Good morning. In this edition:

• 🔵 Democrats earned a surprise election win
• 🤢 Why the ISS is making astronauts sick
• 🤔 Are you smarter than AI?

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.47-minute read (1,188 words).

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“It is useless to meet revenge with revenge; it will heal nothing.”

–J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

This week, Democrat James Andrew Malone narrowly won a special election for a Pennsylvania state Senate seat his party hasn’t occupied since 1983, scoring a surprise upset for a party that’s been on its heels since the November election.

• Malone’s 50.0%-49.1% victory over Republican Josh Parsons came in Lancaster County, a district President Trump won by 16 points over Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

A Trump referendum?

Some Democratic lawmakers point to their upset victory in Pennsylvania as a sign that voters are widely opposed to the Trump administration’s agenda thus far, and are making their disappointment known at the ballot box in addition to rallies and crowded town hall meetings across the country.

But Pennsylvania’s Republican Party chairman, Greg Rothman, says he doesn’t think Trump’s performance in office hurt his party’s candidate. Instead, Rothman pointed to Democrats doing a better job of inspiring voter turnout for the special election, which drew ~5x fewer participants compared to November.

A pair of upcoming elections will test those theories. In Florida, a special House election on Monday features a GOP candidate whose lead over the Democratic opponent is within the (large) margin of error in a recent poll––despite the contest occurring in a district Trump carried by 30 points in November.

And in Wisconsin, the battleground state where Trump won his narrowest margin in 2024, both parties are laser focused on a state Supreme Court election set for Tuesday.

• The contest will determine the tilt of an ideologically divided bench, whose decisions carry national implications for abortion rights, legislative redistricting, and election laws.
• Both sides have already spent a combined ~$81 million as of Tuesday—including $11 million from Elon Musk—eclipsing the previous all-time record for a US court race ($56 million).

It woud've been three: President Trump yesterday withdrew his nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for US ambassador to the UN, saying “I don’t want to take a chance on anyone else running for Elise’s seat” given the GOP’s slim House margin to enact his agenda.

📊 Flash poll: Do you think the Democrats’ surprise election win in Pennsylvania a sign of widespread national discontent with the Trump administration?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

Earlier this week, Google’s Gemini was projected at 3% on Kalshi to be “Best AI This Month." That all changed on Tuesday with the release of Gemini 2.5, which saw its market surge to 96% as of Thursday.

• 📈 Anyone who wagered on Gemini right before the release of 2.5 saw around a 30x increase in their position’s value
• 🏆 The outcome is decided by Chatbot Arena LLM Leaderboard, where users anonymously compare responses from two AI models to determine which performs better
• 🤖 Grok had been the previous market favorite, peaking over 60% three times through March

Kalshi is the first CFTC-regulated prediction market, letting users bet on politics, tech, and everyday events.

The US housing market is like Shailene Woodley and Theo James––doing Divergent things. While every locality has its own nuances, many are starkly different, and there’s a widening range of time that homes are sitting on the market around the country, according to a new Wall Street Journal report.

• The state with the fastest-moving market last month was Rhode Island, where the median home sat on the market for 37.5 days. The slowest-moving was Montana, at 108.25 days.
• This marks the widest gap between any two states for any February since 2020.

Location matters: In Southern Florida––where builders are dangling incentives to sell newly built homes and second-home owners and retirees are increasingly looking to exit––78% of real-estate agents say sellers of existing homes outnumber buyers, according to a recent John Burns survey.

But in the Northeast––where data shows more sellers are putting off moving to hold on to low mortgage rates––it’s flipped; ~81% of agents say buyers outnumber sellers there. The Midwest also has a buyer-heavy ratio.

Big picture: Nationally, about half of real estate agents are convinced it’s a seller’s market (buyer-heavy), per the survey. US home sales increased nationwide in February. And overall, prices keep climbing like Alex Honnold. A measure of prices across 20 cities rose 4.7% in January compared to a year earlier.

With the exception of Pig-Pen from Peanuts, it’s hard to imagine any passenger complaining that their travel accommodations are “too clean.” But astronauts onboard the International Space Station should be doing just that, according to a new study.

What’s going on? For decades, crews onboard the ISS have been plagued by persistent rashes, unusual allergies, and a variety of infections like fungi, cold sores, and shingles.

These effects don’t end immediately upon their leaving, either. For up to a month after returning to Earth, astronauts have reduced immune systems and can get seriously ill from common bugs.

Scientists finally believe they know why: The space station doesn’t have enough germs.

• While there are some bacteria present on the ISS that arrived with their human hosts, researchers found the array of free-living microbes present on Earth is lacking.
• This kind of imbalance among microbes is linked to chronic inflammatory diseases that carry similar symptoms to those seen in ISS astronauts, scientists said.

Big picture: The lack of healthy germs represents an annoyance for current astronauts, who only spend a few months on the ISS at a time. But it could represent a much larger issue for longer term space life, like living at Moon bases or traveling to Mars.

The study’s authors say their findings can help identify which kinds of health-boosting bacteria should be added to future space habitats.

High blood pressure is the #1 risk for mortality—1 in 2 people have it. Now, there’s a hassle-free and delicious way helping 30k customers, 120/Life. It contains all-natural ingredients backed by science to help hypertension:

• 💗 Pomegranate prevents blood vessels from constricting
• 🌺 Hibiscus acts as a natural ACE inhibitor/controls cholesterol
• 🍒 Tart cherries and cranberries fight inflammation
• 💓 Beetroots dilate blood vessels
• 😊 Magnesium helps your muscles relax

If you don’t see lower numbers in two weeks, they’ll refund you, no questions asked.

