Today's five.

The FDA blamed Taylor Farms lettuce for a cyclospora outbreak, issued a recall, and then quietly announced the test was a false positive — all within the span of a weekend. Over 1,600 people have gotten sick, the parasite is still out there, and nobody knows where it came from. The acting FDA Commissioner said Monday the false positive doesn't change the investigation's direction, which is a confident thing to say when your main lead just evaporated. Straight Arrow and The Hill led with the exoneration; regional outlets led with the fact that the probe continues unchanged. The lettuce is fine. The situation is not.

A federal judge in California stopped a deal that had already cleared the Justice Department, which is the kind of plot twist that keeps entertainment lawyers employed. Twelve state attorneys general sued last week to block the merger that would hand David Ellison — Larry's son — control of Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, two streaming platforms, and two news organizations in one transaction. Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a 14-day restraining order; an August 3rd hearing will decide whether the pause holds. The Hill noted it's a sweeping antitrust challenge. NPR noted Paramount was days away from closing. That's a very expensive 14 days.

The Supreme Court drew a line around gun rights and marijuana, but licensing boards didn't get the memo — or more precisely, aren't required to. Federal and state agencies can still revoke or deny professional licenses to cannabis users, even in states where it's legal. The constitutional protection SCOTUS established is narrower than it sounds: it covers firearms, not livelihoods. So the same activity is simultaneously protected in one government context and punishable in another. The law isn't contradicting itself. It's just being very precise about what it cares about.

The Tate brothers showed up to a Miami federal courtroom in handcuffs and jail uniforms and didn't say a word — which is a notable departure from their usual communications strategy. Britain's Crown Prosecution Service wants them extradited to the U.K., where the charges just got significantly larger: 38 new counts involving four additional alleged victims, bringing the total to seven. Andrew faces 32 of those new charges. The brothers are dual U.S.-British citizens, arrested Saturday by U.S. Marshals. The case has been grinding through international courts for years. It just found a new venue.

Byron Donalds says AI data center legislation will keep utility costs down.