CORPORATE THEATER: The debut of our Corporate Theater Players, featuring Teary CEO and BlenderBot3

MONDAY KETCHUP: #Gun control win, Dan Loeb u-turns, boobirds for #Disney, #meta's Cleggy king, and credit scores are partisan part 2 NERD ALERT

FRIDAY WRAP: CEOs Queen Elizabeth and Liz Truss, Domino's pizza box recycling coup, and the Waltons are the modern Corporate Monarchs. Plus, Putin's gas freeze, BBBY, Dutch go anti-meat, Starbucks unions on TikTok, waterless tree tire rubber, Ukraine hacks Russian soldiers, Snap's messy firings, actual monarchs suck, and Twitter bots are confirmed.

RATE THE HEADLINES: Facebook can't find your data, Meta and Juul settle, cocaine-free cocaine, fast food regs, Liz Truss's glass cliff

WOKE WEDNESDAY: In which Matt stops apologizing for woke investing and reclaims ESG from the anti-woke

KETCHUP: Russia turns off the gas, Trump fails to subvert ANOTHER democracy, LOTR's black elf problem, and climate change makes dead bumblebees

FRIDAY WRAP: Starbucks new CEO, cleantech home energy upgrade wins, and how women should wait patiently for their turn on boards. Blake Masters, National Law Review, Mudge Zatko / Elon Musk / Twitter. Starbucks new CEO, Twitter's edit button, sea level rise. Climate tech, women pay more as managers, baby formula diversification.

The Stupid Headlines That Triggered Me List:

First and foremost, some breaking news here:

Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russian oil and gas giant Lukoil — which spoke out against Russia's invasion of Ukraine — has died after falling out of a hospital window, state news agencies RIA Novosti and TASS reported Thursday.

State media later reported Ravil Maganov jumped out of a hospital window and died by suicide. Lukoil, meanwhile, said the chairman died after "severe illness."

Stakeholders Rule!

California may require fast food chains to pay their workers more. McDonald’s says it ‘hurts everyone’

Corporate America is waking up to frontline workers’ importance, according to Ford Foundation

Can we call them “woke”?

Americans haven't been this pro-union since 1965

Union counterbalances - companies with highly consolidated board influence and greater than 50% labor repped employees:

Frontier Group - William Franke (64% influence) vs. 88% unionized employees

Century Aluminum - Wilhelm van Jaarsveld (52% influence) vs. 67% unionized

Sealed Air Corp - Ed Doheny (38% influence) vs. 56% unionized

Arcbest Corp - Judy McReynolds (38% influence) vs. 59% unionized

Cleveland-Cliffs - Lourenco Goncalves (37% influence) vs. 72% unionized

Woke fun

Barbie and Ken as you've never seen them before: Mattel adds hearing aids, colorful prosthetic limbs, and skin conditions to better reflect body diversity

Women Ditch Old Office-Wear Rules for Color and Style

Says Rent the Runway, a company that specializes in renting high end clothes to women? Is this an indicator?

What does “Salmon button down and khakis company” have to say about men’s fashion? Did we go direct to sweatpants?

Product fails

A Tesla owner is suing the electric vehicle maker, alleging his Model 3 stops for random obstacles in 'frightening and dangerous nightmare'

Runs things over vs. stops for things… maybe robots aren’t the future

Dell confirms some XPS 13 Plus laptop screens may detach inadvertently

Who’s the Boss?

Jeff Bezos said his son told him 'please don't eff this up' after Amazon took on 'The Lord of the Rings' prequel

These US airlines have lost or mishandled the most luggage so far this year

Anti-Woke?

The Anti-ESG Crusader Who Wants to Pick a Fight With BlackRock

Workplace diversity programmes often fail, or backfire

Blowhard Index

Sorry Zuckerberg, the Metaverse Won't Replace Zoom

Leadership expert: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is 'derailing right in real-time'

former Medtronic CEO Bill George

Dan Loeb wants to shake up the Disney board because it's insular. So we solved it for him using Board Sabermetrics. You're welcome.