Good morning. As much as we love open debate, there are some things you just can’t argue against. Like the fact that both Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have extremely passionate and influential fanbases.

• There was so much international travel to see Beyoncé in Stockholm last month that Danske Bank said the resulting spike in demand for hotels and restaurants led to a 0.2% increase in Sweden’s annual inflation rate.
• Taylor Swift's ongoing Eras Tour is poised to be one of the highest-grossing of all time – and is having a similarly large impact on local economies. In Houston, she boosted hotel occupancy rates more than the NCAA men's Final Four, and her three-night stint in the city resulted in the city's highest hotel revenue week of the year.

But the real question tearing apart DONUT HQ is this: whose music is better? Cases have been made, witnesses called, and many tears shed – all without leading to a resolution. So we decided to do what we always do in these situations: ask our dear readers to weigh in. Results will be shared tomorrow.

I’m Team Bey

I’m Team Taylor

And now, here’s TEAM NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.67 minutes to read.

"Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great."

–Orison Swett Marden (1848-1924)

Millions of Reddit users were bombarded with a seemingly endless amount of images, gifs, and videos featuring comedian John Oliver over the weekend.

And usually, this means the person-in-question has done something to go viral – cheat on a partner with their best friend (*cough*Sandoval*cough*), oddly message a former flame asking to name your new baby after them, etc. But this isn’t your usual case.

🌐 Background: Last week, a majority of Reddit’s largest communities – aka “subreddits” – participated in a mass strike by effectively taking their sites offline for 48 hours. The move was prompted by Reddit’s forthcoming plan to charge for access to its vast reserves of data.

But even after the strike came and went, many major subreddits continued to protest against Reddit’s upcoming changes with some rather… interesting methods. Which brings us to John Oliver.

The r/pics, r/gifs, and r/aww subreddits, which have a combined 85+ million subscribers, each polled users on whether they should continue to operate their respective communities as normal – or only allow images of “John Oliver looking sexy” to be posted. The comedian won by a landslide in all three.

Other ongoing protests include:

• r/iPhone changed its rules to only allow images of Tim Cook following a similar subscriber poll.
• r/WellThatSucks, previously an ode to all the sucky things in the world, is now a subreddit dedicated to vacuum cleaners.
• Video game subreddit r/Steam is now about actual steam.

📅 Looking ahead… Protests are expected to continue through July 1, which is when Reddit’s new changes come into effect.

Many subreddit moderators – who are integral to the platform’s operation but aren’t officially affiliated with Reddit – say the company’s forthcoming plan will end up eliminating most or all of the platform’s third-party apps, which they’ve overwhelmingly used to perform their duties for years.

But CEO Steve Huffman – who r/HarryPotter now calls “Voldemort” – has rejected the idea of walking back the changes. His argument is that allowing free access to its data runs counter to Reddit’s goal of becoming a self-sustaining business ahead of a possible IPO later this year.

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🇨🇳 Chinese President Xi Jinping held a surprise meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday. The impromptu discussion came at the end of Blinken’s two-day visit to Beijing, where he also met with two of China’s top-ranked diplomats. The US and China reportedly made little progress on their main topics of disagreement – including trade, Taiwan, human rights, and Russia’s war against Ukraine – but promised to find common ground on increasing flights between the US and China and combating the flow of fentanyl into America.

🇷🇺 Russia reportedly tried to assassinate a CIA informant on US soil in 2020. The unsuccessful attempt targeted former Russian intelligence officer Aleksandr Poteyev, who disclosed information leading to the capture of 11 Russian spies living under deep cover in suburbs and cities on the East Coast, per multiple reports. This is the first publicly known attempt by Russia to kill a suspected US government informant on American soil – and it led the US to retaliate. America expelled 10 Russian diplomats in 2021, including the head of Moscow’s foreign intelligence agency.

🇮🇱🇩🇪 Intel announced a pair of record-setting investments in Israel and Germany. On Sunday, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said the American chipmaker agreed to spend $25 billion on a new plant in central Israel; this represents the country’s largest-ever international investment. But Intel wasn’t done making money moves. Yesterday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a new $33 billion investment from Intel to build two chip-making plants in Magdeburg – which also represents his country’s largest-ever international investment.

This year has been marked by an increase in collision/near-collision incidents between airplanes. The latest occurred on Friday, when a slow-taxiing United jet collided with a parked Delta plane on the ground at Boston’s Logan International Airport.

💥✈️ What happened: Per NBC News, the United Airlines flight was headed to Newark when the end of its wing – the vertical part known as a “winglet” – clipped the tail of the Delta plane, which was stopped and awaiting clearance for takeoff at the moment of collision. No injuries were reported.

And while the incident could be likened to a weak attempt at a plane “high-five,” it’s the latest in a series of collisions/near-collisions that have occurred so far this year.

• An about-to-land FedEx cargo plane and a Southwest Airlines plane cleared for takeoff on the same runway came within 100 feet of colliding at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas this past February.
• Last week, an American Airlines flight and Delta flight came within 200 feet vertically and 850 feet horizontally of each other while attempting to use the same runway at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

📸 Big picture: From 2018 to 2022, FAA data shows 23 incidents in which commercial passenger or cargo planes came close to colliding in the US. This year – with nine near misses or collisions – is on pace to almost match that total by itself.

💬 Quoted… “‘The F**king Grifters.’ That’s the podcast we should have launched with them.”

