• The Great Egg Heist: 280,000 eggs disappeared from America’s top producer. Then came a ransom note. (Washington Post)
• The Definitive, Insane, Swimsuit-Bursting Story of the Steroid Olympics: At first it was dismissed as a crazy joke. Making the Enhanced Games a reality needed a Peter Thiel posse, a couple of retired swimmers, some MAGA money, and a whole lot of drugs. (Wired)
• Buc-ee’s, a Pit Stop to Refuel Cars, Stomachs and Souls, Spreads Beyond Texas: The opening of the first location in Mississippi drew the usual cultish enthusiasm for the chain of mega convenience stores. (New York Times)
• The Great Divergence: America is now way richer than Europe (Yascha Mounk) but see Life Under (GDP @) Two: Debt, Deficits, and the AI Discontinuity: The U.S. is in the midst of a growth crackup that is causing it to distrust modernity itself. (Paul Kedrosky)
• Private Real Estate Listings Ignite Fight Over How US Homes Are Sold: No. 1 brokerage Compass is pushing for sellers to market houses exclusively. Rivals and digital giant Zillow are striking back. (Bloomberg)
• Star Wars, Veo 3 and Hollywood in the Age of AI Video: About a viral new AI-generated Star Wars Instagram account and what it says about the future of Hollywood. (SatPost by Trung Phan) see also Everyone Is Already Using AI (And Hiding It). “We can say, ‘Do it in anime, make it PG-13.’ Three hours later, I’ll have the movie.” (Vulture)
• An Ars Technica history of the Internet, part 1 In our new 3-part series, we remember the people and ideas that made the Internet (Ars Technica) see also A history of the Internet, part 2: The high-tech gold rush begins (Ars Technica)
• A Spring in Every Kitchen: There is so little fresh surface water on Earth that if you collected it all into a ball, it would barely reach across New York City. Running water is a miracle — but the technology that brings it to us and takes the waste away is actually thousands of years old. The only barrier to staying hydrated today is political will. (The New Atlantis)
• United We Fall: Reflections on Manchester United’s worst-ever season. (The Point)
• How ‘Jaws’ Made a Template for the Modern Blockbuster: Much more than a mere creature feature, “Jaws” created a playbook that filmmakers have followed closely for 50 years. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Steve Laipply, Global Co-Head of Bond ETFs at BlackRock. Previously, he was Head of U.S. iShares Fixed Income Strategy and a member of BlackRock’s Systematic Fixed Income Product Strategy Team.
Nine years after the EU referendum, where does public opinion stand on Brexit?
Source: YouGov
