Free for ALL Friday!
It's Free for All Friday!
It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
AP Exclusive: ICE Officer in Maine Shooting Has History of Violent Behavior
David Brouillette, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot a Colombian man in Maine this week is an Army veteran who has struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood and never should have been given a badge and gun to patrol American streets, several of his close relatives told The Associated Press.
Brouillette has a history of terrifying and violent behavior, according to those relatives. They accuse him of attacking women in his life over the years, and one shared a voicemail with the AP from last winter in which he told her that he thought someone should slit her throat.
Brouillette’s troubling past further challenges how thoroughly the Department of Homeland Security has vetted recruits. According to [his ex-wife], Ashley Brouillette, he once threw boiling water at her while she was holding their child — an incident her mother Avis Collins also recounted.
When reached for comment about Brouillette’s record and his role in Monday’s shooting, ICE spokesperson Lauren Bis said in a statement that, “We will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers ...”
Link: Associated Press
In a Protein-Maxxing Era, Men Want Tight Suits
Forget the muscle tank. This is muscle tailoring.
Louis Theroux’s 2026 documentary “Inside the Manosphere” features extreme views on the patriarchy, fast cars—and some very tight suits.
Justin Waller, an internet personality featured in the film, is basically Incredible Hulk-ing out of his tailoring. So was UFC fighter Conor McGregor when he met with President Trump at the White House last year. McGregor’s biceps bulged like grapefruits in his chalk-stripe jacket.
Forget the muscle tank. This is the muscle suit. The sorts of macho men hogging the spotlight in 2026 are often choosing super-slim cuts that flaunt their pecs—and shunning classic tailoring conventions like “drape.”
Link: Wall Street Journal (Jamie Waters)
Should You Recline Your Airplane Seat?
To me, the answer to this is simple: Yes, if you want to, and you try not to be a jerk about it. But, I recognize other people see it differently.
In 2014, when FiveThirtyEight asked around a thousand fliers what they thought about reclining their seats, forty-one per cent of them said that reclining was rude.
That number seems to have risen: in 2022, Eric Jones, a math professor who writes about travel statistics on the website The Vacationer, conducted a similar survey, and found that seventy-seven per cent of respondents objected to reclining.
According to Jones’s survey data, roughly half of fliers find reclining so reprehensible that they simply won’t do it; another third believe it to be rude but will still sometimes recline; and the remainder find nothing wrong with reclining.
Link: New Yorker
Backup: https://archive.ph/jNONA
Kalshi Will Offer Sports-Style Betting on Drug Trial Results
The prediction market platform is expanding into biotechnology, letting investors bet directly on clinical trial outcomes and regulatory decisions
Kalshi Inc. is expanding in biotechnology by offering wagers on the outcomes of clinical trials and regulatory decisions, giving traders a more direct way to bet on key industry catalysts.
Healthcare is so far a relatively small market for Kalshi. In the last week of June, the platform hosted $3.6 million of trading on all science and technology topics, while sports attracted $5.4 billion, according to user-compiled data from Dune Analytics.
Critics say these kinds of bets create an incentive to trade on nonpublic information, potentially influencing ongoing clinical trials or distorting thinly traded markets. Kalshi plans to use employment verification to monitor for insider trading, similar to how it handles other wagers about corporate data.
Anne Wojcicki, the co-founder of genetics-testing firm 23andMe, also provided input as an unpaid consultant. In an interview, Wojcicki said she sees Kalshi’s initiative as a valuable tool for patients.
Link: Bloomberg (Madison Muller)
Why America Loses at Soccer But Dominates Elsewhere
American soccer develops customers, not players
In 2015, Manchester United paid Bayern Munich about $10 million for their star player, Bastian Schweinsteiger. He was 30 years old, closer to retirement than his prime. But a small Bavarian club you’ve probably never heard of got a check for ~$42,000.
