For the second year in a row, millions of tennis fans were left hanging in the middle of the US Open because Disney and a cable company couldn’t agree on how much the mouse’s channels were worth to linear TV.

The entertainment giant pulled its channels, including ESPN, ABC, and Freeform, from DirecTV Sunday night in the middle of the US Open’s fourth round and just 10 minutes before the LSU vs. USC football game started.

Disney did the same thing to a different set of viewers last year over Labor Day weekend when it couldn’t finalize its contract with Charter Communications as cable providers and network owners grapple with the value of TV channels in a streaming world.

Disney vs. DirecTV demands

Disney said DirecTV was undervaluing its portfolio, especially since its live sports programming is costly to produce.

Meanwhile, DirecTV, the third largest cable provider in the country, wants lower-cost, smaller package options for customers. The cable company is also frustrated that Disney offers premium content like its Shogun series on its own streaming services before channels like FX.

The expired contract was last negotiated in 2019, and the old ways of distributing content have never felt more out of date.

• While companies like Disney have long heralded streaming as the future, it’s not quite ready to go solo.
• Disney+ just became profitable this year. Disney and DirecTV still make a bulk of their revenue from their traditional, symbiotic business model, according to the WSJ.

Looking ahead…usually, these blackouts get resolved quickly. The “poor timing” of contract renegotiations is on purpose, so companies are forced to come to an agreement before antsy consumers switch to an unaffected sports bar. But last year’s Disney/Charter beef lasted for almost two weeks. A programming pause that long could leave the 11+ million DirecTV customers without Monday Night Football for the start of the season and the presidential debate set for ABC on September 10.—MM

Once you rub the haze of Labor Day weekend out of your eyes, you may ask yourself: “When’s the last time I got a workout in?”

Not loving your answer? Hey, no judgment here. You can get yourself back into gear with LMNT.

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It’s time to get back into the swing of things. Start by sippin’ on success.

Israelis stage general strike to push their government toward a cease-fire. After six hostages, including Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, were found dead in Gaza on Sunday, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest the government’s slow progress on getting a cease-fire deal that would bring the hostages held by Hamas home. Yesterday, Israel’s largest labor union called a general strike, which lasted several hours and disrupted businesses, schools, and transportation until a court ordered it to stop. The US is reportedly hashing out the contours of a final cease-fire plan with Egypt and Qatar to present to Israel and Hamas soon, and President Biden said Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is not doing enough to make a deal happen. Netanyahu, however, said he planned to stick to his demands in the negotiations.

Hotel workers strike during busy travel weekend. About 10,000 hotel staff members walked off the job on Sunday in 25 cities across the US, including Boston and San Francisco, as their union, Unite Here, works to negotiate a new contract with major chains like Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott. The planned multiday strikes could get even bigger: 15,000 workers have voted in favor of striking. Sticking points in the negotiations include wages and cuts to service and staffing made during the pandemic that haven’t been restored.

Far-right party wins state election in Germany for the first time since 1945. In a rebuke to Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his center-left government, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far-right party to win a German state vote since the Nazi era. And AfD not only won in the eastern state of Thuringia, it also clinched a close second place in neighboring Saxony, reflecting concerns about immigration. Scholz called the results “bitter” and called on mainstream parties not to form a governing coalition with AfD.

The KGB definitely didn’t blow his cover because he did that himself. Hvaldimir, a white whale believed to be trained in covert tactics by Russia, was found dead off the coast of Norway on Saturday. His friendly demeanor made him popular among citizens despite accusations he may have been on a reconnaissance mission.

The beloved beluga—named for the Norwegian word for whale (hval) and Russian president Vladimir Putin—appeared in Scandinavian waters in 2019. He was spotted wearing a GoPro camera and a harness marked “Equipment of St. Petersburg,” sparking speculation that the whale was a secret agent, something that Moscow has never confirmed or denied.

While that sounds outlandish, Russia and the US have a history of training sea mammals for military purposes. The US Navy has used dolphins and sea lions to gather intelligence, locate mines, and retrieve objects from the ocean floor.

Hvaldimir was estimated to be between 14 and 17 years old. Beluga whales typically live for more than 30 years, and his cause of death is not yet known. His friendly demeanor made him popular among citizens despite accusations he may have been on a reconnaissance mission.

Answers are being sought: Officials will conduct a necropsy of Hvaldimir to determine the cause of death. The results are expected in several weeks.—DL

This limited-time credit card offer could be worth $1,000 toward travel. This could be the best travel offer of 2024—but it’s coming to an end soon. Earn 75,000 points and an additional $250 toward travel when you spend $4,000 on purchases within three months of account opening. That’s worth $1,000 toward travel, which is hard to pass up.

Many of them may still be starting with cinderblock walls, but college students are spending big on decorating their dorm rooms. To make their rooms feel homier, students will shell out $87 billion this year, or ~$1,365/student—that’s a big jump from the $48 billion they spent a decade ago (but still less than last year’s $94 billion), according to the National Retail Federation. The New York Times reported that some students are going a whole lot further than picking up a matching set of extra-long twin bedding at Target and are hiring interior designers, sometimes for $10,000, to make their rooms extra Instagrammable.

An eagerly anticipated jobs report drops on Friday: One month after the July report surprised Wall Street with slower-than-expected growth and a higher-than-expected 4.3% unemployment rate, forecasters have a much more positive outlook for the August numbers. The report could decide the size of the Fed’s anticipated September interest rate cut. If July looks more like a blip fueled by job losses stemming from the damage done by Hurricane Beryl, it could push the Fed to slice interest rates by a quarter-point; if not, JPow may consider a deeper cut as a response to a wavering labor market.

Boeing’s Starliner capsule is coming home empty: Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will remain stranded at the ISS until February 2025, but the questionable vessel that left them marooned in space is scheduled to return home on Friday. And not a moment too soon—Wilmore reported hearing a “strange noise” over the weekend that initially neither he nor mission control could figure out. NASA later deduced it was feedback from a speaker and said it would not impact the scheduled touchdown of the unoccupied capsule.

The NFL regular season kicks off: Speaking of touchdowns, the sport that monopolizes your Sundays from September through February returns with two weeknight games. The defending champion Chiefs will host the Ravens in a rematch of last season’s AFC Championship Game. The Eagles and Packers will play a game in Brazil on Friday, although wildfires in the area could result in the game being canceled. If the game is played, don’t expect too many live tweets from reporters in the press box.

Everything else…

• Donald Trump’s election subversion hearing is scheduled to proceed on Thursday. The initial indictment has been tweaked since the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, but Special Counsel Jack Smith is still levying four charges against Trump.
• Hunter Biden’s tax evasion trial begins on Thursday in Los Angeles. President Biden’s son is accused of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes.
• Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, the sequel to Beetlejuice, hits US theaters on Friday, just 36 years after the original.