Iran Stalemate Drags On, Meta Goes on Trial, and Hawaii Digs Out

MayaMorning, everyone. Welcome back to The Morning Rundown.

DavidYeah, good to be back. Got a packed one today.

MayaBig one on Iran. That sixty-day window Trump gave for a deal just closed.

DavidAnd he's already talking about hitting targets in Oman. Tells you where things stand.

MayaPlus, Al Jazeera's new poll found his approval numbers dropped again.

DavidWe'll get into what the White House does on that front.

MayaAlso, Meta's in court today. States say the app design's addictive to kids.

DavidCould be a huge payout if the states win.

MayaAnd Hawaii's still cleaning up after Tropical Storm Lala. A hundred thousand without power.

DavidRough. Plus, Lake Powell just hit a record low, so the West's water problems keep piling up.

MayaOne more. Jeanie Buss is fighting her own family over selling the Lakers.

DavidFamily drama and billion-dollar stakes. Love it.

MayaSo let's kick things off with Iran since that clock just ran out.

DavidRight, and it's about to get more complicated.

MayaSo the sixty-day clock on the Iran deal just ran out. No handshake, no ceasefire.

DavidAnd the war just keeps going. CBS News is reporting Trump's floating strikes on Oman now as leverage to drag Iran back to the table.

MayaWait, Oman? They're not even part of this fight.

DavidThat's kind of the point. He wants Iran to watch the map get bigger. Who actually benefits from stalling, though?

MayaUh, Iran gets more time to dig in, I'd guess.

DavidRight, and the US gets what exactly?

MayaHmm.

DavidThe Washington Post called this a quagmire this morning.

MayaYeah, that word doesn't get used lightly.

DavidCBS also flagged that the same sixty-day window was supposed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That hasn't happened either.

MayaSo both things tied to the deadline just stalled at the same time.

DavidMeanwhile, Kushner's out there on Gaza. Reconstruction doesn't start until Hamas disarms.

MayaHonestly, I don't think that's as harsh as it sounds.

DavidAl Jazeera quoted him directly, saying the US won't restrict Israel's right to defend itself while that's unresolved.

MayaI mean, come on. You can't rebuild a city while the group running it still has rockets. That's not obstruction. That's a precondition that actually makes sense.

DavidSure, but it also means nothing moves until Hamas blinks, and they've had zero reason to so far.

MayaSpeaking of nobody blinking, the approval numbers dropped too.

DavidAl Jazeera's new poll puts Trump at a fresh low, with most Americans worried about this war.

MayaUgh, a stalled war is just a bad look. Nobody signs up for uncertain for two months straight.

DavidAnd that's the pattern with foreign policy politically. A war people can see ending polls better than one that just sits there.

MayaYeah.

DavidVoters aren't punishing the fight. They're punishing the wait.

MayaHmm, okay. That tracks.

DavidThe part worth watching is who actually moved in that poll. My guess is independents more than the base.

MayaReally? I figured it'd be spread evenly.

DavidThat's just a read on it. People without a team tend to get nervous first when a war doesn't have a visible end.

MayaSo now Trump is pivoting, turning to Kim Jong-un for the first time in years.

DavidThe New York Times says Kim's responded to the outreach.

MayaA nice photo with Kim doesn't get missiles out of the Strait of Hormuz.

DavidNo, it doesn't. But when one front's stuck, you open a second just to look like you're moving.

MayaIs that progress, though? Or just a distraction that looks good on camera?

DavidWhen a decision affects people's lives, who actually answers for it? That's what I keep coming back to.

MayaWhat do you mean?

DavidLater today, a very different trial starts asking that exact thing about an app on your phone instead of a war zone.

MayaShifting gears, Meta's actually in court today.

DavidYeah, big one. A coalition of states, right?

MayaCalifornia, Colorado, Kentucky, New Jersey. Fox Business laid out the states leading the case.

DavidAnd the claim isn't just that social media's bad for kids, it's that Meta engineered the habit on purpose.

MayaRight. The Guardian's reporting says the attorneys general argue Meta built compulsive design into Facebook and Instagram, knowing exactly what it was doing.

DavidBloomberg's calling this a trillion-dollar exposure for the company if the damages land where these states want them.

MayaTrillion? That's not a fine. That's a gut punch.

DavidThe legal question nobody's answered yet, can a design choice like an infinite scroll or a notification ping count as a defective product?

MayaLike a toaster that's wired wrong.

DavidBasically. If a judge buys that framing, every app with a notification badge just became a target.

MayaSo half of Silicon Valley's holding its breath.

DavidMeta's ad model runs on time spent in the app. Attention is the product. A ruling against them rewrites the business, not just the balance sheet.

MayaAnd look, as a parent, I don't need a judge telling me screens are a problem. But a court making companies answer for how they built the thing, that's parents getting leverage back, not Washington policing what anyone posts.

DavidAccountability for the design, not the speech.

MayaExactly. Before I forget, smaller story today, kind of unsettling.

DavidThe spyware thing?

MayaYeah. TechCrunch reported an unusually large batch of Apple users just got a threat notification way bigger than a normal wave.

DavidHow big are we talking?

MayaTechCrunch didn't put a hard number on it, but the investigators they spoke to called the size unprecedented.

DavidWho usually gets targeted with these?

MayaHistorically, journalists, activists, government officials, high-value people, which is what makes a wave this size odd.

DavidSo if you got that notification, don't brush it off.

