Kamala’s Battleground Boom, Vennette Diagrams, Prisoner Swap Chatter

Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon delivery of Puck’s best new reporting.

First up today, Dylan Byers uncovers the latest jolts to the cable news landscape—from NBC to CBS and CNN—as networks prepare to jettison the half-century-old format of a singular, expensive anchor, in favor of ensemble casts and more modest salaries.

Plus, below the fold: William D. Cohan reveals why former GE executives have it out for C.E.O. Larry Culp. Rachel Strugatz has the goods on a new wave of M&A heat in the beauty industry. Tara Palmeri chats with Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle about whether Kamala Harris should pick Josh Shapiro. On Impolitic, John Heilemann presents Part Two of his election mini round table with George Conway and Sarah Longwell. On Fashion People, Lauren Sherman rings up analyst extraordinaire Luca Solca for a midyear temperature check on the luxury industry. And on The Powers That Be, Julia Ioffe joins Peter Hamby to discuss the latest Moscow prisoner swap chatter and Harris’s new policy consigliere.

DYLAN BYERS

News and notes on the future of broadcast news amid the O’Donnell pivot and other industry murmurs.

WILLIAM D. COHAN

For years, GE provided executives with a juicy dowry in retirement, bestowed at the sole discretion of the C.E.O. Then Larry Culp came along and started tinkering with the formula, spinning off the liabilities as he broke up Jack Welch’s empire. Now Culp is backtracking, but the damage has been done. “You can hear [Jack] screaming,” said one person involved in the litigation. “The company has changed culturally, and not for the better.”

RACHEL STRUGATZ

News, notes, updates, and gossip on the beauty industry’s slightly underwhelming, but rapidly ascending, summer of deal-making.

TARA PALMERI

A candid conversation with Pennsylvania Congressman Brendan Boyle about the merits of Josh Shapiro as V.P., and whether a candidate who flip-flopped on fracking can win “the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.”