🇺🇸 Axios PM: Ranking the presidents

Plus: Retirement rebound | Monday, February 19, 2024

Open in app View in browser   Presented By bp   Axios PM By Mike Allen · Feb 19, 2024 Happy holiday afternoon! Today's newsletter, edited by Sam Baker, is 416 words, a 2-min. read. Thanks to Carlos Cunha for copy editing.     1 big thing: Retirement wave Data: St. Louis Federal Reserve. Chart: Axios Visuals Huge numbers of Americans are leaving the workplace in a surprise second wave of the post-COVID retirement boom, Axios' Javier E. David writes. 👵 By the numbers: The U.S. has about 2.7 million more retirees than predicted, Bloomberg reports from a model designed by an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. That's an increase of more than 80% from just six months ago. Before the pandemic, there were often fewer retirees than expected. 🔎 Zoom in: Higher stock market returns and increasing asset values appear to be playing a role. For those nearing retirement, there's arguably no better time to start the golden years than during a bull market. Go deeper.     2. Historians rank Trump as worst president Screenshot: MSNBC 🗳️ Presidential historians in a new survey rank President Biden as the 14th best president in American history — and put former President Trump last. The tally came from 154 presidential specialists who are current and recent members of the American Political Science Association. They were asked to give every president a score, from 0 to 100. Abraham Lincoln topped the list with an average score of 95; Biden scored an average of 62.66, putting him two spots above Ronald Reagan. Trump averaged just under 11 points. Read the results.     A message from bp EV charging or gas? One top energy investor is doing both     bp added more than $70 billion to the U.S. economy in 2022. We did it by making investments from coast to coast — like building EV charging hubs for fleets of electric buses in California and starting up new infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico. See how else bp is investing in America.     3. Catch me up An illustration from the European Southern Observatory depicts the record-breaking quasar J059-4351, the bright core of a distant galaxy that is powered by a supermassive black hole. Source: M. Kornmesser/ESO via AP 🔭 Astronomers have discovered what may be the brightest object in the universe, a quasar with a black hole at its heart growing so fast that it swallows the equivalent of a sun a day. Details. 🎤 Alexei Navalny's widow said she will continue his work to bring democracy to Russia. "I ask you to share my rage — to share my rage, anger and hatred of those who have dared to kill our future," Yulia Navalnaya said. Go deeper. ⛈️ More heavy rain — and perhaps even tornadoes — are headed toward California, per Reuters.     4. 🎸 Get back Paul McCartney at the 2004 Glastonbury Festival, playing a Höfner 500/1 violin bass similar to the one that was missing. Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images Paul McCartney has been reunited with a bass guitar that had been missing for more than 50 years, the New York Times reports. The Höfner 500/1 bass can be heard on many of the Beatles' earliest hits, but went missing sometime around the recording of "Let It Be," in 1969. After multiple searches and any number of wild theories, the instrument turned out to be stashed away in a family's loft, close to where it was last seen. The family called it in after a new search effort raised awareness of the missing bass.     A message from bp Developing more lower carbon energy and keeping oil & gas flowing     bp's U.S. workforce — our largest in the world — is keeping oil and gas flowing with fewer operational emissions and developing more lower carbon energy. It's our "and, not or" approach at work. See how doing both drives our investment in America.   Are you a fan of this email format? Your essential communications — to staff, clients and other stakeholders — can have the same style. Axios HQ, a powerful platform, will help you do it.   Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. To stop receiving this newsletter, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox.   Follow Axios on social media: