Hello, readers – happy Friday! Today, we’ll be talking about the Diddy trial, more Big Beautiful Bill drama, another Israel deal, the Dalai Lama, CECOT, the jobs market, and tick-borne meat allergies. 

Here’s the good news: on Tuesday, the city of Flint, Michigan completed a project replacing all of its lead pipes. In total, almost 11,000 pipes were replaced over the course of eight years.

“If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.” – Louis Brandeis

Diddy Dodges Decades In Detention

A few days ago, Sean “Diddy” Combs was staring down the barrel of multiple life sentences in prison. The five charges against him included two counts of sex trafficking (10 years to life in prison per charge), one count of racketeering (also 10 years to life), and two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution (0 to 10 years in prison). Yesterday, a jury of eight men and four women found Diddy not guilty of the sex trafficking and racketeering charges, while finding him guilty on the transportation charges. 

What does all this legalese really mean, though? The racketeering charges were basically accusations that Diddy was organizing and operating a criminal enterprise, which he allegedly  used to commit arson, bribery, kidnapping, and sex trafficking. Meanwhile, Diddy’s lawyers claimed that, because his employees were supposedly not aware of the “freakoff” sex parties that the case and sex trafficking charges revolved around, the defendant couldn’t be guilty of racketeering. Racketeering charges require a coordinated plan between at least two members of the alleged criminal enterprise, and prosecutors weren’t able to dig up evidence of such a plan in Diddy’s case.

Currently, Diddy is set to return to court on October 3 for sentencing, though his lawyers have requested a sooner date. Over the next three months, the music mogul will remain in jail with no bail, as the judge has ruled him a flight risk. Each of the transportation charges comes with a maximum of 10 years in prison with no minimum, so Diddy will likely just face a few years in prison after dodging the most serious charges – on good behavior, that prison time could be cut in half again.

Another Rush For Republicans

Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill barely passed the Senate early on Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaking vote pushing it over the edge in a 51-50 vote. But thanks to the changes that Senate Republicans made to the bill, the legislation will have to be re-approved by the House before it’s allowed to end up on the president’s desk.

Trump wants to rush the 800-page bill through before July 4 in order to have a nice political victory on the day of America’s 250th birthday. House Republicans in tightly-contested districts, however, want a chance to actually read the bill – or at least a few pages of it – before they cast their votes. Other holdouts include moderates who think the bill is making too many social welfare cuts, and fiscal conservatives who are worried about it racking up $3.3 trillion in national debt over the next decade. With Republicans holding a 220-212 majority in the House, just a few pairs of cold feet could scuttle Trump’s big deal. 

At time of writing, GOP lawmakers are still at a standstill. Holdouts are being shuttled back and forth between the Capitol and the White House, where Trump and other Republican leaders are presumably pressuring them to vote for the bill. At midnight Eastern Time, there were still a dozen holdouts – if every House member votes, Republicans can afford just three “no” votes from their own ranks. 

This Deal Is Definitely The Real Deal… Right?

• Wait… have we been here before? Yesterday, both Trump and Israel announced that they’d agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza – the deal was written by Qatar and backed by the White House, and is currently being considered by Hamas. In announcing the deal, Trump described the ceasefire as a “final proposal,” though it’s not clear how a 60-day pause would be “final.”

• Making things even more complicated was a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Hamas examined the deal. “There will be no Hamas” in post-war Gaza, promised the prime minister. “There will be no ‘Hamastan.’ We’re not going back to that. It’s over.” Sounds like something Hamas might agree to!

• As for the terms of the deal, one Israeli official leaked to the press that it would likely see Hamas trade multiple hostages for a partial IDF withdrawal from Gaza and the return of large amounts of humanitarian aid to the enclave. Previous similar deals have involved roughly 10 hostages, though Hamas has said it would hand over its remaining 50 hostages if the war is ended and the IDF fully withdraws from Gaza.

The Dalai Lama Lives On

• The Dalai Lama is back, despite never being gone in the first place. Yesterday, the Tibetan spiritual leader announced that Tibet’s Buddhist tradition would continue on even after he passes away, as a new Dalai Lama – which his followers believe to be his reincarnation – will be discovered and selected in accordance with Buddhist rules. Prior to his announcement, it was not clear that the tradition would outlive the current Dalai Lama due to pressure from China.

• According to Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, the Gaden Phodrang Trust will be in charge of finding and training his successor. He established the trust in 2015 in order to oversee everything Dalai Lama-related, especially as Beijing has tried to gain influence over Tibetan Buddhism in order better control Tibet’s population. “No one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” the Dalai Lama said, adding that the search for his reincarnation should be conducted in “accordance with past tradition.”

