Good morning. In this edition:

• 🏎️ Formula 1 <3 America
• 📝 Trump wants to reopen Alcatraz
• 🤝 Grip strength + long life

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.35-minute read (1,156 words).

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"No one has ever become poor by giving."

–Anne Frank (1929-1945)

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri on Sunday won the Miami Grand Prix, a pastel-filled spectacle that included drivable cars made out of Legos.

But that wasn’t the only Formula 1 news to come out of South Florida this weekend. The global racing series announced it signed a deal that’ll keep the Miami race on the calendar through at least 2041, making it the longest contracted event in F1.

It comes amid an aggressive US expansion. F1 has long considered America underserved and filled with untapped potential. But previous efforts to boost the sport’s popularity in the land of red, white, and blue have fallen flat, following a worse first impression than showing up to a first date in a “Minions” t-shirt and calling your ex mid-meal.

• The first US-located F1 race occurred at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2005, when a controversy over tire safety led to only six cars participating.
• Fans, frustrated with the fiasco, lobbed trash from the stands and threatened to riot.

Things started to turn around for F1 in America when Colorado-based Liberty Media purchased the racing circuit for $4.6 billion in 2017. Since then, US viewership has doubled, race attendance is up, and the number of US-hosted races is also up. A big part of this growth can be attributed to a deal with Netflix that resulted in Drive to Survive, a popular reality show centered around F1 team drivers and executives that debuted in 2019.

Looking ahead…The circuit will add Cadillac, its second American team, to the field next year. And while negotiations for a new US media rights deal don’t appear to be panning out how Liberty Media would like, rumors are swirling that the company may soon explore a sale of F1 to lock in its gains. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund reportedly offered $20+ billion to purchase the circuit two years ago, but was turned down.

+Editor’s note: Want more stories like this? Sign up for Press Sports, our sister newsletter delivering smart, witty sports news to inboxes 2x/week. It’s free.

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In a social media post Sunday night, President Trump directed federal agencies to reopen Alcatraz, one of the most infamous prisons in US history, in order to “house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”

Alcatraz, a history

Alcatraz Island first housed prisoners during the Civil War and served as a military prison until 1933, when it was transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Over the next three decades, it became widely known for holding notorious criminals like Al Capone and George “Machine-Gun” Kelly.

• Alcatraz, as a maximum-security prison surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, was a “last resort” facility where most of the ~275 inmates were those who refused to conform to rules at other federal jails.
• In 1962, AG Robert F. Kennedy ordered Alcatraz to be closed as a federal prison due to its steep maintenance costs, as well as its vulnerability to escapes—especially after three inmates that year had dug through prison walls with spoons and floated off the island on a makeshift raft, never to be seen again.
• Alcatraz later re-opened in 1973 as a tourist attraction under the National Park Service. It currently generates tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue from visitors.

California leaders largely shrugged off Trump’s decree. Governor Gavin Newsom’s office dismissed the idea as a “distraction,” while Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the Alcatraz plan is “not a serious one.”

Looking ahead…The US Bureau of Prisons is currently assessing the next steps for implementing Trump’s Alcatraz plan.

Self-taught expert Tim Friede has received hundreds of snake bites from some of the world’s deadliest species, usually on purpose, as part of a hobby he started years ago out of “simple curiosity.”

Now, scientists are seeing progress in using Friede’s blood to develop better treatments for snake bites and move towards a universal antivenom, according to a peer-reviewed study published Friday in Cell.

The origin story: Friede began injecting himself with small doses of snake venom back in 2000, in an attempt to turn into Snake-Man build up his tolerance and ultimately protect him from bites.

• Over the following 18 years, Friede injected himself with 650+ carefully calibrated, escalating doses of venom to build his immunity to 16 deadly snake species.
• He also allowed the snakes—mostly one at a time—to actually sink their fangs into him an additional ~200 times, often documenting the process on YouTube.

Friede’s ascension to superhero came in 2017, when he donated a blood sample to immunologist Dr. Jacob Glanville and his colleagues. Using the antibodies in Friede’s blood, Dr. Glanville’s biotech company Centivax developed an antivenom treatment that can protect against bites from 19 species of venomous snakes (at least in mice).

