Free for ALL Friday!
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Quick note: On Monday, I’ll have one last, limited Founding Customer offer to share for Life Story Magic. If you’d like to take advantage, please keep a lookout! The newsletter goes out at 7 a.m. E.T.
With that, it’s Free for All Friday ….
Free for ALL Friday
Senate Deadlocks on Health Care, Leaving Subsidies to Expire
The Senate on Thursday deadlocked on competing proposals to avert rising health care premiums, blocking Democratic and Republican alternatives in an outcome that made it all but certain that expanded tax subsidies for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act will expire at the end of the month.
Republicans squelched a bid by Democrats, who had demanded action on the issue during the 43-day government shutdown, to extend the insurance subsidies for three years.
Democrats turned back a Republican alternative that would replace the subsidies with an expansion of tax-advantaged health savings accounts and direct payments of up to $1,500 to people who buy the most basic health insurance plans.
Neither proposal could muster the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster and move ahead, a long-expected result that teed up a brutal battle over health care that is likely to shape the fight for control of Congress next year.
When Did the Job Market Get So Rude?
Employer ghosting is on the rise. Now candidates are punching back.
Recently, I’m ashamed to admit, I received an email that initially made me feel warm, human, even grateful: a rejection for a job I’d applied to. But my thankful feelings quickly curdled into self-loathing—the nausea one gets when looking back over pathetic, paragraphs-long texts to an ex, whose monosyllabic responses suggested they’d clearly moved on. The rejection was a form letter, not even a late-round, personalized “we gave you serious consideration but ultimately decided to hire a VP’s nephew” message. I was so accustomed to being treated with indifference, I realized, that the barest acknowledgment of my existence felt like a win.
The code of what behavior is and isn’t acceptable seems to have broken down. Ghosting has become more rampant not just by employers but also by job seekers. In 2024, candidates reviewing employers on the website Glassdoor used the term ghosting nearly three times as much as they did in 2020. And a 2023 Indeed survey of job seekers found that 62 percent of respondents planned to ghost a prospective employer in a future job search, compared with only 37 percent in 2019.
Today, many people on both sides of the hiring equation—whether because of convenience, self-protection, or resentment—have abandoned even the pretense of courtesy, resulting in a job market that’s as rude as it is dysfunctional.
Mariah Carey is Back at No. 1 With ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’
In 2019, Lil Nas X set a record that looked likely to stand for a while: His song “Old Town Road (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus)” held down the No. 1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 for an astounding 19 weeks. Last year, Shaboozey matched that feat with another country/hip-hop hybrid: “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
That’s not to suggest that “Old Town Road” and “A Bar Song” are the two biggest hits of all time. They’re merely beneficiaries of a streaming landscape in which listeners are continually fed the same songs they’ve already enjoyed; that’s led to epic chart runs that have made it harder than ever for new songs to break through.
This week, Lil Nas X and Shaboozey are joined in the record books by… well, truly one of the biggest hits of all time, as Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” leaps to No. 1 and secures its own 19th week atop the Hot 100. The song, which came out in 1994 and first hit the top 10 in 2017, has now led the chart for the last seven holiday seasons. To call that an all-time record is an understatement: Only one song in history has made it to No.1 for two separate chart runs: Chubby Checker’s 1960 classic “The Twist.”
Ozempic is Changing How We Spend Money and Time, Plus What We Eat
Industry insiders are gearing up for weight-loss drugs to shake up the consumer economy as they seep into every sector — including apparel, restaurants, grocery, gyms and travel. They are causing a “psychological shift” for the people taking them, said Ali Furman, a partner in PwC’s U.S. consumer markets division. As their bodies change, she said, so are their decisions on how to spend their time and money.
In just over a year, the percentage of U.S. adults taking drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound more than doubled to 12.4 percent, according to Gallup. The survey also reported that the obesity rate fell from almost 40 percent in 2022 to 37 percent in 2025. Some companies are already responding by acquiring health food brands, renovating hotel gyms and changing lunch menus. But that’s only scratching the surface, said Diana Melencio, a partner at XRC Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm.
“It’s revolutionary,” she said. “GLP-1s will play a huge role in society.”
Take a ride with us to see how these drugs are reshaping the consumer economy and what companies are doing to adapt.
Inside Ukraine’s Daring Drone Attack on Russia
Kyiv’s plan to smuggle more than 100 drones into enemy territory required meticulous planning, high-tech gadgets—and luck.
KYIV, Ukraine—One of the most audacious covert operations in modern warfare almost fell apart when a Russian truck driver placed a panicked call to the Ukrainian who had hired him.
The roof of the pre-fabricated cabin on the back of his truck had slid off, the driver said, revealing an unexpected and illicit cargo. “This is some kind of bulls—,” the driver told the transport manager, Artem Tymofeyev. “There are drones under the roof.”
“What the f—?” replied Tymofeyev, feigning ignorance.
In fact, the drones were part of a clandestine operation planned by the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, targeting Russia’s massive bomber fleet, which was terrorizing Ukrainian cities. Tymofeyev, a 37-year-old Ukrainian based in Russia, was the main on-the-ground coordinator.
Back in Kyiv, the operation’s planners were sweating, according to people involved in it. What if the trucker couldn’t get the roof back on? What if Russian security services were watching him? What if he told his wife, and she told friends?
They came up with a just-about-plausible explanation to relay back to the driver: The cabins were hunting lodges with drones used for tracking animals across large areas.
The driver soon texted Tymofeyev with a photo of the roof placed back atop the cabin and a single word: “Closed.” Operation Spiderweb was back on.
Five days later, on the morning of June 1, more than 100 drones emerged from cabins on the back of four trucks and swooped toward four Russian airfields. For the drone pilots hundreds of miles away in Kyiv, the defenseless warplanes were like fish in a barrel. An hour later, dozens of Russian warplanes had been destroyed or damaged.
‘It Didn’t Work Bro I’m Still Here’: Kids Brag as They Beat Social Media Ban
While some children under 16 woke up to the discovery they had been booted from the social media platforms they know and love, others got to spend Wednesday morning living life like it was a regular day – because nothing had changed for them.
Within hours of Australia’s world-leading social media ban officially coming into effect, Communications Minister Anika Wells said more than 200,000 TikTok accounts belonging to users believed to be aged under 16 had been deactivated. But many young people purporting to be under 16 remain on the age-restricted platform, and are happily gloating about it.
“Dear Anthony Alabanese [sic], I got past your ban,” one user wrote in a TikTok video that was flooded with comments from users claiming to be under 16, living in Australia, and still on the platform on Wednesday morning.
Some have taken to time-stamping their victory, with common comments taking the format: “We still standing its [sic] 10 dec 8.05[am].” Another simply quoted lyrics from Elton John’s hit I’m Still Standing in celebration.
Others say they have been booted from their main TikTok accounts but can access the app through their secret back-ups. Some say they’ve been banned on one platform, such as Snapchat or Instagram, but can use others, such as TikTok.
“Hey mate still here,” one user wrote underneath a TikTok video Albanese shared on Wednesday morning spruiking the ban.
“It didn’t work bro I’m still here,” another wrote.
Data Centers Are a ‘Gold Rush’ for Construction Workers
Surging demand means six-figure pay and more perks.
DeMond Chambliss used to run himself ragged with the small contracting business he owned in Columbus, Ohio: hanging drywall, chasing clients for payments and managing half a dozen employees.
Since April, Chambliss has worked the night shift overseeing a team of 200 welders, plumbers and electricians at a local data-center construction site. He makes more than $100,000 a year—a significant increase from his previous pay—cruising around on a buggy under floodlights, overseeing deliveries and equipment and ensuring everything stays on schedule.
“I pinch myself going to work every day,” the 51-year-old said.
An investment boom in artificial intelligence is creating a thirst for massive data centers—and a bonanza for the workers building them. It is unclear how long that boom will last, but for now, workers like Chambliss are cashing in on high demand for their services. They are enjoying the trappings including perks, bonuses and, in many cases, pay boosts.
Data centers don’t employ many workers once they are actually built. During construction, though, they are a hive of workers pouring concrete walls and foundations, wiring electric panels and installing equipment such as power generators and chillers to ensure servers are cooled to a precise temperature at all times.
“It’s like the gold rush,” Chambliss said.