That tiny club, TSV 1860 Rosenheim, had nothing to do with Schweinsteiger’s transfer. You would have had to go back almost 20 years for when he trained with this club as a boy. Under FIFA’s rules, this connection is enough to open the financial pipes so TSV 1860 Rosenheim benefits.
The rules give a claim to every club that helps develop a player from age 12 onward. In addition, every time a player is transferred internationally for the rest of their career, 5% of the fee flows back down the financial pipes throughout their development history.
A year before the Schweinsteiger and Manchester United deal, Tottenham Hotspur paid a reported $4 million for DeAndre Yedlin in 2014.
Yedlin cut his teeth in the Seattle Sounders academy, but had also spent years at Crossfire Premier, a youth club in the Seattle suburbs.
Under the same rules that paid Schweinsteiger’s youth club, Crossfire was owed its cut. Tottenham had already paid the full fee to the Seattle Sounders, relying on guidance from U.S. Soccer Federation that no “solidarity money” needed to be set aside.
So even though Crossfire did everything right and spent years helping develop Yedlin, it collected nothing because its own federation told the buyer, “Don’t worry about it.” Elite pathways range from $8,000 to even over $20,000 annually. Some 70% of youth players quit by age 14 according to U.S. Soccer’s own research.
Link: Poli’s Pandit (John Polonis)
The Fight Over Humanoid Robots Has Shut Down a Car Factory for the First Time
Auto workers for Hyundai Motor in South Korea are on a partial strike worried about their future job prospects
When Hyundai Motor unveiled its new humanoid robot worker named “Atlas” in January, tens of thousands of Korean auto employees gaped at the 6-foot-2 robot strutting across a trade-show stage, its joints swiveling a full 360 degrees.
This week, Hyundai’s auto workers in South Korea have gone on a partial strike. It is the car industry’s first factory stoppage addressing humanoid robots. The streets of Hyundai’s main auto-production hub in the city of Ulsan are lined with banners demanding “pre-emptive action” in response to the threat.
“We have to prepare to ensure there are safeguards in place,” said Byun Jun-hwan, the union’s secretary-general and one of the lead labor negotiators.
In response, Hyundai’s union has made unprecedented demands seeking to enshrine job protections in the era of robots and AI. For the first time, they requested a shift from hourly pay to a fixed salary for production workers to guard against a potential reduction in work hours brought on by automation.
Workers want to lift the retirement age by five years to 65, on top of other job-security guarantees related to AI adoption. After talks broke down last week, Hyundai’s workers decided to go on a partial strike.
A single Atlas costs an estimated $130,000 per unit, according to a research institute owned by the South Korean government. The robot’s cost savings pay for itself within about two years.
Link: Wall Street Journal
Trump Derangement Syndrome Is Getting in the Way of My Love Life
I got sucked into this article, and almost used it as the jumping-off for an entire newsletter, but then decided it was just too much. It’s an op-ed written by an apparently widowed and/or divorced man, likely approaching age 80, who is back in the “dating pool” and complains that women won’t give him a chance because of his MAGA politics.
I recently entered the online dating scene and have met nice women for ... lunches or dinners. ... After I thanked one, I got a thanks back with an additional note:
“I never asked you about your political views. I have no problem with Republicans, but if you are a MAGA Republican, it would be difficult for us to develop a friendship.”
Wow. That comment threw me for a loop, but it made me reflect on the bitter divisions within the country. It is literally a civil war.
...
The heavily leftward-biased traditional media (but also those on the right) is at fault for much of this. Objective facts are pushed aside, and spin is put in their place. Trump can do no right (or wrong). There’s no question that Trump is bombastic, but I personally believe that the country is in a far better place with him as president than it would have been under a Harris presidency.
I guess I’m MAGA-light. America must be great again. Trump is trying (and sometimes, to me, very trying). But he has us on the right path. God bless America!
Link: The Columbus Dispatch
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend. See you in the comments!