The Two-Legged Deer. Yeah, I’m not buying the hunter’s explanation either:
Santos Maria Chilel Soto went for a walk with her family the evening of Sept. 18, and never came home.
The 39-year-old Guatemalan woman and Georgetown-native was the mother of five. Soto was walking through an open field near South Old State Road in Ellendale with her partner, Minibaldo Velásquez, and two of her children when she was allegedly shot by a hunting rifle, according to a Delaware State Police probable cause affidavit.
Police arrested Walter Moorhead, a 74-year-old man from Salisbury, Maryland, who was hunting deer from a ground blind in the field.
“My sister was a woman everyone loved; she knew so many people. There were so many people, even Americans,” Chilel Soto said. “She worked as a cleaner, and many Americans knew her. They’ve visited us, and they can’t believe it. It’s truly amazing.”
According to court documents, Moorhead told investigators that he was hunting with a scoped rifle when he saw what he believed was a doe. He said the animal moved, so he repositioned himself and his rifle before firing toward what he said he thought was the deer.
Moorhead then walked toward where he had fired and told investigators he saw Soto with what appeared to be a gunshot wound, surrounded by Velásquez and the two children.
The affidavit states Velásquez was walking within an arm’s length of Soto when he heard what he described to police as an “explosion.” He then saw Soto fall to the ground and noticed blood coming from the front of her upper torso. He applied pressure to the wound and called 911.
How RFK Jr. Destroyed The Center For Disease Control:
For decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was the undisputed global leader in public health. Its scientists helped train health officials worldwide. In the United States, it was the primary source of guidance for prevention and treatment of diseases, including diabetes, H.I.V. and the seasonal flu.
But after a year and a half in the cross hairs of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s drive to remake public health policy, the agency is a skeleton of the powerhouse it was.
The Trump administration’s widespread layoffs in early 2025 cut 18 percent of the C.D.C.’s staff. But new personnel data, compiled by a group of former federal scientists and reported here for the first time, indicate that the agency’s staff has dwindled far more, as large numbers of employees retired or resigned. As of May 2026, the C.D.C. had 30 percent fewer employees than it did before the layoffs, the data show.
The changes have hindered the C.D.C.’s ability to respond to outbreaks as measles spreads at home and Ebola abroad, and to issue timely guidance on vaccinations as cooling temperatures kick off the respiratory season, according to current and former employees. State and local health departments, which rely on the C.D.C. for resources and technical advice, have been stymied by delays. Entire divisions have been shuttered, including teams that worked on smoking, sexual violence, child abuse and falls among older adults.
From the very first day of Mr. Trump’s second term, when he withdrew the country from the W.H.O., his administration has sought to upend the nation’s health policies and align them with his political priorities.
In past administrations, just two or three political appointees had purview over the C.D.C. Now, there are nearly 20 political appointees from H.H.S. who communicate with C.D.C. staff members, sometimes directing them to spend time and funding on dubious theories outside the agency’s scope, according to several officials.
Can you imagine how hard it’s gonna be to restore even minimal competence to all these agencies that Trump has eviscerated?
Trump To Immigrants: Drop Dead:
Donald Trump is canceling nearly $1bn in spending approved by Congress, the White House announced on Friday, using a rare and contested power to axe funding for immigrant services and diversity-focused initiatives.
Trump’s office of management and budget described the funding cut as focused on “the most harmful government spending”.
Most of the cuts are focused on services for immigrants, including non-profits that serve refugees and unaccompanied minors accused of being in the country illegally. The administration says the funds are no longer necessary because illegal border crossings have diminished considerably.
A White House press release announcing the funding rescissions notes that some of the organizations are led by people who worked in the administration of Democratic president Barack Obama.
Trump’s move was condemned by senator Susan Collins, a Republican in a tough re-election campaign and chair of the Senate appropriations committee.
Collins said in a statement the action came without warning or consultation. She also said she would work to address with colleagues “these illegal actions”.
“Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress’s appropriations powers,” Collins said. “OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.”
“This is theft from the American people, plain and simple,” Patty Murray, the Washington Democratic senator, who is vice-chair of the appropriations committee said in a statement. “These are funds Congress has delivered on a bipartisan basis and should be helping people – not cut off by a president more focused on building a ballroom than investing in families. Every Republican who voted for these bills should be furious, because [Russell] Vought is saying their votes don’t count.”
Typically, Congress can review the president’s proposed spending cuts before they take effect. But Trump made that all but impossible by announcing them with just five days left in the federal fiscal year. The government accountability office has called the maneuver, known as a “pocket rescission,” illegal.
Who comes up with all this nasty shit? You know that Trump doesn’t have the capacity to dream it up all on his own. Stephen Miller? Is there a Board Of Thinking Up Nasty Shit that comes up with it? The move probably is illegal. But Trump’s lifelong modus operandi has been to delay through litigation. Meanwhile, people will suffer, which is the point.
How Draft Kings And Fan Duel Lure Degenerate Gamblers. It’s a science–and they’ve got Delaware legislators just itching to give them more suckers to bleed dry:
For the past six weeks, I’d been gambling like a man out of control, testing the guardrails of one of America’s most popular — and controversial — products: online sports betting. I’d morphed from a prudent, just-for-fun $40 bettor into a “degen” (sports betting slang for a degenerate gambler) who casually yeets $1,500 on a game. I’d feverishly jumped from sport to sport, following playoff basketball bets with live Czech table tennis. And I’d gone hog wild at the online casino, doubling down at the blackjack table. Most of the time, I’d lost — then chased those losses with more bets. Now, I was in the grips of yet another binge.
Amid the mounting scrutiny, major operators like DraftKings have pushed back, arguing that their responsible gaming system provides adequate safeguards to protect their customers from spiraling out of control. “I think as a business, as an industry, we’re doing a good job of educating people, of raising awareness, of making tools and resources available, of monitoring accounts,” Lori Kalani, the company’s chief responsible gaming officer, told me. If a customer waves too many red flags, she said, the company will proactively close the account. But when I asked how often this actually happens, DraftKings wouldn’t say.
So I decided to find out for myself: If I bet like a compulsive gambler, would DraftKings stop me — even if it cost the company money?
I opened an account under my own name and linked it to my debit card. ProPublica bankrolled me. When the app asked me what I did for a living, I disclosed that I was a reporter. I assembled a panel of addiction specialists, recovering gambling addicts and professional sports bettors who pointed me to the telltale wagering habits of someone who’s out of control. And then I got to work.
Over the next 10 weeks, I’d mimic those patterns and come to find out just how much DraftKings would encourage my recklessness — and just how little pushback I’d get as I spiraled downward.
Matthew Gaskell, a British psychologist and expert on gambling addiction, said that the bettors that companies are most interested in are, well, losers like me. Indeed, a modest set of very active losers account for a substantial amount of sportsbooks’ revenue, he said. (A 2024 study out of Connecticut found that 1.8% of problem gamblers in the state accounted for 51% of sports betting revenue.) And the companies have created sophisticated technology products designed to squeeze maximum engagement out of them, just as social media companies like Meta did years earlier with users of Facebook and Instagram, added Darragh McGee, a researcher at the University of Bath.
In fact, as The New York Times reported, DraftKings employs machine learning and data scientists to identify losing customers and entice them with promotions to keep them going — even if those are exactly the kinds of customers at risk of becoming addicts. DraftKings told the newspaper its promotions are geared toward users who spend a lot of time on the app and that the company “rejects any implication that its marketing practices are unfair or improperly targets customers.”
I highly-recommend this deep dive into the depths of gambling degeneracy and the companies that lure you in. Then, keep an eye out for any legislation that will make it easier for you to be swept down the drain by these companies.
What do you want to talk about?
