🌏 Biden backs out

Good morning, Quartz readers!

Here’s what you need to know

U.S. President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 election race. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee to race against Republican Donald Trump.

The “Trump Trade” is expected to stall in the wake of Biden’s dropout. As U.S. markets open up today, volatility is nearly guaranteed and uncertainty could push investors toward so-called safe-haven assets.

A Southwest flight is under investigation for dangerously low altitude. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is looking into why the Boeing 737 Max aircraft descended to just 175 feet when it was still 3 miles from the airport.

Meta put its Metaverse dreams on a budget. The cost-cutting efforts could help save the company $3 billion, Bank of America analysts said. Meta is also hitting the breaks on some AI rollouts.

American Airlines and flight attendants reached a deal on Friday. Union workers got their first raise in five years as the threat of a strike for one of America’s biggest carriers ended.

U.S. lawmakers have a new bill aimed at healthcare cybersecurity. The Healthcare Cybersecurity Act would help hospitals and health insurers defend against threats.

What CrowdStrike says about consolidation

McDonald’s and Starbucks. FedEx and UPS. Hospitals in England, Germany, and the U.S. Delta, United, and American Airlines. The world’s biggest banks. It’s a hard-pressed task to find an industry that wasn’t affected by Friday’s massive global CrowdStrike outage.

After “blue screens of death” cascaded across the world and temporarily shut down operations for firms big and small, one thing became clear: it’s perilous to depend on software from just a few companies.

“The incident is a great example of the cascading failures that can occur given our relatively homogenous systems that comprise the backbone of IT infrastructure,” Gregory Falco, an assistant professor of engineering at Cornell University, said. “Cybersecurity providers are part of this homogenous backbone of modern systems and are so core to how we operate that a glitch in their operations will have similar impacts to failures in systems that are household names.”

Investors had the same thought: CrowdStrike’s rivals got a stock boost from the incident. Even conspiracy theorists chimed in. But only time will tell if CrowdStrike will remain the gold standard like analysts say it will.

Strollers are the new Birkin bag

Strollers have become a status identifier, a repository for parenting anxiety, and an emblem of consumerism run amok. As doctors and experts gather new research and best practices in childcare, strollers exemplify how quickly it’s all changing.

Strap in to episode 5 of the Quartz Obsession Podcast, season 8 — Strollers: Pushing the limits of childrearing cache — where host Rocio Fabbro talks with baby gear experts Jamie Grayson and Jen LaBracio about this latest movement in industrial design.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora

👓 Or, read the transcript 

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Surprising discoveries

The science that helps axolotl salamanders regrow their limbs could help us live longer. At least researchers found some evidence in mice that is making them hopeful.

So much ice is melting on Earth that it’s changing how quickly our planet spins. That’s making days longer.

Only 5% of Americans get excited when a stranger knocks on the door. Maybe what’s more surprising is that 5% of people even feel that way.

A rare orange lobster was saved from Red Lobster. He’s now hanging out at the aquarium in Denver.

Some Elvis memorabilia that was recently sold at an auction may not be real. For example, a one-of-a-kind jacket that’s hanging up in Graceland was up for sale.

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Our best wishes on a safe start to the day. Send any news, comments, the courage to open doors, and rescued orange lobsters to talk@qz.com. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Morgan Haefner.