When Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson take flight this month aboard the rockets their companies built, the fate of a burgeoning industry will be flying with them, Axios Space author Miriam Kramer writes.

• Why it matters: Accidents or errors on the flights by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin could derail dreams for commercial space tourism.

Virgin Galactic announced last week that it'll try to fly Branson on a fully crewed test flight on July 11 — just ahead of Blue Origin's first flight with Bezos, scheduled for July 20.

• The rivalry spilled out last week after the Branson announcement: Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith said Branson has a more modest goal.
• "We wish him a great and safe flight, but they’re not flying above the Kármán line and it’s a very different experience," Smith said in a statement. The Kármán line is the unofficial altitude at which space begins, about 62 miles up.

The big picture: Launching and building satellites is a big moneymaker in the space industry. But suborbital space tourism would get more people interested in the industry in the long-term.

• In theory, these flights should be more affordable and available to a large group of people who will only need to train for a day or two before going to the edge of space.

What to watch: A major failure would put pressure on Congress to start pushing for more regulation of private human spaceflight.

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At least one-third of the nearly 700 Republicans who have filed to run for House or Senate next year have embraced Donald Trump’s false election claims, the WashPost's Amy Gardner reports.

• "Across the country, ... Republican candidates for state and federal offices are increasingly focused on the last election."
• "Dozens of candidates promoting the baseless notion that the election was rigged are seeking powerful statewide offices — such as governor, attorney general and secretary of state, which would give them authority over the administration of elections."

"Boomerang workers," who returned to their hometowns to do remote work, are sticking around even as their employers reopen, Kim Hart writes in her new weekly column, "Tech Agenda."

• Why it matters: Workers used to move to where the jobs were, centralizing top talent in big coastal cities. Now, people can return to their roots, raise kids on familiar turf — or simply escape big city life.
• They can take their jobs with them when they high-tail it home. Some are starting their own businesses, jump-starting tech communities in mid-sized cities.

What's happening: Tech workers, in particular, are choosing to leave San Francisco, Seattle and New York — and are moving back to previous stops, or to their own hometown or a spouse's.

• In Tulsa, Okla., a program called Tulsa Remote offers people $10,000 to move to the city to work remotely.

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Up to 1,500 firms — in at least 17 countries — were hit with a holiday-weekend ransomware attack by the same Russia-linked gang that extorted meat processor JBS.

• The notorious gang REvil breached a Miami-based IT management firm, Kaseya (pronounced kass-AY-uh), then used a Kaseya product that helps protect against malware to scale the attack globally.
• Fewer than 60 Kaseya customers were hit, a company statement said. But "many of these customers provide IT services to multiple other companies," so the impact was much greater.

⚡ The latest: REvil said on its dark web site late Sunday that for $70 million in cryptocurrency, it would make available a universal decrypter to unscramble the affected machines, AP reports.

• Some researchers said the criminals apparently have more victims than they can manage.

Go deeper: Read Kaseya's statement.

Efforts to recall school board members are surging around the U.S. — especially in California — amid Republican efforts to quash teaching about institutional racism, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.

• Why it matters: School board recalls have traditionally stemmed from management disputes, open-meeting violations or allegations of corruption. Now, they're being fueled by controversies over race, and backlash to COVID closures and mask requirements.

At least 51 recall efforts involving K-12 school boards have been initiated so far this year, targeting 130 members.

• That's more than twice the annual average, according to Ballotpedia, which tracks election trends.
• Ballotpedia counted a yearly average of 23 recall efforts against 52 school board members between 2006 and 2020.
• California is home to 22 of the current recall efforts. Arizona and Idaho follow with six and four, respectively.

Reality check: Critical race theory — which holds that racism is baked into the formation of the nation and ingrained in legal, financial and education systems — developed in law schools in the 1970s.

• Some teachers have been criticized for merely mentioning systemic racism or Black Lives Matter protests.

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In the face of labor shortages, employers are offering more money, Sam Ro writes in Axios Markets.

• Strong gains are reported in lower-wage industries, including leisure, hospitality and retail.

The June jobs report on Friday showed average hourly earnings were up 0.3% month-over-month in June.

• On an annualized basis, the past three months of gains represent a 5.9% pace of growth — substantially higher than the 2.4% average from the last economic cycle (June 2009 to Feb. 2020).

The U.S. left Afghanistan's Bagram Airfield after 20 years by shutting off the electricity and slipping away in the night without notifying the base's new Afghan commander, AP's Kathy Gannon reports from Bagram.

• The commander, Gen. Mir Asadullah Kohistani, said he discovered the Americans' departure more than two hours after they left.

Kohistani said the U.S. left behind 3.5 million items — all itemized by the departing U.S. military — including tens of thousands of bottles of water, energy drinks and meals ready to eat (MREs).

• Big-ticket items include hundreds of armored vehicles and thousands of civilian vehicles — many without keys to start them.

China launched data-security probes into three technology companies shortly after their U.S. listings, catching global investors off guard, The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription).

• In four days, China’s cybersecurity regulator announced investigations of popular mobile apps operated by Didi, Full Truck Alliance and Kanzhun. The three raised a total of $7 billion from U.S. IPOs in June.

Above, private jets landed yesterday beside grazing cows in Sun Valley, Idaho, ahead of the annual Allen & Co. media conference, which brings together the rich and powerful from tech, finance and entertainment.

• Why it matters: After a year's COVID hiatus, the deal-making gathering will be a barometer for how power brokers are approaching industries drastically changed by the pandemic, Axios Media Trends author Sara Fischer writes.

Increased attention to streaming, gaming, cryptocurrency and e-commerce will put executives from Netflix, Activision Blizzard, Coinbase and Shopify in the spotlight.

• Several new faces will represent their companies as CEOs this year, including Amazon's Andy Jassy and Disney's Bob Chapek.

What's happening: The annual conference, known for exclusivity and casual business attire, gives high-powered executives the chance to meet privately to hash out partnerships and deals.

• Some of the biggest media deals of the past few decades — Verizon's acquisition of AOL, Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal, Jeff Bezos' purchase of The Washington Post — came out of the conference.

🍿 Go deeper: See who's attending

David Rubenstein — billionaire philanthropist, author, interviewer and co-founder of the Carlyle Group investment firm — told me this story ahead of tonight's launch of his new biweekly show, "Bloomberg Wealth":

Marc Andreessen, the now famous venture capitalist, visited Carlyle in the early '90s, seeking funding for something called Netscape.

When Andreessen explained that his idea would help navigate the internet, Rubenstein replied: "What is the internet, and why would I want to navigate it? … We would never invest in something ridiculous like that."

Netscape sold to AOL in 1998 for $4.2 billion. 

Rubenstein told me his half-hour show — premiering at 9 p.m. ET on Bloomberg Television — includes self-deprecating life lessons like that from him and his guests, some of the world's most successful investors.

• He said his conversations on "Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein" will show how people invested to become a world leader in a certain category, and how you and I can invest in that area.

Starting tonight with Blackstone president and COO Jonathan Gray, Rubenstein will interview the leaders in person, in their offices. He told me the interviews will be collected in a book planned for next year.

• Future guests include JPMorgan Chase Asset & Wealth Management CEO Mary Callahan Erdoes, Columbia Investment Management Co. president and CEO Kim Lew and ... Marc Andreessen.

Watch the trailer.