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LUNCH BREAK READS

01 • 25 Minute Read
Business Insider David Kushner
Bad Cards
Anthony Curcio
Anthony Curcio took $400,000 from an armored truck and floated away down the Skykomish River on an inner tube. Five years in federal prison followed, then TED talks and a line of best-selling children's books. In January a jury convicted him of wire fraud and conspiracy for selling trading cards in counterfeit PSA holders. Curcio conceded nothing. He argued that PSA, which held roughly 80% of the grading market, withheld his cards and pointed the FBI at him to protect its own business. The judge barred that argument. Sentencing was scheduled for October, against a maximum of forty years.
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02 • 45 Minute Read
The New Yorker Eren Orbey
A Husband in the Aftermath of His Wife's Unfathomable Act
Patrick Clancy
With the Lindsay Clancy story in the headlines, I wanted to take a look back at this 2024 New Yorker profile of her husband Patrick in the aftermath of the tragedy. Eren Orbey interviewed him, his parents, and Lindsay's attorney for the piece, diving into the awful murders and Patrick's plea to the public to forgive her just four days after coming home to find his children strangled and his wife's failed suicide attempt.
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03 • 10 Minute Read
The Wall Street Journal Brian Schwartz, Dylan Tokar, and Will Hobson
Inside the Collapse of a MAGA Marketplace Backed by Trump Jr.
Donald Trump Jr. and Omeed Malik
Donald Trump Jr. chanted "USA" on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 2023 as PublicSquare, built as a conservative alternative to Amazon, rang its opening bell. The stock fell 99%. PublicSquare paid Trump Jr. $42,000 a month in consulting fees, more than $500,000 in 2025 alone, over $650,000 to a brokerage founded by Omeed Malik, and nearly $400,000 to Nick Ayers. Trump Jr. made about 60% of board meetings, and this month he and other directors put $1.3 million of their own money back in. The company's cumulative losses reached nearly $160 million, leading the NYSE to notify the company its listing was at risk.
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04 • 30 Minute Read
The New York Times Magazine Benjamin Wallace
The Summer the Ticks Took Over
Close-up of a lone star tick
Brian Paul Waitzel, a JetBlue pilot and father of three, went camping in 2024, ate beef at a school barbecue two weeks later, and went into anaphylactic shock within hours. University of Virginia researchers documented it as the first known death from alpha-gal syndrome, the red meat allergy carried in lone star tick saliva. No known treatment existed. Benjamin Wallace reported from Shelter Island and from a Yale lab chasing a vaccine against ticks themselves.
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Further Reading

The New York Times
Everyone’s Using This A.I. Dictation App That I Want to Murder With a Hammer
Popular Science
How Americans stayed cool before air conditioning: From sitting on smelly ice to sleeping on the roof
WIRED
The Cop Who Took On Flock

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