Good morning. If you’re rolling up to a party and want to bring a six-pack of something people will actually be excited to drink, try canned vodka lemonade—it’s going to be the drink of the summer, industry experts say. Kicked off by the brand Surfside in 2022, this category has seen explosive growth, and beverage giants like Anheuser-Busch and Boston Beer Company have jumped on the trend this year with vodka-spiked teas and lemonade.
Apparently Mike didn’t go hard enough?
—Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Abby Rubenstein, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman
Markets: Stocks surged yesterday following impressive earnings reports from Big Tech companies like Microsoft, which has (so far) weathered the tariff storm to power the Nasdaq above where it was on “Liberation Day.” Microsoft is the only one of the Magnificent Seven stocks to be up since the start of the year.
Illustration: Francis Scialabba, Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
On the heels of one of its most chaotic months ever, Apple kept the volatility going yesterday, beating overall expectations for the quarter but warning of a big hit potentially coming to its bottom line.
President Trump’s tariffs could cost Apple $900 million next quarter, CEO Tim Cook said on a call yesterday with investors, who were champing at the bit for his commentary. Cook hadn’t spoken about tariffs since January, when he said Apple was “monitoring the situation.”
Here’s the situation so far:
Apple reported its best January-to-March period in more than two years—sales grew by 5% to surpass $95 billion. Analysts thought this might have been partially driven by a rush of pre-tariff purchases, but Cook said that wasn’t the case.
Apple’s China revenue fell almost $1 billion short of expectations, which could reflect local phone brands like Huawei gaining ground in Apple’s second-largest market. Yesterday, Cook said production of most US-bound devices will move to India and Vietnam, a tactic that won’t “go down well” in China, an analyst at Forrester previously argued.
Meanwhile, Apple is in legal trouble at home
“Cook chose poorly,” and Apple’s VP of Finance Alex Roman “outright lied under oath” to gain an anti-competitive advantage, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wrote yesterday in a scathing ruling against the iPhone-maker.
TL;DR: In 2021, Rogers ordered Apple to let third-party game developers, like Fortnite’s Epic Games, direct users to their own websites for virtual transactions in order to avoid Apple’s 30% cut of in-app purchases. “Apple willfully chose not to comply with this court’s injunction,” Rogers wrote yesterday, citing a new fee Apple created to bar developers from venturing outside its App Store.
Apple messed up so badly in Rogers’s eyes that she “took the extraordinary step” of suggesting that federal prosecutors investigate Apple for criminal contempt, according to the Wall Street Journal. Apple said it would comply with the court order but plans to appeal.—ML
PhD scientists from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Stanford decided to put their brains together to master the science of probiotics (and debate whose mascot is better, probably).
The result? One of the most beneficial strains for gut health—and they were the first to manufacture + sell it live. Thus, Pendulum’s Akkermansia probiotic was born.
Pendulum Akkermansia contains Akkermansia muciniphila, a strain that can strengthen gut lining, improve metabolic and digestive health, and naturally increase GLP-1.
With hundreds of 5-star reviews, 3k+ mentions of Akkermansia muciniphila in scientific pubs, and happy customers like Halle Berry, this discovery certainly seems to live up to its hype.
🪓 Kohl’s CEO fired for conflict of interest. Less than five months after he was hired, Kohl’s Chief Executive Ashley Buchanan was shown the door for a “highly unusual” deal in which he funneled business to a romantic partner, the Wall Street Journal reported. An investigation by the retail giant’s board found that Buchanan directed the company to make a multimillion-dollar consulting agreement with a vendor where the woman, former Bed Bath & Beyond CEO Chandra Holt, worked. Buchanan reportedly did not disclose his relationship with Holt. Sales for Kohl’s fell 4% last quarter, but the company said Buchanan was axed for violating its code of conduct and not for performance.
Mike Waltz has left the group chat. President Trump ousted his national security advisor, Mike Waltz, CBS News reported, just over a month after Waltz mistakenly added a journalist to a group chat on the app Signal where officials were discussing highly sensitive military plans. Trump initially stood behind Waltz, but CBS News reported that the president now believes enough time has passed for him to frame the ouster as “part of a reorganization.” Trump later said he was nominating Waltz to be the US’ new ambassador to the UN, which requires Senate confirmation. Observers continue to speculate about the fate of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who was the one who shared the information about upcoming military strikes in the group chat.
