Good morning! President Biden will visit Baltimore on Friday to view the site of the Key Bridge collapse. He’ll also meet with local and state governments to discuss recovery efforts. Officials estimate rebuilding the bridge could take between 2 and 15 years. Maybe they just weren’t comfortable saying “we don’t have a clue, bro.”

A 7.4 magnitude earthquake rocked Taiwan last night (Wednesday morning local time). This was the strongest quake to hit Taiwan in 25 years. It left at least one person dead and a few buildings teetering wildly.

WORLD

🇨🇳 Janet goes to China

She’s here to run the economy and bake some pie. And she’s all out of pie. She might look like Meemaw, but Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is in fact America’s most powerful force of finance. And she’s back in China this week (for a week) meeting with her Chinese counterpart.

Relations between the world’s two biggest economies have been a bit frosty as of late. U.S. security-related restrictions on business with China are partly to blame. Yellen hopes to warm things up again.

• She wants to reassure the Chinese these restrictions are narrow.

• She’ll also talk Chinese investment with American business execs there.

But Sec. Yellen might have to play hardball on China's excess industrial capacity.

What the heck does that mean? Basically, China has too many factories. They’re building more stuff than they need. So they’ve got more to sell to us. The U.S. (and Europe) worry that glut of Chinese stuff will undercut our manufacturers.

• The U.S. and E.U. are also both considering tariffs (taxes on imports) on Chinese electric vehicles.

President Biden and President Xi spoke on the phone yesterday. They argued about U.S. restrictions on high tech exports to China. Biden says its a national security issue. Xi warned it risked the America-China relationship.

• The call lasted two hours. They hit on everything from trade to the Philippines to their thoughts on Dune 2 (if only).

Over in India (sort of): China renamed a bunch of places in an area both China and India claim. This is of course to make the area gradually more Chinese. But India shot back, saying “invented names will not alter the reality” that this place is clearly India.

• Nobody is doing any shooting here. Both countries have troops nearby. But to avoid escalations, they don’t carry weapons. Instead, they (get ready for this) beat each other to death by hand. Or, allegedly, with nail-studded bats.

NATURE

🐘 Botswana v. Germany: elephant wars

Shots fired. Not literally, though. That’s what’s causing this problem.

Germany is considering a ban on the import of elephant hunting trophies (that is, the chunk of the animal the hunter keeps to hang on his mantle). Animal rights activists support the plan. Other European countries have already done it.

Botswana’s not happy about that. The southern African nation has one-third of the world’s elephants — over 130,000 of them. And that’s not including the 8,000 they sent to Angola.

• Botswana’s president called out the Germans. He said it’s super easy to sit “in Berlin and have an opinion” about this. “We are paying the price for preserving these animals for the world.”

• He suggested the Germans try living with 130,000 elephants roaming the streets. See how they like it.

He also, hilariously, threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany so they could deal with the problem as they see fit. He made it clear this was "no joke."

• Botswana says hunting elephants helps control their population and, paradoxically, raises money for their preservation.

Botswana banned trophy hunting in 2014. But lifted the ban in 2019 after too many Botswanans complained. About what? Oh, you know, roaming herds of elephants eating crops, destroying property, and trampling people to death.

POLITICS

⚪ A Florida man will spend 14 months in prison for threatening to kill Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts. The duty of protecting Supreme Court justices is split between the U.S. Marshals Service (the oldest federal law enforcement agency) and the Supreme Court Police.

🔴 Donald Trump found a company willing to lend him a $175 million appeal bond. Trump paid the bond to New York State while appealing the lawsuit verdict that left him owing $454 million. He had trouble finding this as most companies don’t issue bonds that large.

🔵 Republicans enjoy a growing advantage in Florida, the nation’s former preeminent swing state. But the Biden/Harris campaign sees an opening due to a Florida Supreme Court ruling. That ruling allows the state’s six-week abortion ban to take effect on May 1.

⚪ The Florida Supreme Court also ruled that two proposals meet the legal requirements to appear on the ballot this November. One wants to legalize recreational weed. The other wants to put the right to an abortion in the state's constitution. Each will need 60% voter support to pass.

