August 13, 2026

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Good morning, and Happy Left Handers Day to roughly 10% of humans and most kangaroos reading this. From scissors to those desks in lecture halls, the world was not designed for you, yet you’ve persevered to produce the likes of Oprah, Sir Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Dontrelle Willis, Bart Simpson, Link, and our devoted copyeditor, Kristin.

Elbow someone at the dinner table tonight to remind them whose day it is.

—Matty Merritt, Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Holly Van Leuven, Abby Rubenstein

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

Bob Iger and Josh Kushner buying the Lakers
Inflation easing a little last month
Tate McRae’s less-than-enthusiastic skincare post

Markets

Nasdaq

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Dow

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10-Year

4.682%

-- bps

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CoreWeave

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*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:30pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Stocks climbed like wisteria yesterday after last month’s inflation reading came in cool (more on that below), with AI stocks getting a trellis-like boost from upbeat earnings reports from infrastructure companies Supermicro, CoreWeave, and Nebius Group.

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TURNOVER

Bob Iger and Josh Kushner buy Lakers for $12.5b

Photo collage showing Bob Iger on the left and Joshua Kushner on the right, with a treatment applied that colors them orange and purple, the LA Lakers teamcolors.

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Getty Images

One of the most iconic teams in the NBA is changing hands again. A group led by Disney’s ex-CEO and Jared Kushner’s baby bro will buy the controlling majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers for a record-breaking $12.5 billion, ESPN reported yesterday.

If the league approves it, the deal would represent the highest valuation in history for any sports team, breaking a record set roughly one year ago by the previous sale of the Lakers:

Last summer, businessman Mark Walter bought a majority stake from the Lakers’ longtime owners, the Buss family, for ~$10 billion. (The Buss family still owns a minority stake.)
Now, Walter will sell his stake to a group led by Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, as the recently LeBron James-less team looks to reshape around Luka Dončić, the league’s top offensive scorer last season.

Walter’s decision to flip the Lakers faster than a renovated house…comes as his business empire faces potential legal peril. The 66-year-old insurance magnate-slash-chair of asset-management firm Guggenheim Partners-slash-owner of the LA Dodgers is under federal investigation for alleged tax fraud involving billions of dollars in loans to his companies.

Selling the Lakers should expedite Walter’s current efforts to raise cash to pay down those loans, Bloomberg reported yesterday.

Meet the new owners

You probably know Iger as the CEO of NBA broadcast partner Disney, which he helmed from 2005 to 2020 and again from 2022 until March 2026. And you may know Kushner as a high-profile investor. He’s also the younger brother of President Trump’s son-in-law and unofficial White House advisor, Jared.

Additionally, Iger advises Thrive Capital, the younger Kushner’s VC firm that bets big on AI companies, and the duo was involved in the NBA’s potential Las Vegas expansion before pivoting to buy the Lakers, per ESPN.

The younger Kushner is ramping up his sports investments. Thrive Eternal, an experiences-focused Thrive Capital subsidiary, bought a stake in the San Francisco Giants earlier this year. More recently, Thrive Eternal was on track to buy a piece of the World Cup, until reports of FIFA’s private investment proposal triggered major backlash and led President Gianni Infantino to scrap the plans.—ML