A thought that occurred to me editing this blog: subscriber goal for enough money to make an Aftermath-branded bike helmet that has the anti-magpie spikes built in?

As long as there has been a @hellgatenyc.com, there have been people asking us for a Hell Gate T-shirt. This year, we are giving the people what they want. Shirts are available to Hell Gate Believer-level subscribers. And right now, those subscriptions are on sale: hellgatenyc.com/finally-a-he...

We're starting our first ever sale today on Rogue subscriptions. We have some big changes to our benefits coming next week that we're all really excited about. So, please, share this with a friend or jump in to gain access to our new Discord (just in time for Next Fest!)

Inside Microsoft’s big Xbox leadership shake-up. Microsoft has a new gaming CEO who wants to bring Xbox back from the brink. I've been speaking to Xbox employees about how it all went down. Gift link for emergency Notepad issue this week 👇 www.theverge.com/tech/883015/...

I am here to *not* recommend attempting to learn about rugby through a video game, nor attempting to learn about sports video games through a rugby game

The headlines about the city being “pummeled” by a “blizzard” fail to capture the joy of slogging around in the park throwing myself into snowdrifts while yelling “Yay!”

Deliveristas ending their shift and about to head home over the Williamsburg Bridge, though the blizzard. One of them, Salvador,tells me he’s happy for the cutoff by the city. “This is more dangerous than last snowstorm, harder to move in,” he tells me in Spanish.

I still have the article my local paper wrote when I got some of my plays staged at 16 and which included a poem I wrote for class about going to the Matt Shepard march in NYC that felt so bold to share bc it outed me to the whole town. It felt like such a big deal, and it's sad to lose that

Musk reportedly delayed an entire Grok update and pulled top engineers off separate projects because of Baldur's Gate 3.

Another Tencent story I'd been chasing: TiMi Montreal, founded in 2021 with ambitions to make a AAA open-world game, has closed Continuing a brutal stretch of shutdowns. And another instance of Chinese game giants pulling back from their western studio start-ups www.gamefile.news/p/tencent-ti...

See you Monday with a thrilling new entry for Aftermath's "regret" tag

JD Vance personally invited Pope Leo to the U.S. 250th celebration on the 4th of July. Today the Vatican announced Leo will be spending the day with migrants instead.

I had really good luck with this last year and it was 100% a net positive and I am trying to do it again this year and am... failing aggressively aftermath.site/reels-shorts...

this game had everything from some of the best performances from world class players and some killer tries to english fans getting upset and leaving early and the referee going off injured it ruled

I told myself I wasn't going to watch Wales but they've roped me in here, I'm just such a sucker for an underdog

Huge story by Georgia. Flagged by an automated review system, debated by "about a dozen staffers," and OpenAI did nothing.

based on how today's xbox reshuffling played out and who's taking over, I doubt things are about to get better for xbox devs and fans any time soon. but phil spencer's departure, like that of great many video game execs, is long overdue

My copy of an RPG about making a religion arrived today and it's annoying I no longer live near @jackjenkins.me, obviously the ideal person to play it with cmichpress.com/product/keep...

NEW: After years of bargaining, unionized editorial staff at Fortune have won their first contract for both digital and print employees with @nyguild.bsky.social! The deal lifts wages 11% for the life of the deal, provides job security protections and more. newsguild.org/staff-at-for...

Well this tariffs press conference is going exactly how I assumed it would, but is somehow still insane

::bangs table:: splice splice splice

This story was fun to write bc it’s mostly older trans guys being like “we used to bind uphill both ways in the snow” But in all seriousness, binding used to be the wild west. Duct tape, electrical tape, ACE bandages. Now we have good products. But the FDA is cracking down on those. Read more:

Things clearly not helping my ever-worsening anxiety: email subject lines

BREAKING: The Supreme Court STRIKES DOWN Trump's "emergency" tariffs. The vote is 6–3. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

Game weird/good/good weird

Dug into this absolutely wild thing happening to Finji. The deeper I read into their increasingly baffling conversations with TikTok "support" the more I felt like I was on something. www.ign.com/articles/tun...

gift link if you wanna cry in the middle of a thursday share.inquirer.com/NOjBjO

The mod that makes The Sims 4 sexy: aftermath.site/sims-4-wicked-...

OK I went down the hole on this and *this* certainly seems telling www.businessinsider.com/how-hedge-fu...

Literally anyone explain this argument to me news.polymarket.com/p/polymarket...

BREAKING — WE WON! DC Superior Court Judge Darlene Soltys ordered the DC Metropolitan Police to produce ALL body cam footage of the March 2025 DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace within 14 days. Thanks to my @rcfp.org lawyers for their tireless work. Details on thehandbasket.co later today!

"Two-year-old Nazgul was quickly collared by race officials and returned unharmed to his home at a nearby bed-and-breakfast... Race organizers did not make Nazgul available for questions after his capture." www.npr.org/2026/02/18/n...

NEW: Highguard studio Wildlight's secret financial backer was Tencent, sources tell me www.gamefile.news/p/tencent-hi...

“We have lost all faith in your abilities to manage the company," said our @zdcreatorsguild.bsky.social who overwhelmingly passed a vote of no confidence in company exec Kate Gutman. Read more here nyguild.org/post/ziff-da...

Sources: Anderson Cooper has decided to pass on a renewal offer with CBS and leave 60 Minutes after almost 20 years with the newsmagazine show (Lachlan Cartwright/Breaker) Main Link | Mediagazer Permalink

We did this experiment at my former job. The highest paid employees (editors) ended up putting hours into editing and fact checking stories because the AI was wrong in unpredictable ways. Between coming up with the story idea, prompting, and editing they were the most expensive stories we did.

When the Free State came into being, they wanted to create a commercial Irish language publishing sector. They needed novels, which weren't the Irish literary tradition then. Fortunately there was a loophole where novels published over 10 years earlier could be translated without royalties!

Jezebel is expanding our freelance roster. If you have strong opinions, chaotic takes, or a deeply unserious ranking yearning for a home, we want to hear from you. Email [email protected] with two headline ideas (please no full drafts!) and any clips you’ve got.

This video from the union is brutal "The fact that I can pick up a tuba and within a second know the weight of the bell and whether the bell should go to a kid or not is being stolen from me" www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCyJ...

"This really is objectively perfect snow to be biking in," says man who totally thought he'd timed it to bike home before the snow (It is lovely though!)

That’s Dan❤️‍🩹🦅

Wrestling has relied on political storylines for as long as there’s been wrestling. But the “Fuck ICE” chants have turned it into something else entirely, and it’s a stark difference between AEW and WWE. W/ @tomscocca.bsky.social www.cnn.com/2026/02/14/b...

OK I have to stop watching this France v Wales game, it feels rude to watch Wales play rugby

Caught up late, but I think it was a nice day to watch rugby today

This story and interview are hard to read, but this woman is probably among the toughest humans who has ever lived. Few can say they would have the courage and bravery to talk so openly about what she endured. GIFT LINK. (and content warning, of course)

I interviewed a family of Russian asylum seekers who’ve been held more than four months at the Dilley detention center in Texas. As we spoke over Zoom this week, their daughter Kamilla was one day shy of turning 12. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday. She replied: “To get out of here.”

We've done it, we've written a blog so weird it's a news story www.polygon.com/new-york-cit...

Diablo IV PC cooled with real human blood is still going strong two years later, says guy who won it aftermath.site/diablo-iv-bl...