Annals of the mafia state

Since today is the last Friday of the summer, I'm leaving the office a little early to tackle one of the more logistically challenging itineraries on the Brews & Choos Project. So I'm queueing up a few things to read over the weekend:

• The XPOTUS finally won his "long hard battle" to finally get a mugshot, which the Internet immediately (a) put on swag you can buy and (b) compared with the Kubrick Stare. But where did the Fulton County Jail get his height and weight?
• US intelligence sources believe the airplane purportedly carrying mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin suffered an "internal explosion" consistent with a bomb before crashing with 10 people on board.
• The Russian Government dismissed as "all lies" that it had anything to do with Prigozhin's apparent assassination, meaning it absolutely blew up the plane and wants you to know it.
• Robert Wright interviews exiled Russian journalist Nikita Petrov about Prigozhin's disappearance, while Julia Ioffe explains how this fits with Putin's philosophy of poniyate, "understandings." ("Oh, Yevgeny, won't see him no more.")
• Lydia Polgreen "glimpsed our brutal future" when she observed our "ally" Saudi Arabia slaughter thousands of Ethiopian refugees at their border with Yemen.
• Matt Ford says the Supreme Court got its stopped-clock moment when it unanimously decided NCAA v Alston (141 S.Ct. 2141, 2021) in favor of student athletes who generate billions in revenue for their schools but see none of it.
• Crime has fallen and punctuality has risen on the CTA, and even Crain's irascible political columnist Greg Hinz has a cheer for them.

Finally, via Bruce Schneier, a report on Mexican food labeling laws, how manufacturers have gone to absurd lengths to skirt them, and how these fights are probably coming the US soon.