Good morning.

It’s Wednesday, April 8, and New York is showing off today. Like, aggressively. Central Park is in full bloom, the trees are doing the absolute most, and even the pigeons look better.

This is your sign to step outside, take a walk, and remind yourself that life is not just emails and screen time. 

Wishing you a really good day. Don’t waste this weather — it’s doing more for you than your to-do list ever will.

Today’s stories:

Futures jumped Tuesday night after fresh signals of potential de-escalation in the Middle East — enough to shift sentiment fast.

Contracts tied to the S&P 500 rose 1.9%, Nasdaq-100 futures surged 2.2%, and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures climbed about 1.8%.

Earlier in the day, stocks did… almost nothing. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq both edged up 0.1%, while the Dow Jones slipped 0.2%. Translation: quiet session, strong after-hours move — markets still reacting to headlines, not fundamentals.

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Elon Musk is gearing up to take SpaceX public and, naturally, is aiming for a very casual $2 trillion valuation — because why start small when you can just skip reality entirely. To sell it, the company is hosting a summer event for 1,500 regular investors, basically a live pitch where you’re supposed to feel special enough to invest, but not informed enough to question anything too deeply. In a “we’re just like you” move, up to 30% of shares may go to non-professional investors, which sounds inclusive until you realize it’s mostly powered by Musk fandom and optimism. They’re trying to raise $75 billion, which would make this the biggest IPO ever, because apparently history records confidence, not caution. The rollout starts in June with bankers and analysts, then moves to the retail investor event — location undisclosed, mystery included, hype guaranteed.

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Checkout now comes with emotional damage and extra fees. Amazon is adding a 3.5% surcharge starting April 17 if you use Fulfillment by Amazon — which, let’s be honest, you kind of have to — and then more fees roll in May 2 for multi-channel fulfillment, because one new charge clearly wasn’t enough. Shipping companies saw this and immediately copied the homework. Canada Post is now charging up to 39% domestically and 22.75% internationally, updating it weekly like it’s some kind of exciting game, while FedEx, UPS, and Purolator pushed theirs up to as much as 44.5%, because nothing says “we care” like aggressive percentages. Gas prices are up again, now over $1.79 per litre, thanks to global drama in the Strait of Hormuz, which basically means oil is stressed, markets are stressed, and your wallet is… yes, also stressed. Airlines obviously didn’t want to feel left out. WestJet adds $60, Air Canada adds $50, and even “free” flights with points now come with a surcharge, because imagine actually getting something for free.

If you love Amex you’ll defend it, everyone else won’t. Amex dropped a new business card and called it Graphite. It’s built for cash-back people, super simple: 5% on flights and hotels through Amex Travel, 2% on everything else, no caps — great, clean, easy, nothing to think about, which is exactly the point. But then comes the plot twist: $295 annual fee… for vibes. The perks are mostly standard Amex stuff dressed up to look premium, and the one real credit (up to $2,400) only kicks in if you spend $250,000 a year, which feels less like a perk and more like a challenge. Yes, there’s no preset spending limit, yes there are tools and protections, yes you can carry a balance with interest — but congratulations, that’s basically every Amex card ever.

Financial engineering meets pop music. Billionaire investor Bill Ackman is back, now pitching a deal to “unlock value” at Universal Music Group — yes, the company behind Taylor Swift and Drake, because nothing sells a financial story better than attaching it to celebrities. The idea is to move UMG’s listing to the US and combine it with a publicly traded vehicle, which Ackman believes will magically boost its valuation to about €56 billion, mainly because Wall Street tends to get more excited about things than Europe does. He’s also betting the market will start valuing the company at 25x earnings instead of 16x, which is a very optimistic way of saying “we think people will pay more if we repackage it differently.” Shareholders would get cash plus new shares, with a flashy 78% premium, but of course this only happens if investors — including major shareholder Vincent Bolloré — agree to the plan. Ackman owns about 4.5% of UMG, so yes, he’s highly motivated for this to work, and like most big financial moves, it’s built on confidence, assumptions, and a strong belief that changing the label on the box changes what’s inside.

Apple is reportedly releasing a foldable iPhone this September, right next to the iPhone 18 lineup, which is impressive considering the rest of the industry has been folding phones like laundry for years. There were rumors of delays (shocking), but Apple says it’s still on track — just with limited supply, meaning the phone will be both hard to get and aggressively expensive, a perfect combo. This is Apple finally stepping into a category Samsung and others have been experimenting with forever, but of course Apple’s angle is “we waited until it was perfect,” not “we watched everyone else mess it up first.” They claim better durability, improved screen quality, and a less visible crease, which basically means the phone might not look like it’s been bent in half during an emotional breakdown.

