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The NCAA, the governing body for college sports, and the five biggest athletic conferences have agreed to a landmark $2.8 billion settlement of a class-action suit. If approved by a judge, it’ll means that schools would be allowed to share revenues with student athletes going forward. Then, we’ll have a conversation about capitalism and activism in college athletics. And later: Will you be “quiet vacationing” this holiday weekend?

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From the BBC World Service: Google is expanding its network infrastructure, with an aim of enhancing internet connectivity and competing in the cloud computing market. Then, days after President Biden imposed higher tariffs on EVs from China, Elon Musk says he doesn’t support them — contradicting a warning he made back in January that Chinese carmakers would “demolish” global competitors if there were no trade barriers.

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Proceeding without permission is a time-tested practice in some corners of Silicon Valley. Well, it’s not working out so well for OpenAI. Actress Scarlett Johansson said this week the company approached her twice to voice a new AI assistant for ChatGPT-4o. She declined, only to find it had used a voice that sounds “eerily” like hers. Plus, on Capitol Hill, a House subcommittee held a hearing that could decide the future of Section 230, the provision that largely governs the internet today. We’ll explain why chatbots have entered the chat on Section 230’s future.

But first, a new report by former tech company officials and academic researchers finds far-right extremist militias are once again organizing on Facebook ahead of November’s presidential election. They recommend platforms ramp up content moderation to avoid fueling political violence. Marketplace’s Lily Jamali is joined by Maria Curi, tech policy reporter at Axios, for her take on this week’s tech news.

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This week, we got some gloomy news on the housing market: In April, new homes sales fell 4.7% and existing home sales dropped about 2% from the month before, and in May, homebuilder confidence took a dive. The most likely culprit? High mortgage rates. Also in this episode: Why DuPont is splitting its company into three, what Olympic and Paralympic athletes are doing to raise funds for Paris, and how business is going for a maker of custom cowboy boots in Virginia.

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After Israel threatened to cut ties between Israeli and Palestinian banks, Treasury Secretary Yellen warned it could worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and create economic instability in the West Bank. We’ll also explain one reason why U.S. military spending is so high, get updates on the AI economy’s hot shot, Nvidia, and the U.S. government’s battle against Big Ticket.



Here’s everything we talked about today:







“Yellen Warns Israel Against Cutting off Palestinian Banks” from The New York Times
“Yellen concerned about Israel’s threats to cut off Palestinian banks” from Reuters
VIDEO: “VIRAL MOMENT: Michael Waltz Confronts Air Force Officials With Staggeringly Expensive Components” from Forbes Breaking News
“Pentagon falling victim to price gouging by military contractors” from CBS News
“New Bipartisan Bill Allows Military Contractors To Fleece Taxpayers” from The Lever
“Nvidia dominates in AI, but others are trying to chip away” from Marketplace
“US sues to break up Ticketmaster and Live Nation in a groundbreaking monopoly lawsuit” from CNN Business







Join us tomorrow for Economics on Tap! The YouTube livestream starts at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time, 6:30 p.m. Eastern. We’ll have news, drinks and play a round of Half Full/Ha

AI drives Nvidia profits higher; New home sales slump; White House says an independent Fed is best.