The Full Belmonte, 7/4/2023
New complaint targets legacy admissions
“Within days of the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-based affirmative action at Harvard, a civil rights group has filed a federal complaint challenging legacy admissions at the Ivy League college. The complaint argues that the practice of giving admissions preference to the family members of alumni discriminates against students of color. This new challenge could be a preview of what’s to come in the aftermath of the high court’s decision as civil rights advocates work to prevent a return to the kinds of disparities seen on elite college campuses decades ago. The court’s ruling last Thursday severely limits any college’s consideration of race in admissions moving forward.” Read more at USA TodayPhilly shooting kills five, injures 2-year-old
The crime scene in Philadelphia last night. Photo: Kyle Mazza via Getty Images
“A 40-year-old suspect is in custody after an 8:30 p.m. shooting in Southwest Philadelphia that left five people dead, and wounded a 2-year-old and a 13-year-old.
The suspect had multiple guns, wore a bulletproof vest and had a police scanner, police said.
Context: A record number of Americans have died in mass killings (four or more deaths, excluding the offender) at this point in the year, across 17 years of record-keeping.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said the suspect was armed with a semiautomatic rifle — and continued to fire as officers chased him through the Kingsessing neighborhood, Axios' Rebecca Falconer reports.
When the suspect surrendered in an alley, he was ‘wearing a bulletproof vest with multiple magazines in the vest,’ Outlaw said.
The suspect had a handgun in addition to the ‘AR-style rifle’ and a police scanner, Outlaw said.
Outlaw said another person picked up a firearm and returned fire. That person was also taken into custody.
The victims were all male. Three of those killed were 20-, 22- and 59-years-old. The fourth person killed was believed to be between 16 and 21.
The two kids were in stable condition.
The shooting came a day after two people were killed (an 18-year-old female and a 20-year-old male) and 28 others were injured in what the Baltimore Sun says is ‘likely the largest shooting in Baltimore history.’
At least three firearms were involved.
Fifteen of those shot were 17 or younger. Including those shot and those killed, 18 of the victims were female and 12 were male.
No arrests have been made.
Israel launched its biggest military operation in the West Bank in two decades.
Residents of the Jenin refugee camp fled their homes as the Israeli military pressed ahead with an operation in the area, in Jenin, West Bank, on July 4.
Majdi Mohammed, AP
“What happened? About 1,000 Israeli soldiers stormed the city of Jenin yesterday. At least 10 people were killed and thousands were forced to flee their homes.
Why? Israel’s far-right government has made it a priority to crack down on a refugee camp in Jenin, a hub of militant activity.
Zooming out: The conflict’s roots predate the 1948 establishmentof the state of Israel. The past seven decades have seen war, uprisings and occasional glimmers of hope.”
Read this story at Washington Post
It’s been one year since the mass killing in Highland Park, Ill.
“What happened that day: A gunman with an assault rifle opened fire on the town’s Fourth of July parade. Seven people were killed, and dozens more were injured.
Where the investigation stands: The 22-year-old suspect is charged with 117 counts, including murder and attempted murder. A date for his trial has not been set.” [Axios]
US investigators zone in on Trump election-plot lawyer John Eastman
Experts say Eastman, faces possible disbarment in California, under increasing scrutiny in federal and state inquiries
Peter Stone in Washington
Tue 4 Jul 2023 06.00 EDT
“John Eastman, who was in the vanguard of lawyers plotting schemes involving “fake electors” and other ploys to help Donald Trump thwart Joe Biden’s win in 2020, is now under close scrutiny in federal and state investigations of Trump’s drives to stay in power, and faces possible disbarment in California, say former prosecutors.
The former California law professor is one of several lawyers whose legal stratagems have been heavily examined by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s accelerating investigation into Trump and his allies’ efforts to block Biden from taking office.
The fake electors scheme was a central part of Trump’s strategy to reverse his defeat.
It was called that because Republican electors in seven key battleground states signed certificates falsely declaring themselves “duly elected and qualified” to affirm Donald Trump won the 2020 election.
But Eastman has drawn scrutiny too in an overlapping inquiry in Georgia by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis, who is expected to bring criminal charges in August against Trump and some of his legal gurus.
