and constantly lies to the press was invited in with welcome arms, and to what end? Because there’s an established precedent? Does the White House Correspondents’ Association think inviting his administration will give them better access long-term?

Instead, time and time again, Trump punches the press right in the face and they take it because they think they’re supposed to. Six national journalism advocacy groups say Trump has engaged in “the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association has forgotten the most pure, red-blooded American trait of all: standing up to a bully.

The press is in an abusive relationship with the president is doing nothing to break the cycle. Even worse, while some of the facts from this shooting can be easily established by the police and reporters in attendance, the administration could lie or fudge some of the details to make themselves look better. Like the previous assassination attempt on Trump, it’s very clear it happened. But it’s still unclear if a bullet or shrapnel from the bullet hit Trump, and how serious the injury itself was. Naturally, Trump prefers the most heroic version, that he “felt the bullet ripping through his skin.”

To be clear, there is no evidence of conspiracy here. Both attempted shootings were very real. Instead, there’s just mountains of evidence that this entire dinner should be rethought. Sure, you can invite the president. But maybe don’t make him the guest of honor on a table up front, looking down upon the very people he abuses? Make it instead about the incredible reporters who win awards at this event. Invite celebrities who celebrate and champion the truth, not the most famous people that will say “yes” to a red carpet.

I’ve got a lot of smoke coming off the keyboard as I talk, so allow me to take cool off with something less spicy. I’m very glad everyone in attendance is safe and unharmed, and that the Secret Service agent shot in the chest, while wearing a bullet-proof vest, is “doing great.” I hope there’s no lasting trauma as a result of what took place. Also, I genuinely like Jake Tapper. The pocket square thing is just so, so unintentionally funny.

What’s in today’s issue

🤖 AI manifesto, investigations and gender disparities

🗒️ Correspondents Dinner drama

🧪 Missing scientist conspiracy theory

🇮🇹 Trump vs. the Italian PM

“No, you don’t understand. Orbs are good!”

Hi friends!

Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. I come bearing good news from an election, for once! Thanks to your support, Dave won a Webby for being the Best Creator, Personality or Host of 2026. Dave is the People’s Choice Winner, and shares the award with Webby winner Jimmy Kimmel. It’s kinda like Dave winning the popular vote and Kimmel winning the electoral college.

Speaking of people who’ve lost the popular vote but won the electoral college, President Donald Trump is the throughline in a lot of Dave’s videos this week. He’s united Italy against him, spreading conspiracy theories about missing and dead scientists, and shaking up one of the most important journalism events of the year. Let’s dive in.

Reese Witherspoon, Palantir manifesto and an investigation into ChatGPT

• In what seems like a game of Connections personally made for me, Dave listed off these three news stories in a meeting this morning and told me he was stringing them together in one video. I’m writing this before Dave has made that video, so this section of the newsletter is really me just guessing how these things tie together.

• Reese Witherspoon wants women to learn AI, pissing off people of all genders. She’s since clarified that she understands concerns around how AI could impact jobs and the environment, saying that “I don’t believe computers should replace humanity.” In her initial statement about AI, she said that women’s jobs are three times as likely to be automated, and she doesn’t want women “to be left behind.” That stat comes from this International Labour Organization report.

• Why might the public be upset at people like Reese Witherspoon for embracing AI? Maybe because the head of one AI company wrote a manifesto that some elected officials in the UK are calling “the ramblings of a super villain.” Palantir CEO Alex Karp and head of corporate affairs Nicholas Zamiska wrote a book that Palantir recently summarized on The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter. It calls for tech and AI companies to play a greater role in carcerality and warmongering, a draft, more US foreign intervention, criticizing some cultures as inferior to others, resisting pluralism, and a whole lot more. Palantir has drawn criticism from groups like Amnesty International for their tech and AI tools facilitating immigration crackdowns in the US and Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

• Another AI company has also come under scrutiny this week. Florida’s attorney general opened a criminal investigation into OpenAI. He alleges that a man accused of killing two people at Florida State University last year got advice from ChatGPT on how to carry out a shooting. The administration of Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has been critical of AI, but infamously not of guns.

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They’ve never invited me to this dinner party but they invited Donald Trump

• The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is an annual, fancy dinner for journalists and their (often corporate or political) guests, meant to raise funds partially for education around the First Amendment and the free press.

