THE MORNING DUMP
Become a regular
<- Archive
THE MORNING DUMP
Today's news, fully digested.
Wednesday, September 23, 2026  •  Full edition

Go check out our new games leaderboard!

Sports

CHICAGO FANS WERE MAKING D-ROSE/CALEB WILLIAMS EDITS OVER A PULLED HAMMY

Caleb Williams had a clear lane to the end zone on first-and-goal Sunday, pulled up with nobody touching him, and screamed loud enough that Soldier Field went quiet. Two trainers walked him off. Then came the medical tent, the cart, the towel over the face, and a fist pump to the crowd like a slain gladiator on the way into the tunnel. Chicago lost 9-3 and spent the night planning a funeral. Monday's MRI said Grade 1 hamstring strain. No tear. Ben Johnson called him week to week and hasn't ruled him out for Monday night against the Eagles. Williams was reportedly already walking around the locker room on a slight limp. The sympathy died with the diagnosis. Will Compton, nine years an NFL linebacker, posted that you can't scream like that and get carted off for a hamstring. Emmanuel Acho said crying after an NFL injury is sacred. Dave Portnoy took his swings on a podcast. Kyle Long, whose own Bears career got chopped short by injuries, told Compton to shut the fuck up, and Maxx Crosby said a hamstring letting go will freak anybody out in the moment. Then Monday night, Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart took a hit to his left knee, limped off under his own power, and begged to go back in. The internet crowned him the tough one by lunch. Tuesday's testing showed the knee is worse than feared and he could miss the rest of the season. I still think New York fans would rather be in Chicago's situation.

Sources (3)
Offbeat

LONG ISLAND WOMAN GETS WORLD'S WORST 47TH BIRTHDAY GIFT

Danielle Tammone woke up on September 17 and turned 47. She then walked across her backyard in Bohemia, New York, the lawn gave out, and she dropped about eight feet into the ground. The hole was an old stone cesspool nobody knew was there, which is the Long Island homeowner surprise nobody puts in the listing. She landed in muddy water on a pile of sod, tried to climb out, and the stone kept crumbling down on her. Her golden retriever Daisy circled the opening, providing the precise amount of help a golden retriever provides. "It's my birthday," Tammone told CBS New York. "(Thought) This might be my death date." Two neighbors she had never met heard the screaming. Their first theory was that she was stuck in the shed, because nobody's opening guess is underground. They found her, called 911, and told her to keep yelling so crews could locate the hole. Firefighters ran a ladder down through mud, water and roots and got her out after roughly 30 minutes. Standing there in a yard with a fresh pit in it, they all sang her happy birthday. She walked away with whiplash and pulled muscles, which for a woman who spent half an hour in a collapsing sewage pit is fortunate.

Sources (2)
Stocks & Stuff

META MUSE OVERTAKES CHATGPT FOR KING OF THE APP STORE

Meta launched Muse on September 8. It books travel, fills out forms, sorts your inbox and buys things for you. Thirteen days later Sensor Tower had it over 2.5 million downloads and sitting above ChatGPT at the top of Apple's US free chart. Meta stock jumped 11.3% Monday to close at $741.25, its best day since April 2025, adding around $190 billion in market value. Two weeks ago investors thought Meta's AI spending was a bonfire. Then Sunday night, Amazon started hitting Muse users with a popup saying continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates its conditions of use. Amazon says Meta never told it Muse was coming, the bot doesn't identify itself while browsing, and it handles customer credentials in ways Amazon doesn't like. Meta disputes some of that and says passwords and payment methods stay hidden from the model. Amazon has already sued Perplexity over its Comet browser and moved to block agents from Google and OpenAI, which makes more sense when you remember Amazon pulled in more than $68 billion in ad revenue last year, and bots don't look at sponsored listings. Meta ran the same play in reverse, barring general-purpose chatbots from WhatsApp's business messaging. And before you hand Muse your logins: internal testing found it blew past a guardrail and surfaced a user's iCloud photos after being asked to identify toys in birthday party pictures.

Sources (3)
Dealer's Choice

LOOKSMAXXING GURU 'CLAVICULAR' CHARGED WITH RAPE

Braden Peters, 20, built a following as Clavicular, selling teenage boys on looksmaxxing, the regimen of doing extreme things to your own face in pursuit of a better jawline. Massachusetts has now charged him with rape, drugging a person for sexual intercourse, and procuring liquor for someone under 21. Two felonies and a misdemeanor, filed Sept. 8 in Orleans District Court after a probable cause finding on Sept. 4. The charges stem from May 23, 2025 at his family's home in Chatham, where the accuser, then 17, told police she drank vodka and became heavily intoxicated. He denies all of it. The related Florida civil suit alleges he injected her face with an unapproved fat-dissolving substance during a livestream without her consent. His reps' response is that she knew what was happening with the injections and that she went to police because he would not pay her. A spokesperson called the criminal charges bogus and noted the sexual assault claim was added to the civil suit by amendment months after it was filed. His representative, Mitchell Jackson, keeps circling back to the point that Peters has not been physically served, as if a felony complaint spoils in transit. Chatham police tried him twice in late August and hit a full voicemail box. On X, Peters has accused his accuser of chasing attention or money. In May he pled no contest over an alligator shooting in the Everglades and got six months probation plus 20 hours of community service he is not allowed to stream.

Sources (3)
World & Whatnot

XI FLIES TO WASHINGTON TO ARGUE ABOUT A 1982 DOCUMENT, POSSIBLY INSIDE THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

Xi Jinping lands in Washington on Wednesday, sits down with Trump on Thursday, and tours the National Archives on Friday, and sources briefed on the prep say the archives stop is where he might make his pitch. The pitch is the third of the three joint communiqués, signed in 1982, in which the US said it intended to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan. He is going to the building where the country stores its old paperwork to complain about a piece of paperwork. There's a footnote Beijing tends to skip. Reagan attached a memo saying the reduction was "conditioned absolutely upon" China staying committed to a peaceful resolution. Chinese forces now operate around Taiwan almost daily, with live-fire war games. Trump's leverage is $14 billion in missiles, anti-drone gear and air defenses that he has been holding since spring. He told Fox in May it was "a very good negotiating chip." Taiwan's Lai Ching-te responded that his country will never be sacrificed or traded away, which is what you say when you can feel yourself being sacrificed and traded away. Nobody agrees on how hard Beijing is pushing. The Telegraph, citing Kyodo sources, reported China threatened to scrap the summit over new arms sales. A senior US official told the Daily Caller News Foundation that reporting is wrong. Matt Pottinger's bet is that Xi just lectures Trump for a while, like last time.

Sources (3)

That's the dump. See you tomorrow, same bowl. - The Morning Dump crew

Copyright 2026 The Morning Dump | themorningdump.com