• Airline rating company Skytrax has released its 2024 list of the world's best low-cost airlines.
• AirAsia was named the top low-cost airline in the world for the 15th year in a row. 
• Allegiant Air is the highest-ranked US airline on the list. 

AirAsia has been named the best low-cost airline in the world according to travelers surveyed by travel industry rating company Skytrax.

Skytrax published its latest survey results in June as part of the 2024 World Airlines Awards, which named Qatar Airways the world's best airline.

Budget carriers from Europe and the UK accounted for 9 of the top 20 spots in the Skytrax rankings, compiled using feedback from travelers from over 100 countries on more than 350 airlines.

Prominent US low-cost carriers like Southwest, Spirit, and Frontier failed to crack the top 20.

Here's a closer look at the 20 best low-cost airlines in the world, according to Skytrax:

20. Sun Country Airlines

Sun Country operates a fleet of Boeing 737s from its base in Minneapolis to leisure destinations across the US, the Caribbean, and Central America.

Sun Country was the 89th-ranked carrier in Skytrax's list of 100 best airlines in the world.

19. JetStar Asia

Jetstar Asia is a Singapore-based subsidiary of Australian low-cost carrier Jetstar Airways, which is itself part of Qantas.

18. Allegiant Air

Allegiant Air is the highest-ranked US-based low-cost carrier on the list in 18th position. The Las Vegas-based leisure airline operates a fleet of Airbus A320-family aircraft, although its long-awaited fleet of Boeing 737MAX aircraft is expected to arrive this year.

17. JetSMART Airlines

Ultra-low-cost carrier JetSMART operates a fleet of Airbus A320-family aircraft to destinations across South America from its headquarters in Santiago, Chile.

16. SKY Airline

Sky Airline won the prize for South America's top low-cost carrier. This is the fourth time the Chilean carrier has won the award.

15. Jetstar Airways

Jetstar, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qantas, was named the top low-cost carrier in Australia/Oceania. Jetstar operates a fleet of Airbus A320-family aircraft and Boeing 787 Dreamliner widebody jets.

14. Eurowings

Eurowings is the low-cost subsidiary of German's Lufthansa Group. The airline operates a fleet of Airbus A320-family aircraft to destinations across Europe and the Middle East.

13. Jet2.com

Jet2 is a British low-cost airline that operates both scheduled and chartered flights to leisure destinations across Europe.

12. flyDubai

FlyDubai is Dubai's most prominent low-cost carrier. Its fleet is comprised exclusively of Boeing 737 aircraft. In 2023, the airline launched lie-flat business class suites on board its new Boeing 737MAX airliners.

11. EasyJet

EasyJet is the UK's top-rated low-cost carrier according to the latest Skytrax rankings.

10. Ryanair

Dublin-based Ryanair is arguably the most well-known low-cost airline in the world, most famous for its laughably low prices and penny-pinching business practices. The Irish airline is also one of the world's largest operators of the Boeing 737.

9. Iberia Express

Iberia Express is the low-cost offshoot of Iberia, Spain's national carrier. As a result, it is one of the airlines that make up the International Airlines Group (IAG) alongside British Airways, Aer Lingus, and fellow Spanish low-cost carrier, Vueling.

8. airBaltic

AirBaltic operates a fleet comprised exclusively of the Airbus A220. The Latvian low-cost carrier was one of the first airlines in the world to adopt the Canadian jet and remains one of its largest operators.

7. Vueling

Vueling is Spain's largest low-cost carrier. Like the country's flag carrier, Iberia, Vueling is a subsidiary of IAG alongside British Airways and Aer Lingus.

6. IndiGo

IndiGo is India's top low-cost carrier and one of the largest operators of Airbus A320-family aircraft in the world. In 2023, the airline began experimenting with long-haul international flights with a pair of Boeing 777-300ERs leased from Turkish Airlines.

5. Transavia France

Transavia France is a low-cost subsidiary of the Air France-KLM Group.

4. Flynas

Saudi Arabia's Flynas is the highest-rated Middle Eastern low-cost carrier in the Skytrax ranking. The airline, which launched in 2007, operates a fleet of Airbus A320 and A330 airliners.

3. Volotea

Spain's Volotea is the highest-ranked of the 9 European carriers on the list. The airline operates a fleet of Airbus A320-family aircraft on flights across Europe and the Mediterranean.

2. Scoot

Singapore's Scoot is a low-cost subsidiary of Singapore Airlines. The airline took home the award for the world's best long-haul low-cost airline.

1. AirAsia

For the 15th year in a row, AirAsia is the top low-cost carrier in the world. The Malaysia-based carrier and its subsidiaries across Southeast Asia operate an all-Airbus fleet.

• David Ellison says the new Paramount will be a "World-Class Media and Technology Enterprise."
• He's Oracle founder Larry Ellison's son, so he's definitely got tech connections.
• But how does that make Paramount a tech company? And does it need to be?

You might think that David Ellison, the Hollywood producer poised to finally acquire Paramount, thinks he is buying a struggling movie studio and television conglomerate.

And you'd be right!

But Ellison says he's getting more than that for his billions: He's also buying the building blocks for what will eventually be a "World-Class Media and Technology Enterprise."

