The Olympics officially commenced in a grand and elegant ceremony yesterday, the main character of which was the majestic River Seine. It was the first time in history that the Games’ opening ceremony was held outside of a stadium.

A flotilla of 85 boats carried 6,800 athletes to the site of the finale at the Trocadéro. There, the Olympic flag was (accidentally) raised upside down and French President Emmanuel Macron declared the Games open, after which the lit Olympic cauldron levitated in a hot-air balloon. The 3.7-mile riverine route allowed the host city to show off its architecture while thousands of Parisians and tourists enjoyed the spectacle from the embankments.

On land, there were carefully choreographed invocations of French culture and callbacks to history:

• A plumy Lady Gaga popped up in a cabaret act, and French-Malian pop star Aya Nakamura performed alongside the orchestra of the French Republican Guard. Céline Dion capped things off by belting out a tune from the Eiffel Tower in her first performance since 2020.
• A beheaded Marie Antoinette and Joan of Arc on a silver horse also appeared, while the mischievous Minions dropped the “Mona Lisa” into the supposedly cleaned-up Seine.

But the lady with a mysterious smile was not the only one to get soaked, as pouring rain continued throughout the event.

Force majeure

More than just the waves on the river created choppiness during the day: France woke up to transportation chaos. A major arson attack early yesterday morning scrambled high-speed rail service across the country, affecting 800,000 passengers, including some athletes on their way to Paris. Train service on three long-distance lines was suspended or delayed after unknown perpetrators set signaling cables ablaze at stations in different parts of the country (rail employees thwarted a fourth attack).

And a regional airport on the border with Switzerland was evacuated due to a bomb threat.

Security is top of mind…amid fears of terrorism and anxieties that Russia (whose athletes were banned from participating under the national flag) is cooking up malicious disruptions.—SK

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High-profile short seller accused of fraud. Citron Research founder Andrew Left is used to being the one calling out fraud, but yesterday, federal prosecutors and the SEC claimed he’s the one pulling a financial fast one. The government alleges that Left committed securities fraud by using his appearances on television and his social media accounts to make misleading statements that manipulated the market—and reaped $16 million in profit for doing so. Left declined to comment to news outlets, but his lawyer told the Wall Street Journal that the government’s cases were “based on a defective theory” and targeted Left for sharing his opinions.

Actors strike against video game companies. While striking actors may seem so last summer, SAG-AFTRA is on the picket lines again, this time after failing to reach an agreement with video game companies, including units of Activision, Electronic Arts, Warner Bros., and Disney. One big sticking point preventing a new contract for video game performers: AI. “We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse AI to the detriment of our members,” SAG-AFTRA President and former fictional nanny Fran Drescher said. “Enough is enough.”

⏸️ Bill Ackman’s fund postpones IPO. The billionaire hedge fund boss and frequent main character on X has delayed the stock market debut of the closed-end fund Pershing Square USA, which was scheduled for early next week, a notice on the New York Stock Exchange’s website said. The decision to wait came days after Ackman said in a letter to investors that the firm was downsizing its expectations for the share sale from a target of about $25 billion (which would have made it the largest-ever IPO of its kind) to something between $2.5 billion and $4 billion. Ackman has a similar fund already trading shares in Europe and has hinted he might take his larger firm, Pershing Square, public as soon as next year.

The US arrested two leaders of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels after one apparently tricked the other into boarding a private plane bound for the States, according to the Washington Post.

Authorities said they nabbed Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, believed to have co-founded the Sinaloa cartel along with the famed kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera (already in US custody). They also arrested El Chapo’s son Joaquín Guzmán López.

The Sinaloa cartel is thought to be the No. 1 supplier of fentanyl to the US and is credited with building the fentanyl trade.

Here’s what we know about the arrests:

• Both men boarded a private plane in Mexico. Guzmán López got Zambada on board under the pretense of looking at investment properties. The plane was actually headed to the US. Guzman had been working with US authorities to turn himself, and Zambada, in.
• Mexican officials did not know about the secret operation until the two were already in custody.

Zoom out: The arrests are part of a US crackdown on fentanyl amid an epidemic of addiction. But experts say that they’re unlikely to have an impact on the flow of the drug into the country: Many other unknown players remain to take the reins in the booming drug trade.—CC

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Words matter—except when they don’t. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that people can’t take “boneless wings” literally, quashing one restaurant patron’s yearslong effort to get compensation for chicken-related injuries.

Ohio man Michael Berkheimer sued his usual wing spot, its chicken supplier, and a farm in 2017 after—brace yourself—an inch-and-a-half-long bone in his order of boneless wings became lodged in his esophagus, leading to two surgeries.

In a 4–3 ruling, the Ohio Supreme Court’s majority outed itself as having never visited a sports bar wrote that no one but Berkheimer was responsible for guarding against an errant bone because “it is common sense” that “boneless” doesn’t guarantee bonelessness, but rather describes a “cooking style.”

• “No sensible person has ever written such a thing,” the dissent countered, calling the majority’s logic “jabberwocky” and reasoning that parents who give their kids boneless-labeled chicken expect no bones.
• The dissent also favored remanding the civil case to a jury trial so it could be decided by average wing-eaters, who the majority justices claimed would interpret “boneless” figuratively, “just as a person eating ‘chicken fingers’ would know that he had not been served fingers.”

Worst case…the dissent warned that this ruling could protect restaurants that serve gluten or lactose to patrons who specified their allergies.—ML

While being able to place bets on your phone might add more spice to your weekly get-together to watch the game than nachos do, a new working paper by researchers at UCLA and USC found that legalized sports betting—especially online or mobile versions—has been bad for consumer health. With 38 states legalizing betting and $300 billion wagered since a Supreme Court ruling paved the way in 2018, the paper found that, in states that allow online access to betting:

• Credit scores decreased by ~1%, suggesting a dip in creditworthiness.
• Bankruptcies increased ~28%.
• Debt transferred to debt collectors went up 8%.

One of the study’s authors noted on X that they were looking at averages, so while most of the millions of people betting probably weren’t impacted, some likely suffered very severe impacts.