• Markets: Between new inflation numbers and the start of earnings season, investors will get all of the data they can handle this week (more on that later).
• Stock spotlight: Despite some negative headlines, Meta closed nearly 6% higher on Friday. That capped off its best week in more than two years, erasing its year-to-date losses, as investors seemed convinced the company may still have an AI story to tell.

Apple jacked?

Nurphoto/Getty Images

Apple’s former employees may not be falling far enough away from the tree, at least according to the company’s new lawsuit against OpenAI. The suit, filed in federal court on Friday, accused the startup of systematically leveraging its former employees as part of a broad, coordinated effort to steal trade secrets.

What does the lawsuit allege?

Apple said “every level” of OpenAI was involved in the scheme, but a lot of the lawsuit centers on Tang Tan, a former Apple VP and OpenAI’s current chief hardware officer, who is accused of getting Apple employees to share company secrets while they interviewed for jobs at OpenAI.

Apple turnover: If Apple employees did leave for OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker gave them advice on how to avoid immediately being removed from the company, so they could stay on for a couple more weeks to access Apple’s internal systems and trade secrets, the suit alleged.

Apple said it has 400+ former employees now working at OpenAI, including engineer Chang Liu, who was named as a defendant in the lawsuit alongside OpenAI, Tan, and io Products, the company founded by former Apple design guru Jony Ive. According to Apple, Liu:

• Stole a company laptop.
• Continued to obtain internal information from then-Apple employee Alyssa Peng (who also later joined OpenAI).
• Messaged Peng, “LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny,” and then downloaded presentations and manufacturing details, Bloomberg reported.

Apple is seeking damages and wants OpenAI to destroy any proprietary materials, saying the startup’s hardware business is “rotten to its core.” (Unclear whether the apple wordplay was intended.)

OpenAI denied the charges. A spokesperson for the startup said it has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets” and that it remains “focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.”

Familiar foe: Sam Altman’s longtime rival Elon Musk couldn’t resist getting a shot in after the allegations dropped, calling the OpenAI CEO “Scam Altman” on X. Altman responded by criticizing Musk’s SpaceX and calling him “homeboy” in the process, proving that tech titans are just like us, only with lamer insults.—BC

      

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World

Tour de headlines

Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2022. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

🇺🇸 Lindsey Graham, long-serving US senator from South Carolina, died at 71. Sen. Graham died Saturday night “from a brief and sudden illness,” according to a statement released by his office yesterday morning. He had just returned from a trip to Ukraine, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said the senator had visited his country 10 times since Russia’s invasion in 2022. He was also a champion of the American–Israeli alliance, and a proponent of the Iran war. President Trump told Meet the Press on Sunday morning that he had spoken with Graham just hours before his death, and that “other than being tired, he was fine.” It was later announced that Graham had died of aortic dissection, according to a preliminary medical report.

🚢 The US and Iran clashed over control of the Strait of Hormuz. The nations exchanged missile strikes this weekend, with the US hitting 140 military targets in strikes on Saturday and dozens more yesterday, and Iran striking US allies in the region over the weekend, including Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman, and Bahrain. The latest exchanges were sparked by Iran attacking a Cyprus-flagged container ship in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman. The Associated Press reported that Iran is angry that ships are taking a route through the strait near Oman with the support of US military vessels. Early this morning, the US Central Military Command said, “The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade. Iran does not control it.” The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps responded by saying that the waterway is “our territory.”

🏈 A group led by the Khosla family will buy the Seattle Seahawks. The terms of the deal have not been made public, but league sources told ESPN that the price tag was $9.6 billion, a record for an NFL franchise. In a statement he made on behalf of his family, the venture capitalist Vinod Khosla said, “We are honored to be entrusted as the next stewards of the Seattle Seahawks.” To complete the deal, he will be forced to sell his minority stake in the San Francisco 49ers. Khosla’s wife, Neeru, is expected to be the controlling owner. The team was owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, and his estate has owned it since he died in 2018. Allen left a directive for the trust to eventually sell the team, along with his Portland Trail Blazers NBA franchise, and donate the money to charity.—HVL

sign of the times

Getty Images

The funflation is coming from inside the house. Consumers have grappled with the cost of entertainment in the wider world costing more for some time now: Price hikes for concerts and sporting events, and the phenomenon known as friendflation, have been well documented. Now, people are getting priced out of amusing themselves at home.

Exclusive data analyzed by PNC Financial Services for CNBC revealed that consumers cut spending on home entertainment in June compared to a year ago, particularly in these categories:

• Gaming. Consoles used to be expensive upon release before getting cheaper over time, but tariffs and the demand for memory chips brought about by AI have kept hardware prices elevated.
• Streaming. Netflix, Prime Video, Spotify, Crunchyroll, Paramount+, and YouTube Premium are among the platforms that have gotten more expensive recently.

