Good morning! If you ever get the ick about your iPhone 11, remember this: San Francisco’s light rail system runs on 5.25-inch floppy disks invented in 1976. They hope to make the jump into this century by 2030.

2024

💰 Campaign cash collections

Elections are big business. Campaigns will spend over $10 billion on advertising alone this year. Ad makers, phone bankers, and sign stakers will all get a share of the windfall.

The numbers are in. Monday was the deadline for most campaigns to report their first-quarter fundraising numbers to the Federal Elections Committee. The FEC tracks campaign cash like, well, like it's their job.

• One person can give a max of $6,600 to each candidate (half for the primary, half for the general election).

• So most of the money from those high-ticket events (like $814,600 dinners) goes to various RNC or DNC party committees (which also have donation limits).

Money helps, but it’s not everything. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg spent $1.1 billion (of his own money) getting 6.9% of the vote in his failed 2020 presidential primary bid. Ouch. That's more than President Biden's entire (winning) campaign spent that year.

The two presidential campaigns will likely each spend over $1 billion in their quests to save America from certain doom (or cause it, depending on your perspective).

• The Biden campaign and the Democratic Party continue to lead the money race. Together they raised $187 million in Q1.

• The full Trump + Republican Party Q1 totals aren't available yet. But they brought in $65 million in March, upping their lower January and February totals.

House and Senate campaigns cost a good bit less. The average House race runs $1.8 million, while Senate bids cost $13.5 million.

• Democratic Senate candidates outraised Republicans in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

• The Democratic House fundraising committee has outraised its Republican counterpart this cycle, too — $145 million to $109 million.

It’s no wonder members of Congress are fundraising pros. They’re literally professionals. By some estimates, they spend the majority of their time each day raising money.

Looking forward: Expect the record-breaking fundraising numbers to keep climbing. If there's one thing worse than losing an election, it's doing so with money still in the bank. To avoid that lifelong embarrassment: "Run scared or run unopposed."

POLICY

🔫 Welcome to the gun show (loophole?)

President Biden is taking a swing at the most hot-button topic in American politics: abortion sexuality healthcare Social Security education guns. The White House announced a new rule it claims would close the so-called "gun show loophole."

What is that? Dealers "engaged in the business" of selling guns need Federal Firearms Licenses (FFLs). The exception is private, non-commercial sales — aka many sales at gun shows (and many sales not at gun shows).

• This rule aims to shrink that exception by expanding the list of those “engaged in the business."

• That means more sellers would need FFLs and more buyers would go through FFL-required background checks.

The rule is the Biden administration's method of enforcing the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022. They say this would save lives by keeping guns away from potential criminals (the baddies, as it were).

Opponents, including sponsors of that law, claim the rule is "unlawful" and plan to challenge it in court. They claim this rule amounts to an illegal rewriting of the law against the wishes of Congress.

• They argue there is no “gun show loophole” and fear the rule will sweep up genuine sales between friends and family members.

• They also say the Constitution doesn't allow the government to regulate non-commercial sales between private citizens. The NRA worries this rule is the first step to a national gun registry.

Barring a successful court challenge, this rule will be law. Twenty-one states already have similar rules in place at the state level.

Future: It’s too late for this one. But if you see a regulation in the future you’d like to comment on, check out Regulations.gov. New rules take public comments before becoming the law of the land. This one received 388,000.

POLITICS

🔴 Donald Trump’s first criminal trial began this week in New York with jury selection. Seven have been selected so far. Judge Juan Merchan dismissed dozens of potential jurors who indicated they couldn't be impartial. The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.

🔵 The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), the Dems' official Senate campaign arm, will reserve $79 million in TV, radio, and online ads. The ads will air in nine states as Democrats take on the tough task of defending their 51-seat Senate majority.

🔴 It’s a battle of the Heir Force. Three of the top four Republican candidates for governor of West Virginia are close relatives of other politicians. And the fourth? He spent most of his career in D.C. before moving juuust over the border into WV to run for office. It worked, too — he’s been state attorney general for 12 years.

⚪ Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will appear on the ballot in eight states (so far), including the swing states of Nevada, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. If that holds, Democrats worry he could be a spoiler and throw the election to Trump. George W. Bush became president because he took Florida by 537 votes as left-wing third-party candidate Ralph Nader won 97,488 votes.

⚪ The House delivered its impeachment articles to the Senate yesterday. They impeached Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas in February by a one-vote margin (for alleged incompetence). What happens next is up to the Democrat-controlled Senate. Republicans want a full Senate trial. Dems want to rush through this ASAP. Either way, Mayorkas won't be convicted and removed from office. Coming up with the required 7 votes is next to impossible.

TRIVIA

The manufacture of fully automatic machine guns is illegal in the United States. But it hasn’t always been so. In fact, the guns are still legal to purchase with a special license — as long as they were produced before the ban. In what year did the U.S. ban the manufacture of machine guns?

WORLD

🇬🇷 Greece: A sandal and stola-clad priestess lit the Olympic torch in a ceremony at the site of the ancient Olympic Games in Olympia, Greece. The flame will be run 3,100 miles through Greece before making its way to France ahead of the Paris Olympics this summer.

🇮🇷 Iran: As Israel weighs its response to Iran’s attack, the U.S. and E.U. are coordinating new sanctions against Iran. But the European states disagree on severity. Some worry a severe response, like designating part of Iran's military a terrorist group, could spark a backlash.

🇳🇵 Nepal: It’s springtime. That means the Nepali military will make its annual trek up Mount Everest to remove ten metric tons of trash and five frozen bodies. Last year was one of the deadliest climbing seasons on record — an estimated seventeen climbers died on Everest.

🇺🇸 United States: The House of Representatives, per Speaker Mike Johnson, will vote on four separate foreign aid bills this week. Aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan are three. The fourth is a larger, multi-subject package.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: The U.K. House of Commons voted in favor of a bill banning the purchase of cigarettes for anyone born after 2008. The bill, should it become law, would raise the smoking age by one year every year.

BRIEFS

• Ticketing giant Live Nation expects an antitrust lawsuit from the federal government soon, alleging anticompetitive practices

• Fed Chair Jerome Powell said inflation isn't falling as it should and signaled interest rate cuts are likely not coming anytime soon

• Thousands of Volkswagen workers in Tennessee will vote on whether to join the UAW labor union amid the UAW’s push into the South

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the company will lay off more than 10% of its global workforce

• Lockheed Martin won a $17 billion contract to develop America's next-gen missile defense systems

• A second House Republican is publicly backing a plan to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R) from the speakership

• Some Google employees are ticked about the company's $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with Israel's government

QUOTE

SNACKS

🏀 Sports: The $76,535 rookie salary of WNBA #1 draft pick Caitlin Clark is stark compared to the $12 million of her NBA counterparts. It’s not all bad news, though: She’s signed over $3 million in endorsement deals.

👨‍🚀 Space: New fear unlocked. NASA confirmed the strange object that crashed through the roof and two floors of a Florida (of course) house came from the International Space Station.

⛰️ Travel: Want to hit up a national park this summer but hate the crowds? Check out PopSci’s list of the 12 most underrated national parks.

ANSWER

The manufacture of new machine guns in the U.S. was banned by the Firearm Owners Protection Act in 1986. The law, signed by President Ronald Reagan, allows for the sale and ownership of fully automatic firearms as long as they were here pre-ban. The ATF estimates Americans legally own more than 700,000 of them.