The US government did not mince words yesterday: Live Nation and Ticketmaster need to split. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and 30 state and district attorneys general sued Live Nation, which refers to itself as the “largest live entertainment company in the world,” lodging a 120-page complaint that it purposefully stifles competition, hurts consumers, and unfairly jacks up ticket prices.

The suit alleges that Live Nation threatened to retaliate against venues that didn’t use its ticketing service and that artists who don’t use Live Nation’s tour promo services can’t perform at any of its venues.

• The DOJ said the company controls over 70% of ticket sales at major concert venues in the country.
• Plus, Live Nation controls 265 venues in North America and 60 of the top 100 amphitheaters in the US.

“This is a travesty!” Cried the Justice Department, which allowed the merger to happen 14 years ago. Industry pros had begged the DOJ to prevent Live Nation from buying Ticketmaster, warning of the same concerns the DOJ now cites in seeking to break them up.

Then came Taylor Swift…

The Eras Tour’s ticket-buying process was such a mess that a bipartisan group of senators brought Live Nation execs to Capitol Hill last year to grill them on the company’s practices. The DOJ’s investigation was announced shortly after the Swiftie debacle, though the agency claimed it had already been investigating the company.

Live Nation called the lawsuit “baseless.” In a company blog post, an executive claimed that the suit ignores price factors like artists’ popularity and scalpers. The post also says that Live Nation’s net profit margin was only 1.4% last year, too low to indicate a monopoly.

A long road ahead…the whole thing is expected to take years to move through the courts, especially since the suit requests a jury trial (which is unusual for this type of case).—MM

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Louisiana designated abortion pills as dangerous controlled substances. Lawmakers in the state voted to reclassify the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol, which would make possessing them without a prescription punishable with jail time. Louisiana becomes the first state to pass such a law, though other GOP-controlled states are considering similar measures. Supporters of the bill say it protects “expectant mothers from coerced abortions,” the AP reported, while doctors vehemently oppose it, saying it falsely gives the impression the drugs are dangerous and makes it harder to prescribe them to patients with other medical needs.

Biden is strengthening US ties to Kenya. The Biden administration welcomed Kenyan President William Ruto to the White House yesterday—the first time an African leader has made an official state visit to Washington in over 15 years, the Financial Times reported. President Biden is trying to bolster the US’ relationship with Africa to counter the growing influence of Russia and China on the continent in hopes that a closer relationship with Nairobi will enhance peace and security globally. As part of the meeting, the US is designating Kenya as a “major non-NATO ally,” the first from sub-Saharan Africa to receive the designation.

NOAA warned this hurricane season could be historically bad. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast 17 to 25 named tropical storms this upcoming season, the most it has ever predicted in its May outlook. Of those storms, eight to 13 are expected to become hurricanes, with four to seven likely to be Category 3 or higher—about double the usual number. Scientists believe warming temperatures are increasingly leading to more storms and helping to intensify the ones that form. The NOAA will provide an updated forecast in August.

Times New Roman walked so that Spotify Mix, a new custom typeface that the green-colored music streamer started rolling out to app and desktop this week, could lowkey two-step in a chill way.

Spotify says…the curved yet angled new font will add a more “distinctive character” to the brand’s products and marketing than the last font it used, Circular, which was not created for Spotify.

So what…? Spotify will be using a bespoke typeface that it owns, which means it no longer has to pay annual licensing fees like it did while using Circular. Spotify, welcome to the proprietary font club—they’ve been waiting:

• In the 2010s, tech giants looking to quirk up their brand identities churned out a lot of original typefaces, including Android’s Roboto, Google’s Product Sans, Apple’s San Francisco, YouTube Sans, and Samsung One, Mashable reported.
• There’s also Netflix Sans, Airbnb Cereal, Uber Move, Twitter/X’s Chirp, Burger King’s Flame, and Popeyes’s Chicken Sans.

Don’t sleep on font business. Dinamo Typefaces, which helped Spotify develop its pretty new letters, has also worked with Burberry, Discord, Nike, Patreon, Tumblr, and other big hitters. Advancements in screen resolution have opened up the doors for digital designers to create finer and more creative typefaces.—ML

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Here’s a drink that Ina Garten herself couldn’t have come up with: cicada-infused Malört.

That’s the newest offering at a small brewery outside Chicago in celebration of the arrival of two broods of cicadas that will emerge through mid-June across parts of the US. The liquor, which is described as having “a flavor reminiscent of succulent lobster,” represents the insect’s big glow-up from noisy bugs whose carcasses litter our sidewalks to protein-packed, eco-friendly superfood.

Yes, they’re edible. And if you like a seafood platter, you’ll probably take a liking to them. Once you catch, clean, and cook cicadas, they make a great substitute for shrimp or lobster, according to culinary experts, many of whom say they’re best tempura fried. Pro tip: The bugs are at their best once they’ve molted, or shed their skin, but are still young and juicy. Other pro tip: Don’t harvest dead cicadas.

There’s more to come. In 2022 and 2023, investors poured over $90 million into insect-based food companies, according to data from PitchBook, though many of those companies have found more success using insects as livestock feed or pet food rather than trying to make them appealing to humans.—CC

Quote: “Awful. Almost anti Royal putting this on front cover of a magazine.”

The Rolling Stone cover of a naked John Lennon cuddling up to Yoko Ono is no longer the most controversial magazine cover of a British icon. A portrait of Kate Middleton appears on the cover of the July issue of the British lifestyle mag Tatler, and the reviews are not so great. Comments on Tatler’s Instagram post revealing the cover are overwhelmingly negative: While some admire the art, most argue that it looks absolutely nothing like the Princess of Wales. Artist Hannah Uzor said she combed through hundreds of thousands of photos of Kate to “capture the soul.” The royal family has not yet commented on whether the soul was captured.

Stat: If the person next to you at graduation is weeping softly in their cap and gown, it’s not because your student body president’s speech is shockingly poignant. It’s because they, like 99% of other applicants, were rejected from Goldman Sachs’s summer internship. The prestigious investment bank said that just 0.9% of the record 315,000 applications were accepted this year, down from 5% a decade ago and the first time the rate’s been below 1%. JPMorgan’s wealth management internship was similarly cutthroat: The rival financial giant accepted only 4,000 of the 493,000 hopefuls, Business Insider reported. On the bright side, those rejected are no longer required to spend their paychecks on Patagonia zip-up vests.

Read: The case for getting rid of left turns on downtown streets. (WSJ)

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