Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to Puck’s best new reporting. In today’s special, post-holiday issue, we’ve compiled a few standout podcast episodes to keep you sharp on the latest headlines…

A MESSAGE FROM META

America’s Workforce Academy: Paid training, a job and a path to America's future.

America’s Workforce Academy, built by Meta, will give hundreds of thousands of Americans the skills to build our country's AI future.

The program offers paid training in electrical, plumbing, fiber installation and many other trades, with a job upon completion. No experience necessary. No degree required. No cost to the participant.

Because the future is for everyone.

Learn more.

MEDIA

After a restful Fourth, true patriots Jon Kelly and Peter Hamby reunite to dig into the second-order effects of the Comcast split news. Who will buy NBCU? What will happen to the news division? Was this cleavage foreshadowed when Brian Roberts overpaid for NBA rights? Then they segue into Axel Springer’s likely vision for The Telegraph in the U.S. market.

SPORTS

C.E.O. Eric Shanks joins John to gush about the World Cup and Fox’s decade-long investment in soccer. He discusses his biggest surprises, Fox’s always-on approach to coverage, Zlatan Ibrahimović’s unlikely TV career, the controversial hydration breaks, the looming 2030 rights war, and more.

HOLLYWOOD

Matt is joined by Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw to discuss the news that NBCUniversal is splitting off from Comcast into a stand-alone company, the details of the deal, why this is happening now, and whether this opens the floodgates for more M&A.

A MESSAGE FROM META

America’s Workforce Academy: Paid training, a job and a path to America's future.

For 250 years, America has delivered the world’s greatest inventions because of the generations of Americans who built them.

The AI revolution will bring historic opportunity. America’s Workforce Academy, built by Meta, will train the electricians, welders, crew leaders, plumbers, fiber installers and other skilled tradespeople who will build it.

It’s an unprecedented program, powered by an initial $115 million first year investment.

Because the future is for everyone.

Explore the program.

MEDIA

Julia and Dylan reconvene to pull on every thread from The New York Times’s sprawling exposé on former Athletic reporter Dianna Russini. They dig into the journalism scandal at the heart of the piece, what it really means to be an insider versus a reporter, and how the Times balances standards and ethics as it grows its business, courts new audiences, and elevates its own stars—all while protecting the legacy institution it’s built.

WASHINGTON

John welcomes Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen to assess the increasingly deep fault line among Democrats over U.S. policy toward Israel. Van Hollen, who published a recent New York Times op-ed about why his party must abandon its “reflexive and unconditional” support for Israel, argues that Joe Biden’s handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a stain on his foreign-policy record; that Democratic presidential contenders who voted to fund Bibi Netanyahu’s war on Gaza will pay a steep political price; and that Democratic foreign-policy hands who “refuse to acknowledge their complicity” in what he sees as a genocidal campaign should have no role in future Democratic administrations.

FASHION

Lauren’s guest is i-D magazine’s Steff Yotka. They discuss Simone Rocha at Pitti Uomo, the men’s shows in Milan from Ralph Lauren to Prada, why Dua Lipa is the perfect celebrity, and former Versace designer Dario Vitale’s options.

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