Good morning and welcome to June. Let's dive right in.

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"The sweetest pleasure arises from difficulties overcome."

–Publilius Syrus (85 B.C. – 43 B.C.)

We reported yesterday that ~⅓ of America’s public pools were closed over Memorial Day due to a lack of lifeguards. While there is a fairly severe and ongoing lifeguard shortage, these figures were based on pre-weekend estimates, not actual data from this past holiday weekend (which we're unable to find).

Sorry for any confusion.

The Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling across ideological lines on Tuesday, temporarily blocking Texas from enforcing a controversial social media censorship law and sending the case back to be heard at a lower court.

📱 A deeper dive... Texas passed a law last September prohibiting social media companies with at least 50 million monthly active users from banning, demonetizing, or downranking posts based on "viewpoint."

• Texas residents, or anyone doing business in the state, would be able to sue platforms for alleged violations and seek court orders against content removal.
• Tech industry groups immediately challenged the law in federal court, winning an injunction to suspend it from going into effect. 
• But earlier this month, an appeals court ruled the law could go into effect – until yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling suspended it once again.

⚖️ The Court’s decision: Justices Roberts, Kavanaugh, Coney Barrett, Sotomayor and Breyer voted to block the law. As is customary for an emergency order, the majority didn’t explain its reasoning.

• Justice Alito filed a dissent joined by fellow conservative Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, saying he’s “not comfortable intervening at this point in the proceedings.” Justice Kagan also dissented, but she didn’t join the Alito opinion or file her own.

🇺🇸 Zoom out: A similar law in Florida was blocked last week by a federal appeals court, which sided with tech industry groups saying the measure violated their First Amendment rights.

President Biden outlined a three-part strategy for combating inflation in a WSJ op-ed published yesterday, just ahead of a meeting with Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the White House.

🏛️ As easy as 1, 2, 3...

1. In the op-ed, Biden said it’s the “primary responsibility” of the Fed to control inflation. The central bank raised interest rates by a half-percentage point in May, and has signaled they plan to do the same in June and July.
2. The second part of Biden’s plan called for taking “every practical step to make things more affordable for families.” His list of proposals included fixing disrupted supply chains, increasing housing supply, lowering the cost of child and elder care and more.
3. Biden committed to keep reducing the federal deficit, which he said will ease price pressures. Per nonpartisan projections, the deficit will shrink from $2.8 trillion in 2021 to $1.0 trillion this year, largely due to the expiration of pandemic-era stimulus, and will average $1.6 trillion per year over the next decade.

💰 The big picture: US inflation remained near a four-decade high in April, declining slightly to an annualized rate of 8.3% (from 8.5%); the Consumer Price Index for May will be published next Friday.

• Fed Governor Christopher Waller said this week that he expects interest rates to keep rising through the rest of the year, and likely exceed the 2.5% level the central bank considers “neutral” (aka neither supportive nor restrictive for economic growth).

🇹🇼🛫🇨🇳 Taiwan scrambled fighter jets on Monday as China made its largest incursion into the island nation’s air defense zone since January. China’s repeated military activities in the region are an example of what Taiwan calls "gray zone" warfare, aka provocations designed to both wear out forces by making them repeatedly scramble, and also to test defense responses.

🇮🇱🤝🇦🇪 Trade, secured: Israel and the UAE make a deal. The two countries penned a five-year, more than $10 billion free trade agreement yesterday, the largest ever between Israel and any Arab country. The two normalized relations with the Abraham Accords in August 2020.

🇨🇦🚫🔫 Canada says no guns. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new regulations on Monday that would ban the sale, purchase, importation and transfer of handguns. Most owners of “military-style assault weapons” would also be required to turn over the firearms to a government buyback program. Dig deeper.

🇬🇧 And the UK says yes to some college grads. Did you attend any of these top fifty universities? If so, you’ll be able to apply for the UK’s new “High Potential Individual” visa program and live in the country without a job offer. The move is part of the British government’s reordering of its immigration policy toward a points-based system since leaving the EU in January 2021.

🦉 A wise man once said to make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.

Ok, so that wise man may have been Einstein... and he may have known a thing or two about smart people stuff. But our friends at Smartish believe things can always be made simpler – and for the better!😎👍

What’s Smartish you ask?

📖 Definition of Smartish…

1. Mindset to simplify the overly complex
2. Makes everyday life a little easier

Embracing these values, Smartish has delivered ingenious-ish and affordable products and accessories for your phone that are built-to-last, and backed by a lifetime warranty plus over 30 thousand 5-star reviews!. 👏

• Products like the magnetic Cable Wrangler, which keeps cords clean and within reach. 👌
• For those of us who can never seem to find our phone (👋 guilty), the Dancing Queen, a cross-body wallet case
• Or take your selfie game to the next level with the Prop Tart, complete with phone kickstand! 🙌

😎 Get personal… You can also personalize many Smartish products with your image of choice by using the Smartish Design Studio. It’s simple to use and allows you to upload images, and create original designs.🧑‍🎨

Click here to embrace simplicity and shop Smartish!

