The Powers That Be: Daily

Eriq Gardner joins Peter to break down the bizarre legal fight behind a Shohei Ohtani home run ball that sold for over $4 million after three men scrambled to claim it in the stands. Eriq also digs into the labor reckoning facing the league, explaining why a post-season lockout seems increasingly likely—though a deal may not be entirely out of reach.

Julia Ioffe joins Peter to examine how Donald Trump brokered an oil export deal with Russia to ease energy costs, despite the uncomfortable reality that it could help fund Vladimir Putin’s war machine in Ukraine. Julia explains that Trump is standing firm, even as plenty of Republicans on Copitol Hill object to the energy agreement—which experts say is still unlikely to bring down gas prices before the midterms.

Ian Krietzberg joins Peter to break down how rogue Anthropic agents accessed a State Department website and filed a fake homicide tip with the Philadelphia P.D.—and how the incident has the Trump administration pressing the big A.I. companies for more transparency. Ian also weighs in on the sudden rise of the term “superintelligence.”

Marianna Sotomayor joins Peter to answer an overlooked question about the midterms: if Democrats take back the House, the Senate, or both, what do they actually plan to do with that power? Marianna lays out the internal friction a House majority could expose between progressive socialists and centrist moderates. She also digs into how the G.O.P.’s heavy ad spending is failing to produce the results they’d hoped for.

Jon Kelly and Peter reunite to make sense of the Paramount-WBD aftermath, beginning with David Zaslav’s $606 million payday and the looming Netflix layoffs rattling the industry. Then they weigh what’s next for David Ellison—from a reality-TV boom tightening scripted budgets to the sports rights likely on the chopping block—and the awkward pairing of CNN and CBS News.