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Happy Friday beautiful people,

Today is truly a momentous day.

It’s the end of the working week, Taylor Swift just dropped a banger of an album and most importantly of all, it’s The Pint release day.

So without further ado, let’s get you up to speed on this week’s politics and business via hand crafted and curated memes.

⏰ Today's reading time is 5 minutes

Quote of the Week

US government shutdown enters third day, expected to last past weekend

The U.S. government shut down this week after Congress failed to pass a funding bill for 2026, with disputes over health care subsidies, foreign aid and the length of a stopgap funding deal.

Roughly 800,000 federal workers have been furloughed and another 700,000 are working without pay, while most “essential” services like Medicare, the IRS, Medicaid and air traffic control continue.

The White House estimates the closure could cost up to $15 billion a week in lost GDP, while the pause in government data releases leaves markets and the Federal Reserve pissing in the dark, relatively speaking.

As tends to be the case in functioning democracies, both sides of the political aisle are blaming the shit out of each other.

Funding freezes are hitting Democratic-leaning areas like Chicago hardest, and Republicans are insisting that it is all their fault, despite the fact they control both Congress and the Senate.

The longer it drags on, the heavier the hit to social services, courts and state economies that are more dependent on federal payrolls.

We’re not one’s to peddle state-backed propaganda (without getting a fat paycheck at least), but this meme the White House put out was a pretty funny summary of the situation to be fair:

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A High Court has ordered PPE Medpro, the company linked to Baroness Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman, to pay £122m in damages after ruling it breached a Covid PPE contract.

The gowns Medpro supplied in 2020 were deemed non-compliant, with tests showing 103 out of 140 failed sterilisation checks i.e they were fucking useless.

The case is a bit of a kangaroo court show-trial for Labour’s wider push to claw back pandemic cash which the Tories spunked up the wall.

Its 2024 manifesto pledged to use “every means possible to recoup public money lost.”

An interim Treasury report earlier this year found £1.4 billion in failed PPE contracts, half of which may never be recovered because the goods weren’t properly checked at the time.

In defence of Baroness Mone and friends, it is pretty tempting to try and make a quick buck out of a health department that was stupid enough to track national Covid cases using a fucking Excel spreadsheet (which it then accidentally deleted).

Quite predictably, Medpro went into administration a day before the ruling, with just £666k (spooky) in shareholder funds on its books, raising some doubts about whether the exchequer is going to see any of that money.

Mone, who has admitted she stood to gain from £60 million in profits, called the decision “predictable” and “contradicting all the evidence presented in court.”

Basically, she had a bit of a Moan about the whole thing…

Pete Hegseth declares end to 'woke' military -as war secretary scolds 'fat troops'

Donald Trump and local drunken idiot/Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth have scrapped what they call the Pentagon’s “woke era,” rebranding it as the Department of War and rolling out sweeping cultural and fitness changes.

Hegseth told generals and admirals flown into Quantico from all over the world, that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives were over.

Out go identity months, gender-neutral pronouns and “dudes in dresses” - in come stricter grooming rules, male-level combat fitness standards for all and twice-yearly tests.

“No more beardos,” he said, stressing that if no women qualify for some combat jobs, “so be it.”

Trump, a proud draft dodger, said he’d fire any military leader he disliked “on the spot” and praised America’s nuclear arsenal, calling it “the N-word” — which he clarified as nuclear…

He also boasted the US is “25 years ahead” of Russia and China in morbid obesity rates submarines.

The administration is also reviewing definitions of hazing and bullying to give commanders more leeway to bully people enforce discipline.

Hegseth argued weak standards and “climate change worship” had distracted the armed forces, while Trump framed the shake-up as a return to “strength, character, and ability.”

The audience seemed to really resonate with their words…

OpenAI overtakes SpaceX as world’s most valuable private company after private stock sale

OpenAI is now the world’s most valuable startup, coming in at a cool $500 billion valuation after employees and early investors sold $6.6 billion worth of shares in a tender offer.