Looking ahead…Centivax, which now employs Friede as Director of Herpetology, hopes to further refine its breakthrough treatment for safe use in humans, and also use it to develop a universal antivenom covering all harmful snake bites.

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With the emergence of AI, robots are personified now more than ever before—but one company is taking things even further.

Australian startup Cortical Labs recently launched the CL1, a combination of human brain cells and regular silicon-based hardware that the company says is the world’s first commercial biological computer.

• The CL1 is a shoebox-sized system designed as an alternative to conventional AI, with its unique makeup enabling a more flexible, learning-capable, and energy efficient computing framework.
• The biological computer’s complex neural networks can be used to revolutionize how drug discovery and disease modeling is researched, according to Cortical Labs.

Looking ahead…The CL1 units, which retail for ~$35,000 apiece but only “live” for six months, will become widely available in late 2025.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📉 US markets fell across the board (S&P: -0.6%; Dow: -0.2%; Nasdaq: -0.7%); the S&P snapped its longest winning streak since 2004.
• 👟 Skechers is being acquired for ~$9 billion by 3G Capital in a take-private deal; the move will end the third-largest sneaker company in the world's 26-year run on the public markets.
• ✌️ OpenAI is abandoning its planned for-profit conversion. | Skype is officially done: The video-call service was shut down by Microsoft yesterday.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with Remi

• 🎥 President Trump said he’s considering a 100% tariff on films produced overseas.
• 🧑‍⚖️ Jury selection for Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial began in New York.
• 🏆 The NBA Playoffs entered the conference semifinal round this week. | The NHL Playoffs dropped the puck on conference semifinal action last night.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🌌 NASA’s James Webb Telescope took an image containing a record 1,678 galaxy groups up to 12 billion light-years away.
• 🔢 Mathematician Norman Wildberger figured out a way to solve higher-degree polynomial equations without using approximations, solving a ~200-year puzzle.
• 🤖 New AI reasoning systems are hallucinating—or producing incorrect information—more often than their predecessors, even as processing power goes up.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

in partnership with Niphtio

• 🇮🇱 Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to capture and hold the Gaza Strip, rescue Israel’s remaining hostages from Hamas, and relocate the ~2.1 million Palestinians living in Gaza.
• 🎓 The federal government resumed collecting student loan payments from the ~5 million Americans in default for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
• 🏛️ The Trump admin announced plans to provide travel assistance and a $1,000 stipend to undocumented immigrants in the US who use a government app to self-deport.

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☝️ The 2025 Met Gala was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last night, with co-chairs including Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky, and Pharrell Williams (plus LeBron James as honorary chair).

🤔 Did You Know? A person’s grip strength can indicate their likelihood of living past 100 years old—the stronger the grip, the more likely to live longer.

📰 Worth a Read: Why everybody’s drinking milk again

🖱️ Clickbait: The 77-year-old as fit as a 25-year-old

Yesterday we covered the White House’s fiscal blueprint for the 2026 budget that would significantly reduce spending on domestic programs, while boosting funding towards national security.

❓ Our question to you: In general, do you support or oppose President Trump’s budget proposal for the 2026 fiscal year?

• Support: 37%
• Oppose: 47%
• Unsure/other: 16%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 2,386 votes and 231 longform responses.

🐾❤️ Chewy, an abandoned 7-year-old Shih Tzu with two missing bottom teeth, spent months living on the streets of Austin before being scooped up by an employee from an assisted-living facility. Chewy is now the senior facility’s permanent pet and mascot, getting spoiled every day by residents.

🎵 An Ohio music conductor diagnosed with Parkinson’s can lead his orchestra again thanks to a breakthrough treatment called deep brain stimulation. 

🦆 A Missouri minor league baseball game was abruptly interrupted when two ducks landed on the field and went for a walk during the bottom of the fourth inning.

❓ Trivia: What is the world's oldest currency that's still in use?

🐊 True or False? Crocodiles have longer snouts than alligators.

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❓ Trivia: The British pound

🐊 T/F: True