Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🗳️ The presidential race has shifted following Biden’s exit
• 🦚📈 Peacock is looking for an Olympics boost
• 💪 Top podcasts are dominating the industry

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.63-minute read (1,232 words).

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“Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so intensely.”

–Percy Colson (1873-1952)

The 2024 election has been turned on its head in recent weeks with the attempted assassination of former President Trump, the decision by President Biden to step down from the race, and the elevation of VP Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

With 99 days until November 5 (Election Day), here’s how things currently stand:

The Harris campaign is kicking into high gear. In the week since Harris emerged as a 2024 candidate, her campaign has raised $200 million and signed up 170,000 new volunteers across the country. The Harris campaign says 66% of those donations came from first-time contributors to the 2024 election cycle.

Excitement is growing for both parties’ candidates. The percentage of Democrats who said they’re enthusiastic about their 2024 presidential candidate jumped from 37% on July 2, when Biden was still in the race, to 81% on July 25, after Harris had emerged as the presumptive nominee. Over that same period, the percentage of Republican voters enthusiastic with their candidate rose from 70% to 85%.

Polls show the race has tightened since Biden’s exit. Harris is currently performing better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup against Trump – though the former president still maintains a slight edge over Harris. New polls from the NYT/Siena College (Trump +1), WSJ (Trump +2), and CNN (Trump +3) are all closer than the 6-point lead Trump held in all three polls following the June 27 debate.

Looking ahead… Harris is expected to announce her running mate before August 7, when the Democratic Party plans to virtually nominate its ticket. Her short list reportedly includes three candidates: Senator Mark Kelly (AZ), Governor Josh Shapiro (PA), and Governor Tim Walz (MN).

📊 Flash poll: If the November election was held today, which candidate would you vote for?

• Former President Trump
• Vice President Harris
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
• Another third-party candidate
• Not planning to vote/Too young to vote
• Unsure/other

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🇮🇹 The Roman Empire’s oldest road was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Italy’s Via Appia Antica – aka “Queen of Roads” – was built in 312 BC as a strategic military corridor to connect Rome with southern Italy, allowing the Romans to conquer the southern part of the peninsula. The 500+ mile-long road is Italy's 60th UNESCO World Heritage site, bumping the country up to first place globally.

🇲🇽 US officials arrested two top leaders of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, a co-founder of Sinaloa, was detained on drug charges along with the son of incarcerated drug lord El Chapo (another Sinaloa co-founder) when a plane carrying them both landed in Texas last Thursday. US officials describe the arrest as a sting operation, while Zambada’s lawyer accuses El Chapo’s son of kidnapping Zambada as part of a plea agreement with US authorities.

🇮🇱 Israel blamed Hezbollah for a rocket attack on a soccer field in Israeli territory. Israel’s government said Saturday’s rocket strike in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights region killed 12 children and wounded ~40 other people. Israeli officials blamed the attack on Hezbollah and launched retaliatory airstrikes into Lebanon overnight Sunday, raising fears of a broader conflict. Hezbollah “firmly denies” it was behind the strike, which marks the deadliest attack on Israeli-controlled territory since October 7, while US officials say the government’s assessment is that Hezbollah fired the rocket.

This year, Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, is airing the entirety of the Summer Olympics for the first time. And execs are betting it’ll give the streamer a Mario Kart-mushroom-style boost.

The playbook: Purchase the rights to a live sporting event, then host said event behind a paywall on Peacock, allowing those without a cable TV subscription (an increasing number of Americans) to pay and watch it.

After that? Try like hell to keep ‘em onboard.

So far, so good. In January 2024, Peacock became the first platform to exclusively host an NFL playoff game, a matchup between the Chiefs and Dolphins. The game required a paid subscription to watch (no free trial), and drove nearly three million new signups to Peacock – with 71% of these users remaining subscribers through the end of February 2024.

• The Paris Summer Olympics have the potential to be just as big, if not bigger. A majority of US consumers are expecting to tune in, with 60% likely to stream the Games and 47% planning to watch on traditional TV, according to a recent Numerator survey with 10,000+ responses.

👀 Get caught up: The Paris Olympics officially kicked off on Friday with the Opening Ceremony (which was watched by ~29 million people, the most since 2012). Since then, we've seen a stunning rugby upset, the US win its first gold, a Canadian women’s soccer cheating scandal, Simone Biles put on a show (despite tweaking her left calf), and hoops phenom Victor Wembanyama make his Olympic debut.

Follow all the Olympic action here.

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“Your slides on drug discovery are so vague, they make a horoscope look more specific.”

• The judges on Shark Tank sometimes rip into the startup ideas they hear. But at “Snark Tank,” roasting founders is the main attraction. The live show involves startup founders presenting their business ideas to a panel of comedians, who are tasked with weaving in genuine feedback alongside their roasts. The show is based around the concept that most start-up businesses fail, so it’s important to identify and address problems early on – and brutally honest feedback is one of the best ways to do so. Companies pitched at “Snark Tank” include Applaz, a social network for users to post Instagram apologies content from their notes app, and Stellar Amenities, which developed a chatbot for astronauts (huuuuge target market). Following its initial success in Silicon Valley, “Snark Tank” has expanded to events in Los Angeles and New York City, with future plans to pitch the show to TV executives.

