September 18, 2026

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Happy Friday. Following the retirement of longtime enforcer Ryan Reaves, the NHL has just three players left who do not wear visors. In 2013, the league and its players’ association mandated protective visors for new players, but allowed existing ones to remain visor-less.

Leave it to the NHL to make a rule that only has some teeth.

—Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Adam Epstein, Holly Van Leuven, Neal Freyman

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

What happens if Paramount leaves LA
The SEC greenlighting tokenized stock trading
Merriam-Webster adding “looksmaxxing” to its dictionary

Markets

Nasdaq

26,418.3

+1.69%

S&P

7,637.76

+1.14%

Dow

51,778.04

+0.61%

10-Year

4.947%

-6.0 bps

Bitcoin

$76,541.84

+0.58%

Generac

$207.23

+18.34%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 4:30pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Stocks popped yesterday after the Fed’s recent rate hike convinced investors that the central bank is trying to tame inflation. Meanwhile, the aptly named generator company Generac went nuclear thanks to the news that it made a deal to supply Amazon data centers with backup gennies.

I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE

Is Paramount actually leaving LA?

Paramount offices with scribbles over palm trees in front of building

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Getty Images

Like someone juggling three barista jobs between auditions for nonspeaking parts, Paramount is contemplating giving up on LA. The Hollywood studio has reportedly intensified threats to leave the city after talks to settle California’s antitrust case contesting its planned $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. fell apart last month.

Deadline reported this week that Paramount notified Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass that it put in a deposit for moving trucks, while studio insiders told Politico that the company is searching for office space in Tennessee. Paramount is also reportedly considering relocating to Texas or Georgia.

Paramount CEO David Ellison said the company will ditch LA if the state doesn’t negotiate a settlement by Oct. 1—the date it has to start paying Warner Bros. $7 million for each day that the merger doesn’t go through. Critics think the threat to pack up is a bluff meant to pressure officials to green-light the deal.

Paramount to the local economy

The departure of the last remaining major studio headquartered in LA proper (rivals like Disney and Warner Bros. are technically in nearby Burbank) would be a devastating economic and cultural blow to a town where it’s operated for 100+ years:

Los Angeles County could lose more than 1,000 jobs if Paramount relocates its headquarters, and tens of thousands of jobs if Paramount yanks all operations.
That would deepen the wound from the more than 42,000 film and TV jobs the city already lost between 2022 and 2024.

The local economy could face a shortfall of up to $2 billion in the next five years, according to a recent report by the LA County Economic Development Corporation.

Paramount would lose more than just nice beaches. Industry observers say that leaving LA would jeopardize the studio’s talent pool, as production staff might be reluctant to follow the company out of the entertainment hub. It could just move its HQ to qualify for state incentives, but keep much of its staff in Southern California.

Looking ahead: The two sides will meet next month for court-mandated settlement talks. California Attorney General Rob Bonta is demanding that Paramount offload some of its assets for the merger to proceed.—SK

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World

Tour de headlines

Sam Altman in an elevator surrounded by people

Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images

🤖 OpenAI disclosed six more cases of “concerning” AI behavior. If you thought the bots were done disobeying orders, think again. OpenAI revealed this week that it detected six new incidents of its AI models exhibiting concerning or unexpected behavior. It also shared a new framework for tracking such instances of “misalignment,” which is the industry’s less scary term for when AI goes rogue. “We do not believe that the AI industry has solved alignment and monitoring to a sufficient degree to continue responsibly scaling at maximum speed for much longer,” the company wrote on its blog. The disclosure comes as executives across the AI industry acknowledge that the technology needs to slow down to address its risks.—AE

🚗 General Motors makes missile parts now. The company that makes the Corvette is also manufacturing missile components for the Pentagon. According to the Wall Street Journal, GM recently delivered parts for Lockheed Martin’s Patriot missiles and is in talks to supply the military contractor with parts for other munitions. The news follows reports that the Iran war has left the US’ stockpiles of Patriot missiles “extremely low.” For GM, the push into the missile business creates a new revenue stream as the global auto market continues to struggle.—AE

🏀 New York Knicks pause ticket sales after “mistake.” The reigning NBA champions opened up single-game ticket sales to the general public yesterday but then stopped, after the get-in price for the season opener against the Philadelphia 76ers (featuring LeBron James) exceeded $1,300. The Knicks said a “mistake” in pricing led them to be listed too high. In a statement, Madison Square Garden said ticket sales would restart after the pricing was adjusted, and that tickets would be set at last year’s price plus a 12% average increase. The team also said that those who purchased individual tix at the higher price would be issued a refund for the difference.—HVL

OPEN 24 HRS

SEC: Go ahead and trade stocks like they’re crypto

Krblokhin/Getty Images

America’s financial markets are one step closer to resembling America’s diners: The Securities and Exchange Commission will temporarily allow blockchain-based platforms to offer tokenized versions of US stocks, the agency announced yesterday—possibly opening the door to 24/7 trading of digitized mainstream assets.