• Trump, who hates both of those things, is showing up for the first time ever. Administration officials also working to restrict press freedom — like broadcast censorship advocate Brendan Carr and Man Trying To Restrict Press Access To The Pentagon Pete Hegseth — will also be there. Trump is reportedly planning to roast the media then immediately dip.

• A comedian usually hosts the dinner. But this year, it’ll be hosted by a mentalist. The White House Correspondents’ Association fired Amber Ruffin last year after she critiqued the president and went without a comedian in 2019 after Michelle Wolf criticized the Trump administration when she hosted the previous year. The association so scared of hiring people who’ve criticized the president are, notably, tasked with holding the president accountable. (I’m also not the first to point out the weirdness of an event designed to have journalists party with the people they’re supposed to be grilling.)

There’s NOT evidence that the missing or dead scientists are connected

• Ten nuclear or aerospace scientists have disappeared or died in the past few years, and conspiracy theorists are peddling theories that they’re connected. The FBI and the Republican-led House Oversight Committee are investigating possible connections.

• But there’s no credible evidence that they’re connected. The US has thousands of these kinds of scientists, and any large population is going to have deaths. The daughter of one of the scientists said her father had medical issues before his death.

• This leads us to this week’s media literacy topic from our friends at MediaWise! Conspiracy theories generally only cite evidence that supports them and dismiss evidence trying to debunk them.

Why is Italy mad at Trump?

• Italy has a far-right prime minister named Giorgia Meloni.

• After Vice President JD Vance endorsed Hungary’s far right prime minister Viktor Orbán for reelection, Orbán lost.

• The Guardian reported that Orbán’s loss could be one reason why Meloni has started to distance herself from Trump.

• She criticized Trump’s rant against the Pope and has distanced herself from the US’ and Israel’s war in Iran by suspending a defense agreement with Israel.

Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the past week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. Dave, take it away!

Just a fun aside today to show how the sausage is made. Like Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando before me … I rarely learn my lines and often tape them to nearby walls or bulletin boards.

My toddler thinks this is normal.

The scripts I write allow for basically just saying one line at a time. To make it even easier on myself, I highlight the character I’m playing at that moment. This allows me to run through a script quickly without missing any lines.

Line?

Now, to be clear, a lot of care and thought goes into these, including what I do before and after a line. This helps me in the edit, when I’m trying to create the illusion that there are three or four people in a room (not just one person, slowly losing his mind and creating more laundry for my later self).

Here’s a sample from today’s video:

Dave: It’s why some people thought Reese Witherspoon decided to be vocal about you all of a sudden.

AI Dave SNAPS at band, who immediately STOP.

AI Dave: You mean, she just wanted me to pay for dinner?

DAVE holds up PHONE with Reese POST

Dave: Well, in her follow-up post, she said she wasn’t being paid to talk about AI. 

AI Dave: So Reese is paying? How progressive.

He SNAPS back at band who resume playing.

Dave: She said she’s curious about AI and trying to keep up with her kids.

Hands over phone

AI Dave: She’s AI-curious?

It’s a weird job I have, so I’m very grateful to you all for encouraging it with your views, subscriptions, funny emails and occasional run-ins in public while I’m filming myself pretending to be an AI bot in a public airport.

If you made it to the end of this newsletter, you get two rewards. The first is a pet picture from a loyal reader. This is Toby!

Those are his tooth marks on that chair! Cute!

The second reward is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt, in which I hid a non-news related link in the body of this email and wait until down here to reveal where it is. This week, I cheated by linking out to a journalism outlet — The Infatuation’s Hit List for New York City restaurants. I’ve been tasked with itinerizing a family trip to New York because, not to brag, I make a mean itinerary. If you know of any afforable and delicious dinner spots within a one-seat ride of a PATH stop, please hit me up.

Until next week!
Chris

What’s in today’s April 19th, 2026 issue

💸 What I’m writing off: Taxes (not really)

👀 What I watched: 20 airplane hours of movies and TV

🍝 What I ate: Pasta

😭 What I’m laughing at (until I cry)

👨🏼‍💻 What I’m processing: More misinformation

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said “no stone will be unturned” in effort to investigate a conspiracy.

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💸 What I’m writing off

Friday’s video covered a relevant news story about Italy and the U.S. while in beautiful Perugia. Readers of this newsletter will know that I was there to speak and network at the International Journalism Festival. Naturally, many of our commenters assumed I was on vacation and made the video for a tax write-off.