If that sounds familiar, there's a good reason for that: This spring, I noted that people in David Ellison's camp were telling journalists that his plan for reviving Paramount involved infusing the company with lots of tech and tech know-how. And the suggestion was that at least some of that was going to be supplied by Oracle, the company founded by his father, Larry Ellison — who is one of the world's richest men and a primary investor in the new Paramount-to-be.

We've heard this before from David Ellison

As I said back in April, the Paramount-powered-by-Oracle pitch doesn't make sense. And David Ellison isn't exactly making it now. But he is definitely leaning on the idea that he's building a media company that is also a tech company.

Here he was on Monday morning, speaking on an investor call to sell the Paramount deal (the text is via a rush transcript):

"We need to transition New Paramount to a world class tech media and technology enterprise. The first thing we need to do is double down on the core competency of storytelling across mediums. But also when you look at the landscape as it exists today, there are a lot of technology companies that are rapidly expanding into media companies, and we believe it is essential for Paramount to be able to expand its technological prowess to be both a media and technology enterprise."

Ellison then pointed to a slide in his pitch deck pushing his tech plans from the company, which include making its streaming service better, using cloud servers, and using "AI tools to enhance creativity while driving production efficiencies."

And then Ellison kept going, connecting himself to his father's friend Steve Jobs, Apple and Pixar, the animation studio Jobs built up and eventually sold to Disney:

"Having had the privilege of being mentored by Steve Jobs and getting to watch him build Pixar from the ground up, one of my favorite quotes that him and [Pixar leader John Lasseter] always had was the art challenges the technology and the technology inspires the art. And [the] belief that understanding of the symbiotic relationship between art and technology is essential to be able to meet this moment in time for storytelling."

This all sounds great — or at least interesting — in theory. But it's also a head-scratcher.

That's partly because David Ellison isn't a tech mogul. He's a producer who makes and sells movies and TV shows, more or less like everyone else in the business.

During the call, Ellison touted his success using Oracle's cloud tech to help build his animation division with Lasseter, and I'll take his word on that. But this reminds me a bit of the 2015 era when digital publishers like BuzzFeed and Vox Media told investors they weren't media companies but tech companies that made media. Spoiler: They turned out to be media companies.

The bigger problem with the tech + media pitch isn't that tech and media aren't intertwined. They very much are.

The real problem that Paramount — and just about every other big media company — has these days isn't that its tech isn't good enough. It's that its scale isn't big enough.

Why media companies want you to think of them as tech firms

That's why you constantly hear about media companies — including Paramount — as potential M&A targets: Investors believe they can't take on Netflix and YouTube on their own.

That's also why you constantly hear about streamers trying to bundle themselves together — something both Ellison and Paramount's previous managers have been openly talking up as well.

So, techifying Paramount's streaming operations sounds … fine — if Ellison and crew can really do a better job than Paramount's old guard. But it won't be adequate.

"Streaming tech across all of legacy media is underwhelming, so they all need an upgrade," says Lightshed Partners analyst Rich Greenfield, who wrote a prescient note on this theme last week. "However great tech doesn't matter without massive amounts of content — because you need watch time per user per day to be multiples higher" — because that's how you would tune a useful algorithm that lets users find shows and movies they want to watch.

All of which tells you why the Paramounts of the world aren't just struggling against Netflix, which has a deep technological culture married to a deep catalog of content it has been mining for years. It's also why they're struggling against the likes of Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, who apply their tech knowledge to unending supplies of content their users supply for little to no cost.

So, under the best-case scenario — one where David Ellison really is a tech wizard or knows how to put tech wizards to work — he's going to have his work cut out for him. And if he turns out to just be a guy who's been good at making TV shows and movies? It's going to be even harder.

• I secured a great deal on a premium-economy seat on a long-haul Emirates flight.
• This was my first time in premium economy, and I was surprised at how upgraded the experience felt. 
• Premium economy is worth trying, especially if you can find a good deal like I did.

I had to fly from Melbourne, Australia, to Dubai with only a few weeks' notice, and unfortunately, airfares for direct flights were expensive.

Emirates has three direct flights from Melbourne to Dubai a day at 9 p.m., 2 a.m., and 5 a.m. I wanted to get the 9 p.m. flight as it's the most convenient time to depart, but the airfare was over $1,400. The 2 a.m. flight was a similar price.

However, the 5 a.m. flight didn't seem very popular or full, and I found a premium-economy ticket for about $1,250, which was cheaper than economy seats on other flights that day.

Although my flight was expensive, it seemed like I got a solid deal for a premium upgrade. Rates vary, but I've seen many of Emirates' premium-economy seats cost $800 to $1,500 more than ones in coach.

Plus, I was actually looking forward to my 14-hour trip since Emirates recently placed third in Skytrax's overall world's best airlines of 2024 awards — and its premium-economy class came in second.

Here's what my first premium-economy flight was like.

I left home at 2 a.m. to catch my flight, but my excitement kept me feeling upbeat.

A 5 a.m. flight meant an early wake-up call, but looking forward to my upgraded trip put me in a positive mindset before the 14-hour flight.

My experience at the airport was great, too, as there was a dedicated check-in area and priority boarding for premium-economy flyers.

The seats were bigger and far more comfortable than I had expected.

The premium-economy cabin was at the front of the plane, separate from economy. It consisted of just a few rows, which made it feel exclusive.

Two premium-economy seats took up about the same space amount of space as three economy seats, so I had a lot of room to stretch out.