🔵 Democrats have long run huge voter registration drives targeting young people and people of color. Both groups have historically voted heavily Democratic. But new data show these groups often now support Republicans. This has some Democrats worried they’re registering too many potential Trump voters. Their registration drives will need to be a bit more narrow going forward.

🔴 Former VP Mike Pence's policy group, Advancing American Freedom, is running a $2 million ad campaign pushing the Senate to pass the anti-TikTok bill. The bill passed the House but is languishing in the Senate. The ads will air in swing states and D.C.

🔵 Twenty-six House Democrats formed a new group, Democrats for Border Security, to fight their party's leftward swing on the issue. Not coincidentally, two are running for Senate this year in border states (AZ and TX).

TRIVIA

Speculation on Donald Trump’s Republican vice presidential pick is heating up. Rumored candidates include governors, senators, representatives, and former Cabinet secretaries.

But Democrats have a strong tendency to pick senators. When was the last time the Democratic vice presidential nominee was not a current member of the United States Senate?

WORLD

🇨🇴 Colombia: Medellín, Colombia's second-largest city, is cracking down on prostitution. It's still legal nationwide. But a six-month ban is now in place for two neighborhoods popular with tourists.

🇮🇱 Israel: Iran is threatening retaliation after an Israeli airstrike killed a top Iranian commander in Damascus, Syria. Elsewhere, Israel expressed “sincere sorrow” for unintentionally killing seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza. Three were British, which had the Brits summoning Israel’s ambassador for a verbal thrashing.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia: Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, will meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS). They'll discuss a plan that would see the Saudis officially recognize Israel. In exchange, they want a mutual Saudi-U.S. defense pact.

🇪🇸 Spain: Countries are only considered countries because other countries say they're countries. And Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wants to officially recognize Palestine as an independent state. He hopes doing so will inspire other European nations to do the same.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Scotland's controversial new hate speech law took effect Monday. It's designed to protect against threats and abuse. But opponents claim it goes too far and criminalizes free speech.

BRIEFS

• A human dairy worker in Texas tested positive for avian flu — the second-ever American case

• Lou Conter, the final survivor of the USS Arizona that sank during the attack on Pearl Harbor, passed away at 102

• Google will delete the Chrome data for millions of users it saved during so-called "incognito" browsing sessions

• NASA is investigating the claim that a hunk of trash fell from outer space and crashed through the roof of a house in Florida

• Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek signed a landmark bill re-criminalizing drug possession in the Beaver State

• At least 29 people died in Turkey when an Istanbul nightclub caught fire during renovations

• General Electric (GE) finalized its split into three companies yesterday — Aerospace, Energy, and Healthcare

• The Biden administration boosted reimbursements for Medicare Advantage plans by less than expected, causing health insurance stocks to fall

• Disney shareholders will decide the winner of an investor fight for control of the company today after 18 months of box office losses

• Tesla stock tanked after its EV sales fell in Q1 for the first time since 2020, though the company still makes up most U.S. EV sales

• Natural gas exports from Turkey began flowing into Hungary after Ukraine said it wouldn't renew a deal that let Russian gas flow through its pipes

QUOTE

SNACKS

📰 Voice: The non-readers among us will soon be able to listen to the New York Times. The Times will use an automated AI voice for most articles but 15%-20% will be “reporter reads.” You’ll still have to play Connections the old-fashioned way, though.

🌙 Moon time: The White House wants NASA to create a standardized time for the moon. During planned future trips to the moon, Coordinated Lunar Time will ensure data transfers are accurate. It may eventually require installing an atomic clock on the moon itself.

💰 Billionaires: According to the good people at Forbes, Taylor Swift is officially a member of the three comma club. Her net worth is a cool $1.1 billion. She’s one of 14 entertainers on the list. But she’s the only one to do it exclusively through songwriting and performing.

ANSWER

The last time the Democratic VP candidate wasn’t a U.S. senator was way back in 1984. That year, presidential nominee Walter Mondale (himself a former VP and senator) picked U.S. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro to be his running mate. Mondale got blown out by Ronald Reagan that year, losing 49 states. So maybe he knew he was screwed and just wanted to make history by picking the first (major party) female VP candidate.

If you skip 1984, the record goes allllll the way back to 1940. Though 1972 gets an asterisk. The first pick was a senator that year. He had to drop out and was replaced with an ambassador. But still. Pick #1 was a senator.