1. That is very funny

2. Under no circumstances would I ever choose to make a video while on vacation.

So, yes, this trip will be included in the 2026 tax returns Local News International, but not for the reasons many thought. Still, I appreciate that people on TikTok, Reels and YouTube all assumed I would go to those lengths for a write-off.

👀 What I watched

Two other videos from this week featured Chicago’s O’Hare and New York’s JFK airports. As I alluded to in both, it became necessary to shoot videos in the airport after four rescheduled flights and one canceled flight because a “200 pound part had to be replaced” (which is a very rude way to tell me to get off of a plane).

Anyway, while in the air and stuck in my comped hotel room, I caught up on a lot of TV and film. Here’s a quick blurb for everything I watched:

Rooster on HBO

Yet another show created by Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Ted Lasso, Shrinking). This one stars Steve Carell as a visiting English professor at a liberal arts school. As an English writing major from a liberal arts school, and massive day one Office (US) fan, this show was basically made for me. And only me. So don’t watch it. Let me have it for myself.

5/5 stars.

The Boys, season 5 on Amazon Prime

While I agree that the show hasn’t been quite as good as its first couple of seasons, it still is far and above most other new shows streaming right now. And I do feel like they’re doing a pretty good job of wrapping things up for this final season. The satire is so on point, episode 3’s Christian imagery even landed on the same day Trump posted a photo of himself as Jesus.

4/5 stars.

One Battle After Another streaming on HBO

I get why it was nominated for a ton of Oscars. Sean Penn was especially deserving of his win (he’s very good at being hateable!). At times, I felt like the story was a little unfocused and all over the place, but that’s just the nature of Paul Thomas Anderson movies. I also thought the right-wing ideology represented in the movie, while sometimes very funny, was clearly written through the eyes of someone who had never really met the conservative archetypes they were writing about. Ultimately, everyone’s acting made up for all these sins though.

3.5/5 stars.

Wake Up Dead Man on Netflix

This is the third iteration of Rian Johnson’s whodunnit films starring Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc. While some people really hated the second in the series, Glass Onion, I’m a big defender of it. While its villain isn’t exactly Elon Musk, it’s clearly poking fun at him. For that alone, I was delighted. This third go-around had some really spectacular set pieces and an impressive cast. Our main character, a humble priest just trying to do his job, played by Josh O’Connor, was a huge highlight. Like Ana de Armas in Knives Out, he really brought some soul and goodness to the film. Ultimately, I felt like the ending was too contrived, even for a whodunnit. I just felt slightly unsatisfied by the end. But worth watching.

3/5 stars.

I haven’t finished the Malcolm in the Middle revival, but so far, so good. For now, I’ll direct you to the press junkets the cast is doing for the show. What a wonderful cast of humans that show has, truly. Bryan Cranston has been especially refreshing in his honesty in interviews, whether it’s talking about his restaurant pet peeve, encouraging Shia LeBeouf to get help, or talking about the half-sister he only met a few years ago:

Instagram post

🍝 What I ate

So much pasta in just 48 hours in Italy. Then pizza in the airport because I forgot to eat pizza while eating all that pasta. Also gelato, you know, for that Friday video. I had to for the integrity of the story I was telling. Anyway, just call me Pasta Dave now. That’s me.

😭 What I’m laughing at until I cry

A few months ago, I made a video then wrote a newsletter about how AI scrapes articles to generate lots of false information for Google searches. It’s so easy to deceive the internet these days. While my story about Sam the Spam can received some essential quotations, I would still say our experiment was successful:

How dare you put Sam’s “life” in quotes, Google.

And here’s a refresher on how this can happen:

Anyway, I was on Threads (don’t judge me), and stumbled across this terrible, wonderful post that also tricked an AI summary:

Kyle Hill (@sci_phile) on Threads

This is a culturally important series of posts

Threads

I’ll summarize the post for you (as a human). Someone wrote a long post explaining why buns are always askew in photos of Japanese food. It was genuinely very convincing, getting into the details, and using “postwar” Japan as the driving force of this phenomenon. It reminded me a lot of this Fred Armisen bit from a recent Amy Poehler podcast:

Well, like that Armisen bit, it was completely made-up. And to the credit of the commenter, they said that at the end of the comment. It was a real lesson in “read to the very end.” Well, AI did not read to the end. And these “facts” about Japanese food displays were presented as real.

It’s funny, it’s terrifying … it’s AI in 2026. I guess I’ll never run out of content for our weekly iDave series on AI, so that’s good? And I do love thinking of more opportunities to mess with AI.

