Axios

A ticket sold in Illinois is the sole winner of the $1.34 billion Mega Millions jackpot, the second-largest lottery prize in the game’s 20-year history, according to results posted Saturday.

Why it matters: The jackpot rolled 29 times since April and if no one won Friday's drawing lottery officials said the prize had the potential to grow to $1.7 billion for Tuesday's drawing, which would have been the nation’s largest lottery prize.

The 2022 Atlantic hurricane season is likely to be unusually active, with worrisome signs in parts of the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.

The big picture: While hurricane forecasters' main tools are provided by the federal government — such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Air Force hurricane hunters, satellites and computer models — startups are playing a growing role in forecasting.

Insurance startups are eyeing the climate space as historical models struggle to keep up, but experimental underwriting models may not be a silver bullet.

Why it matters: Insurance models have struggled to keep up with the pace of climate-related claims, but there's no clear sailing for new insurance concepts.

Home shoppers have more information than ever to see how a potential new home will be threatened by wildfires, floods, heat and other climate risks. But research shows that large swaths of homebuyers and renters can't (or don't) act on that data.

Why it matters: Climate-risk data can empower decision-makers, but it can also exacerbate inequality.

Inflicting billions of dollars in losses is a great way to lose sympathy among politicians.

• Time has run out: It's too late for the crypto industry to get the kind of regulation it's been pushing for. The crypto winter arrived before any new laws could be written, and has changed the whole tone of the debate in Washington.

There's an air of unreality to the news these days — one perfectly in keeping with the "nobody knows anything" vibe that arrived with the onset of the pandemic in 2020 and never really left.

Why it matters: Recent days have seen a flurry of headlines that feel as though they've been run through an impossibility drive.

• My job, as a newsletter writer, is to make sense of those headlines and to deliver you a story that explains them. But the honest truth is that there is no such story, and that things are very messy and weird right now — not always in a bad way.

Millennials are twice as rich as they were before the pandemic.

Why it matters: The recession arrived when millennials — anybody born between 1981 and 1996 — were feeling burned out and doomed. Student loans were stretching as far as the eye can see, and millennial wealth was just a fraction of what previous generations had managed to accumulate at the same age.

The $1.28 billion jackpot for Friday's Mega Millions drawing is now the second highest in the lottery game's 20-year history and the nation's third-largest lottery prize.

Why it matters: Americans have wagered hundreds of millions of dollars on lottery tickets just in the past two days, catapulting a U.S. lottery jackpot to more than $1 billion for only the fourth time ever, Axios' Felix Salmon writes.

Apple Music and Spotify dedicated much of their day to celebrating Beyoncé's new album.

Why it matters: It's been six years since her last solo album, "Lemonade," which made her the highest-paid musician in the world that year.

More Uber drivers in the U.S. will start to see their fares and routes before accepting rides, Uber said today as part of a larger announcement.

Why it matters: The company has tried to improve driver support in face of increased competition for gig workers and criticism for not providing enough support to drivers.

Electric vehicles are more likely to have defects than traditional gas cars, according to an Axios analysis of industry data.

Why it matters: With EVs promising to replace internal combustion engine (ICE) cars, their performance on traditional quality measures will be key to their adoption in the long run.

Actor Will Smith apologized to Chris Rock and his family for slapping the comedian at the Academy Awards earlier this year.

Why it matters: The nearly six-minute apology video, posted to Instagram and YouTube, is the latest apology from Smith about the controversial Oscars moment. He previously apologized in a statement in March.

Much of this week has been spent talking about the "r" word. A more precise description of where things stand is the "s" word: stagflation.

Why it matters: The latest data on wages and inflation, combined with last quarter's contraction, point to a mix of flat growth paired with persistently high inflation.

Cryptocurrency might change the world, but, until then, it's a horse race. Mainly, coins are fighting to get to third place.

Why it matters: Coins that get a lock in their position at the top are likely to have found what tech people call "product-market fit." That is, some set of people has found them decisively useful in some way.

Most publicly traded companies can only realize losses on crypto assets under U.S. accounting rules today. Gains only count if they sell.

Why it matters: Fifteen publicly traded companies have more than 1,000 bitcoin on their balance sheets (over $20 million worth), according to Bitcoin Treasuries.

A former Voyager Digital executive and board member is seeking more information to support his own restructuring plan for the now-distressed crypto lender's bankruptcy proceeding.

Driving the news: Shingo Lavine, who was Voyager Digital's chief innovation officer and a board member until February 2021, shared with Axios why the firm filed an objection with the United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York.

There isn't much left to say in the semantic debate over whether the U.S.'s two straight quarters of GDP contraction amounts to a recession.

The big picture: The committee of economists that arbitrates these things probably won't see it that way, but two quarters of contraction is indeed a common rule of thumb for recession. You can decide for yourself which definition you embrace. (See more here and here).

The stock market keeps chugging higher despite growing evidence that the economy is in deepening trouble.

Driving the news: The S&P 500 posted yet another gain Thursday, even after new data showed the economy shrank for a second straight quarter.

Even as economic storm clouds gather and the housing market craters, the rent is still too damn high across several metropolitan regions.

Driving the news: Rumors of New York City’s demise aren't entirely exaggerated, especially as soaring crime and remote work reshapes its culture. But rent inflation has yet to come back to earth.

I've driven a number of vehicles recently with Ford's BlueCruise hands-free highway driving assistant, and here's my takeaway: It's still a work in progress.

The big picture: Ford is only the second automaker to offer a true hands-free highway driving system. GM's Super Cruise was first in 2017.

Tech giants that have often sailed above the economy's turmoil can't escape the current downturn's pain, as this week's earnings reports from the sector's key companies illustrated.

Why it matters: Even as other industries struggled during the pandemic, tech prospered because so much of the economy shifted online. Now they are preparing to take a direct hit.

Americans have wagered hundreds of millions of dollars on lottery tickets just in the past two days, catapulting a U.S. lottery jackpot to more than $1 billion for only the fourth time ever.

Why it matters: Millions of people have bought a ticket, dreaming of what they would do with a post-tax lump sum estimated at more than $600 million.

Chicken wing prices are now declining after being hit by inflation and increased consumer demand during the pandemic, according to the CEO of one of the nation's largest chicken wing restaurants.

Why it matters: U.S. consumers, who are dealing with rising prices and record-high inflation, plan to buy more chicken than other types of protein in the twelve months ahead, according to a National Chicken Council study.

Regulators issued a stern order to bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Voyager Digital: stop telling customers their deposits are protected by the government, according to a letter sent to company executives on Thursday.

Why it matters: Voyager was one of the companies pushed into bankruptcy as turmoil swept the crypto market. The warning from regulators comes after a frenzy of customer confusion about whether their deposits would be reimbursed following a stretch of misleading claims from the company.

This appeared first in Axios Finish Line, as Axios CEO Jim VandeHei's weekly feature on hard-learned lessons for life and leadership.

Achieving insane success at work or in personal quests often requires insane effort and discipline, Jim writes.

Why it matters: Almost every person at the top of their game — be it sports or business — does extraordinary things to get their mind and body to perform optimally and at a higher level than others.

Bob Dylan's accuser on Thursday withdrew the lawsuit in which she alleged that the musician sexually abused her in 1965 when she was a 12-year-old girl.

Driving the news: The unnamed plaintiff asked a federal judge to dismiss the suit one day after Dylan's attorneys claimed she destroyed key messages related to the case, per Billboard and Law360.