"Bon Jovi has eaten two bowls of pasta. I am struggling to keep pace. I feel supremely conscious of his fame. Stardom means there is always a schedule, a car, a plane. Our conversation continues only at his discretion. If he wanted, he could slip away more easily than the spaghetti on my fork."

To all the Dick’s I’ve loved before www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

If you’ve ever spent a Saturday shouting from the sidelines, you’ve probably helped build Dick’s Sporting Goods’ $13 billion empire.

Dick’s Sporting Goods — "which began life in 1948 as a fishing and camping store in Binghamton, New York — has become the Levi Strauss of the youth sports gold rush. It’s the leading supplier for young athletes searching for glory." Happy weekend, to my fellow sports parents out there!

To all the Dick’s I’ve loved before www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

You won’t believe what degrading practice the Pope just condemned

Robot umps are coming to MLB next year. I wrote about testing them in the Atlantic League a few years back: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

It’s a true fact: I got a Business Job in the Business World, which I start next week. But on my last day, Slate let me do one last job: A post about [portentously] all that I’ve seen. slate.com/news-and-pol...

I wrote about Ballhalla with Vanessa Perdomo: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

After 30 years at USA TODAY, it's -30- for me. I have taken a buyout. It's been the thrill and dream of a lifetime. Being a newspaper person was all I ever wanted out of work. There's not enough room to acknowledge everyone who deserves it but my gratitude runs wide and deep.

NJ Transit's official data makes it difficult to tell just how bad it is. So @suryamattu.com and I spent three months collecting the raw location data for more than 190,000 trains on NJT, Metro-North, and LIRR. Then @mariepastora.bsky.social made the graphics to show you. The answer: Very bad.

I wrote about the problem of prop bets: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“Last season’s numbers, Dinnery says, show that Tottenham Hotspur, for example, played the most minutes of any team in the league, at 5,430, and suffered the second-highest number of injuries, at 41.” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"DAZN agreed to pay $1 billion for the rights to the [FIFA Club World Cup] tournament—a princely sum for a TV property with virtually no track record .. DAZN subsequently had its balance sheet bolstered by a $1 billion investment from Saudi Arabia" www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I checked in with Steve Ballmer about the Intuit Dome after the Clippers first season there. Ballmer, as always, a fun interview: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This is the future for a lot of places. I wrote about beer as a gateway a couple years ago: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Agree. The clearinghouse is going to take college sports backwards: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I wrote about the sports doc glut www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

“There was a moment in the sports doc world when a lot of big athletes could sell something based simply off of their name,” he says. “But it’s become more about, ‘What’s the story? Is it going to provide something new and interesting?’” www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This is a top priority of Donald Trump, and does not include a ban on Trump profiting off of his many family crypto ventures, which have netted them many millions of dollars since his election.

Good to see leagues arriving: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Consumer sentiment collapsing even among Republicans, and Republicans are also expecting higher inflation

cc: @rustindodd.bsky.social

IANAL but when these federal agents took custody of the adult, seems like they also assumed custody of the child. Then they abandoned the child. Is that a state crime that local or state prosecutors could charge? www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/...

As part of the red-carpet treatment, Saudi officials arranged for a fully operational mobile McDonald’s unit to accompany President Trump during his stay. According to local reports, the unit was set up near the Saudi Royal Court.

Finish the coffee, @rustindodd.bsky.social

NEW — Trump’s ICE has just arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. Alongside residents and other officials, Baraka has been protesting outside a detention facility that’s set to help Trump’s mass deportation regime.

The 16-year-old was dragged away and arrested by Worcester PD because she kicked the car ICE was holding her mother in as her mom was taken away. The day earlier, ICE had taken her dad as well.

Kalshi bettors seem to be confident in next Pope:

World Central Kitchen has run out of food to serve in Gaza. Its bakery ("recently the last working bakery in Gaza") is out of flour. There are 100,000+ tons of food in staging areas within driving distance of Gaza, and Israel refuses to let them in wck.org/news/gaza-up...

State and local governments are bracing for a recessionary shock, as the Trump administration slashes federal funding that underpins local budgets, nonprofits and infrastructure. You’ll feel it everywhere. w @sdonnan.bsky.social & Nazmul Ahasan www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

NEW from @joshgerstein.bsky.social: You’ve heard of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Now meet the second man erroneously deported to El Salvador in violation of a legal settlement: Daniel Lozano-Camargo. Until now, he’d only been identified by a pseudonym in court. www.politico.com/news/2025/05...

Gregg Popovich announces he has a new job title: El Jefe

Lots of companies want to launch or expand factories in the US. One barrier: Trump’s tariffs on the Chinese machinery they need to do so… My latest for @bloomberg.com with a cast of great colleagues: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Re-upping this old piece on the news that Gregg Popovich is stepping away from coaching: www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Damn good data reporting from the @bloomberg.com crew here www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

1. Clay Jackson, a Texas lawyer, provided basic legal advice to an immigrant family fearing deportation Then, two officers visited him at his home, accusing him of "obstructing an ongoing immigration investigation" Then, after speaking publicly, he was fired from his job at a Fortune 500 company

Trump's first 100 days in office can by summed up by just this one chart. This is the consensus estimate for GDP growth in 2025 among 79 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. As you can see, forecasted growth has collapsed:

On his 100th day in office in 2017 Trump headed to a PA wheelbarrow factory to launch his trade policy and put the US on the path to today’s tariffs. Eight years on that factory is closed. The wheelbarrows are now made in China. My latest for @bloomberg.com: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I’m sure somebody has done this before but here you go

And people say cryptocurrencies are socially useless. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/news...

2/4. The entire practice of the Holocaust of the Jews involved zones of statelessness. It is easier to move people away from law than it is to remove law from people. Almost all of the killing took place in artificially created stateless zones.

Trump has just replaced President Obama’s official presidential portrait in the White House with a painting of himself.

"Pete Belton, 44, from Ilkeston says he was shocked to find his forearm featured in a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document used to help identify alleged members of Tren de Aragua (TdA), a transnational criminal organisation." www.bbc.com/news/article...

talked to baseball guy Scott Boras about being a baseball guy for 40 years—and about negotiating $15 billion in contracts: www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

when MLB dropped "diversity" from its career site, I reached out to every team, including those with live DEI pages. None committed to their current efforts. Almost nobody responded! One week before Jackie Robinson Day, my take on the leaguewide silence: www.miamiherald.com/opinion/arti...