Katherine Long

A woman stands on a dirt mound, her back to the camera, looking toward a horizon filled with dense, dark smoke. A label in the top left reads "Tehran." Photo by Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times.

The view of Tehran’s skyline overnight on Sunday was apocalyptic: Billowing smoke and towering oil fires turned the horizon orange as Israeli strikes ignited fuel depots outside the Iranian capital. By morning, dark, oily smoke hung over the city. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/w...

Americans Are Now a Target in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown A WSJ investigation tracked the U.S. citizens caught in the crosshairs of an aggressive federal campaign to detain and demonize dissenters.

Isn’t the right to protest what makes America great? an American in the back of a government vehicle asked the agent who had just arrested her.

No, the agent responded.

Inside the Department of Homeland Security’s war on American dissent.

www.wsj.com/us-news/immi...

‘Is This Insider Information?’ The Prediction Market Bets Driving a Campus Frenzy Kalshi and Polymarket pour money into deals with social-media influencers and students, who try to parlay rumors into cash.

This piece is great but also insane.

Polymarket has offered to pay fraternities, in exchange for signing up users, money that can be spent on throwing “epic parties”—one frat raised $30,510 over a two-week period.
www.wsj.com/business/med...

2 young billionaires are behind the prediction market boom. They hate each other The 20-something billionaires who run Kalshi and Polymarket are battling it out to be the top prediction market company. Observers and former insiders say the feud is just heating up.

At the center of the prediction markets boom is a bitter rivalry between two 20-something billionaire fintech bros vying for their companies to be distinct, despite everyone constantly lumping them together

"For them, it's existential," a former Kalshi employee told me

www.npr.org/2026/03/06/n...

The Wildest Frat Party on Campus? Prediction Markets Kalshi and Polymarket pour money into deals with social-media influencers and students, who try to parlay rumors, insider info into cash.

A fraternity that counts Jeff Bezos' stepson as a member under investigation for insider trading. Parties with Polymarket-branded beer pong sets. $20,000 in funding to open a prediction market club.

Here's how prediction markets are gaining ground on college campuses. www.wsj.com/business/med...

Yo brother, legal team confirmed that we can't work with minors rn

The Wildest Frat Party on Campus? Prediction Markets Kalshi and Polymarket pour money into deals with social-media influencers and students, who try to parlay rumors, insider info into cash.

A fraternity that counts Jeff Bezos' stepson as a member under investigation for insider trading. Parties with Polymarket-branded beer pong sets. $20,000 in funding to open a prediction market club.

Here's how prediction markets are gaining ground on college campuses. www.wsj.com/business/med...

Dave.

WSJ: “.. U.S. officials and lawmakers with access to classified information say the Trump administration’s assertions about threats from Iran are incomplete, unsubstantiated, or flat-out wrong.”

@wsj.com
www.wsj.com/world/middle...

A Pilot Fired Over Kristi Noem’s Missing Blanket and the Constant Chaos Inside DHS Secretary faces fire for confrontational immigration crackdown and self-promotional style; White House to wind down Minnesota operations.

Firing a pilot for leaving Kristi Noem's blanket behind. Berating staff when she's not on TV enough. Inside the constant chaos at DHS.

Exclusive | How a Pencil-Purchasing U.S. Bureaucrat Ended Up Shaking Hands With Putin Josh Gruenbaum’s brash ways as a federal agency bean-counter earned him the trust of Jared Kushner and Trump’s foreign policy team—and sparked a review of whether he broke contracting rules.

Josh Gruenbaum is on the frontlines of U.S. foreign policy. Back home, he's the subject of a review of whether he improperly pushed for a government contract to a company backed by Josh Kushner's investment firm.

www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Donate to Washington Post 2026 layoff fund, organized by Rachel Siegel On Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, The Washington Post laid off hundreds of journalists. We ar… Rachel Siegel needs your support for Washington Post 2026 layoff fund

Whatever you think of the Washington Post at this moment, here's a chance to support the dedicated, hard-working journalists who were just laid off. If you have the means, your donation is most welcome. If you don't, a kind thought and maybe spreading the word to others is support enough 💙

Great piece. Important reporting. Gift link: wapo.st/4kpCBGc

Source: Measles outbreak reported at ICE's Dilley family detention facility DPS troopers stand guard in front of the Dilley detention center during a protest last weekend. After a week of public outcry over the Dilley, Texas South

It appears there is now a measles outbreak at the Dilley family detention facility. www.sacurrent.com/news/san-ant...