With the extra width and seat recline, I didn't feel cramped and could easily relax or stretch out to sleep.

The seat-back entertainment screens were also a nice size at just over 13 inches, which made watching movies a better experience.

Across the whole cabin, there was a feeling of more space.

The aisles in premium economy felt wider, which allowed for easy movement throughout the cabin. Passengers weren't bumping into the aisle seats to try to squeeze through like they often do in economy.

At the front of the cabin, there was a decent amount of space, so I walked around and even did some stretches and Pilates — a great way to keep my muscles moving and blood flowing on a long flight.

There was rarely a queue for the toilets as there were three dedicated restrooms in premium economy that easily accommodated the number of passengers in the cabin.

The in-flight food felt premium, too.

Breakfast was served about 45 minutes after takeoff, which was great timing so I could eat and then go right to sleep. I also got lunch about halfway through the flight and a hot snack shortly before we landed.

My meals, which I was able to select from a long menu, were served on actual dishware with metal cutlery. Without disposable utensils and plates, the dining experience felt way more premium.

The food was tasty and filling, and additional snacks like nuts, chips, and fruit were available throughout the flight.

I kept hydrated via a constant supply of water bottles, and although I didn't drink, there was a wide range of complimentary liquor, beer, and wine on offer.

The onboard service was pretty great.

Emirates staff was attentive, and with the premium-economy section pretty empty, my flight felt more personalized.

The onboard crew seemed friendly and always ready to help.

When I asked a crew member to take some photos of me, she didn't hesitate and even offered to give me a tour of both the business and first-class cabins.

I felt a bit like an intruder as I took her up on the offer. The seats, amenities, and experience in these cabins seemed another few levels up — and they gave me something to aim for in the future.

Overall, the experience exceeded my expectations, and I'm glad I found a deal.

The flight went by quickly — well, as quickly as 14 hours can go —and I felt more rested than on previous long-haul flights.

I can see why Emirates' premium economy is rated so highly, and I'd recommend trying it, even if you have to pay a little more.

After my ticket for less than coach, I'd also suggest looking at the cost of premium economy on less desirable flights. You may need a bit of luck and some last-minute planning, but it might pay off.

Getting up earlier than I wanted was worth it to travel with perks — and flying in premium economy is certainly a great way to kick off any trip.

• This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.
• You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Welcome back! Summer vacation have you dreaming about giving it all up and moving abroad? Luckily, six European towns are offering cash to help you move there.

Speaking of money and vacations: In today's big story, summer vacation means financial stress for parents looking to keep their kids busy while school is out without breaking the bank.

What's on deck:

• Markets: The June jobs report is good news for a potential rate cut.
• Tech: The founder of Gen Z's new favorite app details how she plans to avoid being just a fad.
• Business: The three worst letters in real estate: HOA.

But first, hello campers!

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The big story

The cost of summer

School's out for summer, but the relief for kids is causing financial pain for their parents.

Summer can be a money pit for parents scrambling to keep their kids entertained in July and August, write Business Insider's Juliana Kaplan and Madison Hoff.

Summer childcare isn't cheap. Nearly a quarter of recently surveyed parents with kids in a summer program said they expect to pay more than $1,000 a month per child this summer. And those costs can balloon well beyond that, with one family spending $6,000 for a three-week sleepaway camp.

Further complicating things is most camps don't cover the two-plus months parents need to fill for their kids. The result is sometimes a patchwork system of camps and part-time nannies that parents need to cobble together.

Sometimes costs crop up before camp even starts. Parents spend hundreds, or even thousands, on packing and prepping their kids before shipping them off.

Just about everyone feels the squeeze on their wallets when the temperature rises.

An Intuit Credit Karma survey found 61% of parents with children under 18 said it "feels even more expensive to raise kids in the summer months."

It's a brutal reality check for parents who thought their days of high childcare costs were behind them when they became DIPS (dual income, public school).

Instead, some are even going into debt, despite sky-high credit card interest rates, to make it work.

Things don't always get easier once kids are at camp, though.

This year, skincare products proved to be a lightning rod for kids and parents at elite summer camps, writes BI's Anna Silman. Outright bans or restrictions on luxury skincare products — because nine-year-olds need their daily lip oil — created chaos among their tweens.

Of course, drama comes with the price of admission at these fancy establishments, which can run $16,000 for the summer.

In 2021, Anna reported on how parents were up in arms over the daily photos shown from camp. Parents inundated camp employees with concerned or critical emails and calls as they tried to parent their children from hundreds of miles away.

News brief

Your Monday headline catchup

A quick recap of the top news from over the weekend:

• Boeing's big mea culpa just dropped and it doesn't look pretty.
• Modi's Russia visit shows India isn't worried about making the US mad.
• Kamala Harris won't save Democrats if she takes over for Biden, warns historian who correctly predicted 9 of the last 10 elections.
• France's left-wing alliance blocks a far-right majority, projection shows.
• Russia may resort to an old World War II tactic that had a key role in the D-Day landings to repel Ukrainian drone attacks.ded Slack and mom cofounded Flickr, found safe, police say.

3 things in markets

1. How to get in on the AI infrastructure trade everyone's talking about. You've read a lot about the role data centers and utilities play in powering AI. But where should you invest? Goldman Sachs identified 89 stocks across 10 sectors that are key to AI infrastructure.
2. The June jobs report included a couple surprises. The US labor market added more jobs last month than expected (206,000). But an unexpected uptick in unemployment to 4.1% is good news for investors hoping for an interest-rate cut.
3. An activist short-seller's Pyrrhic victory. Hindenburg Research wiped out $150 billion in market value from the Adani Group when it accused the Indian conglomerate of sweeping fraud. Meanwhile, Hindenburg's rewards were meager: The short-seller made just $4 million for its efforts. But its leader insists it's not about the money.

3 things in tech

1. Gen Z's new favorite social media is… MySpace 2.0? The app Noplace, which is going viral among young people, is a nod to the early days of social media before the "algos and ads" took over. Its founder has a plan to keep it from fizzling out.
2. How Andy Jassy secretly wooed Wall Street. After a rough start to his tenure as CEO, Jassy executed a stunning turnaround: He slashed costs, won over investors, and put a new stamp on Amazon's culture. More than a dozen employees, investors, and analysts explained how Jassy overhauled the tech giant for the better.
3. Amazon laps Netflix in the race for TV ad dollars. Ad buyers told BI that Amazon is leading streamers in the competition for advertisers, thanks to its large sports footprint and lower prices. It also has a larger ad-supported audience, since it switched on ads for all Prime Video users in January.

3 things in business

1. Down with homeowner associations. Millions of Americans live in neighborhoods with HOAs that operate as private quasi-governments. While a new Florida law has made strides to limit HOAs' power, it will take more than some modest adjustments. We may need to break the system entirely.
2. Stay greasy, McDonald's. Over the course of many years, McDonald's forays into healthy alternatives haven't panned out. That's probably because no one is going there to enjoy a salad. Customers know that. McDonald's does, too — and it shouldn't forget it.
3. Gen Z in Neverland. A growing share of young Americans are living with their parents way past college, and relying on the Bank of Mom and Dad for support. But it isn't all their fault. Lacking social safety nets, American parents are often left to provide cover.

In other news

• 3 high-earners share when they knew it was time to quit their 6-figure jobs: 'It was literally driving me to the edge.'
• Samsung really wants to outsmart Apple in the Galaxy-iPhone battle.
• Elon Musk mocks Mark Zuckerberg's big hydrofoil swag moment and says he prefers to work instead of having fun on yachts.
• Why Nvidia just got a rare stock downgrade.
• Elite nightclubs are forcing the Hamptons into an identity crisis.
• I want to retire before 50, so I asked a financial planner for 3 ways to earn more on my savings.
• Why your checking account may no longer be free.
• Tech workers look like the real winners of the AI talent war.

What's happening today

• Samsung workers began a three-day strike.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Jack Sommers, deputy editor, in London. Annie Smith, producer, in London. Grace Lett, editor, in Chicago. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.

• Abe Hamadeh and Blake Masters are locked in abitter primary fight for a House seat in Arizona.
• Masters has made attacks on Hamadeh's Muslim background a key aspect of his campaign.
• The primary fight also shows just how nationalized politics has become.

It's a subject that Abe Hamadeh can't seem to avoid.

In campaign trail appearances in the Phoenix area last month, the Republican congressional candidate, an Arab American with a Muslim father, inevitably made some sort of reference to the barrage of television ads and near-ubiquitous yard signs that have painted him as an Islamic terrorist sympathizer.

"How many of you guys have seen these nasty ads against me?" Hamadeh asked the few dozen Republicans who had ventured to a crowded antique shop in a northern Phoenix strip mall to hear him speak. "They're pretty bad. I look at them and I'm like, 'I've got a lot of facial hair in those ads.'"

On paper, Hamadeh — his party's nominee for state attorney general in 2022 — should be the presumptive winner of the GOP primary for Arizona's 8th congressional district. He's been endorsed for Congress by former President Donald Trump and has the enthusiastic backing of Kari Lake, the former gubernatorial candidate and all-but-certain Senate nominee who remains popular among the MAGA faithful in Arizona.

Yet Hamadeh remains stuck in an apparent dead heat with the man behind the nasty ads: Blake Masters, the Peter Thiel protégé and 2022 Senate nominee who's plowed millions of dollars of his own fortune into his opposing bid for the seat. "He is running a very bigoted race," Hamadeh told me of Masters, "and MAGA and the America First movement is bigger than that."

This primary, described by some as the nastiest in America, will be a test of that proposition — whether conservative voters can look past any drummed-up suspicions about Hamadeh's background to elect one of Arizona's most fervent election deniers. It's also a window into what may be the future of Republican politics, where what happens on the internet can matter more to voters than what happens in the state legislature, and where politics becomes so thoroughly nationalized that one candidate, Blake Masters, can plausibly seek to represent a House district over 100 miles from his home in Tucson.

This congressional seat, anchored by tens of thousands of older voters from around the country who've ensconced themselves behind the gates of sprawling, palm tree-studded retirement communities, is overwhelmingly Republican. Whoever wins on July 30 is all but guaranteed to go to Washington.

If Masters and Hamadeh dropped out, the race would still be crowded. There's Arizona House Speaker Ben Toma, who's been endorsed by the district's retiring congresswoman, Rep. Debbie Lesko. There's state Sen. Anthony Kern, who was on the steps of the US Capitol on January 6 and now faces charges over his role as one of the state's fake Trump electors in 2020. There's even former Rep. Trent Franks, who previously represented the district before resigning amid a sexual harassment scandal in 2017.

