Good morning. Hope your weekend was as good as the hip-hop industry’s – though, to be fair, that is quite a high bar.

In today’s edition:

• 😠 “Double haters” are shaping the 2024 presidential election
• 📺 Unpacking the Paramount/Skydance/Sony-&-Apollo love triangle
• 🤔 Will the Moon get a Wall of Death?

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.60-minute read (1,225 words).

P.S. First time reading? Subscribe here for free.

“All those who have achieved great things have been great dreamers.”

–Dr. Orison Swett Marden (1848–1924)

Yesterday marked exactly six months until the upcoming presidential election. And November is starting to come into focus, thanks to new polling data regarding a group of voters increasingly called “double haters.”

Both President Biden and former President Trump – the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees – are competing for a growing section of the US electorate who hate the way that they walk, the way that they talk don’t like either major candidate.

• According to recent polling, these double haters now represent 16%-20% of all American voters – down from 3% when Biden and Trump faced off four years ago (but similar to levels seen in the 2016 election between Trump and Hillary Clinton).
• Third-party independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is polling as high as 38% among double haters, though polls vary on whether RFK Jr. will draw more votes from Biden or Trump.

Zoom out: Trump currently holds a 41.7%–40.6% lead over Biden in FiveThirtyEight’s latest national polling averages, with RFK Jr. earning 9.8% of the vote. All three of those figures have remained relatively consistent since the beginning of March.

• Trump is also leading Biden by a margin of 1.4%–6.7% across seven key swing states that experts say will likely decide the White House race (AZ, GA, MI, NV, NC, PA, and WI).

Looking ahead… While Biden has committed to keeping VP Kamala Harris on his 2024 ticket, Trump has yet to choose a running mate. The former president last week said he probably won't announce his pick "too much before the [GOP] convention" on July 15-18.

• His shortlist of VPs reportedly includes Sen. Tim Scott (SC), Sen. J.D. Vance (OH), Sen. Marco Rubio (FL), Rep. Elise Stefanik (NY), Rep. Byron Donalds (FL), and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

📊 Flash poll: If the November election were held today, who would you vote for?

• President Biden
• Former President Trump
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• A different third-party candidate
• I’m too young/I don’t vote
• Unsure/other

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🇧🇷 Madonna drew a reported 1.6 million fans for a free concert in Brazil. The show, held on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach, marked the final event of Madonna’s latest world tour celebrating her four decades in pop. It ranks as one of the top-10 most attended free concerts ever recorded, with a crowd size more than 10x larger than Madonna’s previous attendance record.

🇨🇳 Chinese President Xi Jinping began a three-country trip aimed at deepening relations in Europe. Xi started yesterday in France, where President Emmanuel Macron is expected to call for China to reduce its trade imbalances and accept more French imports. The visit comes amid a series of EU probes into excessive Chinese subsidies, along with European accusations of spying and cyberattacks by Beijing. Xi’s five-day trip will conclude with visits to Serbia and Hungary, two countries that have received substantial Chinese investment and are also widely seen as close to Russia.

🇦🇺 High rent prices have many Australians saying “oh naur.” Average rent nationwide was $413/week as of April, representing an 8.5% annual increase and the highest level on record, per a new report from property consultancy CoreLogic Inc. A separate government report published Friday found Australia’s housing prices and rents are growing faster than wages, rental vacancies are near all-time lows, and projected future housing supply is very low.

A potential major media deal is experiencing more drama than Succession.

The exclusive negotiating window between Paramount Global, which is controlled by Shari Redstone, and Skydance Media, which is controlled by the Ellison family (Oracle), ended on Friday.

This means Paramount is back on the open market – and weighing its options. The company, home to the Mission: Impossible franchise and streaming hits like Yellowjackets, is also considering a joint offer from Sony and Apollo, which emerged last week.

The offers (for context, Paramount’s current market cap is ~$9 billion):

• Skydance Media: To pay ~$2 billion for Redstone’s shares (and controlling interest), then merge the two companies together. The combined company would receive a cash infusion of $3 billion to pay down debt or buy back stock.
• Sony and Apollo: $26 billion in cash, including the assumption of debt.

Redstone and Hollywood appear to be psyched about Skydance – but nearly every Paramount investor and Wall Street seem to be on Sony and Apollo’s side.

More deal-drama tea: Paramount CEO Bob Bakish, who was reportedly soft on the Skydance deal, departed the company last week, joining four board members who had also exited the company over the previous month (three of whom were on an independent committee tasked with ensuring any merger deal would benefit all of the company’s shareholders).

👀 Looking ahead… A special committee of Paramount’s board voted over the weekend to engage in non-exclusive talks with Sony/Apollo. Skydance is also reportedly still interested in getting a deal done.

+Dive deeper: A Media Heiress’s Bid to Sell Set Off Mayhem Inside Paramount.

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💬 Quoted: “Wall of Death.”

• A new study from the University of Milan brings a whole new meaning to the term moonwalk. Scientists suggested that astronauts on the Moon should be equipped with a “Wall of Death” contraption – typically used by motorcycle-riding stunt performers – to help counteract muscle and bone loss caused by the low-gravity environment. Their research found running around the Wall of Death cylinder for as little as a few minutes/day can counteract some of the negative health effects associated with living at one-sixth of Earth’s gravity.

