THE SHOW NOTES: Biden's Cookout Debacle, Uvalde Details, & The EV Flop

Welcome! Why did TikTok let Houthi pirates on their platform for so long?

HEADLINE: Just one in three Americans say they’ll accept the results of the 2024 election regardless of outcome - Angus Reid

FLOP: Ford is slashing the production of its electric F-150.

2024: Americans 'Suffering' at Rate Rarely Reached - Newsweek

IMPORTANT: Biden adds to his 'Bidenomics' flop: This new rule throws wrench in popular gig economy. - USA Today

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Uvalde

The Justice Department’s 20-month-long investigation of the Uvlade school shooting found systemic failures that culminated in a “77-minute gap between when officers first arrived on the scene and when they finally confronted and killed the subject.” Attorney General Merrick Garland said yesterday, “Lives would have been saved, and people would have survived” if law enforcement had responded sooner.

Context: While calls for accountability have been widespread, the majority of officers affiliated with the event were fired or have retired since the shooting occurred.

Biden’s North Carolina Visit

In a campaign visit to North Carolina with Governor Roy Cooper on Thursday, Joe Biden stopped by the same local Cookout for a photo op that he did three years ago. As seen in the picture below, the cost for a combo meal is up 28% since his last visit.

Billionaires Wanted to Save the News Industry. They’re Losing a Fortune.

There’s an old saying about the news business: If you want to make a small fortune, start with a large one.

As the prospects for news publishers waned in the past decade, billionaires swooped in to buy some of the country’s most fabled brands. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, bought The Washington Post in 2013 for about $250 million. Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotechnology and start-up billionaire, purchased The Los Angeles Times in 2018 for $500 million. Marc Benioff, the founder of the software giant Salesforce, purchased Time magazine with his wife, Lynne, for $190 million in 2018.

All three newsrooms greeted their new owners with cautious optimism that their business acumen and tech know-how would help figure out the perplexing question of how to make money as a digital publication.

But it increasingly appears that the billionaires are struggling just like nearly everyone else. Time, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times all lost millions of dollars last year, people with knowledge of the companies’ finances have said, after considerable investment from their owners and intensive efforts to drum up new revenue streams.

Here’s the free version at Fox and the paywalled version at The New York Times.

Why Americans Have Lost Faith in the Value of College

The political turmoil that rocked universities over the past three months and sparked the resignations of two Ivy League presidents has landed like an unwelcome thud on institutions already struggling to maintain the trust of the American public. For three generations, the national aspiration to “college for all” shaped America’s economy and culture, as most high-school graduates took it for granted that they would earn a degree. That consensus is now collapsing in the face of massive student debt, underemployed degree-holders and political intolerance on campus.

In the past decade, the percentage of Americans who expressed a lot of confidence in higher education fell from 57% to 36%, according to Gallup. A decline in undergraduate enrollment since 2011 has translated into 3 million fewer students on campus. Nearly half of parents say they would prefer not to send their children to a four-year college after high school, even if there were no obstacles, financial or otherwise. Two-thirds of high-school students think they will be just fine without a college degree.

The pandemic drove home a sobering realization for a lot of middle-class American families: “College for all” is broken for most.

Full story at The Wall Street Journal (paywall).

Trending news:

• Pro-Biden group raised $208M as Dems brace for tough election year - Politico

• Heritage Foundation head defends Trump, scolds 'elites' at World Economic Forum: 'You're part of the problem' - Fox Business

• Flaming Atlas Air Boeing cargo plane lights up the sky before making emergency landing in Miami - NY Post

• Port-Au-Prince residents sheltering in place as violence escalates - Yahoo

• Biden administration to forgive $4.9 billion in student debt for 73,600 borrowers - CNBC

• Trump vs. Biden? No thanks. As 2024 election ramps up, many wish it were over - USA Today

• The DeSantis Team Ran the Worst Campaign in History - Politico

• Trump and Haley battle for Tim Scott endorsement - Axios

• Mike Pence's former chief of staff endorses Trump - Axios

• Small plane that crashed off California coast was among a growing number of home-built aircraft - NBC

• China Is Buying Up US Farmland, But Just How Much Isn’t Clear - Yahoo

Market snapshot: