Good morning and welcome to Tuesday. Today’s wacky idea: the anti-vacation. All you have to do is go somewhere terrible and have an awful time for a week, so when you come back life feels more awesome.

Any takers?

Some things you’ll know after reading this email:

• 💊 Why a cancer drug delivered 100% remission in a peer-reviewed clinical trial
• 🏀🦾 How a robot can turn Shaq into a good free-throw shooter
• 📣 What Apple announced at its developer conference yesterday (this bullet has been edited by the sender)

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.48 minutes to read.

"Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness."

–Zhuang Zhou (369 BC – 286 BC)

Shosh and Yuval Yonay, heirs to the author of the 1983 magazine article the original Top Gun was based on, are suing Paramount Pictures for copyright infringement, according to a lawsuit filed in court yesterday.

• The family is seeking unspecified damages, including some profits from the newly-released Maverick, and to stop all screenings and distribution of the sequel, as well as any more movies in the franchise.

⏪📝 Background: The article, written by Enud Yonay and entitled “Top Guns”, centered around two fighter pilots, Yogi and Possum, as they navigated the Navy’s Fighter Weapons School. The story was optioned and made into a feature film, debuting on May 16, 1986, after studio execs made the big decision to drop the “s” in the title.

🔍 The crux… The Yonay family is taking advantage of a provision in copyright law allowing authors to seize back the rights to their works after waiting a period of time, typically 35 years.

• In the suit, the family claims they sent notice to Paramount in January 2018 saying they would reclaim the copyright in January 2020.
• Maverick originally started shooting in May 2018, but got delayed multiple times before debuting less than two weeks ago.
• The suit contends that the movie wasn’t completed until May 8, 2021, more than a year after its right to the story had expired. Paramount says the sequel was “sufficiently completed” before the expiration.

🧠🍿 In the know: Last weekend, Top Gun: Maverick dropped 29% at the box office from its Memorial Day launch, the lowest decline in history for a movie opening to $100 million or more. A decline of 50% would’ve been considered excellent, per The Hollywood Reporter.

At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday, Apple announced a slate of new software features for the upcoming iOS 16, along with a new series of MacBooks and a novel buy-now-pay-later product.

📱💻💳 Let’s break it down...

• iOS 16: Among other things, the new software update allows users to edit or recall recently sent iMessages, and features an improved lock screen that incorporates Apple Watch-inspired widgets.
• MacBook: Apple announced new Air and Pro models featuring the M2, a new Apple-designed processor it says can deliver up to 18% better performance than the M1, or use less power for the same performance.
• BNPL: The company also unveiled “Apple Pay Later,” an option for Apple Pay users to purchase goods using four equal payments over six weeks, with no interest or fees; shares of BNPL giant Affirm closed yesterday down roughly 6%.

👀 Looking ahead… A public beta for iOS 16 (which includes Apple Pay Later) will launch next month, with the final version coming this fall as a free update for the iPhone 8 and up.

• The new MacBook Air and Pro will be available next month starting at $1,199 and $1,299, respectively.

The Biden administration announced a pair of executive actions yesterday intended to resolve conflicts within the solar industry, which stem from an ongoing Commerce Department probe into allegations that Chinese companies are dodging US tariffs.

☀️🔌 Background: In March, the federal gov’t launched an investigation on behalf of US-based manufacturer Auxin Solar, which accused Chinese companies of avoiding tariffs on solar panels by routing their operations through Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

• At the time, the Commerce Department said their probe could lead to retroactive fines on imports from those countries, which are major suppliers to the US solar industry.
• Solar companies warned the threat of impending tariffs would negatively affect planned US installations; per consulting firm Rystad Energy, the federal investigation jeopardized 64% of the new solar-power capacity that developers had been expected to install this year.

⏩📅 That brings us to yesterday… when the Biden administration declared a two-year tariff exemption for solar panel products from the four Southeast Asian nations, and invoked the Defense Production Act to increase domestic production.

📈 The market reacts: US solar energy stocks soared on the news, with notable jumps seen in Array (+18%), Sunrun (+11%), SunPower (+7%) and Enphase (+7%).

Are you ready to take your development seriously?😤

I mean, it’s great to read the odd article with tips but to really see a marked improvement you need a comprehensive framework. Too many people coast by just expecting to get better at their roles as they go about them.

That’s not who Skill Success is for. Skill Success is for people wanting to take their development into their own hands, and to the next level.🙆‍♀️☝️

Skill Success features over 3,000 online courses for personal and professional development, all of which include a certificate of completion. Categories include:

• Business
• Technology
• Project Management and lots more!

The community is 500,000 strong and has unlimited access to course content anytime on any device, so you can learn at your own pace.🐇🐢

🚨 Awesome savings alert!... Save 78% off the All-Access Pass for a limited time!

