Happy Monday! Axios AM brings you what matters, in Smart Brevity. (Today: 1,130 words!)
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Happy Monday! Axios AM brings you what matters, in Smart Brevity. (Today: 1,130 words!)
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Corporate America is calling on Congress to pass big climate policy in the most aggressive and united way since 2009, Axios' Amy Harder writes in her weekly "Harder Line" energy column.
The intrigue: This is happening against a tumultuous background that may not welcome such a shift.
Where it stands: Three separate but similar corporate-led campaigns are calling for an explicit price on carbon emissions.
Be smart: This is driven by investor and legal pressure, falling prices for renewable energy, new bounties of cleaner-burning natural gas and growing public concern about a warming planet.
Go deeper and read the rest of Amy’s column.
Editor's note: This piece was corrected to show new funding for Americans for Carbon Dividends is $1 million each from Shell and BP and $200,000 from EDF Renewables (not each offering $1 million).
Fireworks flare over Marine One after President Trump's rally in Panama City Beach, Fla., on May 8. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
What’s new: President Trump plans to formally launch his re-election campaign next month, likely with a burst of swing-state rallies, Republican sources tell me.
What's next: In conversations, Trump makes it clear that he thinks of the official kickoff as June 16 — four years to the day since he rode down the gold escalator in Trump Tower to announce his improbable 2016 run.
Be smart: Watch for Trump and his campaign to try to sap attention from Democratic debates with their own counter-programming.
Technology investor Robert F. Smith (net worth: $5 billion) announced in his commencement address at all-male, historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta that he'd pay off the student debt of the entire Class of 2019.
Smith, founder of Vista Equity Partners, "became the richest black man in America." (N.Y. Times)
By the numbers: The college couldn't estimate the amount owed by the class of 396. But Morehouse said its students graduate with an average debt of $30,000 to $40,000. That would be up to $16 million for this class. (AP)
🎓 Axios President Roy Schwartz will deliver the commencement address for University of Maryland's Department of Communication on May 23.
16,000 tons of Bethlehem Steel collapsed in 16 seconds as a demolition crew imploded the defunct steelmaker's former world headquarters in Bethlehem, Pa.
Video: Watch Martin Tower collapse.
What's new: Data shows millennials are "in worse financial shape than every preceding living generation and may never recover," The Wall Street Journal's Janet Adamy and Paul Overberg write (subscription).
Why it matters: "They have less wealth, less property, lower marriage rates and fewer children."
Mayor Pete on Trump, during a Fox News town hall in New Hampshire:
Trump on Mayor Pete, during an interview with Fox News' Steve Hilton, who asked about "a guy there on the stage with his husband, and it’s normal?"
P.S. ..."The powerful Lebanese Hezbollah militia has thrived for decades on generous cash handouts from Iran, ... accumulating a formidable arsenal that has helped make the group a significant regional force, with troops in Syria and Iraq," write the Washington Post's Liz Sly and Suzan Haidamous.
Uber's explosive growth to a valuation of more than $3 billion within three years of its seed round was notable, but today's scooter startups have ascended even faster, Axios' Kia Kokalitcheva writes.
"How did we in our business get in the spot where we spend 90 percent of our coverage on the 10 percent of our lives influenced by politics and 10 percent of our coverage on the 90 percent of our lives influenced by relationship, community and the places we live in every day?"
No spoilers! Winter has come and winter has gone ...
Quick take: "Series finale leaves viewers feeling loss — either because show is over or because they hated last episodes."
The data: "Last week’s episode pulled in 18.4 million viewers across all HBO’s viewing platforms, a record for the series, up from 17.8 million the week before."
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