Our daily tour around the world

🌍🎤 Americans are flocking to Europe to see Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The European leg of the Eras Tour kicked off yesterday in Paris, France – and a significant number of US fans made the journey across the pond to attend. Swift’s concerts are projected to bring 5x more US luxury travelers to Paris than the upcoming Summer Olympics, with the surge in visitors largely attributed to cheaper European concert tickets ($350 vs. $2,600 at Swift’s remaining US stops).

🇲🇾 Malaysia announced a new “orangutan diplomacy” program. Malaysia said its new initiative, inspired by China’s 1,000+-year-old panda diplomacy program, will give out orangutans to countries that agree to buy palm oil from Malaysia, including major importers like China, India, and the EU. The apes, which are native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia, have become critically endangered in recent years due to agricultural expansion – particularly for palm oil plantations.

🇮🇷 Iran sentenced an award-winning film director to eight years in prison. Mohammad Rasoulof was arrested on Wednesday ahead of his upcoming trip to the Cannes Film Festival, where his latest film about political unrest in Iran is set to debut next week. His arrest came after Cannes officials received pushback from Iranian authorities, who urged them to pull Rasoulof’s film from competition. Rasoulof has been arrested several times since 2010 over his anti-government public statements and films.