☕️ Fanny pack crackdown

A spring break destination says stay away... [Advertisement] March 07, 2024 [View Online]( | [Sign Up]( | [Shop]( [Morning Brew]( PRESENTED BY [Sage]( Good morning. The State of the Union address is tonight, and if you want to spice things up, you could make a friendly wager on how long President Biden’s speech will last—like you’d do for the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Last year, Biden’s address ran 1 hour and 13 minutes. But the record for longest in-person State of the Union goes to Bill Clinton, who really riffed on those high notes in 2000. His speech that year lasted nearly 1 hour and 29 minutes and contained 9,190 words. That’s more than 18 single-spaced pages—without making the periods a larger font. —Molly Liebergall, Sam Klebanov, Matty Merritt, Abby Rubenstein, Neal Freyman MARKETS Nasdaq 16,031.54 +0.58% S&P 5,104.76 +0.51% Dow 38,661.05 +0.20% 10-Year 4.104% -3.3 bps Bitcoin $66,325.15 +3.93% NYCB $3.46 +7.45% *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 3:00am ET. [Here's what these numbers mean.]( - Markets: Stocks [rose]( yesterday as investors watched Jerome Powell tell lawmakers that he still expects to cut interest rates this year, just not right away. They’ll keep their eyes peeled again today as JPow spends a second day talking to Congress. - Stock spotlight: It was a roller coaster of a day for troubled regional lender New York Community Bancorp, which fell 40% before [soaring]( back up after announcing it’s getting $1 billion from investors, including ex-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s firm.  TRAVEL [Airlines are upping bag fees & beefing w/ fanny packs]( [(Grayscale) Person carrying multiple bags, two are red]( Illustration: Francis Scialabba, Photo: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images If you’re a cost-conscious flyer who’s had to stuff a small cross-body into a full backpack thanks to an eagle-eyed gate agent, get used to it because airlines are making it trickier to travel economically with lots of stuff. Delta announced this week it’s hiking its checked-bag fees for the first time since 2018, joining other major airlines in charging flyers more for luggage, while also [cracking down]( on smaller third carry-on items that boarding agents didn’t use to bat an eye at. Why the fee hike? Carriers say they’re countering rising operating costs and declining airfare (there was a 6% [drop]( in January from a year before, according to the latest inflation report). They collected $33.3 billion in luggage fees last year alone—surpassing pre-pandemic levels—and that was before the new, higher prices: - Delta is bumping its checked-bag fee by $5 to $35 for the first checked bag and $45 for the second. - American Airlines made a [similar decision]( at the end of February and also increased the cost of checking your first bag in person by $10 (but—good news—it cut the fee on slightly overweight bags from $100 to $30). - United, JetBlue, and Alaska Airlines [also issued]( $5 increases to existing bag fees. Southwest, the biggest domestic US carrier by passengers, is the only major airline that still provides flyers with two free checked bags, but it’s still cracking down on extra carry-on items. Here’s the stuff that isn’t gonna fly anymore: Southwest started making passengers condense their belongings—including common items like fanny packs and shopping bags—into strictly two carry-ons at the end of last month, after an internal memo to gate agents highlighted ancillary cross-body purses, pillows, and blankets as violations of the two-bag rule, according to the [Wall Street Journal](. Delta, United, and American customers have also recently had to squeeze small items into larger bags, the WSJ reported. But there’s always the clothes on your back. To get around pesky carry-on rules, some creative travelers have started wearing multi-pocket [fishing vests]( where they can fit chargers, clothes, and even a laptop.—ML   PRESENTED BY SAGE [No time to (c)lose]( [Sage]( Finance teams are easily bogged down by manual month-end processes—and that time adds up. Teams with low levels of automation spend only 18% of their time on value-added tasks. Instead of watching the clock tick, learn how to regain 24 days per year with Sage’s report: [Fast Close. Faster Insights](. As automation shapes the future of finance, Sage’s report is here to shed light on the positive change it can bring. For instance, finance teams leveraging automation have [3x more time for high-impact activities]( compared to those without. More free time = more space to dive into value-added strategic activities—58%, to be exact. [Discover the potential of automation](. WORLD [Tour de headlines](#) [Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley announces the suspension of her presidential campaign at her campaign.]Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Nikki Haley drops out of presidential race. After getting Ls in every state besides Vermont on Super Tuesday, the former South Carolina governor [suspended]( her campaign, all but ensuring a Trump–Biden rematch in November. Despite bowing out, Haley didn’t immediately endorse former President Donald Trump, saying it was now up to him “to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that.” But another GOP figure who has sparred with Trump did offer an [endorsement]( yesterday: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell threw his support to the former president despite having said harsh words in the past about his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. OpenAI makes Elon Musk’s emails public. Saying it would seek the dismissal of Musk’s [lawsuit]( accusing it of straying from its mission by seeking profits over benefiting humanity, OpenAI published a [blog post]( containing emails Musk allegedly sent while still involved with the organization (which he co-founded but broke with in 2018). The post claims Musk actually wanted to shift OpenAI to a for-profit model—with himself as CEO, saying billions of dollars were needed to compete with Google, and that he suggested merging it with his car company, Tesla. Separately, after reports circulated that he met with Donald Trump, Musk said he [wasn’t donating]( to either Trump or Biden. Watered-down climate disclosure rules for businesses approved. The SEC voted yesterday to finalize [new regulations]( requiring public companies to divulge their greenhouse gas emissions after nixing a provision businesses spent years lobbying against that would have also required them to state indirect emissions from their supply chains and customers’ use of their products. But even the weakened rules face an uphill battle: 10 states have already [filed]( a legal challenge to them, and others are likely to follow. The rules have been a political flashpoint, with the Biden administration saying they’re necessary to fight climate change and Republicans and business groups saying they’re outside the scope of the agency’s authority. FINANCE [Someone’s buying votes in Disney’s ugly proxy fight]( [Disney money]( Francis Scialabba Disney is embroiled in Lion King-level drama: Two hedge funds that each own a chunk of the entertainment behemoth are tangling horns with CEO Bob Iger, pitching competing visions for how to make the company’s stock bounce back. All three camps are trying to convince Disney shareholders to vote their representatives onto the company’s board at its April 3 annual meeting. The plot thickened this week, when Business Insider reported that a [mystery investor offered]( to buy votes through Shareholder Vote Exchange, a controversial startup that lets shareholders sell their voting rights. - The unknown investor bid $100,000 for 500,000 votes, electoral power that would cost them over $55 million if they were to purchase the shares themselves at yesterday’s closing price. Who’s buying votes? All we know for sure is that it’s a Disney shareholder. It’s unclear whether they are affiliated with the two Iger-bashing activist investors seeking board seats (Blackwells Capital and Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management) or support Iger. Who’s willing to sell? Possibly, the thousands of individual investors who the WSJ says collectively own over a third of Disney stock—an unusually high amount for a company. As of yesterday, over 20,000 Disney shareholder votes were offered as available for sale on the Shareholder Vote Exchange. Buying shareholder votes is technically legal…but it’s likely [impractical]( as a strategy to enact a major leadership overhaul, says Bloomberg’s finance wonk Matt Levine. Still, it could make a difference—Peltz’s 2017 activist fight against Procter & Gamble was decided by just 42,000 votes.—SK   TOGETHER WITH SOFI [SoFi]( Alternative investments, now for the rest of us. Unlock the potential to build and protect your wealth with alts on SoFi Invest. Now you can utilize investment strategies traditionally enjoyed by the high-net-worth crowd. Pick from funds that include commodities, private credit, and pre-IPO unicorns, all on a user-friendly platform. [Open an account to get started](. TRAVEL [Miami Beach wants spring breakers out]( [Host of show saying “The fun is about to end.”]( Master Chef/Fox Heavy is the head that wears the “It’s a bad day to be a beer” hat. Spring break party hub Miami Beach has created an anti-tourism ad and rules to try to [deter]( rowdy college kids from clogging up its beaches this year during spring break season, which starts this week. - During two high-traffic weekends, Miami Beach said it would institute $100 parking fees for nonresidents, curfews, DUI checkpoints, beach closures, bag checks, and a much heavier police presence. - The city even made a pointed [video]( asking spring breakers to come back only when they’ve grown up a little. The Unwelcome to Miami message comes after the city said it’s seen a rise in violence over the last few years. In 2023, there were two fatal shootings during spring break. Not everyone wants to boot breakers: Civil rights advocates argue the restrictions are an overreaction largely targeting Black visitors, who have increasingly started vacationing in the area over the last 20 years. Meanwhile, some business owners say the regulations are throttling their income as spring break is one of the busiest times of the year. The discouragements might not matter…United Airlines expects this to be the [busiest spring break ever]( with 21+ million passengers flying from March 8 to April 21.