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LUNCH BREAK READS

Kimberly Guilfoyle texted a Trump donor to wire $100,000 to her American Express account days before her ambassador confirmation hearing.
For seven years, a Quebec brokerage founder paid people to torch his former star broker's offices, and he's already out on parole.
ICANN opened up new top-level domains for the first time since 2012, and someone applied for .fart.
Brooke Jarvis spent three weeks walking a 170-mile trail stitched across 20 Swedish islands.

01 • 15 Minute Read

The Wall Street Journal

Dana Mattioli, Drew Hinshaw, Rebecca Ballhaus and Joe Parkinson

‘Honey Please’: Kimberly Guilfoyle Pushed Donor to Wire $100,000 to Her Amex Account

Days before her July 2025 confirmation hearing to become U.S. ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle texted a Trump donor urging him to wire $100,000 to her American Express account, assuring him it wouldn’t show up anywhere. The donor, Eric Deters, a former Kentucky lawyer and failed congressional candidate, says he had paid her $300,000 in speaking fees over the years. After Trump’s 2024 win, he sought her help with an IRS dispute and with getting the Justice Department to pursue an Ohio doctor accused of fraud who fled to Pakistan. Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s former fiancée, forwarded his tax complaint to the new IRS commissioner while repeatedly warning Deters to stop putting money talk in writing.

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02 • 22 Minute Read

The Walrus

Caitlin Walsh Miller

The Real Estate Mogul Who Burned Down His Rival’s Offices

In February 2021, two people smashed the door of a real estate office in Saint-Sauveur, a ski town north of Montreal, and set it on fire. The next morning, the building’s owner found Christophe Folla, founder of the Quebec brokerage Sutton Québec, staring at the ruins. Folla had long punished rivals through lawsuits, but when his star broker François Léger defected to a competitor in 2017, he turned to arson. Over seven years, people he paid set fires at Léger’s offices that caused $6 million in damage, and the 2021 blaze hit the wrong building by mistake. The fires continued after Léger died in 2022, until an accomplice went to police and Folla was arrested in 2024. He pleaded guilty and won full parole in March 2026, telling the board he had been about to confess. Investigators say he paid for more fires the day before his arrest.

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03 • 27 Minute Read

WIRED

Pete Millspaugh

The Internet Runs on Cats and Porn. It’s About to Get Cattier and Pornier

Verisign, the company that runs .com, earns about $1.5 billion a year just by keeping the domain running. This year, for the first time since 2012, anyone could apply for a new top-level domain like it, and ICANN, the nonprofit that sets the internet’s naming rules, received more than 1,600 applications at $227,000 each. One firm, now called Link Freedom Group, applied for 316, including .fart. A queer-run Belgian foundation crowdfunded its bid for .meow, a quiet nod to the queer community, and plans to keep registrants’ data beyond the reach of U.S. authorities. Many strings from the last round flopped, but applicants fear missing out, since a taken name is gone for good. Behind it all runs ICANN’s slow, open process, which gives governments no more say than companies or users. The list of applicants went public on October 7, and contested strings will now go to auction.

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04 • 25 Minute Read

The New York Times Magazine

Brooke Jarvis

Sweden Has 267,570 Islands. I Walked Across 20 of Them.

Sweden has an estimated 267,570 islands, and the Stockholm Archipelago Trail, which opened two years ago, strings together paths across about 20 of them over 170 miles. Brooke Jarvis and her partner spent three weeks walking it in July, moving north to south through a world where nearly everyone else traveled by boat or bike. Sweden’s right to roam, called allemansrättan, let them camp almost anywhere, and the route ran past summer cottages, weddings and swimming docks. Yet the trail rarely went anywhere. Many sections looped back to the same ferry jetty, and they met no one else treating it as a single journey.

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Kimberly Guilfoyle asked a donor for $100,000. She wanted it on her Amex.

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