| |
| |
| |
| Presented By Facebook |
| |
| Axios AM |
| By Mike Allen · Apr 10, 2022 |
| 🌴 Good morning. It's Palm Sunday — Easter is a week from today. - Today's Smart Brevity™ count: 1,092 words ... 4 mins. Edited by Jennifer Koons.
|
| |
| |
| 1 big thing: Trump's gamble |
 |
|
| Former President Trump rallies last evening in Selma, N.C. Photo: Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images |
| |
| Former President Trump's surprise endorsement of TV's Dr. Oz last night in the Republican U.S. Senate primary in Pennsylvania is a gamble, and a substantial test of his endorsement power. - Why it matters: If Mehmet Oz's chief rival for the nomination, Dave McCormick, wins anyway on May 17, people will say the words Trump hates most: "He did it without Trump."
Behind the scenes: McCormick met twice with Trump at Mar-a-Lago — including last Wednesday — hoping for his endorsement or at least his neutrality. Trump has already made some failed endorsements this cycle. Each time one of his candidates fails, his aura fades as GOP kingmaker. - Some of Trump's advisers are worried about him taking such a risk on Oz — who recent polls suggest is a fairly weak and beatable candidate.
- The road now is harder for McCormick, a former hedge-fund CEO and official of President George W. Bush's administration. But McCormick could still win.
⚡ Scoop: McCormick will be endorsed by Rick Santorum, the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. (share this link) - "I know Pennsylvania and I know conservatives. Dave McCormick will be the next Senator from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He has my full endorsement," Santorum says in a statement provided by the McCormick campaign.
Between the lines: The former president's wife, Melania Trump, and Fox News' Sean Hannity, friends of Oz's, had been pressing Trump to back him, sources tell Jonathan Swan. - The endorsement divided MAGA Twitter, with some Trump supporters criticizing his Oz backing.
An open question: How hard will Trump work to help Oz? - History shows a Trump statement isn't enough. Will he go scorched earth against McCormick — the husband of Powell, who has brought onto his campaign several high-profile former Trump aides? We doubt it.
🧨 What's next: Beginning a week from today — a month out from the primary — look for one of the hottest statewide ad wars ever. |
    |
| |
| |
| 2. 💰 Russia heads for historic default |
 |
|
| Satellite image: ©2022 Maxar Technologies |
| |
| War latest ... Russia regroups for new push: An arc in eastern Ukraine is under Russian assault, from Kharkiv — Ukraine's second-largest city — in the north to Kherson in the south. - Above: A Maxar satellite image from Friday shows an 8-mile convoy of hundreds of military vehicles — including armor and trucks towing artillery — headed south to the Donbas border region, fought over since 2014, through the town of Velykyi Burluk. (See more photos of the convoy.)
🔮 What's next: The credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded its assessment of Russia's ability to repay foreign debt, signaling rising prospects that Moscow will soon default on external loans for the first time in more than a century, AP reports. - The country hasn't defaulted on foreign debt since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, when the Soviet Union emerged.
S&P Global Ratings issued the downgrade to "selective default" late Friday after Russia arranged to make foreign bond payments in rubles when they were due in dollars. - S&P said the decision was partly because sanctions on Russia "are likely to be further increased in the coming weeks."
|
| |
| |
| |
| 3. 🥊 10% of Gridiron guests get COVID |
Guests listen to Vice President Harris on Thursday at the opening of the National Gallery of Art's Afro-Atlantic Histories. Photo: Oliver Contreras for The Washington Post via Getty Images 🥊 67 of 630 attendees at last weekend's Gridiron media dinner — including three Cabinet members (Agriculture, attorney general, Commerce) — have since tested positive, the WashPost reports. COVID surges, D.C. parties: "Washington got a crash course in risk-reward ratios after a spate of boldface names tested positive," The Washington Post's Roxanne Roberts writes on the front page. "None of this has slowed down the juggernaut that is the city's elite social scene." - Why it matters: "After two years at home, the power brokers of the nation's capital are determined to get back to the serious business of having fun," Roberts writes.