A bank announcing a computing advancement––pretty random. In a first-of-its-kind breakthrough, JPMorgan this week revealed it has produced truly random numbers using a quantum computer.

Wait…You may be familiar with so-called random number generators. But contrary to the very name they hold, they aren’t truly random; they follow pre-determined sequences. JPMorgan claims it’s the first to create “genuine randomness.”

Looking ahead: Experts say the tech could have future market trading and cybersecurity applications, as well as help figure out if the things Valley girls experience are actually random.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 US markets closed down (S&P: -0.3%; Dow: -0.4%; Nasdaq: -0.5%); GM fell ~7% following Trump’s auto tariff announcement; Ford dropped ~4%; Rivian rose ~8%.
• ☕ Starbucks set a four-minute delivery target for drive-thru orders, echoing its four-minute target for in-store orders; chain didn't previously have companywide service time goals. | 🍽️ Solo dining reservations in the US have increased 64% since 2019, according to OpenTable data.
• 💰 Robinhood is rolling out wealth management and private banking services for retail investors.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Niphtio

• 🏆 BAFTA TV Award nominees: Baby Reindeer leads the pack with eight, followed by Slow Horses and Rivals with six apiece. | 🎥 AMC Entertainment is bringing ScreenX and 4DX Premium Formats to the US for the first time.
• 🎤 Lady Gaga announced her first arena concert tour since 2018; dates are scheduled for North America and Europe.
• 🏀 The Sweet Sixteen for men’s March Madness tipped off yesterday and continues today; the women’s Sweet Sixteen begins this afternoon. | ⚾ MLB Opening Day was held across the US (and Toronto) yesterday; check out the scores and highlights.

*From our partners: 🔖 The great bookmark myth: “I’ll read it later”... Break the cycle with Niphtio, the browser extension helps you easily save, retrieve, and organize all that golden content that was important enough to save. Now compatible with Bluesky. Get Niphtio FREE here.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🌑 A partial solar eclipse will be visible in the US Northeast shortly after sunrise on Saturday, according to NASA.
• 🏆 Japan’s Masaki Kashiwara was awarded the 2025 Abel Prize—oft referred to as the Nobel Prize in mathematics—for his work that combined different mathematical fields to investigate geometry and symmetry.
• 🏥 Pre-weekend surgeries have a 5% higher combined risk of deaths, complications, and short- and long-term readmissions than those done earlier in the week, per a new study.

MISCELLANEOUS

in partnership with Commons

• 🏥 Health insurers were double-paid by the Medicaid system for hundreds of thousands of patients who signed up in two different states, costing taxpayers $4.3+ billion over three years, per a new Wall Street Journal investigation.
• 🏛️ Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs within the department and seek 10,000 additional buyouts; the combined cuts represent ~25% of HHS’ workforce.
• 🎓 Around 300 US student visas have been revoked over allegations that their holders participated in disruptive protests, including recent detentions at Tufts and Columbia, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

*From our partners: 🌎 Join Commons for the 2025 Earth Summit on Apr. 21-22…. Hosted in Oakland (in-person & FREE virtual tickets available), this event will be an Earth Day celebration and contemplation of collective power, company accountability, and community resilience. Learn more and get tickets here.

👆 Illinois residents earlier this month voted on a new design for the state flag…and ended up selecting the current flag, nicknamed “SOB” (or Seal on a Bedsheet), in a landslide.

🤔 Did You Know? The last surviving widow of a Civil War veteran died in 2020 at the age of 101.

📰 Worth a Read: Are You Smarter Than A.I.?

🖱️ Clickbait: The Ford Executive Who Kept Score of Colleagues’ Verbal Flubs

🤪 A recent study from Oregon State University emphasized the importance of fun and playfulness––even into adulthood.

🥳 Congratulations are in order for Carolina, a giant rat who has worked the last seven years detecting tuberculosis cases that health clinics had missed. The rat detected more than 3,000 cases of the disease and, as a result, likely spared more than 30,000 other people from infection.

🍇 Church members at the Mission of Mary Cooperative in Dayton, Ohio, started planting fruit and vegetable plants in vacant lots around the church in 2009. Now, they provide more than 65,000 lbs of fresh produce to the community every year.

🎨 That’s cool: Using chemical reactions to make art.

🌊 Pretty deep: Explore where ocean creatures spend their time swimming.

🍿 Movie buffs: Can you guess the blurred-out movie poster based on a series of clues?

🏋️ Get yoked: Want to be part of the most well-informed CrossFit community on the internet? Sign up for the Morning Chalk Up newsletter to get access to expert analysis, breaking news, and exclusive interviews.*

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Here's the deal: You take our weekly news quiz, and we calculate how well you paid attention this week. Let’s do this.

Below are three lists of ingredients. Your job is give us the completed dish they make.

☝️ Recipe #1:

• Flour
• Salt & pepper
• Chicken cutlets
• Olive oil
• Shallots
• Cremini mushrooms
• Garlic
• Dry white wine
• Heavy cream
• Parmesan cheese
• Baby spinach

✌️ Recipe #2:

• Butter
• Sugar
• Cinnamon
• Eggs
• Half and half
• Vanilla extract
• Croissants, halved
• Powdered sugar
• Maple syrup

3️⃣ Recipe #3:

• Flour
• Baking spray
• Butter
• Eggs
• Vanilla extract
• Salt
• Baking powder
• Whole milk

☝️ Recipe #1: Creamy chicken florentine

✌️ Recipe #2: Croissant French toast bake

3️⃣ Recipe #3: Million dollar pound cake