—MM   GRAB BAG [Key performance indicators](#) [Adam Sandler]Tobias Schwarz/Getty Images Stat: You might not be able to tell from the basketball shorts, but Adam Sandler is making bank. The comedian was the highest paid actor of 2023, raking in ~$73 million, according to [a list]( released by Forbes yesterday. The star signed a $250 million deal with Netflix in 2014, which got renewed in 2020 and has produced movies like You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah for the streamer. With the new movies and most of his old hits available on the service, Netflix subscribers logged more than 500 million hours watching Sandler flicks in the first half of the year alone, per the company. And Billy Madison trumps even Barbenheimer: Margot Robbie came in at No. 2. The top five was rounded out by Tom Cruise, Ryan Gosling, and Matt Damon. Quote: “We are happy to welcome the most exclusive guests.” It takes a lot to disrupt a show in Las Vegas, but one very special guest managed to get the Bellagio to [shut down]( its fountain show just by showing up. The showstopper was a yellow-billed loon—considered one of the 10 rarest birds that regularly breed in the continental US by the National Park Service—and the hotel paused the fountains and worked with state wildlife officials to make sure the avian visitor stayed safe after it made itself comfortable in Lake Bellagio. Read: The hot new luxury good for the rich: air. ([The New Republic]( NEWS [What else is brewing](#) - [Alabama]( lawmakers passed a law to protect IVF after a state supreme court ruling classifying embryos as children threw the future of the fertility treatment into doubt. - [The armorer]( for the movie Rust was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting involving Alec {NAME} on set. - [Prosecutors]( dropped their case accusing three people of stealing handwritten lyrics to “Hotel California” and other Eagles hits. It was a surprise move in the middle of the trial because of new emails they said should’ve been turned over to the defense sooner. - [LinkedIn]( suffered a brief outage, leaving tens of thousands of people temporarily unable to see their former coworkers’ thought leadership. - [Drake Bell]( who starred on Drake & Josh, revealed in a forthcoming documentary that he was abused by a dialogue coach while working as a child actor. - [Three crew members]( died in Houthi attacks on a Barbados-flagged commercial ship, becoming the first casualties of the Iran-backed group’s assaults on ships in the Red Sea. - [Scientists]( confirmed that a gray whale spotted off the coast of New England was a species that went extinct in the Atlantic two centuries ago—and blamed climate change for its reappearance in the region. RECS [To do list Thursday] Go big: While our most ambitious trips to Costco involve staying away from the sheet cakes, one TikToker [completed a whole marathon]( there. Keep to yourself: A ranking of the world’s best (and worst) [cities for introverts](. A glossary of what all the [heart emoji]( mean. Come work with us: Morning Brew is starting an investing newsletter, and we’re looking for a reporter. [Apply here](. Learn: Get fancy with your Excel maneuvers with [Miss Excel’s free live workshop]( on data cleaning and VBA macros. Boost your salary: Need a nudge to pursue the CMA® (Certified Management Accountant) certification? CMAs can [earn 24% more]( in the US than their uncertified peers—um, yes, please. Learn more in [IMA’s 2023 Global Salary Survey]( *A message from our sponsor. GAMES [The puzzle section](#) Brew Mini: I spy with my little eye…a Brew Mega-Mini? [See it for yourself](. Three Headlines and a Lie Three of these headlines are real and one is faker than the business loan an unknown caller encouraged you to apply for. Can you spot the odd one out? - Yes, Strava for [dogs]( is now a real thing - Oscar Mayer [debuts]( vegan hot dog with help from Bezos-backed startup - Binance made [crypto perfume]( in a baffling attempt to woo women - The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is having a [garage sale]( SHARE THE BREW [Share Morning Brew]( with your friends, acquire free Brew swag, and then acquire more friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag. We’re saying we’ll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link. Your referral count: 0 [Click to Share]( Or copy & paste your referral link to others: [morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=4904f90a]( ANSWER We made up the one about the seed vault. Word of the Day Today’s Word of the Day is: avian, meaning “related to birds.” Thanks to Alice from Albuquerque for the flighty suggestion. Submit another [Word of the Day here](. Written by [Neal Freyman]( [Abigail Rubenstein]( [Molly Liebergall]( Sam Klebanov, and [Matty Merritt]( Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up [here](. Get smarter in just 5 minutes - Money & Career: [Money With Katie](  [Bossy]( Interested in podcasts? - Check out ours [here]( [ADVERTISE]( // [CAREERS]( // [SHOP]( // [FAQ]( Update your email preferences or unsubscribe [here](. View our privacy policy [here](. Copyright © 2024 Morning Brew. All rights reserved. 22 W 19th St, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10011