Don’t Forget the Hostages: “‘He came towards me and shoved the gun at my forehead,’ Ms. Soussana recalled during eight hours of interviews with The New York Times in mid-March. After hitting Ms. Soussana and forcing her to remove her towel, Muhammad groped her, sat her on the edge of the bathtub and hit her again, she said. He dragged her at gunpoint back to the child’s bedroom, a room covered in images of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, she recalled. ‘Then he, with the gun pointed at me, forced me to commit a sexual act on him.'” NYT (Gift Article): Israeli Hostage Says She Was Sexually Assaulted and Tortured in Gaza. The fact that these stories will be plentiful and probably a lot worse certainly plays a role in Hamas’ refusal to release more hostages and agree to ceasefire terms.

+ Trump Pump and Dump: The judge in the hush money case has issued a gag order barring the GOP presidential nominee from commenting on witnesses and others. Meanwhile, the man found guilty of fraud is now the major shareholder in a publicly traded company and just added billions to his net worth. What exactly is creating value in this newly public company? That’s unclear. “Trump Media brought in less than $3.5 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2023, while posting a $49 million net loss in the same period.” As far as I can tell, he’s going to pay for his fraud with an even bigger fraud. If this doesn’t work, there’s always the bibles he started selling today. It’s incredible that anyone would buy anything from this guy.

+ He’s a Neumann: Adam Neumann has made a $500 million bid for his old company, WeWork. You run something down from $47 billion to $500 million and you still have $500 million to buy anything? I’m sure all the investors wiped out by WeWork’s implosion are delighted.

+ Diddy or Didn’t He? “In the first nine months of 2023, Sean “Diddy” Combs triumphantly performed at the MTV VMAs, released an R&B album that garnered a Grammy nomination and was a suitor to buy the BET network. But several lawsuits filed late last year raised allegations of sexual assault and rape against Combs — one of hip-hop’s most recognizable names as a performer and producer.” And now this: Authorities searched Diddy’s properties as part of a sex trafficking probe.

+ News Nugget: Chick-Fil-A backtracks from its no-antibiotics-in-chicken pledge, blames projected supply shortages.

+ Shohei Can You See: “I never bet on baseball or any other sports or never have asked somebody to do that on my behalf … And I have never been through a bookmaker to bet on sports … Up until a couple days ago, I didn’t know that this was happening. … In conclusion, Ippei has been stealing money from my account and has told lies.” Shohei Ohtani breaks silence on interpreter gambling scandal. The explanation still seems weird. If we could spend weeks on Deflategate, this story could be around for a while. Maybe MLB and Fan Duel should launch an app where you can bet on how the Shohei Ohtani scandal turns out.

+ Uberman: “Huberman sells a dream of control down to the cellular level. But something has gone wrong. In the midst of immense fame, a chasm has opened between the podcaster preaching dopaminergic restraint and a man, with newfound wealth, with access to a world unseen by most professors. The problem with a man always working on himself is that he may also be working on you.” I have a genetic resistance to the preachings and teachings of self-helpers like Andrew Huberman, the world’s biggest pop neuroscientist. So I hadn’t even heard his name before reading about his behind the scenes behavior and his relationship juggling. Maybe he should be called a pop physicist because his schedule bends time. NY Mag: Andrew Huberman’s Mechanisms of Control.

+ K Pop: RFK picks Nicole Shanahan as his running mate. She had donated close to $5 million to his campaign and PAC. But, “Kennedy denied in a News Nation interview that Shanahan’s wealth was a factor in his decision making.” If you believe that, I’ve got some shares in Donald J Trump’s new shell company I’d like to sell you.