The federal and Georgia inquiries have zeroed in on Trump legal advisers including Rudy Giuliani, who helped oversee the fake electors plot, and ex-justice department official Jeffrey Clark. Trump tried briefly to elevate Clark to attorney general in order to prod Georgia and several other swing states to substitute fake Trump electors for ones Biden actually won.
Smith’s inquiry, which encompasses Trump’s inflammatory talk to a rally that Eastman and Giuliani also addressed before the Capitol attack on January 6, has accelerated with grand jury testimony from former vice-president Mike Pence and ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows. Smith has also gained cooperation from two Nevada fake electors who have testified before a Washington grand jury.
Moreover, investigators from Smith’s office interviewed Giuliani under a “proffer” arrangement, which does not preclude charges against him, seeking to ferret out details about the fake electors plotting and related schemes, as the New York Times reported.
Former DoJ prosecutors say Smith’s inquiry is making notable progress.
“The pace of activity in the special counsel investigation into the fake electors scheme seems to be quickening,” with significant cooperation from key witnesses and a focus on Trump’s top legal advisers, former DoJ prosecutor Michael Zeldin told the Guardian.
Other ex-prosecutors also see Smith’s inquiry gaining steam.
“By obtaining testimony from fake electors, Smith may be better able to nail down what information and advice passed between these soldiers in the larger scheme and those Trump lawyers who helped to concoct it,” said Dan Richman, a law professor at Columbia and an ex-prosecutor in New York.
“Testimony that, say, electors were advised to make false statements or given deliberately misleading advice would go far to showing a deliberate fraud by Trump’s ‘brain trust’ of lawyers, including Eastman.”
Richman added: “Giuliani’s willingness to give a proffer likely reflects his desire to avoid charges by showing a lack of an intent to defraud. Smith’s readiness to accept the proffer likely reflects his interest in hearing what Giuliani had to say and avoiding a grand jury proceeding at which Giuliani might well invoke his fifth amendment privilege.”
Other DoJ veterans see Meadows’ grand jury testimony as significant. “The cooperation of Meadows has the potential to help put a stake in the heart of Trump and other high level insurrectionists,” said Paul Pelletier, a former acting head of the DoJ’s fraud section.
Smith, who was tapped as special counsel last November, and others at the justice department have spent months conducting their sprawling inquiry into Trump’s zealous efforts to cling to power, and his coterie of legal advisers. Last summer, federal agents seized the cell phones of Eastman and Clark, whose home was also raided.
A harbinger of the potential legal headaches for Trump and his elite lawyers came late last year when a House panel that spent months investigating Trump and the January 6 insurrection and produced an 845-page report, referred Trump to the DoJ for prosecution, plus Eastman, Giuliani, Clark and lawyer Kenneth Chesebro.
The referrals did not mandate DoJ action, but provided substantial evidence against Trump and those lawyers.
The panel’s referral accused Trump of criminally engaging in ‘a multi-part conspiracy’, citing four specific crimes that seems to track what special counsel Smith is looking into: making false statements, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and aiding or comforting insurrection, all of which were referred to the DoJ for prosecution.
All four lawyers were referred for conspiring to defraud the United States. Except for Giuliani, the others were cited for conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, referring to Congress certifying Biden’s win on 6 January.
The panel noted when Eastman addressed the ‘stop the steal’ rally on January 6 he floated a wild conspiracy theory about ‘secret folders’ in voting machines that were used to cast votes for Democrats.
The report also discussed a ‘coup memo’ authored by Eastman which proposed avenues Pence could use to assist Trump in reversing his election loss, including unilaterally throwing out certain state electoral college votes.
At House panel hearings, Pence’s then counsel Greg Jacob testified that Eastman acknowledged to him that his push with Trump to get Pence to reject Biden’s winning electoral college count would violate the Electoral Count Act, and that Trump too was informed that if Pence tried to block Biden’s certification it would be illegal.
This June, Jacob testified at California bar hearings weighing disbarment of Eastman for making false public statements about voter fraud in the 2020 elections, and misleading courts. At the hearings, Jacob charged that Eastman’s advice to Pence ‘brought our profession into disrepute’.
Eastman has denied breaking any laws, stating that he was engaged in ‘good faith’ advocacy on a legal question that was not settled. Trump and the other lawyers referred for DoJ prosecution have all also denied violating any laws.
