Good morning. Today is Monday, sure, but it is also June 26. What’s so special about June 26, you ask?

Oh, we don’t know, how about the fact that, on June 26, 1886, Henri Moissan isolated the element Fluorine for the first time??

Or perhaps that, on June 26, 1934, FDR signed the Federal Credit Union Act into law?!

If that wasn’t enough, on June 26, 1974, the very first UPC (Universal Product Code) was scanned to sell some Wrigley’s chewing gum in Troy, Ohio.

So, what will you do with your wild and precious June 26?

To get you started, how’s about some NEWS.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 4.93 minutes to read.

"From the errors of others, a wise person corrects their own."

–Publilius Syrus (85 B.C. – 43 B.C.)

On Friday, a private army called the Wagner Group began traveling from Ukraine towards Moscow in an apparent mutiny against the Russian government. The paramilitary group had previously been aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin since at least 2014, when its troops participated in Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Here’s what happened:

• On Friday, in a video posted to his Telegram account, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said the mutiny was launched in response to an attack on his camps in Ukraine by allied Russian military forces earlier that day (though the AP reports Wagner had been amassing troops at the Russian border for weeks). In the same video, Prigozhin also called for the ouster of Russia’s defense minister, whom he accused of lying to Putin and the country’s citizens about Ukrainian aggression and the threat that NATO poses to Russia.
• By Saturday night, ~25,000 Wagner troops had advanced to within 120 miles of Moscow, capturing two major Russian cities, including the southern military stronghold of Rostov-on-Don, along the way. Wagner soldiers experienced limited resistance from Russia’s military – despite Putin ordering them to put down what he called an armed rebellion – which was mainly focused on shoring up defenses around the capital city.

✋ But then… they stopped. Prigozhin pulled the Wagner troops back after announcing a peace agreement with Putin that was reportedly brokered by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko late Saturday night.

As part of the deal, Prigozhin will go into exile in Belarus but won’t face any criminal charges. Wagner soldiers who took part in the mutiny will also be granted full amnesty by the Kremlin, while the remaining ~25,000 troops who didn’t participate will be offered a contract with Russia’s military.

📝 Bottom line: While unsuccessful, the Wagner Group’s two-day rebellion represents the most serious challenge to Putin’s power since he became president in 1999. And many geopolitical analysts argue the incident has permanently damaged Putin’s reputation, both abroad and within Russia.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, how long will Vladimir Putin, 70, remain the leader of Russia?

The next 0-2 years

The next 2-4 years

The next 4-8 years

More than 8 years

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🐋 The revolution is here: orca attacks on boats seem to be spreading across the North Atlantic Ocean near Europe. An orca repeatedly rammed into a yacht in the North Sea near Scotland last week, representing the first known incident in that particular body of water. The attack occurred 2,000 miles away from a series of similar orca attacks reported off the coasts of Portugal and Spain for the past three years. According to experts, the behavior was likely first inspired by a female named Gladis who had a traumatic run-in with a boat – and now it’s spreading to distant whale populations, too.

🇸🇱🇬🇷🇬🇹 A trio of countries held nationwide elections to determine a leader this weekend. 1) Sierra Leone: Residents voted in presidential, parliamentary, and local elections on Saturday, with President Julius Maada Bio seeking a second term amidst high inflation and unemployment. 2) Greece: PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis won a second four-year term on Sunday after his center-right New Democracy party earned a landslide victory in the country's second national election in five weeks. 3) Guatemala: Polling stations closed last night in the country’s tight presidential race, which features a total of 25 candidates; the race is widely expected to result in an August runoff election featuring the top two vote-getters.

🚢 At least 237 migrants were rescued after four boats sank off the coast of Spain’s Canary Islands. Officials fear more than 30 migrants had drowned on the Western Africa-Atlantic migration route, which is considered the second-deadliest in the world behind the Mediterranean Sea crossing. The incident occurred just over a week after a ship carrying an estimated 400 to 750 migrants sank in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Greece, with all but 104 passengers still missing and presumed dead.