Anyway, remember to comment all week in my videos, referring to me only as Pasta Dave. If you want to make your own video about that being my legal name, go for it! That’s me. Pasta Dave.

👨🏼‍💻 What I’m processing

Speaking of misinformation, I’ve been baffled the last week or so watching a completely unproven conspiracy theory get write-ups from all over the internet. Fox News, The Hill, and USA Today have all dedicated online ink to the theory that multiple scientists who have gone missing or died are all related. To their credit, some of these sites at least acknowledge the ties are “inconsistent.”

Also, most of these write-ups came after the White House said they were looking into it. This is somewhat funny for a few reasons. For starters, in some of the versions of this conspiracy theory, scientists have gone missing because of the government trying to shut them up. The other reason, which is perhaps less funny, is that this is clearly a welcome distraction for the White House as gas prices rise, the Epstein files just won’t quite go away and Trump’s approval ratings continue to fall.

I’m going to dig more into this conspiracy theory tomorrow, which will likely result in a Misinformation Monday video. As always, I’ll be happy to give credit to any part of this theory that holds some water. After all, the best lies have a little bit of truth. But ultimately, I hope to show that this is yet another example of how a conspiracy theory can take hold on the internet and snowball for various reasons.

Still here?

My favorite creator on Instagram just gets better and better. Since I first spoke about @husk.irl a few months ago, he’s caught the attention of Sam Altman. Afterwards, Husk expertly used Altman’s words against him, toying with his AI chatbot yet again. That video went uber viral.

But the follow-up was even better. After his viral success, he was invited onto NBC News to talk about Altman’s reaction. It’s worth a watch:

Instagram post

What’s in today’s issue

🥊 Trump vs. the Pope and the 25th Amendment

🤖 An AI too powerful for the public

🤑 Sustainable shoe company sells out

🐒 Chimp civil war?

Hi friends!

Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. While Dave and his LNI co-founders are on a grand tour of the world’s airports en route to a conference, my colleague Sarah and I are holding down the fort stateside. I feel a bit like a kid left home alone without a babysitter for the first time, and I’m excited to have you along for the ride. With that, let’s dive in to the news Dave has covered in the past week.

I’m sorry but the president calling the Pope “weak on crime” is actually hilarious

• The stuff that Pope Leo and Trump are fighting about is more serious, though. It’s not just the AI-generated photo depicting Trump as Jesus Christ. That includes Pope Leo calling the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants “extremely disrespectful, to say the least.” The Pope also shared an article critiquing JD Vance power ranking which groups he loves most and least. And he called Trump’s threat to wipe out Iran “truly unacceptable.” (The whole “Thou shalt not kill” thing is a pretty big deal.)

• It’s not just the Pope — Democrats in Congress are also escalating their fight against Trump. More than 85 House Democrats have called for his removal. 50 put their money where their mouth is and co-sponsored a bill to remove Trump via the 25th Amendment, which allows for a “written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

• The bill would create a commission to determine whether Trump is fit to continue being the president. Congressional leaders from both parties would appoint members to the commission, including former executive branch officials. Vice President JD Vance would then have to sign off, and two-thirds of Congress would have to sign off again after 21 days. But because Republicans control Congress and Trump is likely to veto the bill, it’s likely to fail.

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Why this AI model is freaking everyone out

• Anthropic — which gained folk hero status for defying the Trump administration after profiting off of that same administration — is developing something called Mythos. It’s designed to identify security vulnerabilities. And it’s really, really good at it.

• That’s great news if you want to find and fix those vulnerabilities. But it’s also great news if you want to find and exploit them. Because of that double-edged sword, and because of how powerful Mythos is, Anthropic isn’t releasing it publicly yet because it’s too powerful. Instead, it’s giving exclusive access to a few big tech companies so they can use Mythos to improve their systems.

• One cybersecurity expert told The New York Times that tech like this could make most or all software insecure. Anthropic says Mythos has already found huge vulnerabilities “in every major operating system and web browser.”

Millennial producer teaches Gen Z newsletter writer what Allbirds is

• It was a shoe company. And it had a reputation as an eco-friendly brand. But you know what’s more appealing than having a planet to live on? Cold hard cash. Allbirds is changing its name and pivoting to AI.