But ex-federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig said he doubted Eastman will escape prosecution completely. ‘It will be surprising, indeed, if neither of those investigations ends in a criminal charge against Eastman, as well, possibly, as other lawyers and Trump himself.’
But more broadly, DoJ veterans say it is unclear exactly what charges Smith may bring.
‘It remains to be seen whether the false electors scheme will serve as the basis of a standalone indictment or whether it will be merged into a broader case involving the multiple ways Trump and his allies attempted to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election,’ former DoJ inspector general Michael Bromwich told the Guardian
‘A standalone case may have less jury appeal than a case in which it is one of many sets of tactics used to overturn the election,’ he added, but noted that ‘a broader case will almost inevitably be longer, more complex, include numerous defendants, and be more difficult to try.’
Any new federal charges against Trump would come on top of the 37-count indictment of Trump by Smith for retaining hundreds of classified and national security documents after he left office, and obstructing investigators seeking to retrieve them.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and denounced the charges and the other probes as ‘witch-hunts’.
Still, the Georgia inquiry into efforts to overturn Biden’s win there seems likely to create more headaches for Trump and some of his legal advisers. Willis has indicated that Giuliani, who testified after receiving a subpoena before a special grand jury, is a target of her broad inquiry. Eastman was reportedly advised by his own lawyer that he was probably a target and invoked the fifth amendment when subpoenaed to testify.
A key focus of Willis’s inquiry has been Trump’s high-pressure call on 2 January 2021 to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, beseeching him to just ‘find’ 11,780 votes to overturn his loss to Biden in the state. Willis’s scrutiny of Giuliani has looked at testimony he gave to Georgia legislators three times after Trump’s defeat, where he promoted discredited fraud claims and urged legislators to take action.
A once star federal prosecutor, Giuliani had his law licence suspended in New York and DC in the wake of his misguided legal efforts to help Trump.
Willis has said she will announce charging decisions in August, and experts say the Georgia inquiry looks poised to include criminal charges against Trump and some elite lawyers.
‘Lawyers have a professional responsibility to tell the truth, and they may face legal liability when they don’t,’ former US attorney in Georgia Michael Moore said.
‘In the Georgia investigation, the intentional perpetration of a fraud, if borne out by the investigation, may land them in hot water. All indications are that the DA is looking at some lawyers as directors, not just bit players, in the story of attempted election fraud.’” [The Guardian]
Younger '24 candidates tout vigor
Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios
“From tennis to push-ups to running, candidates challenging former President Trump and President Biden are emphasizing their athletic ability.
Why it matters: The messaging from the challengers is that they're young, energetic and in better physical — and perhaps mental — shape to do the job, Axios' Sophia Cai reports.
Among Republicans, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, 37, has incorporated tennis into his campaign schedule, hosting ‘Tennis with Vivek’ and posting videos of himself playing.
The super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 44 — former captain of Yale's baseball team — mailed out baseball cards featuring him at bat, and highlighting his stint in the Little League World Series. He sat for an interview with Fox News on his own hometown field in Dunedin, Fla.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), 57 — a high school football standout — blasted out a photo of himself sweaty, mid-workout on a treadmill, tossed a football with his campaign manager, and filmed selfie messages at the gym.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, 45, ran through the city throughout his announcement video.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, 56 — who's mulling a presidential bid — has been on the basketball court with state lawmakers.
On the Democratic side, a video of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (D), 69, doing push-ups and incline presses shirtless and in skinny jeans went viral.
The last (and perhaps future) matchup: Biden, 80, bikes and uses a Peloton — working out at least five days a week.
Trump, 77, golfs.
Flashback: Former President Obama (now 61) was a huge basketball fan — and sank 3-pointers in business attire at opportune moments, including days before the 2020 election, in a Michigan gym while campaigning with Biden.” [Axios]
Countdown to USA's 250th
1876 engraving, "Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776" painted by John Trumbull, engraved by Waterman Ormsby. Photo via Library of Congress
“It's three years until America celebrates its 250th anniversary — the semiquincentennial. But the starting gun sounds today.
Why it matters: Planners hope the milestone can help unify the divided country, AP reports.
The anniversary push formally launches today with an event during a Major League Baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Chicago Cubs in Milwaukee.
The nonpartisan group created by Congress in 2016 to spearhead the celebration — America250 — will start recruiting people to share their stories of what the country means to them.
34 states + the Virgin Islands have created semiquincentennial commissions.
Reality check: There's ‘no small amount of worry over how to create a unifying commemoration at a moment when fighting about American history seems to be the real national pastime,’ the N.Y. Times notes.
But Rosie Rios, the chair of America250, said politics hasn't been an issue for the federal commission, which includes both Democratic and Republican legislators. She says it'll be ‘bipartisan, nonpartisan, all-partisan’: ‘All constructive voices are welcome.’” [Axios]
Supreme Court falls to Earth
Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios
“The Supreme Court is falling off the pedestal it built for itself, down into the muck of normal politics, Axios' Sam Baker writes.
Why it matters: That's increasingly how the public sees it. That's how the rest of the political system treats it. And it's getting harder and harder to believe the justices aren't interested in wielding that power.
The big picture: The justices tried very hard, for a very long time, to cultivate a perception that they existed on an elevated, erudite plane far above the petty concerns that occupy elected politicians.
They said the court's work was wholly separate from considerations like public opinion. Even when they had to take up a case with political implications, they approached it only as a question of legal scholarship, not sullied by ideology or policy preferences.
That image is all but dead.
When history looks back on the term that just ended, what stands out the most may not be any one ruling, but rather its place in the trend — long-simmering, but quickly accelerating — toward seeing the court for what it is: the single most powerful weapon in U.S. politics.
At every turn, the court looks more like run-of-the-mill, outcomes-driven, raw-power politics.
The unprecedented leak of a draft opinion in last year's abortion case was very much the type of leak that has historically only happened in other parts of the government.
For that matter, so were the leaks about Chief Justice John Roberts switching his vote to save Obamacare in 2012.
ProPublica uncovered ethics issues this year that would be a real controversy for anyone who had to get reelected to their powerful job:
Wealthy GOP donors with interests before the court paid for luxury vacations for Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, who didn't disclose those gifts, ProPublica reported. Thomas also reportedly sold a family home to GOP donor Harlan Crow.
The justices' reaction hasn't helped. Alito, borrowing a page from any decent political operative's playbook, tried to get ahead of the story, prebutting ProPublica's investigation with a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Confirmation hearings are a circus. Start the clock on that trend wherever you want — Robert Bork, Thomas, Merrick Garland. But we've ended up in a place where the Senate treats the process like the prize fight it is — not neutral intellectual pursuit, as it was once framed.
As recently as the Obama administration, Supreme Court nominees got broad bipartisan support. Democrats put an end to that under President Trump, and it's not coming back.
Between the lines: You can even see it, sometimes, in the court's writing.
This past week's affirmative action rulings were highly charged and highly personal — a far cry from dispassionate legal interpretation.
By the numbers: Public confidence in the Supreme Court was at its lowest in 50 years of polling, Gallup found last year. An analysis out this spring showed confidence was the lowest ever in a dataset that began in 1973.
Reality check: The court hasn't become political. An institution with this much power to decide inherently political issues — from voting rights to campaign finance law to matters of life and death, what the federal government can and can't do, limits of the First Amendment, even who gets to be president — is, and has always been, a political institution.
But perception is catching up to that reality.” [Axios]
“Airstrikes and 1,000 ground troops. Streets choked with rubble. Families fleeing on foot.
The attack on the West Bank that Israel launched yesterday is one of the most intense in 20 years. The last major assault on the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin took place during the second Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation in the early 2000s.
Back then, a spate of Palestinian suicide bombings largely united Israelis. Although Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has broad Israeli support for its campaign in the West Bank, this time it’s battling a homegrown uprising over domestic policies too.
After a two-month lull, protests against Netanyahu’s plan to defang Israel’s judiciary have reignited.
Hundreds of military reservists — medics, intelligence officers, combat soldiers and pilots — have signed letters asserting that they won’t feel obliged to show up for service if the judicial changes become law.
The presence in Netanyahu’s government of anti-Arab extremists who were once shunned on the margins of Israeli politics has also awakened political activism among secular liberals who see the standoff as a battle to salvage the country’s democratic institutions.
With attention focused on the protests tearing Israel apart, however, the government has expanded Jewish settlements in West Bank areas meant to form part of a future Palestinian state.
Already on the rise in 2022, Palestinian-Israeli violence has flared this year, with tit-for-tat attacks and settler mobs rampaging through Palestinian villages. In the first six months of 2023, 112 Palestinians and 18 Israelis were killed, according to the UN.
Israel’s government says the Jenin attack, which has killed 10 Palestinians and displaced about 3,000 so far, targets militants it blames for some of that violence.
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, with whom Israel fought a war in 2006, has expressed support for the Palestinians but stopped short of offering help.
An escalation so far looks unlikely, but even veterans of the Shin Bet security service have warned the legal changes could create an irreparable rift in Israeli society — and opportunities for its enemies.”— Lin Noueihed [Bloomberg]
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike yesterday in Jenin. Photographer: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Getty Images
“China’s decision to control the export of two key metals used to make semiconductor chips, electric cars and telecommunications equipment just days before a visit by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen shows Beijing can retaliate against moves to cut it off from advanced technology. But it also risks backfiring by accelerating efforts by the US, Europe and Japan to reduce dependence on the world’s second-biggest economy.
China’s restrictions will hit key sectors in the European Union’s effort to decarbonize its economy. The EU’s top diplomat will head to Beijing next week, while the 27-member bloc and Japan agreed to step up cooperation on semiconductors.
A top contender to be Taiwan’s next leader has pledged to keep the peace with China and roll back an extension of mandatory military service.
China is the undisputed leader in the elements used in electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and wind-turbine magnets. If the US and Europe are going to have any chance of challenging its dominance in these clean technologies, they need to catch up fast. Read how China’s early move to tap new centers of lithium supply across Africa is reaping rewards, helping the top EV battery producer navigate a tight market for the metal.” [Bloomberg]
“Russia halted flights at one of Moscow’s three major airports, Vnukovo, for three hours today after what the authorities said was a Ukrainian drone attack. Air defenses destroyed four drones and electronic jamming brought down another, the Defense Ministry said. The attack was the most serious involving unmanned aircraft near Moscow since the end of May. Ukraine hasn’t commented.” [Bloomberg]
“President Emmanuel Macron will meet with the mayors of hundreds of towns to assess the impact of the riots that have rocked France over the past week as a massive police deployment led to a continued drop in the level of unrest overnight.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan downplayed the chances of a significant breakthrough at talks this week to bring Sweden into NATO, amid a dispute over the burning of a Koran in Stockholm.
Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government has banned hundreds of beauty salons run by women, the latest crackdown on the few avenues left for female employment.
Senegalese President Macky Sall ruled out seeking a third term in next year’s presidential elections, ending a heated controversy over his eligibility to stand.
Former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss earned £80,000 ($101,600) in four hours this year during a visit to the self-ruled island of Taiwan that drew criticism from within her own Conservative Party.” [Bloomberg]
“Spain is ramping up well over €18 billion ($19.5 billion) in investments to produce and distribute hydrogen generated from renewable power — representing Europe’s most ambitious effort yet to implement technologies critical to becoming the world’s first climate-neutral continent. But as Thomas Gualtieri writes, countries including France and Germany have started to chip away at parts of the EU’s so-called Green Deal, as the ambitious plan gets dragged into “culture wars” over concerns about the political and financial costs.” [Bloomberg]
King Felipe VI of Spain and King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands in front of a tanker for transporting clean ammonia in Algeciras on June 14. Photographer: Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images
Stat du jour: Rising big-city wages
Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios
“As of yesterday, the swanky enclave of West Hollywood (population: 35,000) has the nation's highest minimum wage — $19.08 an hour.
‘Employers facing financial hardships can apply for a one-year delay via a waiver with the city,’ the L.A. Times reports. ‘Still, many small-business owners in West Hollywood [say] they are reaching a breaking point and need relief to avoid closing.’
The hourly minimum also went up in other cities yesterday:
San Francisco went up more than $1 to $18.07.
L.A. is now $16.78 an hour.
D.C. is $17, up from $16.10 an hour.” [Axios]
New limits flummox tweeters
“‘Rate limit exceeded ... Please wait a few moments then try again.’
Without prior warning, Elon Musk imposed limits yesterday on how many tweets a user can view.
Then he boasted: ‘In yet another exercise in irony, this post achieved a record view count!’
Why it matters: Musk's continued experimentation with Twitter's basic functions introduced new chaos to the chaotic platform, Axios' Hope King and Sara Fischer report.
Between the lines: This looks like part of Musk's attempt to boost subscriptions to Twitter Blue, his paid verification program.
But Axios power-tweeter Sam Baker, after discovering he was out of tweets, Slacked me: ‘The whole point of Twitter is the tweets. Like a restaurant refusing to serve me food.’
The day before, Twitter began requiring you to log in to view tweets. Before, you could lurk without logging in.
‘Temporary emergency measure,’ Musk tweeted. ‘We were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!’
Fittingly for the Twitter hall of mirrors, the real Elon Musk retweeted this tweet from an Elon Musk parody account.
The bottom line: Musk is discouraging use of a platform that depends on people viewing ads. Amid complaints about the limits, he tweeted:
you awake from a deep trance,
step away from the phone
to see your friends & family” [Axios]
AI may help us "talk" to animals
Illustration: Maura Losch/Axios
“New technology is allowing researchers to decipher noise inaudible to the human ear — and discover that animals and plants can communicate in complex and sophisticated ‘languages,’ Axios' John Frank reports.
Artificial intelligence is opening new ways to understand those sounds — and possibly even translating them into a language we can understand.
Reality check: This isn't about being able to talk to your dog — though the human yearning to speak to animals is rooted in centuries of mythology.
Instead, scientists believe acoustics will reveal secrets about the biological world order that could inform efforts to save vulnerable species from the impacts of climate change.
‘The point is not really to talk to animals,’ Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology and the Earth Species Project, said this past week at the Aspen Ideas Festival. ‘The point is to understand them.’
How it works: AI can build shapes — like a word cloud — that represent a given animal's ‘language.’
Scientists have learned that flowers can ‘hear’ an oncoming bee that leads them to make sweeter nectar.
Orca whales speak in dialects unique to their pods, but can communicate in different dialects with other species.
Dolphins have names given by their mother, which they use in communication, similar to beluga whales and bats.
Elephants have a signal for the herd to help them deflect approaching honeybees, which can be dangerous if they get in their trunk or ears.” [Axios]
Extreme heat and hydration
“Millions of Americans are under alert for dangerous heat during the holiday. Keeping cool and hydrated is essential for staying safe in extreme heat, but there are a lot of misconceptions about how to hydrate properly. A few experts set the record straight:
Photo Illustration by Becky Harlan/NPR
Not everyone needs eight cups daily. It depends on body size, temperature, activity and sweat levels.
Caffeine doesn't dehydrate you. In moderation, it provides the same hydration as non-caffeinated drinks.
You don't need sports drinks. You can replace salt and minerals lost through sweating with food.
Dark pee isn't always a sign of dehydration. It means your kidneys aren't releasing as much water to balance your water-sodium levels.
Ultimately, hydration is all about keeping water and sodium balanced in the body. Pay attention to your body's thirst signals to stay safe in the heat.” [NPR]
Taylor's version: $13M/night
Taylor Swift performs Friday in Cincinnati. Photo: Sam Greene/The Cincinnati Enquirer via Reuters
“Taylor Swift is selling more than $13 million in tickets per night, putting her on pace to bring in $1.3 billion from her Eras Tour — making it the highest-grossing tour in music history, Bloomberg writes from Pollstar estimates:
‘Most of the money goes toward the cost of production, and that sum doesn't include the additional millions of dollars in merchandise sales.’” [Axios]
Upset at Wimbledon
“No. 7 seed Coco Gauff is done at Wimbledon after losing her first-round match to unseeded American Sofia Kenin — who won the 2020 Australian Open — in three sets yesterday. Gauff, still just 19, has been in contention at grand slams for four years now but hasn’t been able to fully break through. Read more on how the upset shakes up the women’s bracket here.” [The Athletic]
Venus Williams puts her hand on her injured knee during a change of ends in her first-round match against Elina Svitolina at Wimbledon.
Susan Mullane, USA TODAY Sports
Edwards gets paid
“The Timberwolves and Anthony Edwards agreed to a five-year max extension yesterday that could be worth up to $260 million. It’s a massive but expected payday for Edwards, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft who’s turned into a budding superstar. He’s expected to do something no one has done since Kevin Garnett: pull Minnesota out of mediocrity. There’s a responsibility that comes with that, as Jon Krawczynski writes.” [The Athletic]