Other at-home pastimes have become pricier:

• Home fitness. Peloton, Jazzercise On Demand, and Pvolve have raised the prices for digital subscriptions in the past year.
• Anything you plug in. Electricity prices in the US are expected to break a record high this summer.

On the bright side…reading books is still cheap and making a comeback, so maybe we won’t enter a post-literate age after all…—HVL

      

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calendar

The week ahead

Eddie Keogh–The FA/Getty Images

Earnings season is coming: The big banks kick things off tomorrow, with JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs all set to deliver results. Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Johnson & Johnson, and United Airlines report on Wednesday. Then, Netflix, UnitedHealth, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) take their turns on Thursday.

Drink in your last hydration breaks: Just when we were all finally starting to understand the offside rule, the World Cup is winding it up. In the semifinals, France will play Spain tomorrow, and England will play Argentina on Wednesday. Then, the winners will square off on Sunday in the final. If that’s not enough to fill the sports-sized hole in your life, the MLB’s Home Run Derby is tonight, and the All-Star Game is tomorrow. Plus, golf’s Bri’ish Open will run Thursday through Sunday.

An epic Friday: Filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey sails into theaters later this week with a star-studded cast and sky-high expectations. The movie is the first one shot entirely with Imax cameras, just as Homer always intended.

But wait, there’s more:

• Inflation data incoming: the consumer price index will be released tomorrow, and the producer price index report will be out on Wednesday.
• For the first time as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh will appear before Congress this week, taking questions as part of the Fed’s semiannual report in the House tomorrow, and in the Senate on Wednesday.

BRENDAN’S GOT GOOD NEWS

Fútbol is life…and sometimes, it imitates art

Cristo Fernández in NYC last week. Raymond Hall/Getty Images

Cristo Fernández may play forward, but he’s also a goal keeper. After injuries derailed his soccer dreams in his 20s, he kept the goal of playing professionally in the back of his mind for years, even after a turn to acting.

Now, after his memorable run as fictional soccer player Dani Rojas on Ted Lasso, he’s back on the pitch for real. He made his professional soccer debut on Saturday night for the United Soccer League Championship’s El Paso Locomotive Football Club, entering the match in the 79th minute of a 2–0 loss to New Mexico United.

Fernández, a native of Mexico, also recently released a bilingual children’s book titled Fútbol Is Life!, a nod to his Ted Lasso character’s signature catchphrase, which tested a lot better with kids than Fútbol Will Disappoint You Unless You Support Messi!—BC

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News

What else is brewing

• Sen. Mitch McConnell broke weeks of silence and issued a statement saying his hospitalization is due to a fall and pneumonia.
• The Keystone Pipeline system’s operator announced it would pay a $26.9 million penalty to the US government over a 2022 Kansas oil spill.
• A heat dome over the western United States placed 58 million Americans under severe weather alerts yesterday.
• A bison hooked and tossed a tourist, seriously injuring him, at Yellowstone National Park on Friday.
• Jannik Sinner of Italy defeated Alexander Zverev of Germany in the Wimbledon men’s final yesterday, a day after Linda Nosková beat Karolína Muchová in the all-Czech Wimbledon women’s final.
• Forever Stamps went up in price yesterday. They are now 82 cents each. Perhaps to soften the blow, the USPS released fun new Barbie commemorative Forever Stamps on Saturday.

recs

• There’s a scientific explanation for why kids are obsessed with Moana.
• The best cleaner for your mattress may be shaving cream.
• HyperTexting is a new app that makes the open web into a scrollable, Twitter-like feed.
• A memoir from the legendary New York restaurateur behind Balthazar.**

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Play

Turntable: Your center letter is F, surrounded by Y, N, D, I, E, and G. Feels like a big week for verbs. Can you find 40 words? Play Turntable here.

Airport trivia

Last week, Palm Beach International Airport officially changed its name to President Donald J. Trump International Airport. Trump is the first sitting president to get an airport named after him, but eight other commercial airports are named after former presidents. How many can you name? (Neal says four is a good score.)

Answer

Kennedy in NYC; Bush in Houston; Reagan National (DCA); Ford in Grand Rapids, MI; Lincoln in Springfield, IL; Teddy Roosevelt in Dickinson, ND; Bill Clinton in Little Rock, AR; and Eisenhower in Wichita, KS.

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: petrichor, meaning “the smell of rainfall.” Thanks to Bud Bond from Gilbert, IL, and Charly from the UK, along with the hundreds of other readers who made it rain with this suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.