Good morning. In this edition:

• 🧑‍⚖️ Luigi Mangione could face the death penalty
• ✈️ Airplane food is actually getting good
• 🏀 Larry Bird = pretty good at basketball

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.68-minute read (1,245 words).

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“Dude, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something.”

–Jake the Dog; Adventure Time (2010-2018)

Yesterday, Attorney General Pam Bondi directed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in connection with the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Quick background: Mangione, a 26-year-old UPenn graduate from a wealthy Baltimore-area family, faces both state and federal charges in the murder of Thompson last December.

• Prosecutors accuse Mangione of waiting outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel where Thompson was set to attend an investor meeting, then shooting him with a 3D-printed ghost gun before fleeing the scene.
• Following a nearly weeklong manhunt, Mangione was arrested after being spotted at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania.
• Authorities say they believe Mangione’s motive was animosity toward what he saw as injustices within the health insurance industry and corporate America, and a desire to spark a national debate on the topic (✅).

The cases against Mangione

Manhattan prosecutors in December charged Mangione with 11 state criminal counts, including first-degree murder and murder as a crime of terrorism. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted (for context: New York doesn’t have the death penalty).

• Mangione is also facing four federal charges—including use of a firearm to commit murder, which would make him eligible for the federal death penalty if convicted. He has yet to enter a plea in federal cases.

Big picture: There have been 16 executions carried out by the government since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, per the Death Penalty Information Center. The vast majority (13) took place during the final seven months of Trump’s first term in 2020-21, while the other three were carried out in 2001 and 2003.

Looking ahead…The state case against Mangione is expected to proceed to trial later this year, slightly ahead of the federal one. If he’s convicted of the most serious federal charge, the jury would hold a separate trial phase over whether to recommend the death penalty (a decision that must be unanimous).

📊 Flash poll: Do you agree with the decision to seek the federal death penalty for Luigi Mangione?

• Yes
• No
• I don’t feel strongly either way
• Unsure/other

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Delta Air Lines and Shake Shack want more people to get high and eat junk food. Following a limited test run in Boston, the pair last month expanded a partnership where the restaurant chain’s burgers are served to first-class passengers on the airline’s flights.

They’ve been pretty popular: Between December and March, Delta served 10,000+ first-class burgers. They now account for ~15% of the ~4,500 hot meals prepped daily at the company’s Atlanta flight kitchen.

It’s not just Delta: American Airlines also last month expanded its limited test of serving sliders and fries in the skies.

Airplane food is actually getting good

As North American carriers began to compete more directly with Asian, European, and Middle Eastern airlines with reputations for top-tier customer experiences, they started offering more premium food options in first class (often curated by celebrity chefs), Bloomberg reports.

• United now offers Magnolia Bakery banana pudding, while Alaska serves Stumptown coffee, Beecher’s cheese, and Salt & Straw ice cream.

But…There are limitations. The food has to be cooked ahead of time, chilled to a safe temperature, then reheated in the air—making items like avocado toast nearly impossible to get right without turning them soggier than paper towel tossed into a pool.

Big picture: This premium food push comes amid a broader premium passenger push, as airlines increasingly cater to those willing to shell out cash for a more elevated flying experience.

WikiPortraits, a recently founded media project, has a Wiki’d idea to update Wikimedia on Wikipedia: hire volunteer photographers to fix the famously terrible photos featured on celebrity pages.

• As one of the most visited websites in the world, Wikipedia has strict rules for photography and copyright.
• The pictures uploaded must be a contributor’s own, freely licensed, or in the public domain—meaning the work of paid celebrity photographers is off limits.

The volunteer loophole

As a workaround, WikiPortraits recruits volunteer photographers from around the world, then coordinates with venues to get them access to film festivals, conferences, and other red carpet events—where they spend the day taking new Wikipedia portraits for free.

• In a little over a year since the first hiring call went out, WikiPortraits has uploaded 8,000+ new photos to the site, including updating portraits of Elijah Wood (above), Florence Pugh, Ben Stiller, and more.

It can be mutually beneficial: WikiPortraits offers exposure, career experience, and unique event invites to amateur photographers in exchange for their work. Its photos are viewed up to 80 million times/month on Wikipedia and have also been used by a variety of news outlets.

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The world has a record 3,028 billionaires, collectively worth $16.1 trillion, according to Forbes' World Billionaires List published yesterday.

• Elon Musk ($342 billion) currently ranks as the richest person on Earth, and the first whose net worth has topped $300 billion.
• Mark Zuckerberg ($216 billion), Jeff Bezos ($215 billion), Larry Ellison ($192 billion), and Bernard Arnault ($178 billion) round out the top five.