"The calculation: The rewards, at least for the vaccinated and boosted, outweigh the possible risk of catching the milder variants." Keep reading. |
| |
| |
| |
| A message from Facebook |
| Facebook has invested $16 billion to keep you safe on our platform |
| |
 |
| |
| Facebook invested $16B in safety and security over 6 years. The impact? - Quadrupled safety and security teams.
- Developed industry-leading AI that detects harmful content and reacts as it evolves.
- Addressed millions of harmful posts and removed 1.7B fake accounts in the last few months.
Learn what's next. |
| |
| |
| 4. 📷 1,000 words |
| Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Suspended from a chopper, soldiers from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division train in Nowa Deba, Poland, on Friday with troops from the Polish 18th Mechanized Division. |
| |
| |
| |
| 5. 🐦 Tweet du jour |
Musk tweeted a pic of himself smoking pot on Joe Rogan's podcast in 2018. Via TwitterElon Musk, now Twitter's largest shareholder, is tweeting very specific policy and product recommendations — even though he's now on the board, and could propose and promote them internally. - He tweeted to his 81 million followers yesterday that subscribers to Twitter Blue, a paid offering, "should get an authentication checkmark" that's different from the "blue check" for verified accounts.
"Price should probably be ~$2/month, but paid 12 months up front & account doesn't get checkmark for 60 days (watch for credit card chargebacks) & suspended with no refund if used for scam/spam," Musk said. - "And no ads. The power of corporations to dictate policy is greatly enhanced if Twitter depends on advertising money to survive," he added. "Maybe even an option to pay in Doge?" — his favored crypto.
- "Is Twitter dying?" he asked.
Share this story. |
| |
| |
| |
| 6. Mapped: Poverty in America |
 Data: Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Map: Jared Whalen/Axios This map shows 2020 (pandemic era) poverty data, with concentrations in Appalachia, the South, Southwest and South Dakota. |
| |
| |
| |
| 7. 🏈 Remembering Dwayne Haskins, 24 |
| In 2019, Dwayne Haskins — then of Ohio State — gets ready to run the 40-yard dash during the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. Photo: Joe Robbins/Getty Images Dwayne Haskins was working on a second chapter for his young NFL career. The 24-year-old quarterback was spending time with Pittsburgh Steelers teammates, getting ready to compete for a starting job, when his life was cut short when he was hit by a truck yesterday. - Haskins' death in South Florida sparked an outpouring of grief from around the NFL, particularly from former teammates with the Steelers and Washington Commanders, AP reported.
At The Ohio State University, Haskins shattered several school and Big Ten records for passing. He was third in Heisman voting in 2018, and was the 2019 Rose Bowl offensive MVP. - Steelers coach Mike Tomlin called Haskins "one of our hardest workers, both on the field and in our community."
Miami Herald coverage. |
| |
| |
| |
| 8. ⛳ Inflation, supply chain hit Masters |
| Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images As part of old-school concessions at The Masters, pimento cheese sandwiches still run $1.50. Georgia Peach Ice Cream Sandwich in 2018. Photo: Marianna Massey/Augusta National via Getty Images But the iconic Georgia Peach Ice Cream Sandwich (usually $2) is absent from Augusta this year due to supply-chain issues, writes Jeff Tracy of Axios Sports. This year's menu. Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images Prices remain comically low for a 21st-century sporting event. But some items saw rare price hikes due to inflation — coffee ($1.50 to $2) and domestic beer ($4 to $5). |
| |
| |
| |
| A message from Facebook |
| Choose end-to-end encrypted messages on Messenger |
| |
 |
| |
| Your personal conversations should be as private as you want them to be. That's why you can add a layer of protection to your chats in Messenger, and even voice and video calls, with end-to-end encryption. So you can connect in a more private, secure way. See how else we're keeping you safe online. |
| |
| 📬 Invite your friends to sign up here to get their daily essentials — Axios AM, PM and Finish Line. |
 | It's called Smart Brevity®. Over 200 orgs use it — in a tool called Axios HQ — to drive productivity with clearer workplace communications. | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment