This really shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but apparently the league sent a letter to the union notifying the players that their insurance won't be paid by MLS in case of a strike.

I can't imagine players really expected the league to continue fulfilling any of their previous promises if there's a strike. I'm sure that doesn't change their perception that the owners are trying to turn the vise.

The Sports Business Daily article also says the league and players have moved closer together on guaranteed contracts. As they've promised, though, owners still aren't budging on free agency. 

Generally speaking, it looks as if both players and owners have been reasonably tight-lipped about actual negotiations as all the talk in the last couple days has been in much more general terms, the latest of which came from the mouth of Columbus and Dallas investor-operator Clark Hunt.

“A strike would do nothing but do damage to the process,” Hunt said. “It would be misguided and ill-timed and further solidify the resolve of owners in terms of our current position.”

I'm choosing to take the relative lack of news as a good sign as it at least means the principal players are more interested in negotiating than making phone calls to whichever sympathetic ear they can find.