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Reporters return to White House after weeklong ban

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  President Trump can’t keep CNN, MS NOW, and Politico off his US taxpayers’ lawn, at least for now. Nearly a week after he barred them from the White House, journalists from these outlets regained access yesterday following a judge’s early morning order to temporarily block Trump’s ban. To refresh: Trump announced last Friday that he was revoking White House credentials for CNN, MS NOW, and Politico (Politico and Morning Brew have the same parent company, Axel Springer), initially saying it was “a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” but later calling their reporting a national security risk. The outlets sued to get back in. Now, things are looking up for the press: “The Court is skeptical—at least on this record—that Defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation” of the outlets’ press passes, US District Judge Timothy Kelly wrote : Kelly granted the outlets a 14-day restraining order agai...
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Bob Chapek’s new memoir blames Bob Iger for his fall from the castle

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  With the fervor of a 20-slide Notes app callout, Bob Chapek wants you to know who’s at fault for his short tenure as CEO of Disney: the other Bob. In excerpts from his new memoir, Behind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth, which Simon & Schuster is releasing next week, Chapek claims that former CEO Bob Iger (who had the role before and after him) launched a “relentless three-year campaign to push me out.” ICYMI: In February 2020, Iger abruptly stepped down as CEO of Disney, but stayed on as executive chair of the board. Chapek was his successor, but he was unceremoniously ousted on a Sunday after a three-year stint at the top that involved Covid turbulence, an unpopular take on Florida’s so-called “Don’t say gay” bill, and a compensation fight with Scarlett Johansson. Then Iger took the reins once more. In his new tell-all: Chapek says he spent years being teased with the CEO role, but only found out he got it weeks before his 2020 appointment...
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Thélyson Orélien’s debut novel was destined for top literary lists, then the AI accusations came

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  A French novel published earlier this year about a Haitian refugee fleeing to Canada was headed for top literary prizes in France until an anonymous X account claimed its writer committed a bigger sin than overusing similes: using AI. Thélyson Orélien’s debut novel, C’était ça ou Mourir (which translates to It Was That or Dying ), was taken off the longlist yesterday for the Prix Goncourt, one of France’s most prestigious awards, because of the allegations. Quel scandale: The accusations came from a small anonymous account that claimed to have fed random passages of the novel into the AI detection program Pangram, which determined the selected passages were 100% AI generated based on patterns in the writing. Academics subsequently using similar programs also found high percentages of AI-generated content in Orélien’s book. Orélien has denied the accusations, saying that his writing style uses Haitian and Caribbean repetition and rhythms. He told news outlets he is preparing a ...
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Mortgage rates are soaring, with little relief in sight

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  Home financing costs are doing the part of the Cha-Cha Slide where they bring it to the top like they’ll never ever stop. Amid ongoing inflation, economists are wondering how high average 30-year US mortgage rates will go after topping 7% this week for the first time since early 2025, according to Freddie Mac. The surge comes after the Federal Reserve raised interest rates last week for the first time in three years, a decision that markets saw coming: Before the rate hike, mortgage rates and Treasury bond yields—which generally move in tandem—spiked in anticipation. Forecast: “There’s no reason to think that the rout [in bonds] couldn’t continue, and rates get closer to 8%, or even higher,” the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics told Barron’s. But… This worst-case scenario—as another economist characterized it to Barron’s—would require “significant deterioration” in the US dollar’s safe-haven status and a continued Treasury bond sell-off . Those factors hinge largely on the ...
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Gen Z sees sports betting as an investment

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  Why try to figure out how an earnings report will affect a stock when you can figure out how an injury report will affect a sports team? That’s the attitude that some—including a wide swath of Gen Z—are taking when it comes to how to grow their money. One in five Americans view wagering on sports as an investment tool , and for Gen Z, it’s two in five, according to a recent Bank of America survey. And they’re acting on those feelings: A Betterment survey of 1,000 investors found that 52% of Gen Zers redirected money intended for investing into sports betting instead. All this is despite the odds and history screaming to do the opposite: There’s a fee built into the odds of wagers called a vig . The vig is how sportsbooks ensure they make money, and it turns bets with a 50/50 outcome into one where bettors must put down $110 to win $100, which means even if you win 50% of those bets, you will still lose money long term. Meanwhile, the stock market has delivered an average annual ...
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Private credit faces highly public questions

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  You know your corner of the market has made it to the big leagues when JPMorgan honcho Jamie Dimon cautions that it might bring about the next financial crisis—as he did with private credit earlier this year. Of course, not all the attention private credit has gotten has been negative—or has compared it to a “ cockroach ,” as Dimon memorably did following the collapse of two private credit-backed firms. So, what is it? Basically, private credit means loans from investment funds rather than banks. These loans are often riskier than bank loans, so the companies taking them pay more in interest, and the funds typically intend to hold them until maturity. Despite its reputation for high risk, the boom in private credit traces back to regulations put in place in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis meant to get banks out of the risky lending game. With banks facing more rules, companies without a big track record or seeking to add on to already large debt needed to turn to someone e...
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Gen Z isn’t interested in Burning Man

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  Burning Man, the annual event in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, kicked off earlier this week—and the folks biking around in goggles and gaudy costumes are a little older than they used to be. Just 10% of burners at last year’s event were in their 20s, a record low, according to the Black Rock City annual census. Gen Z seems less charmed by the “radical inclusion” of Burning Man than previous generations. In 2015, 30% of attendees at Burning Man were in their 20s. But the younger crowd has steadily declined over the last decade, mostly because of the cost: A ticket has ballooned from $390 in 2015 to $550 this year as the festival has struggled to stop hemorrhaging money. With a vehicle pass, camping gear, fees, and food, attendees are typically looking at a minimum $1,000 trip, according to Business Insider. It hasn’t just gotten older. John Law, one of the co-founders of Burning Man, wrote last month that the current festival has “lost its anarchist soul.” Silicon Valley elites an...
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