• What does that mean? Who knows! The clearest explanation I could find comes from the Associated Press, which reports that it will rent out “computing power to AI companies. That means selling access to a huge number of graphics processors, or other specialized AI computer chips.”

• AI hardware is contributing to a massive e-waste problem, which makes it kind of ironic that a company that built a reputation on sustainability is doing this, lol! Their stock soared when they announced the pivot, and then it dropped again. Look at this stock ticker! $BIRD ( ▲ 5.74% )  

Explaining the chimp civil war like it’s the Last Airbender intro

• Long ago (like 1995), three different clusters making up one large group of chimpanzees lived together in harmony in Ugandan forests. They hunted together, mated and hugged. It was nice!

• Then, everything changed in 2015. Not because the Fire Nation attacked. In fact, researchers don’t really know why. But Central and Western chimpanzees became wary of each other. Maybe it’s because social networks shifted after six chimps died of natural causes in 2014, or because of a change in alpha male the following year.

• Only the Eastern chimpanzees, although they’re allied with the Central cluster, remained mostly out of the ensuing conflict. The Western group killed at least six adults and 17 infants from the Central group, and fighting is ongoing.

• This brings us to our media literacy tip for this week from our friends at MediaWise!

Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the past week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. But because Dave was traveling for 48 hours through several rebooked and canceled flights, he’s asked me to ghost write his corner this week using four bullet points and two contextless photos he sent me. So for this week, I will be playing the role of Dave.

It’s me, Dave Jorgenson and definitely not Chris Vazquez or JD Vance, coming to you from Perugia, Italy. I love to be in Perugia, Italy and definitely not in a rocking chair in a Chicago apartment. Here’s a photo of me with LNI co-founders Lauren and Micah, plus a mysterious third man, to prove it.

Who is he? Only time will tell.

We’re here for the International Journalism Festival. It’s kinda like the in-person “Boy Meets World” reunion happening at Tribeca this year, except it’s about how to blend journalism and humor so it’s not like that at all. After braving airport chaos for two straight days, I made it to my panel with 15 minutes to spare. And it was worth it! Look how much fun everyone had!

I was definitely there, physically and emotionally, when this photo was taken.

The panel’s topic feels important right now. New research shows that young people want their news to be more fun. Plenty of journalists read that and balked at it, insisting that sometimes, the news just can’t be fun. And I get it. From wars and genocides abroad to fascism at home, there’s a lot of serious stuff happening that we don’t want to undermine. But if journalism scares people into doing nothing, it’s not living up to its core mission.

At LNI, we’re building something that leverages humor not to make light of or distract from how scary the world is right now, but to make it easier to engage with and learn about.

If you’re still here, you get two rewards. The first is a pet picture from a loyal reader. This is Lottie!

Lottie is enjoying her retirement after an illustrious career at a cat cafe.

Your second reward is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt, in which I hid a non-news link further up and you have to go find it and I wait to tell you what it is until we’re down here! What a fun game! You should go play it to increase our click rate!

This week, in the blurb about Mythos, I linked to a synopsis of the first issue of the Dark Phoenix Saga. Anthropic’s approach to this AI model is very Moira Running Tests On Jean At Muir Island coded. That reference was too niche to make in the actual blurb above, but the girls who get it get it.

Until next week!

Chris

What’s in today’s April 12th, 2026 issue

📄 What I’m reading: Claude Mythos Preview

🇮🇹 Where I’m going: Italy!

🍿 What I’m eating: Buncha Crunch popcorn

👀 What I’m watching: The Drama

﹖ What I’m wondering: Are people really leaving MAGA?

A still from last week’s Waffle House teleportation reenactment.

Do you ever just want to transport to a Waffle House and pretend everything is normal? Well, we don’t all have a FEMA official’s super powers. Instead, we have to confront our reality, which currently involves failed peace talks with Iran, ‘warflation’, and even MAGA media, including (pause for effect …) Alex Jones, doing a 180 on President Trump.

I’ll be tackling that in this week’s newsletter. But first, a quick summary of the rest of my week and what’s coming. And if you haven’t already, please help us beat Brian Tyler Cohen in the Webby category for ‘General Creator - News & Politics.’ He seems like a nice guy but we must defeat him. Vote here and confirm your vote via email!

Together, we can defeat the Brians and Tylers of the internet.

