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.
Quick housekeeping: I’m wrapping up interviews from the holiday round of Life Story Magic. If you purchased one as a gift, just a reminder—they never expire, and I’m always happy to get it scheduled. I’ll also be kicking off a full Mother’s Day promotion soon.
Trump’s Signature to Appear on U.S. Paper Currency
He is set to be the first sitting president to have his name on American money, Treasury Department says
The Trump administration is putting President Trump’s signature on new U.S. paper currency in a first for a sitting president, the Treasury Department said Thursday. The department said Trump’s name would appear alongside that of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in honor of the country’s 250th anniversary later this year. “There is no more powerful way to recognize the historic achievements of our great country and President Donald J. Trump than U.S. dollar bills bearing his name,” Bessent said.
The administration has made several other moves to imprint Trump’s name and image around Washington, D.C. and on official items. A banner featuring Trump’s visage hangs from the Labor Department building. The U.S. Mint has proposed making a commemorative gold coin featuring the president, and officials have floated making a $1 coin with Trump’s face on it. Administration officials added his name to the Kennedy Center in Washington, which was created as a memorial to slain President John F. Kennedy. Trump’s name also appears on the U.S. Institute of Peace.
A federal panel this month approved the design for the gold coin, which features a grim-faced Trump on the front and an eagle on the reverse. Typically, U.S. presidents don’t appear on coins until after they are dead, though Calvin Coolidge was on a coin celebrating the country’s 150th anniversary.
Link: Wall Street Journal (Multiple reporters)
The Worst Airport in America
Traveling by plane anywhere is bad right now, but in some places, it’s worse
Airports—not sure if you’ve heard—are a mess. This is especially true this week, as a cascade of disasters (both preventable and not) have caused delays, outages, and long lines across the country. But the airport was a mess long before this week, and it will be long after. When I was first assigned to find the worst one in America, I felt for a minute like I’d been asked which Oreo flavor is the best, or which of my teeth is the toothiest: There are so many, and they all are.
But certain airports are more hated than others. Reagan, near D.C., because it has the most delays of any major airport; one in three of its flights was late in 2025. Dallas, because it is the biggest—flight-missingly, leg-destroyingly big, bigger than the island of Manhattan. Meanwhile, Hartsfield-Jackson, in Atlanta, is the world’s busiest: On any given good day, more people than live in the entire country of Barbados trudge through it.
Ultimately, all of this airport research took me to a dark place: Newark, New Jersey, whose airport has been found, variously, to offer the most stress, the worst food, the most travel disruptions, and the second-most delays (behind Reagan). On Yelp, where it has a lower rating than several nearby prisons, 1,100 one-star reviews refer to it with vocabulary such as chaotic, unacceptable, and hell on earth.
Link: The Atlantic (Ellen Cushing)
How American Camouflage Conquered the World
The world-famous MultiCam pattern was designed for the military by two Brooklyn hipsters. Now everyone—from babies to ICE agents—is suited up for battle
At the Brooklyn Navy Yard—once famous for building aircraft carriers, now better known for creative studios—a company called Crye Precision is one of the biggest tenants. Inside its gigantic warehouse space, rows of whirring sewing machines are stitching together garments made out of the most popular, renowned, and confusing textile of our time: MultiCam. MultiCam is so ubiquitous that you can buy a camping chair or baby carrier in the camouflage pattern. Arc’teryx and Outdoor Research make jackets in MultiCam. Perhaps most importantly, you may see this iteration of camo on police officers, SWAT teams, ICE agents, or your average January 6 rioter.
For its influence, the pattern has earned a place in MoMA’s permanent collection, a thrill to the Cooper Union art students who created it. In 2001, Crye Precision got its first military assignment: to make a prototype of a new kind of helmet. While the company was making it, 9/11 happened. With the announcement of the so-called War on Terror, Crye Precision took on a new challenge: camouflage. In the early 2000s, they presented their concept for multi-environment camo to the United States military and christened it MultiCam. The US Army rejected it in favor of Universal Camouflage Pattern (UCP)—a digital, pixelated pattern that became “one of the most dunked-on camo patterns of all time.”
But Special Forces started wearing MultiCam, and everyone wanted to emulate them. By 2010, when the Obama administration was trying to distance itself from Iraq, the military ditched UCP and turned to MultiCam. Today, the militaries of Australia, Georgia, Denmark, Belgium, Portugal, Argentina, Chile, Malta, and France all wear variants of MultiCam uniforms. Soldiers fighting for both Russia and Ukraine wear it too. Even the Taliban wear MultiCam.
Link: Wired (Avery Trufelman)
Women Are Being Abandoned by Their Partners on Hiking Trails. What’s Behind ‘Alpine Divorce’?
On social media, women describe alpine divorce as going on a hike with a male partner, only to be abandoned or left behind
Five years ago, MJ and a new partner traveled from Los Angeles to Utah for an adventure getaway. But on the morning of their big hike up Angel’s Landing in Zion, MJ was not feeling well. As they made their way up, MJ’s partner started walking faster than her. “I could tell it was getting on his nerves that I was slow,” she said. “I was like, ‘F*** it, just go ahead of me.’” He did without hesitation. When she caught up at the top, they took a picture together. Then her partner hiked down the mountain with a woman he had met on the way up, leaving MJ to finish by herself.