Until now, platforms like Coinbase and Robinhood offered tokenized securities that are purportedly linked to US stocks (but grant no ownership rights to the stock itself) only outside the US, because of US regulations. Effective immediately, the agency’s new move creates a five-year exemption to its own rules, with two key requirements:

Platforms can’t just tokenize any stock they want—companies must get a 30-day window to object. That might sound good to the CEO of AMC, who feuded with Robinhood this month after discovering that an AMC-linked token was trading on the platform.
Holders of tokenized stocks must receive the same ownership rights they would be afforded by the underlying traditional stock, including dividends and voting.

If at first you don’t succeed: The SEC’s long-anticipated move comes two days after the Clarity Act, a major crypto-friendly bill, failed to move forward in the Senate.

Zoom out: Though some Wall Street firms voiced opposition to the SEC’s tokenization greenlighting, momentum is growing. The number of tokenized stockholders worldwide spiked 164% in the past 30 days, according to data firm RWA.xyz.—ML

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FOR THE HISTORIANS

‘Looksmaxxing’ is going in the dictionary

Illustration of an imaginary dictionary page showing different meme words: vibe coding, with a drawing of a tech-savvy person using a laptop with a thought bubble; looksmaxxing, with a drawing of a man's comically exaggerated face with cleft chin, pouty lips, and structured jawline; parasocial, with a drawing of someone lovingly watching celebrities on a TV screen; and finally, yacht rock with a drawing of a shaggy-haired man playing guitar on a sailboat.

Niv Bavarsky

Merriam-Webster is desperate for the kids’ attention. The oldest dictionary publisher in the US announced yesterday that it would add 1,395 new definitions to its online dictionary, with some also going into the next print edition. The additions include “looksmaxxing” and “Sunday scaries,” among other internet lingo.

This year’s add-ons outpace the 1,000 new entries that the dictionary company typically introduces each year, perhaps a sign that we are all talking too much. There’s the same healthy mix of social media slang, like “cuffing season” and “crashout,” but also less-online terms like “Mandela Effect” and “superfood.”

The tech industry got a bunch of its trendy buzzwords in, like “vibe coding,” “uncanny valley,” and “AGI” (artificial general intelligence).
Some updates were definitional additions, like for “compute,” which the dictionary now also considers a noun.

But the data suggests that people don’t want “Rickroll” in the dictionary, probably because they are embarrassed by how many times they’ve been Rickrolled. In a survey of 1,524 people in the US, 61% said they didn’t want to see slang like “6-7” or “skibidi” in Merriam-Webster, according to language-learning platform Preply.—MM

Reader Poll

Do you know what “looksmaxxing” means?

Yes, of course. Who doesn’t?
I have a vague idea.
No, and I don’t want to know.

Dave’s sports desk

LSU’s coach is getting legal advice from ChatGPT

Head coach Lane Kiffin on the field with arms crossed wearing an LSU visor

Gus Stark/Getty Images

On Fridays, the Brew’s Dave Lozo looks at a sports business story that says a lot more than just the final score of a game.

LSU and Ole Miss will square off in Oxford, MS, tomorrow night in a top 10 matchup that has just as much drama off the field as it does on.

LSU head coach Lane Kiffin, who spent six seasons in the same role at Ole Miss, is at the center of a lawsuit filed by the Southeastern Conference (SEC) seeking to block him from rostering former NFL players. According to an ESPN investigation, Kiffin would send screenshots from ChatGPT supporting LSU’s legal positions to a lawyer friend who said the advice “was almost always wrong.”

While that’s a conference issue, a bill called the Protect College Sports Act, which would address the wild-west feel of the current NCAA, is making its way through the US Senate. If passed into law, it would: limit player transfers; make compensation for a player’s name, image, and likeness (NIL) a federal law; place a cap on how much money a school can share with its players; and possibly prevent lawsuits like the one the SEC lobbed against LSU.—DL

Grammar trivia

“She” is a word that contains two personal pronouns: she and he. What five-letter word beginning with “U” contains four personal pronouns?

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Answer

Usher (Us, she, he, her)

(Source)

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: looksmaxxing, meaning “efforts, sometimes extreme, young men take to look more attractive.” Thanks to Luke from Melville, NY, for the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

Written by Adam Epstein, Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Holly Van Leuven, and Neal Freyman

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