📄 Claude Mythos Preview

On Friday, I made a video explaining why Anthropic has been very publicly freaked out by its own latest AI creation. Claude Mythos was designed to detect weaknesses in cybersecurity and help fix them. Predictably, it’s doing that and more - finding its way to the internet without permission while its testers eat sandwiches in the park. It’s so good at what it does, it may actually be a problem. Many commenters astutely compared this to the plot of Avengers: Age of Ultron. 

Other commenters went a different direction, pointing out that this could very well be a marketing ploy, something tech companies - especially AI companies - are often guilty of doing. They don’t necessarily care if a product works, they’re just trying to hype their company up.

But everything I’ve read about this, including Anthropic’s own report, suggests otherwise. The New York Times interviewed many experts who all but confirmed this concern is legitimate and not a play for attention:

I also think it would be strange to make this claim while also sending out Mythos to other tech companies to test - companies that have also confirmed this tech could be dangerous. It would be a bit of a 4D chess marketing play to basically ask your competitors to critique your product.

Maybe the truth is not black and white. It could be both marketing and a legitimate concern from what is sometimes considered the more “moral” AI company. Whatever the case, I think erring on the side of caution is wise here.

I also think the many, many comments in our video on this that “it’s marketing” raise a tiny red flag in the back of my head. Dismissing these concerns altogether feels more like a coping strategy. We see it all the time, and it’s how misinformation spreads so easily. Maybe Trump went to war for some bigger reason we just don’t know about! There’s going to be a secret ninth Stranger Things episode that will explain all the plot holes! The sexual assault accusations against Eric Swalwell can’t be true - he was so outspoken during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings! And he’s a Democrat!

Sometimes it’s easier to avoid what is likely the truth so that we don’t have to admit to an awful reality.

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Your digital footprint starts before you can even walk.

In today’s data economy, “free” inboxes from Google and Microsoft, like Gmail and Outlook, are funded by data collection. Emails can be analyzed to personalize ads, train algorithms, and build long-term behavioral profiles to sell to third-party data brokers.

From family updates, school registrations, medical reports, to financial service emails, social media accounts, job applications, a digital identity can take shape long before someone understands what privacy means.

Privacy shouldn’t begin when you’re old enough to manage your settings. It should be the default from the start.

Proton Mail takes a different approach: no ads, no tracking, no data profiling — just private communication by default. Because the next generation deserves technology that protects them, not profiles them.

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🇮🇹 Where I’m going

Many professions have conferences in hotels, sometimes run by the companies themselves or a mysterious third party. As a rule, I’ve found that only one of these statements can be true, per conference:

• the location is amazing

• the programming is amazing

Somehow, the International Journalism Festival breaks the rules*. I’ve attended IJF once before, in 2023, and was blown away. The festival is contained to the town of Perugia, Italy. Journalists from all over the world descend upon this beautiful Italian town to have meaningful discussions, panels and meetings about the current state of journalism. Attendees are not all put in one giant Marriott hotel, but in several small, chic Italian hotels scattered throughout the city. Local restaurants open their doors to attendees, who are all given meal vouchers. The talks are open to the public, not just paying festival attendees.

Perugia, Italy.

This week, Lauren, Micah and I will head to Perugia for the conference, where I will speak on several panels and eat several plates of pasta. This time, I’m not going as a Washington Post reporter, but as a Local News International co-founder, ready to make waves locally and internationally. Don’t be surprised if a video this week unnecessarily includes gelato.

*please note that the conference rule is a joke. I just really love IJF in Perugia.

🍿 What I’m eating

Italy has captured my heart, but it has also captured the rights to my favorite movie theater candy. Buncha Crunch, along with several other Nestlé products, was sold to Ferrero Italia back in 2018. Luckily, this did not disrupt the candy’s presence in basically every movie theater in the U.S.

We come to this place for magic.

Last night, I continued my time-honored tradition of pouring the Buncha Crunch over my comically large bowl of popcorn. Before the internet, I thought this was an original concept I had developed in the mid-2000s while watching Superbad. But there are no original experiences, and I’ve seen talk of this method online since.

What’s your favorite movie snack hack (besides buying the Buncha Crunch at CVS and sneaking it in)? Let me know at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

👀 What I’m watching

Because movies don’t start until a half hour after they were scheduled to start, I had completely obliterated the popcorn and Buncha Crunch before The Drama had even begun. But this turned out to be a non-issue. I feasted instead on this amazing, second-hand-embarrassment-inducing black comedy for just under two hours.