On social media, women describe alpine divorce as going on a hike, climb or other outdoor adventure with a male partner, only to be abandoned or left behind – perhaps he went too fast and neglected to wait, or a fight on the trail resulted in him storming off. Breakups have quickly followed. In a TikTok with more than 4.2m likes, a woman bawls as she takes shaky steps down a rock formation. “He left me by myself, I should have never come with him,” sobs the woman. Others flooded the comments section with stories about being served with an alpine divorce.
Last month, an amateur Austrian mountaineer was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter for leaving his exhausted girlfriend behind on his country’s highest peak while he went in search of help. The man could not explain why he failed to wrap his freezing girlfriend in her emergency blanket before heading down the mountain without her. A former girlfriend testified that he had left her behind on a trail during a hike in 2023.
Link: The Guardian (Multiple reporters)
Medical Mysteries: A Surgeon’s Ominous Pain and a Question of Grilled Meat
Thomas P. Trezona scoured the images of his CT scan, dreading the thing he was sure he would find: evidence of pancreatic cancer
Seated next to a radiologist, Thomas P. Trezona scoured the images of his CT scan, dreading evidence of pancreatic cancer, the same disease that had killed his mother. Given his age, sex and family history, that was the most likely explanation for the violent abdominal pain, nausea and rapid weight loss that hijacked the life of the retired surgical oncologist. To his enormous relief the scan showed no sign of cancer. But the cause of his debilitating symptoms, confirmed nearly two months later following surgery, turned out to be something no one suspected.
In late August, immediately after an MRI, his gastroenterologist called to say that while nothing was found to explain his pain, the radiologist had spotted something peculiar: an unidentified metal “artifact” in his left upper abdomen. The gastroenterologist recalled a patient who had suffered a microscopic perforation of the esophagus after unknowingly swallowing a wire bristle from a metal brush used to clean the grates of a barbecue grill. Such injuries are believed to be uncommon but underrecognized. In 2012 the CDC reported six cases at one Rhode Island hospital over 15 months; all were linked to the consumption of grilled meat.
On Sept. 13 the surgeon who removed Trezona’s gallbladder also managed to extract a small portion of abdominal tissue containing the two centimeter long wire. A few days later Trezona took a wire he had detached from his own grill brush to the pathology lab for comparison. Under the microscope it was an exact match down to the carbon pattern, which was determined to be burned barbecue sauce.
Link: Washington Post (Sandra G. Boodman)
How Much Do College Players Really Get Paid? Schools Don’t Want You to Know
The opacity means fans can’t fully understand the issue causing seismic shifts across college sports — even if they’re directly or indirectly paying for it
One of the most common questions among college sports fans is also one of the hardest to answer. How much are players getting paid? The answer is unverifiable because programs treat revenue-sharing documents as literal state secrets. The Athletic has requested payrolls and budgets from more than 70 schools since it became legal for them to pay players directly July 1. Only one — James Madison — provided a payroll with redacted names. Seven provided sport-by-sport breakdowns or aggregate figures. The rest have either ignored requests or denied them.
Most schools claimed their release would violate student privacy laws or disclose trade secrets. Texas said the documents must be shielded to protect the Longhorns’ “ability to compete with other top athletics programs.” Wisconsin argued publicizing its budget “would jeopardize the competitive position of the university.” Without transparency, programs risk being extorted by often-uncertified agents inflating the market with offers that might not exist.
If unverifiable figures are driving up rates, programs are paying for it. One way or another, you might be, too. Lawmakers in Hawaii and New Mexico have discussed steering state funds to player compensation. Ticket surcharges have popped up from Tennessee to Illinois State, and West Virginia increased student fees. The general strain from an added expense of up to $20.5 million is fueling Utah and other schools to consider private equity.
Link: The Athletic (Matt Baker)
A U.S. Citizen Now Runs Mexico’s Top Drug Cartel—and Targeting Him Is Complicated
The California-born stepson of the late kingpin ‘El Mencho’ enjoys constitutional protections other capos could only dream of
Juan Carlos Valencia González, the new kingpin, is the stepson of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka ‘El Mencho.’ U.S. intelligence agencies may now face legal hurdles in directly targeting and collecting personal data on Valencia González because of his place of birth. Under the rules for surveilling Americans overseas, the U.S. would usually need to get signoff from the attorney general, and also persuade a secret foreign intelligence surveillance court that Valencia González is acting as an “agent of a foreign power” such as an international terrorist group. Although the hurdles are surmountable, the additional procedural requirements could hobble a fast-moving operation.
High-definition surveillance provided by CIA drones was crucial in eliminating the previous boss. At Mexico’s request, the CIA positioned an unarmed Predator drone over a Tapalpa vacation compound. Intelligence officials reasoned that the man had to be Oseguera himself, since who else would dare be so familiar with the capo’s girlfriend? Within hours, Mexican special forces stormed the hideout, killing Oseguera and eight of his bodyguards.
Valencia González’s citizenship would dramatically raise the stakes should Trump follow through with his publicly expressed desire to carry out targeted assassinations against Mexican drug lords. Valencia González comes from drug dealer royalty on both sides of the family. His biological father founded the Milenio Cartel in the 1970s. His mother ran the sophisticated financial arm of Oseguera’s Jalisco cartel.
Link: Wall Street Journal (Multiple reporters)