10 Friday AM Reads – The Big Picture

My end-of-week morning train WFH reads:

• U.S. Homes Are Not Selling, and Prices Continue to Rise: June, usually the height of the spring housing season, saw sales of existing homes drop from the previous month, according to the National Association of Realtors. (New York Times)

• How bipartisan support for public media unraveled in the Trump era. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have passed legislation on a narrow, party-line basis to eliminate all federal funding for public broadcasting for the next two years. (NPR) see also Where Congress’s Cuts Threaten Access to PBS and NPR. President Trump’s proposal to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasters threatens scores of radio and TV stations across the United States that air PBS and NPR programs. (New York Times)

• A Family Feud Is Rocking One of the World’s Richest Hotel Dynasties: As the elder son, Sherman Kwek was the chosen successor at a Singapore real-estate empire. Then he tried to push out his billionaire father’s adviser, a Juilliard-trained pianist. (Wall Street Journal)

• Student Loan Repayments Are About to Look Very Different: By next summer, new borrowers will have just two repayment options, streamlining the previous menu to pay off higher-education debt. Here’s what to know. (New York Times)

• Can Americans Just Stop Building New Highways? A new book argues that the expansion of the US roadway network has exacted social and environmental costs that far outweigh the benefits. (CityLab)

• 7 simple ways to be a bit happier each day: Just a few minutes a day of joy snacking can have a big impact on your life, research shows. (Washington Post)

• ‘South Park’ Lampoons Paramount & POTUS in Shocking Season 27 Premiere as Creators Ink $1.5 Billion Deal: The long-running satire returns after a nearly 2.5-year hiatus and as a battle over its future has just concluded. (Hollywood Reporter)

• Einstein Showed That Time Is Relative. But … Why Is It? The mind-bending concept of time dilation results from a seemingly harmless assumption—that the speed of light is the same for all observers. (Wired) see also Does Anybody Really Know What Time Is? Yes, your brain does. It created it. (Nautilus)

• What happens once we spot the asteroid that will hit Earth? This year, the alert system for defending the planet against incoming space rocks was activated for the first time. It won’t be the last. (Financial Times)

• Can Aaron Judge supplant greatest Yankees? He’s trending toward the unthinkable.As baseball reopens for business following the All-Star break, the fastest man ever to 350 homers is trending toward the unthinkable. If Judge stays relatively healthy over the long haul, he is going to supplant someone among the true Core Four in Yankee mythology. (New York Times)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Sonal Desai, Chief Investment Officer of Franklin Templeton Fixed Incomem, managing $215 billion in AUM in Multi-Sector, Global, Corporate Credit, Securitized Products, Municipal Bonds, Stable Value, and ST Liquid Markets Fixed Income. She has been named to Barron’s annual list of the 100 Most Influential Women each year since 2020.

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.