NEW: Welcome to the debut of my newsletter FOIA Files!

3 scoops in today's newsletter

1. The Military Spies Who Iced Out Ben & Jerry's Over DEI
2. A CIA Officer complaining about 'woke culture' at CIA
3. Secret Service docs on actor John Schneider

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My latest for Businessweek is a narrative investigation into a company that transformed the plastics industry -- and what happened when its signature manufacturing process was found to generate the worst of the worst #PFAS , aka “forever chemicals”: tinyurl.com/3xp7bhfb

Latest Bloomberg Graphics collab with Bloomberg Green and Bloomberg Markets (and first of a series on who owns the world's water)
Banks, pension funds and insurers have been turning California's scarce water into enormous profits leaving people with less to drink. bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-…

My first Businessweek cover story! Thrilled I got to work on this absolutely bonkers investigative story (and the DiCaprio & Kardashian sidebar) with amazing colleagues Matthew Campbell & Anthony Cormier

Feel like I've spent every waking hour of 2023 working on this insane Businessweek cover story with the brilliant Jason Leopold & Anthony Cormier. It's a wild tale of money, celebrity, political intrigue, and great-power rivalry, and I hope you'll read it. bloomberg.com/features/2023-…

The most insane collection of characters imaginable...Fantastic story

New from @vtsilver Lauren Etter Patricia Laya from deep inside the European cocaine boom. This small Dutch town was terrorized after fruit company workers found 400 kilos in a banana shipment trib.al/6yzIEl6

While some may think the era of Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel in the 1980s and 90s was the heyday of the cocaine trade, a much bigger boom is going on right now. A new golden age of cocaine is bringing unprecedented profits and violence to Colombia: bloomberg.com/news/features/…

Shipping is a dirty business, as I know better than most. Still gobsmacked by this extraordinary investigation by Lauren Etter and Michael Riley. Astounding work. bloomberg.com/news/features/…

Hell of an investigation by Lauren Etter Michael Riley

How a Cocaine-Smuggling Cartel Infiltrated the World’s Biggest Shipping Company

As MSC grew into a dominant force in global trade, it also became a prime drug-trafficking conduit for Balkan gangs
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Earlier this year, I went to Hawaii to see what it’s like to live in a place controlled by a billionaire.
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Today is the culmination of 5 years of work by Kit Chellel and I: pub day for Dead in the Water, our account of fraud, murder, and corruption at the heart of the global economy. It's the hardest thing either of us has ever done, and a ripping story. I hope you'll read it!

My interview with sanctioned billionaire Mikhail Fridman on Putin, Ukraine, the West's response, and living without a working bank card. “The power distance between Mr. Putin and anybody else is like the distance between the Earth and the cosmos.” bloomberg.com/news/features/…

A Bloomberg News investigation found that among major mortgage lenders, Wells Fargo was alone in rejecting more Black homeowners than it accepted. bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-… via @bw @bbgEquality

Growth-obsessed Silicon Valley startups + addictive drugs + social media = recipe for disaster. Read this outstanding story by Polly and Caleb Melby

My latest for Businessweek investigates the elite international school industry. One in which schools request 'White Only' teachers and job candidates are filtered by skin color. A thread--> bloomberg.com/news/features/… via Businessweek

My latest: Sanctions are punishing Russia’s wealthiest—and Putin himself—by bringing a cold, hard stop to 30 years of integration with the world economy bloomberg.com/news/articles/… via Businessweek

According to its mission statement, Juul 🧉 prioritizes saving lives by getting smokers to switch to their product. In Episode 3 of Calling Bullsh!t, we cut through the smoke with Gregory Conley, @Lauren_etter, and Jamie Ducharme. Calling Bullsh!t is out now at bit.ly/JuulBlowingSmo…

Great show, thanks for having me on! And super interesting to also hear from Jamie Ducharme and Gregory Conley.

ICYMI: Misinformation and hate have already made it to the Metaverse. Will its creators be able to control it? w/ Jillian Deutsch & Sarah Kopit
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