More Mixed Nuts

• Israeli military used 225kg bomb in strike on Gaza cafe, fragments reveal (Guardian)

• US contractors say their colleagues are firing live ammo as Palestinians seek food in Gaza (AP) 

• Ukraine fears increased Russian aggression after US halt of weapons supply (BBC) 

• Pentagon says US strikes set back Iran nuclear program ‘one to two years’ (Guardian)

• Russia-Azerbaijan Tensions Soar, Threatening Moscow’s Influence (NYT, $)

Seeing Behind CECOT’s Curtain

• Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia is a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador by the Trump White House earlier this year. His deportation was based on certain tattoos on his body, which were incorrectly identified as markers of gang affiliations. After months of activism calling for his release, Abrego Garcia was eventually brought back to the U.S., where he’s currently being held in a Nashville detention center as he faces a criminal case. 

• As part of that case, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers are detailing his three-month stay in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. One night, said his lawyers, Abrego Garcia and 20 others “were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM.” During that time, Salvadorian guards beat anyone who keeled over from sleep exhaustion, and “Abrego Garcia was denied bathroom access and soiled himself.” Besides that exercise in cruelty, inmates were also forced to sleep on metal bunks with no mattresses in windowless cells where the lights were kept on 24/7. 

Spring Is Pink Slip Season

• How is America’s economy looking? Not so good. Yesterday, an employment data report showed that the U.S. private sector lost 33,000 employees over the past three months, marking the first negative jobs quarter in over two years. While the data, published by payroll provider ADP, might not fully match federal jobs numbers, economists were predicting that the private sector would add more than 115,000 jobs over the April-June quarter. Ouch.

• Even the largest company in the world (by market capitalization, at least) is feeling the heat. Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it would be culling roughly 9,000 employees – 4% of its workforce – though those layoffs will be recorded in the Q3 jobs numbers. The tech giant raked in profits of $26 billion from January to March this year, and executives have also promised that the company will see a 14% increase in revenue during this year’s April-June quarter compared to 2025’s, so the company isn’t facing much actual financial pressure. However, it’s probably forecasting that it needs to cut some people in order to keep hitting record-breaking profits next quarter. 

More Nuts In America

• Wisconsin Supreme Court Strikes Down 1849 Abortion Ban (NYT, $)

• New York Is Hungry for a Big Grocery Experiment (Atlantic)

• Bryan Kohberger Pleads Guilty to Killing 4 Idaho Students (NYT, $)

• Judge blocks order barring asylum access at border and gives administration two weeks to appeal (AP)

• US Senate strikes AI regulation ban from Trump megabill (Reuters)

Tick Tock, The Meat-Allergy Ticks Are Coming For You

• The U.S. is being invaded by bugs that can make you allergic to meat, which is possibly the worst fate any American can imagine. According to entomologists (bug scientists) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), a dangerous type of tick called the lone star tick is becoming increasingly common across the continental U.S. 

• Lone star ticks are unusually aggressive for bugs of their kind, and their bites can cause alpha-gal syndrome, a condition which can make people react to eating meat with a variety of allergic reactions, ranging from hives to heart attacks. Experts say that the ticks are becoming more widespread because global warming is making colder climates more hospitable for them. Their range is soon expected to reach from Florida to Maine, though they likely won’t go as far west as the Rocky Mountains.

• According to the CDC, 110,000 cases of alpha-gal syndrome have been recorded in the U.S. since 2010, but because it can be vastly underreported, the agency estimates that up to 450,000 Americans might have the condition. Unlike normal allergies, alpha-gal symptoms surface hours after eating meat – the reaction is actually caused by contact with a carbohydrate named alpha-gal, which can also be found in toothpaste and certain medications. Is this Mother Earth punishing Americans for consuming too much meat? Probably not, but it’s definitely kind of poetic.

More Loose Nuts

• Hurricane Science Was Great While It Lasted (Atlantic)

• Tesla reports 14 percent drop in second-quarter vehicle deliveries (Verge)

• US to breed billions of flies and dump them out of aircraft in bid to fight flesh-eating maggot (Guardian)

• The Trend Disrupting Conventional Housing Wisdom (Atlantic) 

• Millions of websites to get 'game-changing' AI bot blocker (BBC)

• Racist videos made with AI are going viral on TikTok (Verge)

• Luke Littler May Be Darts’ First Global Superstar (NYT, $)

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