Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon potluck featuring Puck’s best new reporting. First up today, Rachel Strugatz digs into what’s really happening at Glossier as the $1.8 billion beauty brand prepares to launch its third fragrance in just six months—evidence of its success in a high-margin category, perhaps, but also a potential warning signal that the company needs to grow its revenue, fast, as investors including Sequoia, Thrive, and Forerunner seek an exit strategy. Plus, below the fold: Dylan Byers pinpoints the latest source of agita inside CBS as Evening News staffers question leadership’s perceived light-touch coverage of Trump. On Wall Street, Bill Cohan scrutinizes the new “double-bonus” phenomenon spreading through investment bank boardrooms. Leigh Ann Caldwell chronicles the House G.O.P. quasi-war over Mike Johnson’s “one big beautiful” budget bill. And in an Inner Circle exclusive, Marion Maneker sits down with the top curator of 21c Museum Hotels, Alice Gray Stites, to examine the commercial logic of “living with art.” Meanwhile, on The Town, Matt Belloni is joined by entertainment marketing executive Terry Press to unpack the derailed Oscar campaign for Emilia Pérez. And on The Powers That Be, Bill connects with Peter Hamby to dissect the escalating feud between friends turned rivals Elon Musk and Sam Altman.

FASHION

Less than five months after Glossier unexpectedly launched two new perfumes at once, the ur-millennial D.T.C. beauty brand is preparing to launch yet another scent in March. Indeed, it’s somewhat baffling that Glossier—a brand that has historically placed disciplined image maintenance above innovation and speed—will soon have launched three new fragrances in under six months. This is, after all, a brand that waited seven years to release a follow-up to its bestselling Glossier You. So what exactly is behind the company’s accelerated product launch strategy? Is the decade-old brand killing it, or getting killed, as investors push for an exit? Read Now

MEDIA

Frustration continues to mount within CBS News, this time over the revamped Evening News, whose throwback newsmagazine programming and comparatively hands-off approach to White House coverage has confounded many network insiders and irked Washington-based correspondents, who fear the loss of what precious little real estate still exists for their work. Of course, the agony over Evening News and its declining relevancy has been compounded by larger problems at CBS News amid the recent 60 Minutes edit scandal, and broader anxieties about the news division’s fate if and when Paramount is sold to Skydance—a pending transaction that already appears to be influencing its reporting. Read Now

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Peacock’s THE DAY OF THE JACKAL   When an elite assassin, the Jackal (Eddie Redmayne), carries out his latest kill, it catches the attention of a British intelligence officer (Lashana Lynch), who starts hunting him down. -- 2 SAG AWARD^® NOMINATIONS Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series – Eddie Redmayne Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series -- “Breathless adventure until the very end” - VARIETY “Eddie Redmayne is truly compelling” - THE DAILY TELEGRAPH “A top-notch thriller, with dazzling action sequences and smart storytelling.” - TV LINE --   All episodes are streaming now on Peacock.

WALL STREET

So-called “double bonuses” for C-suite executives on Wall Street are suddenly all the rage, and Mike Mayo, the outspoken Wall Street research analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, has had enough. With proxy and annual meeting season fast approaching, Mayo is calling out the boards of Goldman Sachs, as well as a trio of large commercial banks—KeyCorp, Truist Financial, and U.S. Bancorp—for gifting their top executives generous retention-style bonuses that basically don’t require them to hit any meaningful performance metrics along the way. Bill Cohan explains why Mayo is hoping other investors will share his concerns and make a stink about the bonuses, too. Read Now

WASHINGTON

House Republicans remain consumed with internal drama regarding how they’re going to pass Donald Trump’s tax cuts and border security agenda. After months of debate and endless listening sessions, the paralysis is stoking deep frustration with the usual conscientious objectors (Thomas Massie, Chip Roy, etcetera), as well as trepidation that Republicans are on track to prove yet again why they struggle to govern even with a power trifecta in Washington. And yet, despite failing to achieve true consensus, the House has finally decided to move forward with their “one big beautiful” budget bill that’s expected to add trillions to the national debt. Now they must face down the usual right-flank hardliners and even contemplate the dreaded B-word (bipartisanship). Read Now

ART

A full decade before Iwan Wirth and Manuela Hauser launched Artfarm—the hospitality and development company behind their famed Manhattan gallery-restaurant hybrid, Manuela—the major contemporary art collectors Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson founded 21c Museum Hotels: a boutique museum-hotel chain that offers the broader public a way to experience living with art, at least temporarily. Over the past 20 years, the award-winning business has expanded from its initial location in Louisville to Bentonville, Durham, St. Louis, Lexington, Cincinnati, and Chicago. Herewith, a conversation between Marion and Alice Gray Stites, the museum director and chief curator at 21c Museum Hotels, about the idea of “living with art,” the complicated logistics of a museum-hotel hybrid, and the chain’s program to “elevate” local artists. Read Now

HOLLYWOOD

Matt is joined by award-winning entertainment marketing executive Terry Press to discuss the social media whirlwind surrounding best-picture-nominated film Emilia Pérez after tweets from its star, best actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón, have derailed its Oscar campaign. Terry offers her expertise and runs through the awards campaign playbook to outline how Netflix and Emilia Pérez can salvage this implosion. Matt finishes the show with an opening weekend box office prediction for Captain America: Brave New World. Listen Now

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR

Peacock’s THE DAY OF THE JACKAL   When an elite assassin, the Jackal (Eddie Redmayne), carries out his latest kill, it catches the attention of a British intelligence officer (Lashana Lynch), who starts hunting him down. -- 2 SAG AWARD^® NOMINATIONS Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series – Eddie Redmayne Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series -- “Breathless adventure until the very end” - VARIETY “Eddie Redmayne is truly compelling” - THE DAILY TELEGRAPH “A top-notch thriller, with dazzling action sequences and smart storytelling.” - TV LINE --   All episodes are streaming now on Peacock.

WALL STREET

Bill Cohan joins Peter to dissect the heated and increasingly personal feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, which reignited again this week as Altman brushed off Elon’s $97 billion, middle-finger bid to take over the nonprofit that controls OpenAI. Bill and Peter explore the roots of their dissent, and discuss how these friends turned rivals are now vying for the affections of Trump. Listen Now

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