Happy Friday and welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to Puck’s best new reporting.

First up today, Julia Alexander considers the next chapter for Apple TV+, Cupertino’s loss-leading vanity project, long insulated by the company’s hundred-billion-dollar cashflow. Apple might be the third-most-valuable company in the world, but now executives are facing pressure to actually make money from the unprofitable streaming service. Julia explains why it’s time to copy HBO and turn on the ad revenue spigot.

Plus, below the fold: Ian Krietzberg chats with Edward Saatchi, the C.E.O. of Fable Studio, about the company’s polarizing ambition to become the “Netflix of A.I.” Julia Ioffe profiles Lew Olowski, the MAGA warrior turned H.R. enforcer at the State Department. John Ourand huddles up with Liga MX president Mikel Arriola to discuss the surging investor interest in Mexican soccer clubs. And exclusively for Inner Circle members, Lauren Sherman reveals the latest twist in the Roger Lynch era at Condé Nast.

Meanwhile, on the pods: Dylan Byers reunites with Julia Alexander on The Grill Room to discuss The Wall Street Journal’s increasingly aggressive Trump-Epstein coverage. On Impolitic, John Heilemann is joined by David Remnick and David Miliband for a bracing conversation on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. On Fashion People, Lauren and Cultured founder Sarah Harrelson discuss building a media business outside of the traditional ecosystem. And on The Powers That Be, Peter Hamby and Ian chew over Mark Zuckerberg’s vague assertion that Meta is close to A.I. “superintelligence.”

HOLLYWOOD

As Tim Cook touts “double-digit” streaming growth, whatever that means, Hollywood’s most price-insensitive player is facing growing pressure to actually make money from its unprofitable service. Turning on the ad revenue spigot is probably inevitable.

A.I.

A head-spinning conversation with Edward Saatchi, the C.E.O. of Fable Studio, about his new Amazon-backed, A.I.-fueled content-generating app, which promises to create near instantaneous TV episodes and, naturally, has all of Hollywood on edge.

WASHINGTON

Lew Olowski, the State Department’s newish head of H.R., is a RIF-happy, Christian evangelizing MAGA warrior with an axe to grind. Worse, according to his fellow diplomats, he’s just plain weird.

SPORTS

Relative affordability—$250 million, anyone?— and some timely rule changes have opened up the market for Mexican soccer clubs to U.S. investors.

FASHION

Condé Nast is on target to miss $1 billion in revenue this year, a somewhat stunning but not entirely unpredictable milestone. Is this all Roger Lynch’s fault, the natural order of things, or simply the Newhouses’ plan?

MEDIA

Julia Alexander rejoins Dylan to hash out the most combustible stories in media: The Wall Street Journal’s increasingly aggressive Trump-Epstein coverage, and Trump’s retaliatory lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch; how editor Emma Tucker is turning the Journal into a serious challenger to The New York Times; what the media world might look like in a post-Murdoch landscape; and much, much more.

WASHINGTON

John welcomes David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, and David Miliband, head of the International Rescue Committee, to discuss Israel’s war with Hamas and the humanitarian horror show unfolding in Gaza. Remnick explains Israel’s sense of “national euphoria” after the Twelve-Day War, launched by Benjamin Netanyahu against Iran to cripple its nuclear capabilities, while Miliband attests to the scale and severity of the food emergency in Gaza due to what seems to be a calculated starvation strategy, embraced by Netanyahu, to bring “total victory” against Hamas.

FASHION

Sarah Harrelson, editor-in-chief and founder of Cultured, joins Lauren to discuss how she built a media business outside of the traditional ecosystem. They also chat about the differences (and similarities) between the art and fashion worlds, what it was like to build a journalism career while based in Miami, moving to Los Angeles, and editing a magazine in 2025.

A.I.

Ian Krietzberg joins Peter Hamby to survey the global A.I. arms race, and whether other countries are taking the same regulation-free, Wild West approach to artificial intelligence as the United States. Then they dig into the merits of Mark Zuckerberg’s brow-raising claim that Meta is close to developing something called “superintelligence.”

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