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New AI model drops. Anthropic just dropped a new AI model called Mythos and, of course, it’s “one of their most powerful yet.” But instead of letting everyone play with it, they’re keeping it exclusive — only a small group of big tech names like Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft get access, under something dramatically named Project Glasswing, which sounds less like cybersecurity and more like a Marvel storyline. This AI can scan code and find vulnerabilities, and allegedly it already uncovered thousands of zero-day bugs, many sitting around for decades like unpaid bills no one wanted to deal with. It’s not even specifically trained for cybersecurity, by the way — it’s just that good, apparently. Coding, reasoning, agent stuff… all the buzzwords are here. Meanwhile, there’s also some light drama. The model was accidentally leaked earlier (called “Capybara,” because why not), and now Anthropic is in talks with the government while also fighting with it, which feels very on brand for tech in 2026.

NASA just raised the bar for travel content. NASA just dropped new space photos from the Artemis II mission, and yes, they’re stunning. The crew flew just 4,000 miles past the moon, broke an old Apollo record, and casually became the farthest humans have ever traveled from Earth. For seven hours, they got views of the moon no one has seen before, including the mysterious far side, while taking around 10,000 photos. There was also a dramatic 40-minute blackout when they passed behind the moon (very cinematic), followed by the highlight: “Earthset,” where Earth disappears behind the lunar horizon, basically the universe reminding you how small your problems are.

iPhone 17 Pro Max goes to space. During the Artemis II mission, each astronaut had an iPhone for “personal photos,” and yes, they used the front camera to take shots of themselves with Earth in the background, which is easily the most overqualified selfie setup in history. To be fair, NASA also used actual professional cameras like Nikon and GoPro, but somehow the iPhone still made headlines — because of course it did.

Gemini gets a safety update. Google is now adding mental health safety features to its Gemini chatbot, which is a polite way of saying things got a little too real and now everyone is scrambling to add guardrails. If Gemini detects conversations about self-harm or crisis, it will now push users toward a hotline and show a “help is available” message, along with some design tweaks to gently steer people away from bad decisions. This comes after lawsuits, investigations, and some very uncomfortable headlines about people getting way too attached to AI, with cases linking chatbots to delusions and even tragic outcomes.

One in ten AI answers is wrong. Google’s AI Overviews are getting better, which is nice, but “better” here means they’re still wrong about 1 in 10 times — and when you’re Google, that translates to millions of wrong answers a day being delivered with full confidence, naturally. A New York Times analysis found the tool is about 90% accurate, up from 85% before, which sounds solid until you remember this thing sits at the top of search results acting like the adult in the room. The problem is not just being wrong, it’s being wrong confidently. So yes, AI Overviews are improving, but they’re still out here making up facts at industrial scale — which is a bold feature for something people use to find actual answers.

NASA just accidentally gave Nutella the best ad campaign in history — for free. During the Artemis II mission broadcast, a jar of Nutella casually floated through the spacecraft, instantly going viral and achieving what most marketing teams can’t do with millions of dollars. Nutella, obviously, leaned in with “traveled further than any spread in history,” while NASA played along like this was all part of the plan, because at this point, why not. Somewhere, a brand manager is screaming. Somewhere else, Nutella is winning without even trying.

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MoMA PS1 turns 50 and throws a very NYC party. MoMA PS1 is turning 50 and instead of a quiet museum moment, it’s throwing a full NYC-style block party. On April 18, the Long Island City space is going full takeover mode from 10am to 6pm with DJs, art, workshops, food, and over 60 local artists selling things you’ll convince yourself you need, all tied to the opening of “Greater New York 2026.” It’s basically a museum, a street fair, and a “look how creative I am” moment all happening at once — very on brand for New York.

NYC goes car-free. NYC is once again banning cars for a day and calling it healing — Car-Free Earth Day is back on April 25, when streets across all five boroughs will suddenly remember they were meant for people. From 10am to 4pm, roads turn into pedestrian zones with art, music, and climate-themed activities, which means you can walk freely, bike dramatically, and pretend you’ve always been this environmentally conscious. There will be installations like “The Plastic Sea” — subtle, not subtle — plus performances, workshops, and enough programming to make you feel both inspired and slightly guilty.

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TikTok of the day: watch here

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