Key Points
- The Chevy x Nike Book 2 "Pretty Penny" (IO9841-900) releases today at $155.
- NFL teams must cut from 90 players to 53 by 6 p.m. ET Sunday, August 30.
- Prince's Timeless, 10 unreleased Vault recordings from 1977 to 2016, arrives Friday.
- Meta agreed to pay up to $16.68 billion to settle social media addiction claims from 29 states.
The Daily Briefing
Wednesday, August 26, 2026. Nike and Chevrolet release the Book 2 "Pretty Penny" at $155. NFL rosters go from 90 to 53 this weekend. The Prince Estate releases Timeless on Friday. Meta settled a state-court addiction trial for up to $16.68 billion.
Sneakers
The Chevy x Nike Book 2 "Pretty Penny" releases today at $155 under style code IO9841-900. The colorway is Metallic Red Bronze/Sail-Metallic Silver-Black, built on a glossy patent leather upper, with Chevrolet's crossed flags on the heel and a metallic "V" on the tongue. It is drawn from Devin Booker's 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible, and it extends the Booker–Chevrolet partnership Nike started on the Book 1. A SNKRS Pass early release ran in Detroit on August 14; today is the global launch. Specs via Sneaker Bar Detroit.
Thursday brings the Supreme x Nike Air Max 2001 "Air Ecstasy" in three colorways at $190 each — University Red/Speed Yellow-Gym Red (IM7412-600), White/University Blue-Black (IM7412-100) and Black/Black-White (IM7412-001). Friday closes the week with the Nike Shox BB4 OG in Black/Lapis-Metallic Silver (IR1984-010) at $190. Dates and style codes are listed on Sneaker Bar Detroit's release calendar.
Sports
Every NFL team must be at 53 players by 6 p.m. ET Sunday, August 30, down from 90-man camp rosters. Roughly 1,184 players will be released, per NFL.com, which lists Odell Beckham Jr., Sam Howell, Broderick Jones and Mecole Hardman among the cut candidates. Teams may place two players on Injured Reserve with a designated-to-return status without counting them against the 53. Waiver claims are due Monday, August 31 at 1 p.m. ET, and practice squads — 16 players, or 17 with an International Pathway exemption — must be reported by 6 p.m. ET that day, according to the Bengals' deadline explainer.
MLB runs a 15-game card. The Astros play the Yankees at 7:05 p.m. ET on Prime Video, the Dodgers visit the Braves at 7:15 p.m. ET on MLB Network, the Brewers play the Mets at 7:10 p.m. ET, and the Twins close the night at the Athletics at 9:05 p.m. ET, per ESPN's schedule.
Culture
The Prince Estate and Legacy Recordings release Timeless on Friday, August 28. It collects 10 rare and previously unreleased recordings from Prince's Vault made between 1977 and 2016. Two tracks are already out: "With This Tear," issued April 2, and "Stone," which arrived with the album announcement on June 4. It ships digitally, on CD, on standard black vinyl and on a direct-to-consumer limited-edition Purple Marble Vinyl, according to the estate's announcement. It follows the Purple Rain musical's April 12, 2027 Broadway opening date.
Friday's wider release slate carries new albums from Rod Wave, E-40, Dahi and Czarface. Last week's drops, led by Rapsody's fifth album alongside Victony and The Game, are covered in our August 21 New Music Friday.
Technology
Amazon is shutting down Mechanical Turk on September 30, ending the crowdsourced task marketplace it launched in 2005. At its peak the platform served more than 500,000 workers doing data labeling, transcription and survey work — the "Human Intelligence Tasks" that trained much of the machine-learning era. Amazon stopped accepting new sign-ups on July 30 and says the closure follows an internal assessment of its programs. Scale AI, Mercor and Prolific now recruit the same labor pool, per Tech Startups.
Meta agreed to pay up to $16.68 billion to settle claims from 29 state attorneys general that it designed Facebook and Instagram to addict minors, ending a trial that began August 18. Meta pays 70% of the total over ten years; the remaining 30% is conditional on YouTube and TikTok adopting comparable restrictions and each contributing $5 billion toward youth safety. Fifty-two states and territories have signed on to the agreement and are eligible for payouts. The company denied wrongdoing. Under the agreement, accounts for users under 18 get a default two-hour daily limit, a block on access between midnight and 6 a.m., muted notifications during school hours, a prompt every 15 minutes of continuous use, and no visible like counts or cosmetic-surgery filters. Meta shares were up 2% as of 11:30 a.m. ET, Forbes reported.
Also today: DeepSeek is raising about $7 billion at a roughly $74 billion valuation ahead of a possible IPO filing by year-end, SoftBank is preparing a $10 billion to $20 billion bond sale, and Samsung detailed LPDDR5X-PIM memory that runs models 2.28 times faster with 3.01 times the token throughput of conventional LPDDR5X, per Tech Startups.
Today on Uristocrat
Today's Games to Watch centers on Dodgers-Braves, a meeting of two division leaders in the same league. Here is that post plus what went up earlier this week.
- Sports: Games to Watch — Wednesday, August 26: Dodgers at Braves, NL division leaders meet — the full slate with start times and networks.
- Sneakers: Nike x One Piece Air Max Plus 'Devil Fruits' Collection Drops September 25 at $180 — three colorways, September 25, $180.
- Sports: Klay Thompson Signs Two-Year Deal With the Miami Heat After Mavericks Buyout — the contract terms and the buyout math behind them.
- Technology: Anthropic Expects Its IPO to Match or Exceed SpaceX's $75 Billion Record Raise — the filing timeline and the number it would have to clear.
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