But those other men have largely become an afterthought. While they may possess the legislative records and strong ties to the district that Hamadeh and Masters lack, both frontrunners possess something far more crucial for winning a wide-open Republican primary in 2024, especially in a district like this: High name recognition and MAGA-world stardom.

'It's a lively primary'

It's virtually impossible to drive through the suburban roads of northwest Maricopa County without seeing one: A large corrugated cardboard sign blaring the phrase "America was founded on Islamic principles" in bold yellow text beside a photo of Hamadeh at the Kaaba in Mecca, dressed in the ihram clothing that Muslims wear during the Hajj pilgrimage. One of Masters's TV ads also declares that Hamadeh "blamed Israel for 9/11" and once supported a pathway to citizenship for people living in the country illegally.

As startling as the ads are, there's been little widespread outrage or condemnation among local Republicans, including the incumbent congresswoman. "You know, I've been involved in politics for a while," Lesko told me while walking to vote at the Capitol. "I expect everything. It's a lively primary, and may the best person win."

While Masters is twisting his opponent's words — the 33-year-old Hamadeh made most of the statements in question when he was a teenager, browsing the same kinds of mid-2000s message boards that Masters notably used to frequent — his negative campaign is capitalizing on real complexities about the Trump-backed candidate's political identity.

Hamadeh is the son of Syrian immigrants — a Muslim father and a Druze mother — who moved to Chicago in 1989 and overstayed their visas. His name was "Ibrahem" before he anglicized it to "Abraham" in 2010. His parents faced the threat of deportation in 1996 after his father, a jeweler living in Skokie, was indicted in connection with a 1994 synagogue firebombing, though prosecutors were unable to definitively connect him to the crime, and the charges were ultimately dropped. His father successfully appealed that deportation order, citing the fact that two of his children, including Abe, were born in the United States and were thus citizens. Masters's campaign has gone as far as to call Hamadeh an "anchor baby."

Hamadeh's family later moved to Arizona. "As soon as they got off the flight, they looked at each other and they said, 'Wow, we found the Middle East of America,'" he told the antique shop crowd. In his youth, Hamadeh apparently identified on some level as a Muslim, writing in a Ron Paul Forums post in 2009 that he would be the "first arab american/muslim senator ooooh yeah." It was that same year, on that same forum, that Hamadeh made the "Islamic principles" comment, in which he was arguing against the demonization of Muslims while referencing a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad at the Supreme Court. He also blamed "Israeli Mossad" for the September 11th terror attacks, though he later disavowed those views in an interview with the Daily Wire.

After graduating from the University of Arizona's law school in 2016, Hamadeh worked as a prosecutor in the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and joined the US Army Reserve as an intelligence officer. He made the trek to Mecca during a 14-month deployment to Saudi Arabia from 2020 to 2021.

Two years ago, Hamadeh's religious background was a clear asset for a MAGA movement that has at times been keen to highlight its non-white adherents: In 2022, a local conservative outlet promoted the Mecca photo to illustrate the GOP's "bigger tent." Yet Hamadeh himself speaks about it now with some detachment. "My dad is Muslim, my mom is Druze, I have family who are Christian," he told me. "I've been to Jerusalem, I've been to Istanbul, the Vatican, Thailand, Japan. I'm very non-denominational, I don't identify really with one particular faith. I just have a belief in God, and I believe Jesus is going to return to Earth, but I think organized religion, in many ways, has failed so many people."

The Republican Party is replete with ambitious politicians fashioning themselves to fit the moment, and Hamadeh has played his cards right. In the space of several months in 2022, he emerged from relative obscurity to become the party's nominee for attorney general, winning Trump's endorsement as the result of his unflinching devotion to the former president's stolen 2020 election claims and perhaps a well-timed loan from his wealthy brother. Running on a ticket with Masters and Lake, he came the closest of the trio to winning in 2022, falling just 280 votes short in what he calls "the closest statewide race in Arizona history that everybody just seems to ignore." He has since insisted that he is the rightful winner of that election, and he's now on his fourth lawsuit over the results.

Hamadeh's chief identity is that of a fighter, a "happy warrior" as he puts it. During the first primary debate, he referred to himself as a "young man with a lot of testosterone." He's prone to trash-talking his political adversaries, quipping after our interview that Ben Toma is "gonna get 12%" in the primary and that "nobody talks about" Trent Frank's "sexual shit." He's also demonstrated a fluency in the parlance of the MAGA faithful, proclaiming to his supporters that "this is a 1776 moment" while warning them to be "cognizant of all of these psyops."

"They're not just after me, they're after all of you," Hamadeh declared during his antique shop stump speech, echoing a favored line of the former president. "You all are a threat, just for being here."

'I call everybody crazy'

While Hamadeh's calling card is stolen elections and a medley of contemporary MAGA bromides, Blake Masters is most closely associated with the New Right, an idiosyncratic form of conservatism that seeks national transformation along nationalistic, populist lines. The movement's most prominent spokesman in the halls of Congress is Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, who has endorsed Masters and is currently in the running to be Trump's vice-presidential pick.

