By Walt Hickey
Every Game
Let’s say that hypothetically, you wanted to stream every single NFL game. September would set you back $84; by October, the new ESPN and Fox would lower that to $74. Then in December, you’d need Netflix and NFL+ to watch the game. In total, that’s $328 for all the regular season games, but that is not all the gams. Adding the Sunday Ticket for $522, then the playoffs and lock stock and barrel if you want to consume all of the possible football this year, you’re talking $935.
Conjured
The Conjuring: Last Rites made $83 million at the domestic box office this weekend, a new record for the reliably well-performing Conjuring universe of spooky movies. This number beats The Nun’s opening weekend of $53.8 million. In fact, it’s the best opening weekend for a horror movie this year and the third-largest ever in the horror genre, behind only It and It: Chapter Two. The film series tells the heartwarming story of a couple who managed to successfully convince the world that their Raggedy Ann doll was possessed by a malevolent spirit.
Sunscreen
Australia has been rocked by a controversy over sunscreen after a respected consumer advocacy group tested a number of the country’s most popular and expensive sunscreens, only to find that many of them do not provide the protection that they claim to be. The fallout consisted of a massive consumer backlash and products being yanked from shelves. Choice Australia found that of 20 sunscreens tested in the lab, 16 did not meet the skin protection factor rating listed on the packet, with one SPF 50+ sunscreen coming in only SPF 4. A subsequent investigation from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation found that a single laboratory based in the United States had certified that at least half of the products had failed the testing, and several of the defective sunscreens were linked to a manufacturer in Western Australia.
Tabby Wilson and Tiffanie Turnbull, BBC News
MTV
Paramount is considering a revival of its lagging MTV network, weighing strategies that include trying to have a website with actual information on it, reviving the network by not putting any additional resources into it and trying to win back the youths. These seem to be fairly dismal prospects for something that is less a television network and more 20 Ridiculousness episodes in a trenchcoat standing on each other’s shoulders and trying to get into an R-rated movie. The median age of an MTV viewer is 56.
Jessica Toonkel, The Wall Street Journal
Toys
The toy industry's U.S. sales grew six percent in the first half of the year, with the largest growth seen in the games and puzzles category (up 39 percent, driven mostly by Pokémon), and the “explorative and other toys” category (up 19 percent, driven mostly by NFL trading cards). In fact, trading cards alone — whether strategic games like Pokémon or Magic: The Gathering, or non-strategic trading cards like NBA or NFL cards — were responsible for 70 percent of the growth seen in the toy industry in the first half of 2025. Also of note: at this point, licensed toys branded with some kind of media or video game property made up 37 percent of all sales.
Fragrance
How a product smells is an increasingly central question for manufacturers, and brands are paying lots of money to develop and integrate new, better smells into their soaps, detergents and so on. The largest company in the world making fragrances and flavors is Givaudan, and they’re doing great these days, benefiting from an olfactory arms race. As it stands, 89 percent of laundry products, 79 percent of surface cleaners and 99 percent of dishwashing products sold in the U.S. are fragranced.
Uranium
A new report from the World Nuclear Association increases forecasts for the global demand for uranium for nuclear energy, becoming a more central and reliable part of an energy transition. All told, the report projects that uranium demand for reactors will climb 28 percent by 2030. The demand could potentially reach 87,000 tonnes annually before doubling to 150,000 tonnes annually by 2040, compared to 67,000 tonnes in 2024. Global nuclear energy capacity is currently 398 gigawatts electric, and there is another 71 GWe under construction. The current projection is coming in at 746 GWe by 2040.
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The MTV stuff goes well with your discussion on the weekend show. No, I’m not quite as old as the median viewer you mentioned, but it all aligns nicely with other things GenX-related. There weren’t many of us to start, and we didn’t accidentally many kids because AIDS.
Adam Curry was talking about the proposed revival yesterday on “No Agenda.” Chances of it working are about the same as him being able to regrow his hair.
I’m very sensitive to chemical smells, and shopping for household products makes me crazy. I spend 10 minutes tracking down the unscented trash bags, only to accidentally purchase scented swiffer dusters in the same trip.