Swalwell’s Implosion & An NYT Sports Scandal

Anthropic’s $30B Math Problem, Bezos’s Super Bowl Fantasy, Nordstrom’s Brit Pack

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to Puck’s best new reporting. Here’s what you need to know…

The Best & The Brightest: This week, Rep. Eric Swalwell went from a frontrunner in the California governor’s race to a disgraced former congressman following a pair of stunning rape accusations (which he denies). Peter Hamby unearths a years-long pattern of bizarre behavior—including a second life as a wannabe screenwriter—and what his implosion means for California’s political future. [Read More]
What I’m Hearing: A forthcoming Ninth Circuit ruling on the NFL’s antitrust exposure could be far more damaging to the league’s TV empire than any Justice Department probe. Eriq Gardner explains why the streamers rushing to sign billion-dollar rights deals may be buying something more fragile than they realize. [Read More]
The Hidden Layer: Anthropic recently claimed that its annual run rate had exploded from $9 billion to $30 billion—even as the enterprises relying on Claude are starting to ask uncomfortable questions about R.O.I. Ian Krietzberg surveys insiders at San Francisco’s HumanX conference about the widening gap between A.I. hype and business reality. [Read More]
Line Sheet: Nordstrom is hustling to take advantage of Saks Global’s collapse: actively recruiting Bergdorf’s top merchant, poaching Neiman’s best personal shopper, and posting its strongest numbers in over a decade. Sarah Shapiro takes an inside look at the latest skirmishes in the retail wars. [Read More]

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The Varsity: Amazon has spent three years building its relationship with the NFL through Thursday Night Football, and its executives are now openly pining to host the Super Bowl. Julia Alexander assesses whether Roger Goodell would actually hand the league’s crown jewel to a streamer, and how Netflix and YouTube could steal the prize. [Inner Circle Exclusive]
Wall Power: Marcel Duchamp took a urinal, turned it on its side, signed it, and called it art—and now MoMA is reintroducing him to a generation that already knows him without knowing it. Marion Maneker tours the sweeping retrospective and chronicles Duchamp’s modern significance. [Read More]

Meanwhile, on the pods…

The Varsity: John Ourand and Dylan Byers dig into The New York Times’s Dianna Russini–Mike Vrabel scandal and the tensions surrounding The Athletic. [Listen Here]

WASHINGTON

Peter Hamby

The Talented Mr. Swalwell

Even before the misconduct allegations that precipitated his downfall, Eric Swalwell was an attention-seeking social climber whose professed progressivism may have been his greatest lie of all.

HOLLYWOOD

Eriq Gardner

How Trump’s Anti-NFL Crusade Could Backfire

Stripping the league of its antitrust protection, which has already been winnowed down by courts, may lead to more football games on paid streaming, and a challenging landscape for conservative broadcasters like Sinclair and Nexstar.

A.I.

Ian Krietzberg

Silicon Valley’s Anthropic Anxiety

At the HumanX conference in San Francisco, A.I. executives expressed both euphoria and a growing fear that the industry’s surging economics are largely flowing upward, to a small handful of mega-firms—and that enterprise use cases aren’t yet compelling enough for everyone to share the wealth.

A MESSAGE FROM INSTAGRAM

Instagram Teen Accounts: Automatic protections for teens

Nearly 95% of parents say Instagram Teen Accounts help safeguard their teens. We will continue adding features to help protect teens online.

Learn more

FASHION

Sarah Shapiro

Nordstrom und Drang

A year after going private, Nordstrom looks financially disciplined—so why are they bringing in British basics brand Marks & Spencer?

SPORTS

Julia Alexander

Will Amazon Get the First Streaming Super Bowl?

It’s virtually inevitable that a streamer will land the exclusive rights to host the Super Bowl within the next decade. And Amazon Prime Video, which has already proven itself with Thursday Night Football and sits atop a geyser of e-commerce money, would be the natural successor to a six-decade tradition.

ART

Marion Maneker

The High Priest of High Concept

After a tragically long interval, Marcel Duchamp is getting a retrospective at MoMA that comprehends the full revolutionary impact of his conceptual work. And yes, it was worth the wait.

SPORTS

John Ourand

The Athletic’s Russini–Vrabel Stress Test

Dylan Byers joins John to parse the Dianna Russini–Mike Vrabel scandal and shed light on the tensions it has exposed between The New York Times and The Athletic. Dylan breaks down the Times’s internal investigation, The Athletic’s initial defensive posture, and what the episode reveals about the ongoing challenges of integrating the two newsrooms.

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