Spotify exec Bill Simmons, who founded podcast network The Ringer, didn’t have many kind words to say about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in his self-titled podcast on Friday.

• Simmons’ remarks came one day after Spotify’s $20 million exclusive podcast agreement with Harry and Meghan ended, with the pair having produced just 13 total episodes over the entire three-year deal.

🍿 Stat of the Day: Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City earned a per-theater average of $132,211 in its limited debut over the weekend. That figure is the highest for any film since La La Land in 2016.

🤯 Did You Know?... In 1962, an epidemic of contagious laughter spread across the African country of Tanzania in what scientists call a "mass hysteria" event. Other famous examples of this phenomenon include a dancing plague in mainland Europe, the Salem witch trials, and America’s “Great Clown Panic” of 2016.

📖 Worth a Read: Russia’s Grim ‘Fashion Colony’: Americans Describe Harsh Life in Remote Labor Camp → (WSJ)

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• ☝️ You’re looking at some of the Juneteenth celebrations held across America yesterday to honor the emancipation of enslaved people in the US; the Emancipation Proclamation technically freed all American slaves in 1862, but slavery still endured in some Confederate states until June 19, 1865 (aka Juneteenth).

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board on Friday (S&P: -0.4%; Dow: -0.3%; Nasdaq: -0.7%). | 📈 Toyota’s stock recorded its best week since 2009 last week (+10.6%).
• 🪙 Binance and the SEC reached an agreement that’ll allow the world’s largest crypto exchange to keep operating in the US.
• ✈️ Airbus agreed yesterday to sell 500 jets to Indian discount airline IndiGo for a record-setting list price of $50 billion (though customary discounts can top 50%); the order came during the first day of the annual Paris Air Show.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

in partnership with DeLo-xx

• 🍿 DC’s The Flash earned $55.7 million in its US debut this past weekend, below initial expectations of ~$70 million; Pixar’s Elemental also came in under expectations with $29.5 million in its domestic weekend debut.
• 🏌️ American Wyndham Clark won the 2023 US Open on Sunday, defeating Rory McIlroy by a single stroke; it represents the 29-year-old Clark’s first major championship victory.
• 🎮 Félix Lengyel, one of the biggest stars on Twitch (under the name xQc), signed a new deal with rival streaming site Kick that’s worth between $70 million and $100 million over two years; for context, that’s roughly the size of LeBron James’ current two-year contract with the Lakers. | 🏀 Michael Jordan has reportedly agreed to sell his majority stake in the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets to a group led by investors Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

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• 🌎 The pumping of water from underground reservoirs shifted Earth’s weight distribution enough to tilt the planet’s axis by an inch-and-a-half per year between 1993 and 2010, according to a new peer-reviewed study.
• 🧭🌌 Japanese researchers recently developed a GPS alternative that uses cosmic rays, or muons, to navigate around the Earth.
• 💉⚡ Scientists from Istanbul created nanotattoos that can wirelessly communicate with nearby devices without an external power source; their new invention converts mechanical energy into electrical energy as the tattoos change shape.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🌊 A search and rescue operation is currently underway for a tourist submersible with five people onboard; it went missing on Sunday in the Atlantic Ocean while diving to visit the wreckage of the Titanic.
• ⚖️ The 46-year-old male shooter who killed 11 people in a 2018 attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue was found guilty on Friday of all 63 federal charges; the jury will now decide whether to sentence him to death or life in prison.
• 🪪 The personal data of everyone with a Louisiana driver’s license – including names, addresses, social security numbers, birthdates, and vehicle registration information – has been exposed in a major cyberattack, per Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards.

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Tuesday: World Refugee Day

Wednesday: The first day of summer, aka the summer solstice

Thursday: India PM Narendra Modi to address US Congress; the 2023 NBA Draft takes place

Friday: Asteroid City’s wide release in theaters across America

On Friday, we covered how Bud Light, the top US beer seller since 2001, lost its sales crown last month amidst a conservative-led boycott that also grew to include some progressives.

❓ Our questions to you:

Have you personally chosen to avoid Bud Light products due to the recent controversy?

• Yes: 34%
• No: 44%
• I’m too young/I don’t drink beer: 22%

Follow-up for “Yes” folks: Which of the following most accurately represents why you’ve avoided Bud Light?

• I think companies should avoid taking a stance on social issues: 59%
• I don’t support their association with Dylan Mulvaney: 33%
• I don’t like how they reacted to the backlash against Dylan Mulvaney: 3%
• I don’t want to anyone to bother me over my beer choice: 3%
• Other: 2%

Click here to read more of the best responses from Friday’s poll.

+Note on sample size: We received 11,973 votes and 1,140 longform responses.

A group of Connecticut high schoolers just broke the world record for the longest distance danced in a conga line after traveling nearly 16 miles to raise money for a local senior home. 

💃 Boogie on down... Organized by rising senior Omar Galal, the "Conga4All" event aimed to raise $20,000 for the River House Adult Day Center.

• The high schoolers conga'd 64 laps around their school track as volunteers blasted music and cheered them on. 
• And while they surpassed the previous record, they are waiting on verification from Guinness World Records before they can officially claim the title.

Guess the definitions of the following Greek/Latin root words:

1. Bov
2. Cylind
3. Foss
4. Omin
5. Pach

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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1. Bov = Cow (e.g., bovine)
2. Cylind = Roll (cylinder)
3. Foss = Dig (fossil)
4. Omin = Creepy (ominous, abominable)
5. Pach = Thick (pachyderm)