The deal knocks SpaceX off the top spot and marks one of the largest private secondary sales ever, alongside Uber’s $8 billion SoftBank tender in 2017 and Databricks’ $10 billion round last year.

Buyers included SoftBank, Thrive Capital and Dragoneer, with SoftBank already the company’s biggest backer after leading OpenAI’s record $40 billion raise in April that valued it at $300 billion.

The tender is seen as a way to retain talent amid aggressive poaching by rivals like Meta—around a quarter of OpenAI’s researchers have left in the past two years.

The valuation bump comes during a hot streak for VC secondaries, with private deals often dwarfing IPOs thanks to a sluggish public market.

With their latest model now apparently being smarter than Sam Altman himself, OpenAI may finally have cleared the road to wiping out entry level jobs and putting us all on Universal Basic Income by 2030.

Praise be to our AI overlords!

Keir Starmer takes aim at Reform UK at Labour Party conference

Keir Starmer used his Labour conference speech in Liverpool to set the stage for a battle not against their age old Conservative rivals, but the relative upstarts Reform UK.

He mocked the Tories as irrelevant and cast Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as his main rival, saying Farage “doesn’t like Britain.”

He may like Britain after all, but does he like it as much as he allegedly likes singing Hitler Youth songs through East Sussex villages?

Starmer warned Labour would take tough decisions on migration, admitting his party had once “patronised working people” and placed too much faith in globalisation.

He backed stricter rules on settlement, despite internal discomfort, insisting it was necessary to rebuild trust i.e stop Reform from absolutely destroying them at the next election.

On education, Starmer scrapped Tony Blair’s old target of 50% university attendance.

Instead, he promised two-thirds of young people in either higher education or “gold standard” apprenticeships, with new technical colleges and investment in skills that are actually needed.

We can’t wait for the Lesbian Dance Theory Studies Apprenticeship to open up under the new proposals.

Gaming giant Electronic Arts bought in unprecedented Saudi-led $55 billion deal

The gaming giant behind the FIFA franchise has agreed to a $55 billion takeover led by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), alongside Silver Lake and Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners.

If approved, EA will go private, its stock delisted, and $20 billion in debt piled onto the company. The $55 billion price tag represents a 25% premium over its market value, making it the biggest buyout in Wall Street history.

Already owning stakes in Pokémon Go, LIV Golf and Newcastle United, this is a soft power play for the Saudis.

EA’s franchises — FIFA/EA Sports FC, The Sims, Apex Legends, Need for Speed — reach hundreds of millions worldwide, and analysts say Riyadh wants its brand associated with fun rather than human rights controversies.

Maybe try executing fewer people then?

Critics call it the latest step in “sportswashing,” but with 70% of Saudi’s population under 35 and obsessed with esports, the government sees gaming as both diplomacy and diversification away from oil.

Hosting the Esports World Cup and planning Olympic Esports Games in 2027 only deepen that strategy.

They’ve certainly come a long way from decreeing that Pokemon was haram and ordering Pikachu to be killed.

🍻Half Pints

Quick-fire news you might have missed

Meme of the Week

‘Comedy’ Festival of the Week

“From the folks that brought you 9/11…it’s the Riyadh Comedy Festival!”

Many A-list comedians like Bill Burr, Pete Davidson, Jimmy Carr and Dave Chapelle have come under fire for performing at the controversial event in Saudi Arabia.

The content restrictions were leaked by comedian Atsuko Okatsuka, who was asked to perform at the event but declined, along with multiple other comedians.

To be honest, these guidelines don’t seem too bad. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen if you don’t stick to them?

That’s all for today, but before you go…

We’re always open to feedback (and hate-mail), so feel free to reply and we’ll get back to you within 5 “working” days.

Barring an act of god or being kidnapped by the deep state, we’ll see you next week.

Thanks to Carlos