Corporate donors to Trump’s pet projects are declining to properly disclose their gifts.
Season 2 of Master Plan is here. Start listening.
Written by Veronica Riccobene. Edited by Joel Warner and Abigail Edge.
🐪 You made it! We avoided the end of the world yesterday. Don’t worry, somebody was thinking of the investors.
🔥 ICYMI in The Lever: The FBI can purchase your location data without a warrant.
🎧 New from **The Lever **podcast studio: _Master Plan: The Kingmakers, traces the decades-long scheme to build an all-powerful American presidency. Listen to the latest episode.
STORIES TO GO
In a hurry? These are the top stories in the country today.
🤝 The U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire just hours before President Donald Trump’s threat to destroy a “whole civilization” was set to materialize. Iran has agreed to allow passage through the Strait of Hormuz — with potential tolls — as long as strikes stop.
☀️ Scientists are preparing for the strongest El Niño weather event in 140 years, which may bring above-average heat waves and humidity to the U.S. this summer.
🍑 Yesterday’s special election for the Georgia Congressional seat formerly held by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) went narrowly to the Republican candidate — even though Trump decidedly won the district in 2024.
TODAY'S TOPLINE
Freedom to addict. A legal showdown between sports betting technology firms has led one to admit that one of gambling’s most addictive features is “the most important, and most lucrative, business for sportsbooks,” The Lever’s Freddy Brewster reports. Health research indicates that “in-play” or “live action” betting, which takes place after an event has started, is closely linked to gambling addiction because its continuous nature leads to “more bets, longer gambling sessions, loss-chasing, and impaired self-control” in bettors.
📂 In an antitrust lawsuit filed against league data provider Sportradar, sportsbook software firm Altenar Technologies accused its former business partner of illegally cornering the sports betting market by not fairly selling its live sports data, which is necessary to facilitate in-play betting.
⚾ Sportradar is threatening Altenar’s very business model because “sportsbooks must offer ‘in-play’ betting to remain competitive,” Altenar argues in filings.
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DAY IN DATA
Justice Department prosecutors quietly shuttered more than 23,000 criminal cases during the first six months of 2025. (Source: ProPublica)
YOU LOVE TO SEE IT
Ahead of the 2026 midterms, 23 states have sued the Trump administration to protect mail-in voting rights. In a move that states argues “violates bedrock principles of federalism and separation of powers,” the president last week issued an executive order requiring the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list of U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and barring the U.S. Postal Service from sending absentee ballots to individuals not on that list.
📨 The EO also requires states and localities to mark ballots with unique tracking barcodes, or risk losing federal funding.
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NEWS DIVE
**Project Secret Piggy Bank. Palantir, Meta, Paramount Skydance, and more than two dozen other corporations might have broken the law when they funneled millions to the Trump administration through undisclosed donations to the revamped White House ballroom, Trump’s future presidential library, and...
****Stop Trump’s Mega Detention Warehouses.** The Department of Homeland Security is buying and leasing large warehouses across the U.S. to convert them into mega immigration detention centers. These facilities are meant to support Donald Trump’s plan to deport one million people per year.
Tell Congress to demand that DHS cancel all warehouse detention plans, disclose all proposed sites and contracts, and stop expanding mass immigration detention.
DOOMSCROLL DISTRACTIONS
🍬 Leftover Easter candy? Put it in a cookie!
🐦 Attentive birds get the worm. Protect your brain from aging by becoming an expert birder.
🎷 Do yourself a favor. And dive into five minutes of exquisite Detroit jazz.
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