Get the Skill Success All-Access Pass today.

In a medical first, a clinical drug trial featuring a dozen rectal cancer patients ended with a 100% remission rate, according to a peer-reviewed study published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

• The GlaxoSmithKline-sponsored trial focused on immunotherapy, aka harnessing the body’s own immune system to fight off disease.

🦠 How it works: Normally, immune cells contain a safeguard preventing them from attacking healthy cells. Cancer cells are able to hijack that safeguard, allowing a tumor to hide and grow.

• The scientists’ new immunotherapy drug, called dostarlimab, is designed to turn off the safeguard, allowing immune cells to recognize and attack patients’ cancer cells.
• After taking dostarlimab every three weeks for six months, all 12 patients showed no signs of cancer six months after completing the treatment – without needing surgery, radiation or chemotherapy.

✋ Yes, but… In a peer-reviewed editorial accompanying the study, outside experts stressed that its sample size is too small to draw conclusions, and the drug’s results need to be replicated in a much larger study before it can become a conventional treatment.

• ☝️ YouTuber Shane Wigton created a custom basketball hoop that can turn anyone into a Steph Curry-level shooter; the engineer’s hi-tech hoop tracks the motion of the ball and travels at speeds of up to 100 MPH to ensure a made bucket.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🐦 Elon Musk sent a letter to Twitter’s board threatening to walk away from his $44 billion bid, accusing the social media company of refusing to give him data about its bot accounts.
• ➗ Amazon officially carried out a 20-to-1 stock split yesterday, its first since 1999.
• 💼 Thousands of employees at 70 UK companies began the largest four-day workweek pilot program in the world this week. (Background from the DONUT)

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏈 Cleveland Browns QB DeShaun Watson is facing another lawsuit alleging inappropriate sexual conduct during a massage session, raising the total number of accusers to 24 (including two over the past week).
• 🏌️ Phil Mickelson will join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, which already includes world No. 13 Dustin Johnson, the New York Post reported yesterday.
• 💰🐴 Walmart heir Robert Walton is expected to become the newest owner of the Denver Broncos, according to Forbes, which reported his bid is for a record $4.5 billion.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🦾 A team of researchers at UT Austin and Penn State University created a new muscle-like fiber that can be used to build robots or as a “self-closing bandage,” among other things.
• 🚀🌕 Two UCF planetary scientists have been selected to lead a NASA mission to land a spacecraft on a mysterious unexplored part of the Moon called the Gruithuisen Domes.
• ☄️🔬 Japan’s education ministry revealed that more than 20 types of amino acids were detected in asteroid samples brought to Earth in December 2020, the first such evidence of their existence.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• ✈️✈️ The DOJ moved to seize two jets owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich collectively valued at $400+ million; prosecutors said both planes violated sanctions after flying to Russia in March.
• 🇬🇧 UK PM Boris Johnson survived a vote of no-confidence within his own Conservative Party, earning votes from 211 out of 359 lawmakers in a secret ballot. (From the Left | From the Right)
• ⚖️ The ex-leader of the Proud Boys and four other former members were indicted on seditious conspiracy charges yesterday in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol. (From the Left | From the Right)

💬 Quoted… “It was planned as three [seasons]. Spoiler alert — everyone dies.”

• Ted Lasso writer and actor Brett Goldstein, who plays Roy Kent on the show, revealed yesterday that the upcoming third season will be written in a way that concludes the series; S3 is currently in production and set to premiere sometime later this year.

💉🗑️ Stats of the Day: The US has discarded more than 82 million Covid vaccines since December 2020, about 11% of all doses distributed, according to new CDC data shared with NBC News.

• CVS and Walmart have been responsible for ~¼ of the doses thrown away in the US, which has seen a level of waste roughly in-line with WHO estimates.

🤯 Did You Know?... The 4,300-mile-long Amazon River doesn’t have a single bridge.

• Click here to learn more about the advanced societies thought to have lived in the Amazon rainforest well before European settlers first arrived.

📖 Worth a Read: Coffee bad, red wine good? Top food myths busted → (The Guardian)

Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee was all the rage in the UK this weekend, with Brits everywhere celebrating the monarch's 70th year of reign. 

English Heritage, a charity that manages historic sites around the country, arranged to have images of the Queen projected onto the legendary Stonehenge.

• The installation features seven images of the queen, one from each decade of her record-breaking reign. 

😉🪨 Pun incoming... While opinions about the installation may vary, we clearly think it rocks.

Take a shot at the three brain teasers below and let us know.

1. Trivia: Whose epitaph reads, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, I'm free at last”?
2. Riddle Me This: What has a ring but no finger?
3. True or False? A caribou is a type of moose.

(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.

1. ❓ Trivia: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
2. 🤔 Riddle me this: A phone.
3. 🦌 T/F: False, it's a type of reindeer.