Good morning! If you ever have trouble naming something you're creating, never settle for your bad first idea. If the creator of Wordle had done that, we'd all be playing — or not, more than likely — "Mr. Bugs' Wordy Nugz."

WORLD

🇬🇧 British man evicted from home morning after election

Imagine the fallout — as a dream or a nightmare (your choice) — if Republicans lost so badly they went from 57 Senate seats to 19. That’s what happened in the U.K. on Thursday when the Labour Party curb-stomped the Conservative Party after 14 years of Conservative rule.

Labour won the biggest parliamentary majority of any party since 2001. But more than a dozen parties won seats in Parliament. So Labour’s historic 63% majority in the House of Commons was achieved by winning just 34% of the nationwide vote (a record low).

• British politicians don’t swear oaths to a constitution, but to the King: I “swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors…”

• Sinn Féin, a republican (anti-monarchy) party in Northern Ireland won seven seats. But, as is tradition, they refuse to serve because they refuse to swear allegiance to the monarch.

• The pro-independence (and left-wing) Scottish National Party will see its power slashed as its voters flipped to Labour.

• Reform U.K., the right-wing nationalist party, soared to third place with 14% of the vote. But, due to splitting the vote in many cases with Conservatives, only won 5 of 650 seats in the House of Commons.

In a system that might shock many Americans, our British friends don’t vote for prime minister. They vote for Parliament. The PM is just the leader of the majority party.

• If the PM loses support in Parliament, the party picks a new leader. No election necessary. The British public last voted at all three PMs ago.

Speed: Americans will elect a president in November who won’t inaugurated for eleven weeks. The Brits move… faster. The old guy, Rishi Sunak, got booted almost immediately (his Santa Monica penthouse is a nice backup plan).

• The morning after the election, now-Prime Minister Kier Starmer met with King Charles III and received the required royal invitation to become PM.

The House: British PMs live at No. 10 Downing Street in a huge apartment above the office, much like the U.S. president. Unless they, you know, decide to switch with the neighbor at No. 11.

• That’s the apartment reserved for the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasury Secretary). But it's bigger. So sometimes they switch apartments.

• On a related note, the PM also serves as First Lord of the Treasury.

Future: Becoming PM is like drinking from a fire hose. There's no slow, ramp-up time. Starmer didn't even know there would be an election until six weeks ago. He was elected on Thursday. Took office on Friday. And tomorrow, he'll be in Washington, D.C. for his first international event — the annual NATO summit.

Back in America, some other government news:

• 💼 New Labor Department stats just dropped. The U.S. economy gained 206,000 jobs last month but the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 4.1%.

• 🗃️ Federal Judge Aileen Cannon said it’s full speed ahead for charges against Trump aid Walt Nauta for obstructing the federal probe into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents

• 📜 It's an election year! That means it’s messaging bill time in D.C. Messaging bills aren’t designed to become law. That’s lame. Instead, they’re designed to force your opponents to take unpopular votes.

POLITICS

🔴 Donald Trump denied involvement in the (conservative think tank) Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. The project lays out a controversial vision for a potential second Trump presidency. But the big man himself claims he knows “nothing” about it. We’ll dig into that in more detail on Wednesday.

🔵 Joe Biden, in his big interview with ABC, dug in his heels and said he’s not leaving the race unless the “Lord Almighty” comes down and asks. Even then, it’s only a “might.” He doubled down on that promise at a rally in Wisconsin. The drip-drip from D.C. Dems keeps coming, though.

• Rep. Angie Craig on Saturday became the fifth House Democrat to publicly ask Biden to leave the race (and the first from a swingy district). On Sunday, four more took that position on a private call (with others hinting they agreed).

• Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) is trying to get a group of Democratic senators together to ask Biden to leave the race. Warner, one of the slightly more moderate Senate Ds, no longer believes Biden can win. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), however, is not a member of that club.

• A document making the “Case for Kamala” is circulating among Democratic operatives. The Google Doc (check it out here) claims Vice President Harris is the only cure to the strange predicament Democrats have found themselves in.

• On the other hand, a Bloomberg poll of swing states has President Biden stronger than ever. It shows him leading in Michigan and Wisconsin but trailing in Pennsylvania and Nevada.

⚪ Always one to say what’s on his mind, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. promised he wouldn’t “take sides on 9/11 or any of the other debates” should he win the White House (spoiler alert: he won’t).

🔵 Rep. Colin Allred is walking a fine line as he tries to become the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Texas since 1988. Right now, that means supporting a court’s decision to stop President Biden’s pause on natural gas exports.

TRIVIA

It’s no secret that, at 81 and 78, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are no spring chickens. In fact, they’re the two oldest presidential nominees in history. Only three others have ever been over the age of 70. Before Biden and Trump, who were the only 70-something presidential nominees?

Hint: Only one won his race.

WORLD

🇫🇷 France: The centrist governing party took a big haircut in last night's parliamentary elections. Half of its losses went to a coalition of left-wing parties. The other half went to a right-wing nationalist party that's fiscally liberal but firmly anti-immigration. The National Rally fell short of expectations but still saw its best-ever result, scoring about one-fourth of seats.

🇮🇷 Iran: Surgeon and lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran's presidential election amid record-low voter turnout. He's an alleged "reform" candidate who supports restarting nuclear talks with the West. But Iran's president is subservient to the supreme leader and no candidate can run without approval from the hardliners.

BRIEFS

• France kicked out two Chinese spies (who were posing as diplomats) for trying to kidnap a Chinese dissident in Paris

• Mt. Etna, a volcano in Sicily, birthplace of every great-grandma in New Jersey, erupted again last week, dousing nearby towns in ash

• Magical weight loss drug Ozempic doesn’t quite work for everyone — while some simply don’t lose weight, others, y’know, go blind

• If your United Airlines flight is delayed due to weather, they might soon send you a real-time weather map as proof

• A U.S.-backed, tiered Gaza peace plan inched closer to approval after Hamas dropped its demand that Israel end the war in stage one

• Hamas (perhaps not the most reliable source) claims an Israeli attack killed at least 16 civilians, including children

QUOTE

SNACKS

🚌 Car launch: Forget fireworks. In what is perhaps the most ‘Murica event in the country, Glacier View, Alaska celebrates the Fourth every year by… launching cars off a cliff.

🌭 Nathan’s: In the absence of longtime champ Joey Chestnut, pro eater Patrick Bertoletti slammed 58 hot dogs (and buns!) in 10 minutes to win the coveted Mustard Belt. Miki Sudo set a world record on the women's side with 51.

👗 Sundresses: It’s gold and blue all over again. This time, nobody can agree on what a sundress actually is. The New York Times dives in.

ANSWER

All three were Republicans.

Ronald Reagan was 73 when he won 49 states in his landslide reelection over Walter Mondale in 1984.

Bob Dole was 73 when he lost to Bill Clinton in 1996 (he went on to star in a Viagra commercial, by the way).

John McCain was 72 when he lost to Barack Obama in 2008.