Whether you’re asking one of life’s great questions – what’s the best donut? – or seeking recs on appliances, furniture, films, or restaurants, to name a few, finding an actually helpful, actually human response feels like searching for a needle in an SEO-optimized haystack. And Google seems to have noticed, too.

🆕 Introducing… On Friday, the tech giant launched “Perspectives,” a new tab of search results alongside “News” and “Images” that’s made up entirely of human-generated content around the web.

• The feature, which is currently available on mobile, displays results in a Pinterest-style vertical feed that features YouTube and TikTok videos alongside text-based responses from users on Reddit, Twitter, Quora, and Stack Overflow (for programming related questions).

📸 Big picture: It’s likely not a coincidence that the launch of Perspectives coincides with an ongoing deluge of AI-generated content from large language models like Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. According to the European Law Enforcement Group (Europol), 90% of online content will be generated by AI by 2026😳.

• For tech giants like Google, Adobe, and Microsoft, differentiating human-made images from those created by AI is also top concern. The three companies are leading the charge on efforts to use metadata and watermarks to easily identify AI-made images and disclose that info to the user.

P.S. “What’s the best donut?” is a trick question, btw. They’re all great as long as you’re reading The DONUT (this is an objective, peer-reviewed scientific fact that everyone agrees on).

💬 Quoted… “TikTok has not provided such data to the Chinese government or CCP, nor would TikTok do so.”

TikTok admitted on Friday that it stores the sensitive data (including SSNs) of some American creators on servers in China. This contradicts CEO Shou Zi Chew's previous claims to Congress, made under oath, that US user data is only stored in Virginia and Singapore.

• According to TikTok, no data stored in China has been shared with Chinese officials, and it is in the process of deleting "protected data" from servers in the country.

🏥 Stat of the Day: New research from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation suggests that diabetes cases worldwide are projected to nearly double by 2050, from 529 million people to more than a billion. The increase should be most dramatically felt in Africa and the Middle East.

🤯 Did You Know?... Dolphins must love Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” because they sleep with one eye open. Unlike humans, dolphins don’t breathe automatically – instead, the chatty mammals sleep with one half of their brains at a time. The right eye stays open when the left half of the brain sleeps, and vice versa.

📖 Worth a Read: The Ultra-Secret Underwater Spy System That Might Have Heard the Titan Implode → (WSJ)

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• ☝️ Several cars from a freight train fell into the Yellowstone River in Montana on Saturday after a bridge collapsed underneath it; the cars were reportedly carrying hot asphalt and molten sulfur, prompting local officials to close drinking water intakes downstream while they evaluate any potential danger.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with International Intrigue

• 💰 US markets closed down across the board on Friday (S&P: -0.8%; Dow: -0.6%; Nasdaq: -1.0%).
• ☕ Around 3,500 Starbucks workers at 150 stores across the country are expected to go on strike this coming week over accusations that the company banned Pride month displays at some of its stores.
• ✈️⛈️ A combined ~17,000 flights were delayed across the US on Saturday and Sunday, as thunderstorms paused travel in and out of some of America’s biggest airports; the FAA also briefly halted all departures to D.C. yesterday due to emergency maintenance.

*From our partners: 🌎🧐 International Intrigue is a newsletter created by former diplomats who scour 600+ sources daily. Join 50,000 decision makers who trust International Intrigue to deliver the global gossip and subscribe for free here.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🎓 Florida and LSU split the first two games of the College World Series finals over the weekend; this included a record-setting 24-4 Florida victory in Game 2 yesterday; the winner-take-all Game 3 starts at 7 pm ET tonight. | ⚾ The Los Angeles Angels set a new franchise record on Saturday, scoring 25 runs – including 13 in one inning – in a single game against the Colorado Rockies.
• ⚽ The US was selected on Friday to host the men’s FIFA Club World Cup in 2025; the newly-revamped tournament will feature 32 of the world’s top soccer teams, including Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester City, and the Seattle Sounders; it will take place one year before the US, Mexico, and Canada play host to the FIFA World Cup.
• 🎤 Taylor Swift performed the song “Dear John” live for the first time in 11 years on Saturday.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with Katio Dogio

• 🤝🧠 A 25-year science wager has finally come to an end. On Friday, neuroscientist Christof Koch and philosopher David Chalmers agreed that their 1998 bet – whether the mechanism by which the brain’s neurons produce consciousness would be discovered by 2023 – was officially won by Chalmers, who said it wouldn’t be discovered.
• 💊 An experimental obesity pill created by pharma giant Eli Lilly helped overweight people lose an average of 14.7% of their body weight after 36 weeks, compared to 2.3% for a placebo; that’s per a peer-reviewed study published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
• 💰🚀 The cost of NASA’s upcoming mission to bring rock samples from Mars back to Earth has more than doubled from its original price to reach $10+ billion, per a new report from ArsTechnica.

*From our partners: 😸🐶 Raised feeders provide a more comfortable angle for your pets… promoting healthier posture and digestion. Get the Kitty Kafe or the Doggy Diner from Katio Dogio – voted 2022 Pet Innovation of The Year.

MISCELLANEOUS

• ✍️ President Biden signed an executive order on Friday aimed at improving access to contraception and other family planning resources for all Americans, especially those on Medicare or Medicaid.
• 🗽 The personal data of ~45,000 NYC public school students, including some social security numbers and birth dates, were stolen earlier this month as part of a wide-ranging hack targeting a software system called MOVEit.
• 🦠 There is no evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology – a Chinese laboratory at the center of the debate over Covid’s origins – conducted genetic engineering on viruses related to the one that caused the pandemic, or held such viruses in its stockpiles before the 2019 outbreak; that’s per a report published Friday by the US Director of National Intelligence. (Background)

CLICKBAIT

• 🛒 Early Amazon Prime Day deals you can get right now.

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On Friday, we covered a recent Stanford study examining the 10 most popular AI models in the world, which found that each one would be in violation of a new EU draft law governing AI.

❓ Our question to you: Do you think the US should adopt the same regulatory framework for artificial intelligence as the EU?

• 👍 Yes: 72%
• 👎 No: 13%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 15%

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

+Note on sample size: We received 10,236 votes and 928 longform responses.

Monday: NCAA men’s College World Series final; a new season of The Bachelorette drops

Tuesday: Former President Trump’s aide will be arraigned on six federal counts related to Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents

Wednesday: INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY

Thursday: Weekly unemployment claims; The Witcher Season 3 released

Friday: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hits theaters across America; H1 of 2023 ends for companies

Grocery shopping can be a mundane task for anyone.

However, Sprouts Farmers Market cashiers Molly and Norine have made it their mission to put a smile on customers' faces – through musical announcements. 

🎤 Bringing the joy... The duo sing their announcements every week over the loudspeaker. And their favorite part of the quirky tradition is the reaction they get from shoppers.

• "Making somebody smile, making them laugh. When they clap their hands and [I know they] enjoyed it – that's the biggest goal." Norene, who's affectionaly known as the Singing Grandma, told ABC7.

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

1. Anth
2. Cathar
3. Eur
4. Fusc
5. Pet

(keep scrolling for the answers)

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What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone who you think would like the DONUT. Once you hit each milestone, you'll get an email with a link to claim your prize. (Pro tip: there's no need to ration points, you're entitled to a prize at each tier.)

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1. Anth = Flower (e.g., anther, anthology)
2. Cathar = Pure (cathartic)
3. Eur = Wide (Europe)
4. Fusc = Dark (obfuscate)
5. Pet = Strive towards (appetite, compete)