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson are two of the best working actors in the world right now. Putting them together on screen for this perfectly written, directed and edited film feels like a special treat. Not to be dramatic, but I just kept thinking, “how lucky are we?” that they were both cast in The Drama. 

I went in mostly blind, so I don’t want to to spoil any big moments here. Instead I’ll leave you with two thoughts. This might be one of the best edited films I’ve ever seen. Any movie that causes the audience to ask their fellow movie-watchers “what would you do?” during the movie is doing something right. It’s just so engaging from beginning to end.

Final thought: bonus points for Alana Haim (from Licorice Pizza and, you know, HAIM). Her character is so awful and realistic, I’m going to need to watch her in something else just to separate the exceptional performance from the actress.

﹖ What I’m wondering

Candace Owens and Alex Jones have called for President Trump to be removed from office. And not just for some random conspiracy theory (Trump is not turning the freaking frogs gay), but because he has started a war without a clear plan or goal (a totally legitimate reason!).

Here in our little 2026 Earth multiverse timeline, Owens and Jones are in line with Democrats and some Republicans. They may not explicitly say that, but they are saying the same things. If we take a small step to the left (and I mean a small step), there’s Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson, publicly and passionately speaking out against President Trump. To quote Donald Trump Jr., the president was triggered:

I think this is an entire chapter of Ulysses.

As it stands, Trump’s approval rating is currently floating around -19 points.

The Economist

But with Republicans, it’s still quite high, around 80%. If we put on my “logical-and-void-of-emotion” hat, which I throw on when I’m not donning my “how funny can I make this news story” hat … is this current in-fighting significant? Or is just not manufactured drama? Has MAGA found the “bar” I joked about last November, or will they get back in lockstep by midterms?

I’m not sure. I don’t have a crystal ball. But I think if these right-wing forces continue to be critical of the president, and this isn’t a blip, it will be very bad for Trump (and he probably knows it).

If, for the first time, the majority of popular MAGA podcast hosts don’t let up on their criticism, it would be hard for their loyal listeners to turn anywhere else. As a result, I feel like I’ve seen more “why I left MAGA” videos on my social feeds lately:

@leavingmaga1

Why I’m feeling a lot of MAGA regret today #ileftmaga #leavingmaga #richlogis #maga #onebetrayaltoomany

Have you noticed an increase in these videos, or in posts from your friends and family? Or is this all imagined? I’m very curious and may use it for a video. Let me know at dave.jorgenson@LNI.media.

What’s in today’s issue

📜 Cease-fire deal

🤖 AI replacing laid-off workers

🐰 Trump’s bonkers Easter Sunday

🧇 Conspiracy theorist at FEMA

💵 Kansas City taxes

Hi friends!

Chris Vazquez, your Friday newsletter writer here. In a week defined by the threat of nuclear war and widespread layoffs, the news can be hard to stomach. That’s why so much of what we do here at LNI is rooted in humor, to not sugarcoat what’s happening around us, but to hopefully make it easier to digest. In partnership with our friends at MediaWise, we’re sharing a media literacy tip around exactly this.

We’ll be sharing one of these in each Friday newsletter going forward! Hooray! With that, let’s dive in.

Making sense of the cease-fire with Iran

• On Tuesday, the U.S. and Iran reached a cease-fire deal that includes plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Why does that matter? Lots of the world’s oil and liquified natural gas passes through the strait, and Iran retaliated against U.S.-Israeli attacks by attacking ships passing through it, effectively closing it off.

• At the time of writing this, uncertainty looms around whether the cease-fire will hold. Israel attacked Lebanon on Wednesday and killed over 200 people there, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Iran called the attack a violation of the cease-fire deal, and one Iranian official said ships would only be allowed to pass through the strait when U.S. aggression ends and Israel ends its attacks on Lebanon. The Israeli defense minister said the attacks were meant to target Hezbollah, but residents and officials said mostly civilians were killed. And before the war, Iran’s own crackdown on protesters killed more than 30,000 people by some estimates.

• So, what was the point of this war? Trump has talked about wanting to take Iranian oil, but Iran has leveraged its control over the world’s oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz. The administration has talked about seeking regime change, but even after the U.S. assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the rest of Iran’s power structure remains in tact, with Khamenei’s son Mojtaba now at the helm. The U.S. also wanted to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb, but there was never any evidence that Iran was close to building one.