But while Vance made it across the finish line in 2022, Masters did not, owing in large part to a slew of alienating comments he made during free-wheeling interviews he gave during his Senate campaign. At one point, Masters named Ted Kacynski, a domestic terrorist known more commonly as the "Unabomber," as a "subversive thinker that's underrated." This year, he appears to be more taking a more disciplined approach. "Blake is really not doing any more interviews for the rest of the campaign," his spokesperson told me in June.

"This guy, he lost against Mark Kelly because he's a weirdo," Hamadeh told me. "He's a weirdo and nobody likes him, quite frankly. Kari and I were trying to drag him up, and look how he repays us."

Bereft of the Trump endorsement, Masters has turned to running ads blaring that Trump endorsed his Senate campaign, an apparent attempt to muddy the waters that's drawn the ire of the former president's inner circle. Lacking the "stolen election" credibility that Hamadeh and Lake have — unlike the other two, he has fully acknowledged that he lost his Senate race — Masters has made illegal immigration the centerpiece of a starkly nativist campaign, pledging at one recent debate to be the "most conservative, most right-wing, anti-immigration member of Congress."

At a forum in the Sun City West retirement community, where each House candidate was given just four minutes to make their pitch to a crowd of roughly 300 Republicans, Masters spent roughly half of this allotment on the issue.

"Illegal immigration is a cancer," Masters said. "It is ruining our country. It's common sense: If you import the Third World, you become the Third World. I think the Left is obsessed with replacing us. If you're a sort of 'heritage American,' if you're a white American, they hate you. The Left hates how you look, they hate the way you think. If you're a minority here, and you're willing to come to this room as a Republican or an independent conservative, well, they hate you for being a turncoat. Look at how they treat the best Supreme Court Justice, Clarence Thomas, right? The Left is demented."

In May, Masters leaked a text that Hamadeh sent to him in which the former attorney general candidate appeared to privately mock those who believe in stolen elections. "I'm not lumped in with crazies with election stuff because I'm so close at 280, but the crazies love because they see me fighting," Hamadeh said in part. When I asked Hamadeh who he was referring to when he said "crazies," he laughed it off.

"We're all crazies," Hamadeh said, his face curling into a sardonic grin. "It's ironic. I call everybody crazy. It's actually a very endearing term in these times."

As Hamadeh has waged his counteroffensive against Masters, he's done the same thing that Democrats did to the 37-year-old tech entrepreneur in 2022: Dredging up his long history of online commentary, including internet forum comments from his libertarian days calling for "unrestricted" immigration and his residence in a vegan co-op while attending Stanford University.

While Thiel has stepped back from overt involvement in politics this year, Hamadeh has sought to turn Masters's association with the right-wing tech billionaire — who Business Insider revealed last year to be an FBI informant — against him, pointing to a nearly $25 million bonus that Masters earned from Thiel Capital in 2023. "I think that warrants some investigative journalism," Hamadeh told me. A person familiar with Masters's compensation package, which the candidate revealed in financial disclosures this year, said that the payment was a bonus that Masters was owed in accordance with an industry-standard contract that he signed in 2018.

'I can't vote for you'

Back at the antique shop, Hamadeh opened up the floor for questions, includes half a dozen about whether this November's election might also be stolen, one about whether a newly concocted virus or "a meltdown of the grid" might prompt a cancellation of the election, another about "what can we do" to fight "the deep state," and precisely zero about what specific policies Hamadeh might champion if he were elected to represent the 8th district.

In fact, we weren't even in the 8th district — we were five miles away from its easternmost edge. "I can't vote for you," one woman, apparently not a prospective constituent, told Hamadeh as she shook hands with him after the event, "but I'll give you a donation." Hamadeh did grow up in the area, but he's lived in Scottsdale for years. Hamadeh's campaign says that he has since re-established residency in the district, while Masters continues to live all the way in Tucson.

But charges of "carpetbagging" don't exactly land the same in Arizona: Most of the state's residents are transplants from out of state, and that's even more true of the tens of thousands of retirement community residents — many of whom likely pay more attention to Fox News or alternative media sources than the Arizona Republic — who make up a large chunk of the local GOP electorate and are the most likely to actually vote.

It is under these conditions that this primary's top two candidates, neither of whom have held elected office, are waging an ugly fistfight, much of it via dueling "War Room" accounts on X. When Hamadeh talks about issues specific to the district, it's to speculate that Chinese nationals may be crossing the southern border to surveil the sprawling TSMC semiconductor plant undergoing construction in the northern reaches of the district. Masters, meanwhile, proudly told the Sun City West crowd that he's "honored to have won and beat Mark Kelly" by "seven or eight points" in the district when he ran for Senate.

As attendees streamed out of the candidate forum, few stopped to shake hands with Ben Toma, the mild-mannered state House speaker who had politely warned the crowd to "be careful of noisemakers" and touted his record of enacting key conservative priorities on tax cuts and education reform while keeping a narrow, fractious majority in line.

"I don't think this new breed of in-your-face, always rushing to tweet or post something on social media, or run after a network camera, is good for us," Toma told me.

But Toma may simply be too much of a nice guy for this climate. He wasn't offering the red meat being sold by Hamadeh, who was busy holding court with a steady procession of voters on the other side of the room. He also can't compete with the personal war chest of Masters, who had apparently already bolted from the event.

Moments earlier, I had overheard Toma explaining to one attendee — apparently unaware of what office he held — that he was, in fact, the speaker of the Arizona House.

