Daily Brew // Morning Brew // Update

May 22, 2026

It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday. You can’t stop him, you can only hope to contain him: Stephen Leatherman, the coastal scientist better known by his totally tubular nickname, “Dr. Beach,” is back with his annual ranking of the best seasides in the US. Here are his top three for this summer:

Poipu Beach, Kauai, Hawaii
St. Andrews State Park, Panama City, Florida
Caladesi Island State Park, Dunedin, Florida

Now we just need Dr. Sandwich to tell us what to pack.

—Sam Klebanov, Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Dave Lozo, Adam Epstein, Holly Van Leuven

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

Why quantum stocks popped off yesterday
A new, super powerful weight loss drug
Victoria’s Secret’s “sexy” new stock ticker

MARKETS

Nasdaq

26,293.10

+0.09%

S&P

7,445.72

+0.17%

Dow

50,285.66

+0.55%

10-Year

4.586%

+1.0 bps

Bitcoin

$77,615.28

-0.02%

Spotify

$489.93

+13.06%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 4:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Like your coworker sheepishly approaching your desk with a “quick question,” stocks crept up yesterday, as investors felt optimistic about Iran peace talks. Meanwhile, Spotify soared after it announced an AI deal with Universal Music and revealed plans to let users buy concert tickets before they go on sale to the general public.

TAKING A SUPER POSITION

Quantum stocks explode after Uncle Sam wants in

Angela Weiss/Getty Images

The US government is bankrolling a type of computer even your nerdiest friend can’t build at home. The Trump administration said yesterday that it plans to invest $2 billion in several quantum computing companies in exchange for equity stakes.

It’s the most significant government boost yet for the experimental tech with the potential to speed up computing. Federal dollars will flow to nine companies, including the publicly traded IBM, D-Wave, Rigetti Computing, and Infleqtion. Their shares jumped as much as 31% on the news.

Schrödinger’s stake

Intended to aid America’s quantum leadership, the investment will come from the CHIPS and Science Act passed under the Biden administration:

IBM will get $1 billion, which it will match to set up a dedicated quantum computer chip manufacturing company in Albany, NY. Quantum chipmaker GlobalFoundries will receive $375 million.
D-Wave, Rigetti, and Infleqtion will each receive $100 million.

The Trump admin’s foray into quantum computing expands its unorthodox, federally funded portfolio of investments in industries that it deems critical for national security. Last year, it took a 10% stake in Intel, and it has since invested in several companies that mine critical minerals.

Why quantum?

All computers store information in something called a bit. Unlike classical computers, in which bits take the value of 1 or 0, quantum computers run on qubits—which can take the value of 1 and 0 simultaneously. In other words, this could make them vastly more powerful than ordinary computers, helping to turbocharge innovation in cybersecurity, engineering, drug development, and defense. McKinsey estimates that quantum computing could give a $2.7 trillion boost to the global economy by 2035.

But…critics say that the Trump administration might be taking an unjustifiably risky gamble with taxpayer cash by investing it into an unproven technology. Companies are still trying to fix quantum computers’ tendency to make errors, which currently makes them impractical for commercial use.

Payoff will likely take years…with Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, recently saying that practical applications of quantum computers are likely about 20 years away. Bill Gates, however, mused that they could come in as little as three years.—SK

READER POLL

Be honest. Do you understand what quantum computing is?

Yes, of course. I have a PhD.
I get the gist. I think.
Not in the slightest. And I’m not ashamed.

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WORLD

Tour de headlines

The Washington Post/Getty Images

Trump postponed his executive order on AI. President Trump was set to sign an executive order on the AI industry yesterday, but had a change of heart at the last minute. “I didn’t like certain aspects of it,” he told reporters. The order would have designated the US government and civilian agencies to review new AI models before they were released to the public, amid rising concerns over cybersecurity. But Axios reported that the order was stalled, in part, due to disagreements within the administration. It’s unclear when the signing would be rescheduled.—AE

SpaceX scrubbed test flight launch at last minute, will try again today. The debut launch of the third version of the company’s Starship rocket in Starbase, TX, did not go ahead as planned yesterday evening, despite the hosts of a SpaceX livestream saying the vehicle was totally loaded during a 90-minute launch window that opened at 6:30pm ET. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on X that a ground equipment problem was to blame, writing, “The hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract.” He said if the pin could be fixed overnight, the launch would happen at 6:30pm ET today. This test flight will likely be the last before SpaceX goes public. The company has invested $15 billion in its Starship program.—HVL

In last Late Show, Colbert pulled out the stops and turned off the lights. After a 33-year run, and 11 years with Stephen Colbert at the helm, CBS’s The Late Show played the Ed Sullivan Theater in NYC a final time last night. In his opening, Colbert expressed gratitude for the 1,800 episodes he hosted, saying, “We call it the joy machine, because to do this many shows, it has to be a machine. But the thing is, if you choose to do it with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears.” A stream of notable figures appeared, including Bryan Cranston, Jon Stewart, Tig Notaro, Ryan Reynolds, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. Colbert’s final guest was not Pope Leo, but Paul McCartney, who made his American TV debut with the Beatles at the same theater in 1964. McCartney ended the show by singing “Hello, Goodbye” with Colbert and former Late Show band leader Jon Batiste contributing backup vocals, before McCartney and Colbert turned off the lights together.—HVL

CLEAR THE WEIGH

New Eli Lilly drug may be the strongest GLP-1 yet

Jwala Kotesh/Getty Images

Remember the name retatrutide. It’s Eli Lilly’s latest experimental GLP-1, and patients who took it lost the most weight ever recorded in a medication trial, according to results announced yesterday.

The study isn’t yet peer-reviewed, but it appears to show retatrutide leaving other GLP-1s in the dust:

The highest dose made patients lose an average of 28% of their body mass after 80 weeks, running nearly a full lap around the highest dose of Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy (~15% weight loss after 68 weeks).
The lowest dose of retatrutide still delivered 19% weight loss, making it nearly as effective as the highest dose of Lilly’s Zepbound.

The first GLP-1 that could rival surgery. The trial’s heaviest patients lost an average of 30% of their body weight (or 85 pounds) after two years on retatrutide. That’s about on par with weight loss from gastric bypass surgery.

But…Lilly said 11% of participants on the highest retatrutide dose quit the study because of gastrointestinal side effects—a bigger dropout rate than for less powerful obesity drugs. Some patients in earlier trials also discontinued retatrutide because they felt they were losing too much weight.

Looking ahead…hot off a major earnings beat and regulatory approval for its new weight loss pill, Lilly expects to file for the FDA’s greenlight on retatrutide as early as this year.—ML

Friday puzzle

What characteristic do the following terms have in common?

Attorney general
Mother-in-law
Runner-up
Right-of-way
Heir apparent
Passer-by

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ANSWER

When you make them plural, you add an “s” after the first word, not after the last: attorneys general, mothers-in-law, etc.

(Source)

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: tubular, meaning “awesome, amazing, or excellent” in surfer culture. Thanks to Tim from Augusta, GA, for the suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

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☕ Schrödinger’s stake