Nasdaq's new record, Paramount settles lawsuit, press pool suspends coverage and more in Morning Squawk

Happy Tuesday. Your old, origami-loving, news associate pal CJ is back to fill in for Alex this morning. To set the mood, I'm listening to a little Miles Davis as I write. But he's not the only one setting "Milestones," as the Nasdaq notched a new record close yesterday.

Stock futures are higher in premarket trading following a strong day for Wall Street.

Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:

Stocks rose on Monday, bolstered by a rise in artificial intelligence-related names including Intel, AMD and Qualcomm. Declining oil prices and Treasury yields also powered gains on Wall Street, which saw the S&P 500 post its best day since early August.

Here's what to know:

• The AI rally lifted the Nasdaq Composite by 2.26% for a record close — the tech-heavy index's first since June.
• Advanced Micro Devices hit a $1 trillion market cap for the first time, joining competitors like Nvidia as its stock continued a five-day win streak with a nearly 10% gain.
• Shares of Meta jumped more than 11% in Monday's trading session as the company's new Muse AI personal agent app earned positive buzz in its first weeks.
• Bitcoin rose above $86,000 to touch its highest level since January even after the Clarity Act was stymied in the Senate last week.
• But while the market logged a winning day on almost all fronts, an alarming trend not seen since 1999 was happening under the surface, CNBC's Sean Conlon writes.
• Follow live market updates here.

Paramount Skydance reached a settlement yesterday with the group of state attorneys general who challenged the company's $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. The antitrust lawsuit was set to go to trial next spring and threatened to delay the deal through mid-2027 — which could have resulted in nine-figure fees for Paramount.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that under the terms of the agreement, Paramount pledged to increase its domestic production and agreed to certain parameters for its theatrical releases. As CNBC's Lillian Rizzo and Sarah Whitten report, the CBS News parent also said it will establish a new board focused on editorial independence for CBS and WBD-owned CNN.

Paramount CEO David Ellison told employees that the company is looking to close the deal in about two weeks, according to a memo obtained by CNBC.

OpenAI published a new set of safety and security proposals for AI development on Monday, calling for global cooperation to create standards for frontier models. The company, whose CEO Sam Altman recently supported calls for a development slowdown, focused especially on alignment research and recursive self-improvement.

The new proposals came hours after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that developers "need to take responsibility for themselves" instead of expecting the federal government to give them a "liability shield."

President Donald Trump also said in a Truth Social post Monday that the Department of Justice and other U.S. law enforcement agencies will rein in AI "if we have to," but he still downplayed AI's dangers as a "hoax."

The White House television press pool suspended its coverage yesterday after the White House banned CNN — the assigned TV pooler for Trump's trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly — from acting as a member of the pool. It is not clear whether the five outlets will suspend their coverage beyond Monday.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Monday filed a lawsuit against Trump to overturn the president's White House ban of the three news outlets. A judge scheduled the first hearing in the case for Wednesday afternoon.

But just what does the press pool do all day — and why does it matter? As CNBC's Garrett Downs and Caleigh Keating write, pool coverage provides a near-constant stream of the president's activities. Without it, the public could be stripped of critical information about what the president is up to.

Disclosure: CNBC and MS NOW are divisions of Versant Media.

Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks sat down with CNBC's Annika Kim Constantino yesterday in an exclusive interview that spanned GLP-1s, the company's new manufacturing facility in Houston and more.

Ricks said that 700,000 new seniors started GLP-1 treatments since Medicare began covering obesity drugs in July, and that 70% of those patients are on Lilly medicines. As for the oral version of the drug, Ricks told CNBC that one-third of new GLP-1 pill patients are taking Foundayo. "We're confident long term," the CEO said of his company's standing in the GLP-1 pill market, which is led by Novo.

Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc., closed out August with $12 million more than it held in July, according to a new Federal Election Commission filing posted late Sunday. Here are the key numbers for August:

• Cash on hand: $415.8 million
• Raised: $23.7 million
• Spent: $11.4 million

— CNBC's Sean Conlon, Chris Eudaily, Arjun Kharpal, Lillian Rizzo, Sarah Whitten, Jonathan Vanian, Dan Mangan, Kevin Breuninger, Garrett Downs, Caleigh Keating, Annika Kim Constantino and Luke Fountain contributed to this report.

Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.