Wednesday 10 June 2026

[1] How you doin’, Knicks? (this is a Friends reference. Get it? How about “Yea the Knicks rule” - still not?). America continues its proud tradition of being absolutely terrible at sports that all countries play (15th on the ICC cricket rankings, 16th on the World Rugby rankings and 16th on the FIFA soccer rankings) and therefore creating sports that only they play while shamelessly declaring the winning team of the various leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB) “world champions” (?).

This does not stop the Americans from absolutely losing their minds over the team that they support based on their place of birth, which they had no control over. It is currently the NBA Finals, which has the Knicks from New York facing off against the Spurs from San Antonio. The Finals are played over seven games, with the score currently 2-1 to the Knicks.

Yesterday’s game, which was played at Madison Square Garden, saw Timothée Chalamet taking a break from defending House Atreides and following Kylie Jenner’s diet to spend over $1 million on courtside seats. Also in attendance was none other than President Donald J. Trump, who nodded off during the game.

Trump’s presence necessitated a full shutdown of the fan areas surrounding MSG as well as requiring fans to show up two hours early for security checks. When Trump was introduced on the jumbotron, boos rang out across the stadium loudly enough for Melania to hear from her penthouse suite in Trump Tower.

A viral clip of a Knicks fan going around before the game had him saying “My mayor Muslim, my bagels Jewish, my Christian Dior, Knicks in FOUR!”, which, while sharp, can no longer happen.

(The mayor of NYC is Zohran Mamdani, a devout Muslim. A bagel is a bread roll which originated in Jewish communities in Poland in the 17th century, Christian Dior is a luxury fashion brand which fits well with NYC and completes the trifecta of Abrahamic religions, and Knicks in four refers to winning the first four games of the 7-game series, thereby washing the other team. DNFsplaining done.)

[2] We have our third very public confidential filing of what will be the biggest run of IPOs ever. Open AI’s filing comes right on the heels of their March funding round, which raised $122 billion at an eye-watering $852 billion valuation.

The big-three tech IPOs are now locked, loaded and ready to fire (try missing the bubble, please). Reddit forums are exploding as university student day traders offer insightful opinions while investors watch anxiously as the NASDAQ changes its rules to accommodate the massive new listings. Musk and Altman will hopefully ring the bell on separate occasions after Musk’s recent comprehensive loss in court.

Musk was an early investor in Open AI and claimed that Altman took his charity money (remember, Open AI was originally a non-profit) and built an $852 billion for-profit company, which he did. On a completely unrelated note, Musk only got upset and filed the lawsuit once he’d launched xAI, his own Open AI competitor. The jury ruled in Altman’s favor for the rather unglamorous reason that Musk had simply waited too long to bring the case.

[3] The Economist, DNF’s favorite media outlet, released its “Best Books of 2026 (So Far)” list. If you want to look smart at dinner parties, read DNF. If you want to be smart at home, have a look at the full list. Some of our next reads from the list include:

• Bonfire of the Murdochs by Gabriel Sherman. The Murdoch empire mirrors a real-life Succession saga. Rupert Murdoch, the patriarch, built some of the world’s biggest and most toxic media companies, but when it was time for him to pass on the empire, his kids all had a claim to the throne. If you want to act like you read the book, watch the Netflix documentary.

• The Intimate Animal by Justin Garcia. A leading sexologist (everyone gets a title these days) argues that we are in an “intimacy crisis” due to digital dating frying our brains. Given the declining birth rates observed across the world, DNF tends to agree.

• Muskism by Slobadian & Ben Tarnoff. The book argues that Musk has built the definitive template for 21st-century, erratic techno-capitalism (a play on Fordism, which Henry Ford was credited with following his launch of the Ford Model T, the first mass-produced, affordable car).

• Land by Maggie O’Farrell. DNF does not read enough novels (the real world is entertaining enough), but if you want to take a break from reality, O’Farrell writes a historical epic blending mysticism and cartography, perfect for escaping the real-world tech dystopia.

[4] Back to Manhattan (MSG is in Manhattan ladies and gentlemen…) where the office market is on track for its best leasing year since the peak of the 2000 dot-com bubble. The culprit? AI startups (we simply can’t get away from them, can we?).

AI firms swallowed up 1 million square feet of office space in Q1 2026 alone, more than their total for 2025. Open AI is in SoHo in the historic Puck Building, Anthropic is hunting in Hudson Square and Harvey, a legal AI startup (another friendly name for an AI model, after Mr. Specter from Suits), expanded to 185,000 square feet near Madison Square Park.

All this office space for coding companies trying to automate coding - hmm.

[5] Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has officially launched an antitrust probe into Paramount-Skydance’s $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. If the deal closes, Harry Potter, Mission: Impossible, CNN, CBS and HBO will all be under one roof.

DNF looks forward to Harry showing Daenerys his control over dragons.

Paramount CEO David Ellison (who we spoke about last week regarding the 60-Minutes scandal) outmaneuvered Netflix, lobbied Washington and got his dad to write a fat check, only to have the UK regulator spoil the party. The CMA has 40 days for the initial look before potentially triggering a 24-week deep-dive.

It seems that Ellison has fewer friends across the pond.

[6] SA’s economy grew by 0.5% in Q1 2026. This was stronger than expected, with forecasts sitting at 0.3% QoQ. SA’s GDP was also 1.9% larger than a year before. Driving the growth were finance, real estate and business services, with manufacturing lagging. The fastest growth was in agriculture, which grew 3.9% in the first quarter. The numbers only capture one month of the Iran war, so enjoy them while you can.

[7] Russia is a fascinating country. While most people think of vodka, a police state run by the KGB and thick fur coats, the country has a rich culture and history. It has produced some of the greatest authors of all time, including Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Vladimir Nabokov, who wrote the controversial Lolita (which was the inspiration for the nickname given to Epstein’s private jet) as well as composers including Sergei Rachmaninoff and Pyotr Tchaikovsky. But the Russian psyche is unique and difficult for Westerners to understand.

DNF recommends readers listen to TRIGGERnometry’s podcast with historian Sir Anthony Beevor, who attempts to explain the Russian mindset, particularly as it relates to their style of warfare.

[8] A Swedish think-tank, SIPRI, is presenting its annual review of military tech and international security to the Swedish parliament, and the data is terrifying.

Global military spending hit a record $2.9 trillion last year. Space is being weaponized faster than anyone can regulate it (who, in any case, owns space?) and AI is being integrated into command-and-control systems. Chemical and biological weapons are also easier to develop than ever. Most worrying of all is that nuclear arsenals are expanding and modernizing.

There are a few causes, but DNF believes the leading cause is the protectionist stance of the US - countries are waking up to the fact that the mighty American backstop might not always be there.

[9] The English cricket team has a drinking problem. Ben Stokes, captain of the squad, is under investigation by the England and Wales Cricket Board over an alleged nightclub visit after his first test against New Zealand, which finished on Sunday. The incident occurred in the early morning hours of Monday, with a Saracens rugby player also involved.

DNF does not care for tabloid rumors and gossip (which, by the way, is what the Murdochs built their media empire on, so maybe we should), but does care about making fun of the English cricket team. The latest round of allegations comes after the squad was embroiled in another controversy in January after videos surfaced of Ben Duckett, England’s opening batsman, clearly intoxicated during this year’s Ashes series, which his team lost 4-1 to Australia.

If Stokes is stripped of his captaincy over the incident, Harry Brook will lead the team. Brook, incidentally, was fined and censured for being drunk and clashing with a bouncer before a one-day international back in October. Brook lied and said he was alone (as though drinking alone would have made it better) only for it to emerge that he was with fellow team members Jacob Bethell and Josh Tongue.

Seemingly, the English side is struggling to find players sober enough to play, let alone captain, the squad (Kagiso Rabada, the South African pace bowler, had his own set of controversies last year, but after dismantling Australia in the World Test Championship at Lord’s, we forgive him. Line and length, KG!).

[10] US forces carried out strikes against Iran hours after President Donald Trump blamed Tehran for shooting down an American military helicopter off the coast of Oman. It seems that both the ceasefire and the peace talks are going well.

Reporting on the matter continues to be something along the lines of “this highlights the fragility of the ceasefire” - DNF disagrees. Cease means stop. There is no ceasefire and no “imminent” peace agreement. There is simply no way for the US to get what it wants from any peace deal, there never has been.

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