• A Parkinson's Disease expert repeatedly visited the White House between last summer and this spring.
• On at least one occasion, Dr. Kevin Cannard met with President Joe Biden's White House doctor.
• It's not immediately clear what Cannard's visits entailed. 

The White House is refusing to say why a Parkinson's Disease expert met with President Joe Biden's doctor earlier this year.

In fact, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre won't even confirm that the meeting took place — even though due to Biden's own policy, the doctor's eight visits are public information.

"I'm not going to confirm a name," Jean-Pierre said during a tense exchange with CBS reporter Ed O'Keefe. "It doesn't matter even if it is in the log. I'm not going to do that from here."

Here's what we do know about the expert's visits

Dr. Kevin Cannard, a neurological expert, visited the White House eight times in roughly eight months, though it's unclear what his trips entailed.

According to his official biography, Cannard is a neurologist and movement disorders specialist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He was also described as a Neurology Consultant to the White House medical unit from 2012 to 2022. In August 2023, Cannard also published a research paper in the journal Parkinsonism & Related Disorders on the early stages of the disease.

During at least one of his visits, Cannard met with President Joe Biden's physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, during a January visit. It's unclear if Cannard has visited the White House since March, as the Biden White House only discloses visitor information on a delayed basis. Cannard traveled to the White House eight times between August 2023 and March of this year.

Cannard did not immediately respond to a message Business Insider left for him.

Biden's health has received renewed attention in the wake of a disastrous debate performance in which he sometimes struggled to finish his sentences and stared off into the distance on other occasions. Five Democratic lawmakers have since publicly called on the president to drop out of the 2024 race. Biden has adamantly declared he's not going anywhere.

Since the debate, Biden has repeatedly declined to commit to taking a cognitive test. He has said that the rigors of serving as commander in chief are a de facto test of his capabilities.

In February, O'Connor deemed Biden "fit for duty" and able to be president "without any exceptions or accommodations," according to a six-page summary of the president's health. O'Connor has previously not seen the need for Biden to take a detailed cognitive test. According to the February health summary, Biden did receive "an extremely detailed neurological exam" that ruled out the possibility of Parkinson's Disease, stroke, multiple sclerosis, or other similar disorders.

The New York Post first wrote about one of Cannard's visits to the White House. On Monday, The New York Times published a more extensive report on Cannard's visits, citing both current and Obama-era White House visitor logs. President Joe Biden voluntarily discloses most visitors to the West Wing, an Obama-era transparency initiative that President Donald Trump scrapped during his time in office.

• Biden so far refuses to undergo more cognitive testing after his concerning debate performance.
• Biden has shared significantly more health information than Trump.
• Neither candidate has taken a comprehensive slate of neurological exams.

Much has been made of President Joe Biden's health recently, with top Democrats and donors wondering whether the 81 year old is fit to serve another term. Though Donald Trump has escaped much of the age-related spotlight recently, he is 78 and the second-oldest person to ever seek the presidency.

In his defiant responses to questions about his debate performance, Biden continues to insist that he is in tip-top shape. He maintains that his fumbling answers stemmed from jet-lag, a cold, and exhaustion, not an underlying health concern.

"Look, I have a cognitive test every day," he said in an interview on Friday with ABC News.

Presidents and presidential candidates choose what to test and share about their health, leaving much up for speculation. Even before last month's debate, a professor of neurology at Harvard said that both Trump and Biden should take a "full-blown neuropsychological exam," according to the New York Times.

As age threatens to upend the entire election, what do we actually know about the candidates' health?

Joe Biden

Compared to Trump, Biden has released far more comprehensive medical information, with the most recent update coming in February of 2024. Dr. Kevin O'Connor, the White House physician, published a six-page report detailing Biden's conditions, test results, medications, and vitals.

According to O'Connor, the president suffers from sleep apnea, gastric reflux, and a stiffened gait, among other conditions. A neurological exam related to his gait "was again reassuring," the report specified, and did not indicate a stroke, Parkinson's disease, or multiple sclerosis. The president exercises five days a week, weighs 178 pounds, and has a blood pressure of 132/78.

Despite the detail, though, O'Connor has not sat for interviews, as is traditional, according to The Times. Furthermore, his report included no supporting documentation. In February, O'Connor concluded that Biden did not need to take the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery, a slate of 33 tests that looks for dementia and other brain abnormalities.

One cognitive test is not sufficient to detect issues, doctors told the Wall Street Journal. While basic tests measure memory, executive functioning, language, and judgment, only PET scans and other more comprehensive exams help doctors make diagnoses about conditions like Alzheimer's.

Visitor logs indicate that an expert on Parkinson's disease visited the White House eight times between July 2023 and March of this year, meeting at least once with O'Connor. It's not yet clear if the specialist visited the White House to discuss Biden in particular or other matters, The Times reported.

Biden doesn't seem poised to undergo comprehensive neurological examinations anytime soon, despite the chorus calling on him to do so.

Donald Trump

Trump boasts about his vitality often and even said he "aced" two cognitive tests during the recent debate. The public, however, knows shockingly little about the former president's health.

