Good morning and Happy Friday! Today’s email is a little on the longer side so let’s dive right in.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today's news takes 5.01 minutes to read.

"We tend to live up to our expectations."

–Earl Nightingale (1921-1989)

Correction: We accidentally swapped the responses for “Yes” and “No” in yesterday’s Roe v. Wade poll responses. Thanks to everyone who reached out to let us know.

Plus, we also have an update: On Tuesday, we reported that California was briefly 100% powered by renewable energy for the first time ever; that figure was later updated to 99.87% by California regulators. 

In a reversal of Wednesday’s rally, US investors sold off ~$1.3 trillion worth of stocks in the market's worst day since the pandemic first began.

🔢 By the numbers…

• The S&P 500 lost 3.6%, its second-worst performance of the year. The Dow dipped 3.1%, and the Nasdaq closed down nearly 5% – both of which represent the worst single-day drops since 2020.
• E-commerce stocks were hit especially hard. Several major players reported subpar earnings, including Etsy (-17%), eBay (-12%), Shopify (-15%) and Wayfair (-26%).
• Large tech stocks didn't have too much fun either, with Meta (-7%), Amazon (-8%), Microsoft (-4%) and Apple (-6%) all contributing to the major indexes’ declines.

📸 The big picture: Investors are facing the most aggressive tightening of US monetary policy in over two decades after the Fed raised interest rates by 0.5% this week. But Thursday’s results show traders are predicting that the central bank “will struggle to fight high inflation amid the lingering threat of a recession,” per Bloomberg.

+In the know: Higher interest rates usually lead to slower (or negative) growth for tech stocks because it reduces the value investors place on their future earnings. Generally speaking, fixed-income assets like bonds gain a boost in attractiveness compared to riskier assets like stocks.

☝️🏎️ F1 is taking its talents to South Beach. Miami makes its Formula One debut this weekend with the Miami Grand Prix; Netflix and F1 also confirmed yesterday that the highly popular Formula 1: Drive To Survive series has been renewed for a fifth and sixth season.

🏇 Put on your fancy hats... The 148th Kentucky Derby (aka “the greatest two minutes in sports”) will be held this Saturday; the main race starts at 6:57 pm ET. The betting favorite is Zandon (3-to-1 odds), who was named on a whim after owner Jeff Drown’s 23-year-old elk hunting guide, Zandon Starks.

🏀🏒 We’re talkin’ bout playoffs?... The NBA conference semifinals are in full swing, with two games scheduled for every day this weekend (including tonight); the first round of the NHL playoffs is also underway, with four games every day through at least Monday.

🍿 At the movies (or on the couch) with The DONUT… Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness starring Benedict Cumberbatch hits theaters today; also debuting today (on Netflix) is animated children’s film Marmaduke starring Pete Davidson and J.K. Simmons.

🤱 The mother of all Mother’s Days… Total spending on Mother’s Day this Sunday is expected to reach $31.7 billion, up $3.6 billion from 2021's record spending, per the National Retail Foundation; there are more than 85 million mothers in America according to the most recent available census data.

A preliminary vote last night by New York City officials proposed a rent hike of up to 6% across the city’s rent-stabilized housing units. The hike, if approved during a final vote in June, would impact more than 2 million New Yorkers.

🚘 Driving the move… For at least the past 20 years, the result of the preliminary vote has closely matched the official outcome, which has often followed patterns of inflation, the New York Times reports.

• Landlords and their advocates currently say they need increases to cope with rising inflation and swelling expenses for fuel, labor and building maintenance. The board has voted for rent freezes in four of the last eight years.
• On the flip side, tens of thousands of New Yorkers fell behind on rent during the pandemic and many still owe thousands of dollars. Most earn less than the citywide median household income of ~$67,000.

📸 The big picture: Rents are going up everywhere for a bunch of reasons, all tied to changes in demand relative to the limited housing supply, per Axios. Average US rent prices rose 14% last year to $1,877 a month, with cities like Austin, NYC and Miami notching increases of as much as 40%, according to real estate firm Redfin.

• The national median rent across the 50 largest metro areas set a new record in February ($1,792/month).

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The second and third primaries of the 2022 election season took place this week in Ohio and Indiana, with voters selecting the Republican and Democratic nominees that'll face off in November's midterms.

• Democrats are hoping to hold on to slim majorities in the House (221-209) and Senate (50-50 with VP tiebreaker), but momentum isn’t on their side; presidential approval ratings are usually a good indicator of what will happen in the midterms, and Biden’s is hovering around 42%.

🃏 The Trump card… Former President Donald Trump appears to still be a major player within the Republican party. Congressional candidates publicly backed by Trump went 11 for 11 in GOP primaries this week, including a victory by Hillbilly Elegy author JD Vance in a hotly-contested Ohio Senate race. A 12th Trump-endorsed candidate is projected to win a GOP House race in Ohio that hasn’t been finalized.

📊 Other results: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine cruised to victory in the GOP gubernatorial primary, while former Dayton mayor Nan Whaley prevailed on the Democratic side; she’s the first woman to be nominated for Ohio governor by a major party.

• In the Cleveland area, Democratic Rep. Shontel Brown beat former state Sen. Nina Turner by more than 30 percentage points in a “battle between the party’s establishment and progressive wings,” per the AP; Turner co-chaired progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.

👀 Looking ahead… The next two primaries will be held in Nebraska and West Virginia this upcoming Tuesday, with five more scheduled for the following week. The midterm elections will be held on Tuesday, November 8.