💻💰 Stat of the Day: On Friday, the US government officially auctioned off a supercomputer that ranked as the 20th most powerful computer in the world at the time of its installation (2016). The 5.34-petaflop computer, enough to perform 5.34 quadrillion calculations/second, was used to generate 4,500+ peer-reviewed publications over its lifespan. But its calculating days are likely over, given that its processors and RAM can be flipped on eBay for ~$700,000 (compared to a winning bid of $480,085).

🤔 Did You Know? Men are ~4x more likely to be struck by lightning compared to women, according to the National Weather Service. Cue Caddyshack’s thunderstorm scene.

📰 Worth a Read: ​​The story of New Orleans' most infamous cop who ordered a hit on a civilian → (The Atavist Magazine)

• ☝️ Cinco de Mayo, the annual observance of Mexico’s victory over the French army in 1862, was celebrated across Mexico and the US yesterday.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Meowtel

• 💰 US markets closed up on Friday (S&P: +1.3%; Dow: +1.2%; Nasdaq: 2.0%).
• 💼 The US economy added a seasonally adjusted 175,000 jobs in April, per new gov’t data; that’s below the 240,000 economists expected; employers added 315,000 jobs in March.
• 📝 Berkshire Hathaway held its annual shareholder meeting over the weekend. Read a full recap of Warren Buffett's comments.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏇 Mystik Dan won the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby, beating out two other horses in a photo finish; see the best outfits and hats from Derby attendees. | 🏀 NBA Playoffs: Conference semifinal matchups were finalized this weekend; it’s the Nuggets (0-1) vs. Timberwolves (1-0), Thunder vs. Mavericks, Knicks vs. Pacers, and Celtics v. Cavaliers. | 🏀 Caitlin Clark scored 21 points in her WNBA preseason debut with the Indiana Fever on Friday; her first regular-season game is next Tuesday.
• 🍿 The Fall Guy, starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, earned a disappointing $28.5 million to top the domestic box office in its opening weekend.
• 🤔 The Kendrick vs. Drake rap beef, explained.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Smartish

• 🚀🌒 China launched a 53-day mission that, if successful, would make it the first nation to retrieve samples from the dark side of the Moon.
• 📜 Some events in the Bible – including the settling of Jerusalem, a major earthquake there, and the city’s eventual destruction by the Babylonians – are supported by precise radiocarbon dating, per a new study published in PNAS.
• 🛰️ Earth gained a record 2,877 satellites last year, bringing the total number of spacecraft in orbit to 12,597, per new data from Slingshot Aerospace.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• ⛈️🌪️ A severe storm system is expected to affect up to 40 million Americans across the Central and Southeastern US between today and Wednesday; tornado warnings were issued for areas of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska.
• 🇮🇱 Israel’s government ordered the closure of Al Jazeera in the country, a move the Qatari state-owned news network called a “criminal act.”
• ⚖️ Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) and his wife were indicted on federal bribery and conspiracy charges; they’re accused of accepting ~$600,000 to advance the interests of a bank in Mexico and an oil and gas company owned by the Azerbaijan government.

CLICKBAIT

• 🧠👀 Optical illusion reveals key brain rule that governs consciousness.

Monday: Met Gala takes place; Pulitzer winners and finalists announced

Tuesday: Indiana primary elections; Apple hosts online event “Let Loose”

Wednesday: House GOP hopes to question NPR CEO over allegations of left-leaning bias

Thursday: National Sleepover Day

Friday: Port of Baltimore will open a limited channel following the March bridge collapse

On Friday, we covered how a bipartisan group of senators is pushing for restrictions on the use of facial recognition tech by the TSA, citing concerns that travelers’ privacy and civil liberties may be at risk.

❓ Our question to you: Do you support the TSA’s increased use of facial recognition technology for verifying passengers’ identities?

• 👍 Yes: 46%
• 👎 No: 35%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 19%

Click here to read more of the best longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 3,363 votes and 302 longform responses.

Arizona beekeeper Matt Hilton was at his son's T-ball game when he received an emergency bee job call: a sudden swarm at the nearby MLB stadium had delayed the start of the game, and they needed someone to clear them out fast. 

🐝 To the rescue... Matt rushed down to the field to help with the bees and was surprised when the stadium erupted into applause upon his arrival.

• "I knew it was going to be a cool experience," he shared, "but it wasn’t until I went out on the field in the buggy and the fans were just going crazy that it kind of hit me just how big of a deal this was."
• Matt successfully vacuumed up the bees, then released them in a safer area. He even got to throw the ceremonial first pitch for his efforts.  

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words:

1. Andr
2. Bov
3. Cand
4. Derm
5. Fix

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1. Andr = Masculine (e.g., android, misandry)
2. Bov = Cow (bovine)
3. Cand = Glowing (candle)
4. Derm = Skin (dermatologist, dermatitis)
5. Fix = Attach (prefix, suffix)