In between slamming hot dogs and sweating through your good polo, you’ll likely spot this summer’s most notorious backyard barbecue crasher: quirky skeleton decor. Retailers have slowly been pushing the start dates for Halloween merch drops back for the past few years to boost sales.

And for some, like Michaels, 2024 is the earliest they’re putting a tiny cauldron on the shelves. The craft store released its first in-store Halloween collection in late June this year, the company’s chief merchandising officer told Axios. Just three years ago, Michaels didn’t start stocking spooky trinkets until August.

• This is also the second year Home Depot hosted its “Halfway to Halloween” event during which the retailer sold limited quantities of Halloween items on April 25 (though it won’t stock the collections in-store until the first week of September).
• Lowe’s and Target also dropped Halloween items online earlier than in previous years, according to Axios.

Since 2019, peak Halloween item sales on Amazon have been scooting back a week every year, according to trend forecasting service Granularity. Five years ago, most sales of Halloween items took place during the last week of September, but last year, they happened in mid-August.

Plastic flamingos and inflatable kiddie pools don’t keep the fluorescent lights on

Last year, Halloween spending was expected to hit a record $12.2 billion, according to a National Retail Federation report. Retailers are hopeful that even as consumers pull back in some areas this year, fake cobwebs and goofy-grinning pumpkins will keep selling.

Plus, every couple of years, the algorithm rewards one lucky retailer with tons of free advertising from a viral holiday item like Home Depot’s 12-foot-tall skeleton or Target’s gargantuan pumpkin ghoul named Lewis.

Some stores are more desperate than others: Cashing in on spooky season and TikTok’s “Summerween” trend has become especially important for chains like Home Depot and Lowe’s, which have been riding out the decline in home renovation spending post-pandemic.—MM

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Donald Trump talked to Elon Musk. The pair had a discussion on X Spaces that Musk categorized as a “conversation” rather than an “adversarial interview.” The wide-ranging chat touched on the economy, energy, inflation, education, the possibility of nuclear war, and illegal immigration, with Trump claiming other countries are sending criminals to the US. Musk also said dictators would fear Trump, as Trump asserted the wars in Gaza and Ukraine would not have happened if he were president. X appeared not quite ready for political prime time: Technical glitches initially made the interview inaccessible to many would-be viewers. Musk said the trouble was due to a deliberate attack on the system. Before the interview: 1) Trump posted on X for the first time in nearly a year and 2) the European Union warned Musk to beware of disseminating misinformation or inciting violence on the platform in violation of EU law.

Hindenburg allegations tank Adani stocks…again. Companies owned by the Adani Group lost ~$2.4 billion in value yesterday after short seller Hindenburg Research claimed the chair of India’s capital markets regulator didn’t thoroughly look into its earlier fraud allegations against the conglomerate because she had previously invested in offshore funds tied to Adani. It could have been worse for Adani: Earlier in the day, the companies were down ~$13.4 billion before making a partial comeback. At one point after Hindenburg made its initial allegations last year, the Adani Group shed $150 billion in value. Both Adani and the regulator deny any wrongdoing.

Firefighters battle dangerous wildfires near Athens. Hundreds of firefighters and dozens of water-bombing aerial units worked yesterday amid high winds to control the fast spreading wildfire with 80-foot flames that began Sunday in Varnavas, a suburb north of Athens. Greek authorities ordered evacuations of many areas as the fire tore through pine forests left especially dry by recent heat waves. Injuries were reported, primarily caused by smoke inhalation. As of last night, there was one known fatality.

What’s worse than a rejection? Two rejections, back to back. Fresh off a thumbs-down from the FDA, the psychedelic therapies company Lykos Therapeutics says it’ll challenge an academic journal that retracted three papers about MDMA whose co-authors were affiliated with Lykos, the medical news site Stat reported yesterday.

Retraction reason: “Protocol violations amounting to unethical conduct” surrounding an MDMA therapy trial led by Lykos’s parent organization, editors of the journal Psychopharmacology wrote over the weekend.

• Lykos admitted that it failed to notify the journal about sexual assault allegations made against one of the trial’s therapists, who had an expired psychology license.
• The company filed a complaint with a publication ethics committee because it says the papers’ findings are still “scientifically sound.”

Lykos says the retracted papers weren’t part of the application for its MDMA-assisted PTSD therapy that America’s trip-sitter, the FDA, denied on Friday. Regulators cited data limitations and asked Lykos to do another Phase 3 trial, which could take years.

Consider the roll slowed. Approval of Lykos’s MDMA therapy—which would’ve been the first federally approved psychedelic—was widely expected. But cracks started forming in recent months when allegations surfaced of researchers suppressing negative results. The FDA’s “no” vote goes against lobbying efforts by veterans organizations and the recommendation of 80 bipartisan lawmakers, and it could postpone a potential windfall of investing in the growing field of psychedelic medicine.—ML

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Cybersecurity pros are among the most vital campaign staffers this election season alongside speechwriters and meme slingers. The potential for cyber chaos came to the fore when the Trump campaign said this weekend that it was hacked by “foreign sources hostile to the United States” after at least two news outlets were sent internal campaign information.

• Trump’s team referenced a recent Microsoft report about Iranian government-tied hackers accessing the internal documents of an unspecified presidential campaign via phishing email. Trump claimed only publicly available information was obtained.
• The FBI is investigating the suspected hacking by Iran, as well as attempts to hack the Biden–Harris campaign (back when that was the ticket) and Trump advisor Roger Stone, according to the Washington Post.

Experts see the hacking of the Trump campaign as an alarming throwback to when Russian operatives hacked Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016 and worry other foreign hackers might be cracking their knuckles.

It’s not just hacking

A government intelligence report last month warned that China, Russia, and Iran are all running online influence campaigns in the US. And last week, Microsoft detailed how the trio is trying to sway voter sentiment, undermine trust in elections, or stir the pot by disseminating misinformation.

In one devious tactic, Iran set up fake news sites targeting Americans across the political spectrum, one of which referred to Trump as an “opioid-pilled elephant in the MAGA china shop,” Microsoft found.

Stay skeptical: The former head of America’s cybersecurity agency under Trump, Chris Krebs, summed it up as “a multi-front gray zone assault on the American mind.”—SK

Millionaires are on the move like they’re your colleague who’s a little too psyched to win the office Strava challenge. Global migration advisory firm Henley & Partners expects that a record 128,000 millionaires will relocate this year, smashing the record of 120,000 millionaire movers set last year.⁠ Some are seeking new countries because the ones they’re in are trying to get more taxes from them—including the UK, a historical haven for foreigners looking for low taxes. And as global wealth shifts, plenty of countries are willing to accept low taxes to get it to shift toward them. Switzerland, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, and Singapore are among the countries with low tax programs aimed at enticing wealthy foreign expats, and Dubai even offers no income or capital taxes for individuals, according to the Financial Times.