The rich are getting richer: Compared to last year, Forbes found the global billionaire population grew by 247 individuals (+9%) and added a collective ~$2 trillion in wealth (+14%). The US leads all countries with 902 billionaires, followed by China (and Hong Kong) with 516 and India with 205.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📝 It’s “Liberation Day”; here’s what to expect. | 📈 Newsmax shares rose another 179% yesterday; they increased 700% on Monday following the conservative news channel's IPO; the company now has a higher market cap than Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox.
• 💳 Affirm is reporting pay-in-four-installments loans to the credit bureau Experian; will start showing up on credit reports.
• 💉 Eli Lilly is suing two pharmacies for compounding Zepbound and Mounjaro. | 🍗 Hooters filed for bankruptcy. | 🤖 Joelle Pineau, Meta’s head of AI research, is resigning.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with NoNetz

• 🏈 NFL owners voted on a series of proposed rule changes, but postponed their decision on whether to ban the tush push until next month at the earliest.
• 👶 Jennifer Lawrence welcomed her second baby with husband Cooke Maroney.
• 🇬🇧 The Beatles Movies—a planned series of four films, each from one band member’s perspective—have officially cast their “Fab Four.” | 🕸️ Tom Holland’s fourth Spider-Man film received an official title: “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”; it starts filming this summer. | 👆 Both announcements came at CinemaCon 2025 this week in Las Vegas; see the latest updates.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🤖 Amazon unveiled Nova Act, a new AI agent that can take control of a web browser and independently perform some simple actions.
• 🩸 A new blood test can diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and track its progression with 92% accuracy, per a new study.
• 🦠 Scientists resurrected 7,000-year-old phytoplankton found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea; it’s one of the oldest organisms ever revived.

MISCELLANEOUS

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• 🎓 Princeton University had dozens of government grants halted by the Trump admin this week; the school is among dozens facing federal investigations into allegations of antisemitism.
• 🗳️ US Elections: Two Trump-backed Republican candidates won special elections in Florida to replace outgoing GOP House members; Democrat Susan Crawford defeated Republican Brad Schimel in Wisconsin's hotly-contested Supreme Court election—the most expensive US judicial race ever.
• 🇷🇺 Russia called up 160,000 men aged 18 to 30 for military service; it marks the country's largest conscription effort since 2011. |💥 Israel’s military aims to recapture ~25% of Gaza over the next 2-3 weeks as part of a campaign seeking to pressure Hamas to release more Israeli hostages, per officials. | 🇸🇻 The Trump admin accidentally deported a Maryland man to a high-security prison in El Salvador despite his protected legal status, in what it calls an “administrative error”; US officials claim the man is a MS-13 gang member (which he denies), and say they can’t order his return now that he’s in El Salvador’s custody. (From the Left | From the Center | From the Right)

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👆 SpaceX launched its Fram2 mission carrying four private passengers; they’ll be the first people to orbit directly above Earth’s North and South poles over the next several days; they’ll also carry out several experiments. (Dive deeper: Shrooming in space.)

🤔 Did You Know? As an April Fools’ Day prank in 1957, the BBC aired a three-minute feature about a Swiss town near Italy that had an exceptionally heavy “spaghetti crop,” complete with footage of people picking spaghetti strands off trees and bushes.

📰 Worth a Read: The Strangest and Most Captivating Planets Outside our Solar System

🖱️ Clickbait: 50-year-old’s side hustle brings in $1.4M/year: It’s easy ‘for a beginner like me’ to start

🧓 A group of 90+-year-olds in Argentina started a podcast to discuss growing older and the joys and challenges that come with it. In one episode, 92-year-old Mabel shares: “A tip to get to 90 is to eat healthy and love yourself, love yourself very much.”

🥹 A moment of kindness captured on last week’s Survivor episode had host Jeff Probst—and seemingly the entire internet—in tears. Take a look here.

🏊‍♀️ Paralympic gold medalist Melanie Barratt became the first blind woman to successfully swim across the English Channel.

How it works: We provide an incorrect stat. Then you guess whether the actual number is over or under the given value.

1. ⛰️ 7 miles: The height of Mt. Everest
2. 🐦 10: Number of times a woodpecker can peck per second
3. ☕ 70%: The percentage of Americans who drink coffee every day

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1. ⛰️ Under; Mt. Everest is ~5.5 miles tall
2. 🐦 Over; woodpeckers can peck up to 20 times/second
3. ☕ Over; about 73% of Americans drink coffee daily