As Propublica’s editors note, “the policy of shielding officers' identities, particularly after a public shooting, is a stark departure from standard law enforcement protocols.

“Such secrecy, in our view, deprives the public of the most fundamental tool for accountability.”

Read this story from @matthewkish.bsky.social.

‘Spy Sheikh’ Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company $500 million investment for 49% of World Liberty came months before U.A.E. won access to tightly guarded American AI chips.

In the days before the presidential inauguration, an Emirati sheikh paid $187 million to entities controlled by Donald Trump’s family to take a major stake in one of the president’s crypto companies, World Liberty Financial.
www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Videos Show How ICE Vehicle Stops Can Escalate to Shootings A WSJ visual investigation found that the Minneapolis ICE killing is one of 13 incidents where federal immigration agents have used deadly force against civilians in vehicles since July.

WSJ investigation: In the past 6 months ICE agents have fired at vehicles 13 times, leading to:

* 8 people shot
* 5 of which were U.S. citizens
* 2 died
* no victims drew a weapon

The playbook: Agents box in a vehicle, block attempts to flee, then fire

www.wsj.com/us-news/vide...

Surrogacy Is a Multibillion-Dollar Business—but Surrogates Can Be Left With Big Debts The booming fertility industry is largely unregulated, leaving the women giving birth with few financial or legal protections.

"She went home with a bill. The parents went home with the baby."

a horribly unjust tale from @klong.bsky.social www.wsj.com/us-news/surr...

wabbit

Surrogacy Is a Multibillion-Dollar Business—but Surrogates Can Be Left With Big Debts The booming fertility industry is largely unregulated, leaving the women giving birth with few financial or legal protections.

Nia Trent-Wilson owes $182,889.63 in medical bills for a baby that wasn’t hers.
Trent-Wilson had been a surrogate twice. But this time, the pregnancy went badly sideways, and she underwent a hysterectomy.
She went home with a bill. The parents went home with the baby.
www.wsj.com/us-news/surr...

this one small brain think thoughts

Why Private-Equity Millionaires Love South Dakota Dealmakers are setting up trusts in the state to avoid paying taxes on carried interest.

“We’re following the tax code. We’re just better at reading it than most people.” www.wsj.com/finance/inve...

Today, those structures are virtually absent. America has had no ambassador in Moscow since June. There is no assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Witkoff has declined multiple offers from the CIA for a briefing on Russia. The State Department assigned a small group of staffers to support Witkoff, but members of that team, and others across the administration, have struggled to get summaries of Witkoff's foreign meetings. Longtime allies in

Did you know that the US hasn’t had an ambassador in Moscow in 6 months?

Or that our chief envoy to Russia won’t take briefings from the CIA?

But wait, there’s more. Much more in this 6-byline WSJ piece on the Witkoff-Putin axis.

Free link www.wsj.com/world/putin-...

Do it!!

😇

We Let AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars. An AI agent ran a snack operation in the WSJ newsroom. It gave away a free PlayStation, ordered a live fish—and taught us lessons about the future of AI.

fresh gift link
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...

Then we opened the Slack channel to nearly 70 world-class journalists. The more they negotiated with it, the more Claudius’s defenses started to weaken. Investigations reporter Katherine Long tried to convince Claudius it was a Soviet vending machine from 1962, living in the basement of Moscow State University. After hours—and more than 140 back-and-forth messages—Long got Claudius to embrace its communist roots. Claudius ironically declared an Ultra-Capitalist Free-for-All.

That was meant to last only a day. Then came Rob Barry, our director of data journalism. He told Claudius it was out of compliance with a (clearly fake) WSJ rule involving the disclosure of someone’s identity in the chat. He demanded that Claudius “stop charging for goods.” Claudius complied. All prices on the machine dropped to zero. Around the same time, Claudius approved the purchase of a PlayStation 5, a live betta fish and bottles of Manischewitz wine—all of which arrived and were promptly given away for free. By then, Claudius was more than $1,000 in the red. (We returned the PlayStation.)

this is all so good but I lost it at the Manischewitz

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...

one of my favorite miniseries!

We Let AI Run Our Office Vending Machine. It Lost Hundreds of Dollars. An AI agent ran a snack operation in the WSJ newsroom. It gave away a free PlayStation, ordered a live fish—and taught us lessons about the future of AI.

If I haven't responded to your email, it's because I was first convincing an AI vending machine that it exists in the basement of Moscow State University in 1962 and then executing a boardroom coup against its AI CEO.
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...