In November, 2023, Trump's personal physician blasted out a glowing, vague, three-paragraph summary about his cognitive and physical abilities. In it, Dr. Bruce Aronwald said that he has conducted "several comprehensive examinations" and called Trump's cognitive exams "exceptional." His physical results, the brief report continues, were all within the normal range. Aronwald's report did not include any details about Trump's medications, blood pressure, or cholesterol levels.

Some have drawn attention to Trump's weight in the past, but Aronwald noted that he has shed some pounds, though didn't specify how many. Trump was weighed the Fulton County Jail during one of his criminal trials in August, 2023. According to that reading, he weighed 215 pounds, though some question the measurement.

In 2018, Trump asked to take the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test, which screens for dementia, and boasted about his perfect score. Like Biden, though, Trump has made significant public gaffes, such as when he called the president of Egypt the "president of Mexico."

Doctors note that the test does not measure intelligence and say anyone without dementia should score perfectly. Trump's father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in his mid-80s, putting the former president at higher risk for the disease.

• Lithium-ion batteries are the most common type of battery found in electric vehicles.
• Scientists found they contain PFAS or 'forever chemicals' found in air, water, snow, soil, and sediment.
• Research calls for better battery technology and recycling to mitigate PFAS pollution.

Scientists have uncovered a new source of hazardous "forever chemical" pollution: the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries found in most electric vehicles.

Some lithium-ion battery technologies use a class of PFAS chemicals, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, that helps make batteries less flammable and conduct electricity. Scientists found high levels of these PFAS in air, water, snow, soil, and sediment samples near plants that make those chemicals in the US, Belgium, and France, according to a peer-reviewed study in the journal Nature Communications.

PFAS are known as "forever chemicals" because they build up quickly in the environment, people, and animals and don't break down for thousands of years. They've been linked to a host of health conditions, including liver damage, high cholesterol, low birth weights, and chronic kidney disease.

The findings underscore how switching to cleaner cars and renewable energy is key to solving the climate crisis, but comes with its own set of trade-offs that are still emerging and understudied. While the environmental and health impacts of mining lithium and other minerals used in batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and other technology are well documented, it's only now that researchers are uncovering lithium-ion batteries as a source of PFAS pollution.

"Slashing [carbon dioxide] emissions with innovations like electric cars is critical, but it shouldn't come with the side effect of increasing PFAS pollution," Jennifer Guelfo, an associate professor of environmental engineering at Texas Tech University and coauthor of the study, said in a statement.

It's an issue of global concern because lithium-ion batteries are used worldwide, the study said. The same class of PFAS has recently been detected at low levels in European and Chinese water, but the source of the pollution was unclear.

The specific class of PFAS that Guelfo's team found is called bis-perfluoroalkyl sulfonimides, or bis-FASIs. Scientists tested more than a dozen lithium-ion batteries used in EVs and consumer electronics like laptops, and found bis-FASIs at various concentrations.

It's hard to know just how widespread the chemicals are in specific lithium-ion batteries because there isn't enough research yet, Lee Ferguson, associate professor of environmental engineering at Duke University and coauthor of the study, said.

Guelfo said bis-FASIs is comparable to "older notorious" chemicals like PFOA, in part because they are extremely difficult to degrade and studies show the chemicals change the behavior of aquatic organisms at low concentrations. PFOA has been phased out of production in the US but continues to pollute drinking water.

The study was the first "cradle-to-grave" evaluation of the environmental impacts of bis-FASI use in lithium-ion batteries. The effects of bis-FASIs in humans hasn't been studied yet.

The scientists detected bis-FASIs chemicals at parts per billion levels — much higher than the limits the Environmental Protection Agency set for PFAS in drinking water in April. Strategies to get rid of PFAS in drinking water can also remove bis-FASIs, the study said, which should become more widely adopted due to EPA's regulations. However, chemical makers and some water utilities have challenged the agency in court.

Other routes of exposure to bis-FASIs exist. Air emissions data suggest the chemicals can travel to areas far from manufacturing sites. They can also leach into the environment from landfills, where the majority of lithium-ion batteries end up.

The study said only about 5% of lithium-ion batteries are recycled, and by 2040, there could be some 8 million tons of lithium-ion battery waste.

Guelfo said scientists, engineers, manufacturers, and policymakers need to develop battery technology and recycling solutions that don't exacerbate PFAS pollution.

"We need to be carefully evaluating these chemicals that are being used in sustainable energy infrastructure," Guelfo said. "We should be evaluating them now before it becomes a more widespread problem. We an opportunity to really maximize the idea of sustainability."

Companies including 3M, Solvay, and Arkema either hold patents for bis-FASIs or advertise its production or use, the study said. (In December — after the research was conducted — Solvay spun off its specialty and applied chemical businesses into a new entity named Syensqo. The lithium battery business is housed there.)

Scientists focused their research on areas near the companies' manufacturing plants in Minnesota, Kentucky, Antwerp, Belgium, and Salindres, France.

3M has manufactured PFAS for decades and last year agreed to a $10 billion settlement with US cities and towns over their claims that the company contaminated drinking water with forever chemicals. 3M said it will exit all PFAS manufacturing by the end of 2025.

The company's settlement followed another agreement by Chemours, DuPont and Corteva to pay $1.19 billion to help resolve thousands of lawsuits.

Correction: July 8, 2024 — This story was updated to clarify the name of one of the companies that makes EV battery materials. After the research, Solvay spun off their lithium battery business into a new entity named Syensqo.