• ☀️👆 You’re looking at the strongest X-class solar flare ever produced by the Sun; it occurred at precisely 9:25 am EDT this past Tuesday.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• ✈️ Boeing is moving its corporate HQ from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia.
• 💼 US worker productivity fell 7.5% in Q1, the fastest such decline since 1947, per newly published government figures.
• 🐦 Elon Musk secured $7+ billion in fresh financing for his Twitter acquisition per a new SEC filing; separately, sources told CNBC that Musk will temporarily serve as Twitter’s CEO “for a few months” after his takeover is completed.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📱 TikTok launched a new program called TikTok Pulse; it'll give some creators with 100,000+ followers a share of the social media giant’s revenue.
• ⚖️ Amber Heard testified for a second straight day in the $50 million defamation trial initiated against her by Johnny Depp; the trial is now on pause until May 16 while the judge attends a pre-scheduled conference.
• ⚽ Real Madrid scored three times after the 89th minute Wednesday night to beat Manchester City 6-5 across two games, advancing to the Champions League final; separately the MLS’ Seattle Sounders became the first US-based football club to win the CONCACAF Champions League tournament late Wednesday.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🧠💻 The first human was enrolled in an FDA-approved brain-computer interface trial by NYC startup Synchron, a competitor of Elon Musk’s Neuralink.
• 📝💉 The FDA limited its authorization of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid vaccine after reviewing the risk of life-threatening blood clots; the agency confirmed a total of 60 cases (and 9 deaths) of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or TTS, among the millions of people who got the J&J shot.
• 🌕🌳 Scientists at Nanjing University believe they can use compounds found in the Moon’s soil to generate hydrogen and oxygen molecules via "extraterrestrial photosynthesis"; this process theoretically would produce breathable air and fuel to support crewed lunar missions.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🦠 The US has surpassed 1 million Covid deaths, according to data compiled by NBC News; the WHO estimated there were nearly 15 million excess deaths in 2020 and 2021 that can be directly or indirectly attributed to the pandemic.
• 🇷🇺🇮🇱 Russian President Vladimir Putin apologized to Israeli PM Naftali Bennett for his foreign minister’s claim that Adolf Hitler had Jewish ancestry.
• 🏛️ White House aide Karine Jean-Pierre will replace Jen Psaki as White House press secretary on May 13; she’ll be the first Black woman and first openly LGBTQ+ woman to hold the position. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… “Absolutely appalling.”

• Chief Justice John Roberts yesterday, referencing the leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion indicating it’ll overturn Roe v. Wade in his first public appearance since its disclosure.
• It’s the first time in modern history that a SCOTUS draft ruling has been leaked publicly while a case was still pending.

+Dig deeper: See the facts + a 360° view | Roe v. Wade polling numbers

🏫 Stats of the Day: On average, students who attended school in person for nearly all of 2020-2021 fell short of a typical year's math learning by about 20%, per researchers at Harvard University. ​​

• Students who stayed home for most of 2020-2021 fared much worse, losing about 50% of a typical school year's math learning over the same period.

🌍 Around the World: Consumer prices in Turkey are up almost 70% over the past year, the country’s highest annual rate of inflation in two decades.

🤯 Did You Know?... Actor Nic Cage’s uncle is famed director Francis Ford Coppola, who actually denied Cage’s request to be cast in The Godfather Part III; the part ultimately went to Andy Garcia, who was nominated for an Oscar.

📖 Worth a Read: A Visit to the Human Factory – How to Build the World’s Most Realistic Robot → (The Verge)

A big shout to all our fellow Austin peeps out there keepin’ it weird. Let’s check on the rest of the world…

• Greater Victoria builders say they can't find workers to build new homes, because they can't find homes for the workers → (Capital Daily)
• British lawmaker Neil Parish resigning after watching porn in the House of Commons → (BBC)
• 'We're embarrassed': Polk County sheriff volunteer arrested for selling drugs out of patrol vehicle → (FOX13 News)
• Along those same lines: 'No one is immune or exempt': Sheriff arrests his own daughter for meth trafficking → (KY3 Springfield)
• Chaos as American family brings unexploded shell to Israel airport → (CNN)

When a group of hikers exploring the Thornewood Open Space Preserve in San Mateo, CA, saw a tiny mountain lion cub on the trail last month, they knew the mama must be close by. 

• But to their dismay (and maybe luckily for them), the mother lion was nowhere to be found. Days went by, and the emaciated cub was still on her own, struggling to survive. 

🦁 Life for the lion... The cub was soon rescued by a team from the Oakland Zoo after the hikers called in their spotting, with the newly-named "Rose" quickly receiving treatment and around-the-clock care.

• Rose is severely underweight and malnourished, weighing in at just 8.8 pounds when she should be around 30. 
• However, the Oakland Zoo team is "guardedly optimistic" she'll make a full recovery. 🥳

Here’s how it works: We give you a list of ingredients. You give us the completed dish they make. Easy peasy! (The rules, at least.)

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Chicken
• Garlic
• Coriander
• Cumin
• Cardamom
• Cayenne pepper
• Smoked paprika
• Salt & pepper
• Lemon juice
• Olive Oil
• Yogurt Sauce
• Flatbread

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Potatoes
• Oil
• Onion
• Smashed green peas
• Curry powder
• Chili powder
• Sugar
• Salt
• Egg white
• Spring roll wrappers

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Unflavored gelatin
• Sugar
• Salt
• Coconut milk
• Mango puree

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get just for introducing people you know to little old us. Just copy your unique link below, and then send to anyone you think would like the DONUT.

☝️ Recipe 1: Chicken Shawarma

✌️ Recipe 2: Samosas

3️⃣ Recipe 3: Mango Pudding