Amazon topped Wall Street’s estimates, but tempered forecast. All eyes were on the world’s biggest online retailer to see how tariffs would impact its businesses, and the early returns were mixed. Amazon posted a 9% jump in revenue last quarter, beating expectations and momentarily quelling concerns about the historically high levies on China, where it gets many of the products it sells. But it also offered lighter-than-expected guidance, suggesting the worst is probably yet to come. That sent shares down in after-hours trading despite the revenue beat.—AE
Your mom was right—y’all do got burgers at home. McDonald’s reported a 3.6% drop in US same-store sales in Q1, the steepest decline since the beginning of Covid lockdowns in 2020.
CEO Chris Kempczinski said lower- and middle-income customers pulled back the most, which signals to the Golden Arches that cash-strapped consumers are starting to tighten their budgets even more amid economic uncertainty.
And McDonald’s isn’t alone. Fast-food behemoths like KFC, Pizza Hut, and Domino’s all saw US sales declines last quarter. Americans even pulled back on burrito bowl spending at Chipotle:
Two separate reports released on Wednesday by the Commerce Department found that consumer spending had its smallest growth in two years last quarter, though the pace was stronger in March, as shoppers and diners rushed to spend ahead of expected tariff-induced price hikes.
One-time, big-ticket items such as cars likely accounted for the bulk of the increased spending in March, while Americans pulled back on discretionary spending.
Looking ahead…McDonald’s is banking on sales getting juiced from a partnership with A Minecraft Movie in Q2 and the return of the Snack Wrap later this year. But inklings of anti-American sentiment have dinged other brands and could hurt the fast-food giant’s Canadian and European locations.—MM
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If getting answers from ChatGPT makes you feel like you’re in a sci-fi dystopia, you may not want to hear about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s other co-founded venture, now rolling out stateside. It’s an orb that scans your eyeballs in exchange for cryptocurrency.
What in the Demolition Man? The device, which creates a unique user ID for your scan, is meant to address a problem that Altman had a hand in creating: how to verify identities and confirm humanity in a world full of artificial intelligence.
The project, called World (formerly Worldcoin), went live in other countries in 2023. Its US expansion, announced this week, featured retail outlets in five cities where you can get your eyes scanned:
Tools for Humanity, the company behind the orbs, says 12+ million people around the world have participated so far.
It claims to keep your data private, but authorities in more than a dozen places have suspended World’s operations or investigated its data practices, per the WSJ.
The orb wants to help you find love: Tools for Humanity has partnered with dating app giant Match Group to provide age verification, with Tinder users in Japan set to be the first to mix iris scans and romance. It’s also launching a credit card with Visa.—AR
As W.E. Hickson once said, “If at first you don’t succeed, launch a fantasy movie app built on the blockchain.” That is precisely what MoviePass did yesterday as the company again tries to reinvent itself following years of financial trouble.
Its new app, Mogul, is billed as the entertainment version of DraftKings, allowing users to bet on box-office hauls, award winners, and other Hollywood happenings. MoviePass says 400,000 people have already signed up for Mogul’s waitlist, which was approximately the same number of movies the original service let you see for $10 per month before it went bankrupt.
For now, Mogul is free-to-play and uses an in-game currency with which users can win film memorabilia, but the idea is that it will eventually involve real money. Start reaching out to your one “Oscars friend” now.—AE
Decipher: Once you solve today’s Decipher, you’ll be amped up for the rest of the day—and possibly the entire weekend. Play the decode-the-lyric game here.
Friday puzzle
Try to identify a famous historical figure from the following clues:
The person’s first and last names both contain seven letters.
Their full name only contains two different consonants (that occur multiple times).
Thirteen of the 14 letters in this person’s name occur in the first half of the alphabet (A–M), with the remaining letter being an “O.”
Who is it?
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Today’s Word of the Day is: umpteenth, meaning “latest or last in an indefinitely numerous series.” Thanks to Adam from Porter Ranch, CA, for the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.
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Mike Waltz has left the group chat. President Trump 
Amazon topped Wall Street’s estimates, but tempered forecast. All eyes were on the world’s biggest online retailer to see how tariffs would impact its businesses, and the early returns were 
Clean: A luxurious 