• ☝️ GM recently unveiled its newest Corvette model; the 2025 Chevy Corvette ZR1 will be the most powerful version ever produced, with 1,000+ horsepower and 828 foot-pounds of torque.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Paleovalley

• 💰 US markets rose across the board on Friday (S&P: +1.1%; Dow: +1.6%; Nasdaq: +1.0%). | 🏦 Central bank policymakers from the US, UK, and Japan are all set to meet this week; their decisions may impact bonds, stocks, and currencies.
• 🍏 Apple will start to roll out Apple Intelligence (its suite of AI-powered features) a few weeks after the initial launch of iOS 18 in September, per Bloomberg; analysts previously expected the two to be tied together.
• 🥊 It’s on: Fast-food chains are battling for price-conscious diners with summer value meals.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🍿 Deadpool and Wolverine earned $205 million at the US box office its opening weekend, marking the highest debut of 2024 and best-ever opening by an R-rated movie. | 🦹 Robert Downey Jr., formerly Iron Man, will return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe as supervillain Dr. Doom in Avengers: Doomsday (2026) and Avengers: Secret Wars (2027); both films are being directed by the Russo brothers. | 🗣️ Every other major announcement from San Diego Comic-Con 2024.
• 🏎️ F1 Belgian Grand Prix: Mercedes’ George Russell was stripped of his victory after officials determined he raced with an underweight car; his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton was elevated to first place instead.
• 🙏 Three members of The Nelons, a Grammy-nominated family gospel group, died in a Wyoming plane crash that also killed four other people.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Coral Isles Sunscreen

• 🩸🧠 A new blood test can diagnose Alzheimer’s disease with 90+% accuracy, significantly outperforming both primary care and specialist doctors, per a new study.
• 🪐🤔 NASA’s Perseverance rover discovered a rock on Mars that represents “a potential biosignature”; scientists describe the finding as a structure, composition, or texture in the rock that could have been formed by microbial life billions of years ago, but could also come from non-biological processes.
• 💻⚛️ Startup PsiQuantum announced a deal with the State of Illinois to build the first US-based, utility-scale quantum computer; it’ll be located in Chicago.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🔥 The arson-caused Park fire in Northern California has grown to encompass 350,000+ acres and was 12% contained as of Sunday morning; overall, the US had 155 active fires covering 2+ million acres as of yesterday.
• 🍗 Today is National Chicken Wing Day: Browse one-day deals from Wingstop, Buffalo Wild Wings, Popeyes, and more.
• ⛏️ A planned major copper mine in southern Arizona – which would supply enough copper to satisfy an estimated ~25% of US demand – is in doubt due to pushback from environmental groups and Indigenous religious-liberty activists.

CLICKBAIT

• 💪🚀 Genetically Enhanced Humans May Be The Future of Space Travel.

🎙️ Stat of the Day: The US podcast industry is a lot like Mr. Incredible: top-heavy. There are ~450,000 active shows with recent episodes – but the top 25 podcasts reach nearly half of all weekly US listeners, per data from Podcast Industry Insights and Edison Research. Podcast distributors like Spotify and Amazon are capitalizing on this dynamic by selling more ads to bigger brands, and experimenting with subscriptions to top shows that include early (and/or ad-free) access or bonus content.

🤔 Did You Know? Dyer's Burgers, a restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee, uses 100+-year-old grease to cook their hamburgers, which it says are perfectly safe to eat.

📰 Worth a Read: Posing as ‘Alicia,’ This Man Scammed Hundreds Online. He Was Also a Victim → (WSJ)

Monday: Iowa’s six-week abortion ban takes effect

Tuesday: Senate holds hearing on Trump assassination; US reports job openings for June

Wednesday: Fed expected to hold interest rates steady

Thursday: Pro Football Hall of Fame Game (Texans v. Bears); Bank of England expected to cut interest rates; Lollapalooza starts

Friday: July jobs report

On Friday, we covered some of the top storylines heading into the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, which officially kicked off with the Opening Ceremony on Friday.

❓ Our question to you: Do you plan on watching the Olympics at some point over the next two-plus weeks?

• 👍 Yes: 67%
• 👎 No: 20%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 13%

+Note: There are no longform responses today; we received 3,615 votes.

Third-grade teacher Sara Shabir went above and beyond for her end-of-the-year gifts to students. 

• Sara, who picked up a love for crocheting during Covid lockdowns, hand-made miniature versions of all 30 of her students to gift them at the end of the school year.

🤔 Precise planning... It took the UK woman ~240 hours to complete the project; she matched every doll's skin tone, hair color, and style as closely as she could to her real-life students. 

• “I feel a massive sense of accomplishment in completing this project, and the joy the children showed when they saw them was worth everything," she shared. 

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

1. Anem
2. Bront
3. Cathar
4. Crit
5. Fugit

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1. Anem = Wind (e.g., anemometer)
2. Bront = Thunder (brontosaurus)
3. Cathar = Pure (catharsis)
4. Crit = Judge (critical)
5. Fugit = Flee (fugitive)