Jobs are dwindling because of robots

• Tech giant Oracle laid off up to 18% of its workforce last week. The layoffs come as the company’s stock has fallen as it’s continued to borrow and spend tons of money for AI data centers. Other tech companies have similarly cut jobs, related to their AI investments.

• A 2025 MIT study found that 11.7% of the labor market could be replaced by AI. And a more recent analysis found that more than half of all jobs could be “reshaped” by AI over the next couple of years.

• As news stories like these continue to shape public opinion around AI, OpenAI has sought to regain control of the narrative by buying the Technology Business Programming Network. TBPN is a podcast that’s popular with tech bros that’s generally favorable toward Silicon Valley. OpenAI claims the show will remain “editorially independent.” But because the podcast team is reporting to an OpenAI executive, and because this structure violates pretty much every journalistic rule around independence, I do not believe them.

A timeline of Trump’s Easter

• While I was absolutely demolishing a salted caramel carrot cake I brought to an Easter brunch, President Donald Trump was at The White House Easter Egg Roll, a real event that I’ve never heard of and am resisting the urge to go down a rabbit hole learning about.

• At the event, Trump talked about an Air Force member who was shot down by Iran and rescued days later. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth compared the rescue to Jesus’ resurrection, continuing a pattern of using the war with Iran to promote Christian nationalism.

• During the Egg Roll, in front of children, Trump also boasted about weakening Iran since attacking the country in February. See the first blurb of this newsletter for more on how the extent to which the U.S. has much to boast about from this war is pretty debatable. Trump later told children about former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen. Trump has no evidence to back up allegations that Biden misused the autopen.

• During a press conference later that day, Trump threatened to jail a journalist for covering the military’s search for a missing Air Force crew members. Although he seemed to be singling out one unnamed reporter, multiple outlets have reported on this.

The (alleged) FEMA teleporter

• FEMA official Gregg Phillips claims he teleported to a Waffle House. He’s continued to stick to those claims.

• Phillips is a conspiracy theorist who has falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen. He has previously talked about wanting to punch Joe Biden and said he deserves to die.

• A New York Times reporter, in what actually is an exercise in good journalism but is still hilarious to me, interviewed Waffle House employees to double check whether Phillips teleported into one. The employees did not remember a man teleporting into any of their locations.

Happy belated Local News day! Here’s a story about Kansas City taxes

• Voters in Kansas City, where Dave lives, revived a 1% earnings tax. It’s the city’s largest revenue source. Many officials and union leaders endorsed the tax.

• Over 75% of voters opted to renew the tax for five more years. It applies to salaries and wages of people living and working in Kansas City, but not to retirement income.

• Voters will decide again whether to renew the tax in five years.

Each week, after running through the news Dave has covered in the past week, I turn things over to him for some analysis. Dave, take it away!

I’ve really put the “local” in “Local News International’ this week. First and foremost, we’re celebrating Local News Day. I grew up listening to local stations like KCUR and reading the Kansas City Star. I’ve got a lot of love for these local institutions. I was even in the Star!

I love a good green screen.

In the past few months, KCUR has been banished from its offices, forced to record radio news remotely. The Kansas City Star has slowly shrunk over the years. I was especially sad when they vacated their beautiful building after downsizing yet again.

The former KC Star glass building looms large over the city skyline.

Yet, these local institutions march on, committed to the same high quality journalism they’ve always produced. We’re thrilled to support them today and every day. And honestly, I’m very grateful for their boots on the ground journalism that I can use while making explainer videos. Not just in Kansas City, either. At the peak of ICE’s presence in Minneapolis, we relied on reporting from the Minneapolis Star Tribune and other sources on a daily basis - as did several national news outlets. 

My week started off in the most local newsroom of all - the University of Central Missouri’s newsroom. The Muleskinner (renamed in the 60s after a popular Dolly Parton song) is filled with talented, curious journalists. I was honored to speak with them and completely re-energized by their enthusiasm.

Monday with the Muleskinners!

If you made it all the way down here, you get two rewards. The first is a pet picture from a loyal reader. This is Sass!

hi sass

Your second reward is the reveal for this week’s link scavenger hunt, in which I hide a non-news related link somewhere above and wait until we’re down here to tell you what and where it is. This week, when writing about the alleged FEMA teleporter, I linked out to the character bio for my favorite teleporting superhero, Illyana Rasputina AKA Magik! There’s a fan fic about her trolling an anti-mutant official by teleporting him to a Georgia Waffle House just waiting to be written.

Until next week!

Chris