More than 1 million teens started vaping from 2017 to 2019, according to a new peer-reviewed study, reversing decades of declining tobacco usage in America.

😙💨 A deeper dive… The study’s authors set out to discover how the surge in Juul sales in the mid-2010s affected the smoking habits of Americans, using data from the federal government’s annual tobacco survey.

• They found the spike in US Juul sales was associated with “a sharp rise” in daily vaping and tobacco use among American youths (ages 14 to 17), but not young adults (ages 18+).

✋ Yes, but: The study didn’t account for the past two years, over which teen vaping rates have plummeted. In 2021, 11.3% of high school students reported that they vaped – down from 19.6% the previous year, and far lower than the 27.5% reported in 2019.

📸 Big picture: More than 2 million US high school and middle school students said they were vaping as of last year, with over ¼ of them being daily users.

• More than half of youth who vaped used disposable products – which aren’t covered under a 2019 FDA flavor-ban – while nearly 30% used ​​refillable or prefilled pods; the previous year, two categories were essentially flipped.

• ☝️ This 1.5-acre estate located in a town ~20 miles from Miami just went on the market for $100 million; if it sells for close to that sum, the house would be the most expensive ever sold in Miami-Dade county.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 Take a look at how much the largest US companies pay their workers.
• 💼 More American teens are working today than since before the 2008–09 financial crisis.
• 🪵📉 Lumber prices are down more than 50% since early March.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 👨‍🎤🏛️ BTS met with President Biden at the White House yesterday.
• 🎾 Rafael Nadal defeated top-seeded Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals at the French Open.
• 🍿 Netflix in the news: Stranger Things had the biggest-ever premiere weekend for an English-language series; Kate Bush's 1985 song Running Up That Hill rose to No. 1 on iTunes after being featured in Stranger Things; Comedian Bo Burnham released more than an hour of outtakes from Inside, his 2021 Netflix special.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🦈 New peer-reviewed research suggests the megalodon, one of the largest carnivores ever, may have been driven to extinction by its cousin, the great white shark.
• 🚁 NASA shared footage from its Ingenuity Mars helicopter’s record-setting 25th flight.
• ☀️🛰️🌎 Speaking of NASA… The space agency also announced a feasibility study on collecting solar power in Earth’s orbit, then beaming it to the ground for consumption.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🌮🍕 Taco Bell is facing a Mexican Pizza shortage less than two weeks after its return; the fast-food chain says demand is seven times higher than the last time it was on the menu in November 2020.
• 🏛️ Supreme Court officials investigating the leaked abortion opinion have reportedly asked law clerks to provide cell phone records and sign affidavits, three sources told CNN. (The report | From the Left | From the Right)
• ⚖️ Michael Sussmann, a lawyer whose firm represented the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016, was acquitted of a felony charge of lying to the FBI; it was the first trial in special counsel John Durham’s three-year review of a 2016 federal investigation into former President Trump’s ties to Russia. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… "Frozen, socially and emotionally, at the age they were when the pandemic started."

More than 90% of the 362 school counselors nationwide recently surveyed by the New York Times said their students were showing more signs of anxiety and depression than before the pandemic.

• 88% said students were having more trouble regulating their emotions, and 73% said they were having more difficulty solving conflicts with friends.

💤 Stats of the Day: The average American adult slept 7.9 hours per night in the 1940s. That dropped to 6.8 hours per night as of 2013, with more recent data showing the average is now ~5.5 hours each night.

🤯 Did You Know?... Vermont is the only state that has never elected a woman to Congress, though that could change this November.

📖 Worth a Read: Action is Everything → (Joseph Wells)

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In 1938, baby Kathleen Pritchard was wrapped in a pink blanket crocheted by Queen Mary herself. 

• The blanket, won in a contest, ended up becoming one of the family's most prized possessions, surviving WWII and multiple moves. 
• To this day, it still has its original ‘1st prize’ tag and comes with a handwritten note saying, ‘Made by Her Majesty, Queen Mary, 1938.’

🧶👑 Paying it forward... Kathleen, now 83 years old and a great grandmother, is auctioning off the queen's gift to help children in Ukraine.

• The blanket is expected to raise ~$1,000, all of which will be donated to Save the Children Ukraine.

💬 What they're saying: “It’s extremely moving to be honest," shared one of Kathleen's great-grandchildren. "My nan doesn’t have a lot. This is still her most prized possession but she wants to help and give something back.”

❓ Trivia: What are the names of the four ghosts from Pac-Man?

💬 Who Said It?... “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get just for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone you think would like the DONUT.

❓ Trivia: Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde.

💬 Quote: JFK