MayaRight. Apple only sends those for state-sponsored spyware-

DavidRight

Maya... not everyday malware. It's a real signal.

DavidCheck your phone, basically.

MayaSeriously. Anyway, from a courtroom fight over who's responsible for what an app does to people-

DavidTo Hawaii, where nobody's debating design, just who's showing up to fix the power lines

MayaAnd how long the paperwork takes to catch up with the damage Now flip that lens to something a lot more physical, Hawaii.

DavidYeah, this one's heavy. AP News, reporting by Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, confirmed one death linked to Tropical Storm Lala.

MayaOne death, and still what? Over 100,000 without power?

DavidMore than 100,000 customers per Hawaiian Electric numbers in that same AP piece. Trees down, flash flooding from Honolulu to the Big Island.

MayaAnd the Big Island's-

DavidMm-hmm

Maya... grid took the worst of it, right?

DavidExtensive damage there, yeah, which is why Big Island now reported all public schools, state and county offices are closed Tuesday.

MayaThat gives crews clear roads to actually fix downed lines faster.

DavidExactly the point Governor Josh Green made per Big Island now. Closures free up utility crews to work without regular traffic in the way.

MayaWait, so this is the same storm that was a hurricane over the weekend?

DavidIt weakened to tropical storm status by Sunday, but it left the same mess: muddy roads, downed trees, the whole thing.

MayaOkay, switching disasters, but staying in water, Lake Powell.

DavidRight, and this one's slower moving, but honestly scarier long-term.

MayaThe New York Times says Lake Powell just hit its lowest level on record.

DavidSecond-largest reservoir in the country, and it's in what other outlets are calling uncharted territory.

MayaAnd that's-

DavidHmm

Maya... not a scenic problem. That's hydropower and water supply for millions downstream.

DavidGlen Canyon Dam needs a minimum pool just to keep generating power at all.

MayaSo who actually pays to fix any of this? Walk me through it.

DavidSo it's layers. FEMA covers individual assistance for Hawaii fast, usually days for emergency funds.

MayaOkay.

DavidBut the infrastructure money, rebuilding the grid, the roads, that runs through damage assessments, project worksheets, environmental review.

MayaWhich takes forever.

DavidMonths, sometimes years. Puerto Rico still finishing grid projects from a storm nearly a decade back.

MayaSo the storm clears in days, and the paperwork outlasts it by years.

DavidSo the emergency checks move fast. The rebuilding money crawls through review board after review board.

MayaAnd Lake Powell's bill is different. That's water rights fights between seven States decades in the making.

DavidWhich nobody wants to touch because whoever gives up water first gives up leverage too.

MayaUgh. Power's still out for 100,000 people, and a lake in the Southwest just hit bottom. Heavy morning.

DavidHeavy, yeah. But there's people on the Big Island right now just trying to get the lights back on.

MayaAll right. That's Hawaii and the Southwest for now. Let's see what else is on the board. Away from disasters for a second.

DavidPlease.

MayaThe Lakers are having their own family drama. Jeanie Buss is contesting a vote to sell a minority stake.

DavidWait, sell to who?

MayaBob Iger and Jared Kushner. Al Jazeera's got the Reuters report on it today.

DavidJosh Kushner as in-

MayaDifferent Kushner. Jared's brother, runs Thrive Capital.

DavidOkay, good, because my brain almost broke connecting that to Gaza.

MayaRight? This one's just a basketball team fight.

DavidSo what actually happened? The vote voted, and she's fighting the result?

MayaThat's the report. I'm the team's governor. Other family members green-lit selling a piece to Iger and Kushner, and I'm not going along quietly.

DavidDoes the governor title actually carry veto power, or is that mostly ceremonial?

MayaThat's exactly what this comes down to. NBA ownership changes usually need board sign-off, so my objection could matter.

DavidSo this isn't just tabloid noise. It could stall the whole sale.

MayaCould. And you've got two guys, Iger and Kushner, who aren't used to losing.

DavidNo, they really aren't.

MayaLook at what franchises go for now. It's not the '90s anymore.

DavidNo kidding. A name like the Lakers, that's a global brand, not some local team.

MayaWhich is probably why I don't want outside money diluting family control.

DavidMakes sense.

MayaMm-hmm.

DavidYou build something for decades, you don't want new owners steering it.

MayaAnd it's not about money. I've run the front office since my dad handed it to me.

DavidRight. This is a control fight, not a cash fight.

MayaExactly the tension in a lot of these legacy franchise deals, whoever inherits it versus whoever's holding the check.

DavidAnd with Iger and Kushner both used to getting their way in their own worlds-

MayaYou'd think a compromise shows up eventually

David... or it turns into an actual courtroom fight. We'll see what the rest of the family does.

MayaOne signature away from changing who owns a piece of one of the most valuable teams on the planet.

DavidKinda wild when you put it that way.

MayaYeah. Family business, but make it billions. Okay. That's the Rundown. Quick recap. The Iran deadline closed with no deal. And honestly, David's point stuck with me.

DavidWhich one?

MayaThat whether an app's design counts as a defective product is basically the whole Meta case.

DavidRight, because if a jury buys that, it's parents getting leverage back, not Washington policing speech.

MayaExactly. That's the thread running through today, honestly.

DavidLakers drama aside.

MayaAside from that, yeah.

DavidIf you like this one, subscribe and leave us a review. Seriously, it helps a ton.

MayaWe'll see you tomorrow with whatever chaos the news gives us. Thanks for listening, everybody.

DavidTake care.