Good morning. In today’s edition:

• ⚖️📱 The legal battle over TikTok’s future is underway
• ☎️ Landlines are hanging in there
• 🚁 Flying electric taxis: coming in 2025?

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~4.73-minute read (1,260 words).

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"If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time."

–Zig Ziglar (1926-2012)

On Thursday, TikTok filed the first legal briefs in a lawsuit that will determine whether Gen Z Americans have to join their millennial elders on Reels.

Background: In early April, President Biden signed into law a series of bipartisan bills that, in addition to providing $95+ billion in foreign aid, also require Chinese tech giant ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US operations within the next nine months or face a ban.

US lawmakers point to two main reasons for the TikTok sale-or-ban measure:

• ByteDance’s ownership of the app raises fears that the data of TikTok’s ~170 million US users could end up in the hands of the Chinese government.
• There’s also a concern that Beijing could put its thumb on the app’s algorithm to influence US public opinion and promote its own interests.

However, TikTok paints a different picture. In its new legal briefs, the social media giant maintains that it has never sent US user data to the Chinese government, and wouldn’t do so if it was requested. TikTok also argues the sale-or-ban law unfairly targets ByteDance while ignoring other China-linked platforms, and illegally violates Americans’ First Amendment rights.

• Additionally, TikTok claims a sale of its US operations would be financially and technically impossible within the government’s deadline, essentially turning the law into a US TikTok ban – which was previously struck down in court as government overreach.

Looking ahead… Both TikTok and the US government are seeking a ruling on the sale-or-ban law by early December, which would allow for a possible Supreme Court review before the law takes effect on January 19.

📊 Flash poll: In your opinion, should TikTok be banned from every device in the US?

• Yes
• No
• Unsure/other

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🇦🇪 Newly discovered ruins in the UAE could be the lost city of Tawam. Tawam, a city mentioned in ancient Arabic texts, is believed to have been a major capital in eastern Arabia in the sixth century that was known for its pearl-fishing and precious gems. Archaeologists recently discovered the remains of homes and large jars with ancient Aramaic writing at a site near Dubai, which they say are likely ruins from Tawam.

🇫🇷 Paris residents are threatening to poop in the Seine River ahead of the Olympics to protest sewage contamination. Swimming in the Seine has been banned since 1923 due to high pollution levels. But Paris has embarked on a $1.5 billion cleanup effort in preparation for the 2024 Summer Games, with organizers hoping to hold some swimming competitions in the river. Some Parisians began threatening a poop protest after France’s president and the mayor of Paris both pledged to take a swim in the Seine, despite recent testing revealing high levels of E. coli. However, these protests were recently postponed after Paris’ mayor delayed her swim from June 23 to sometime next month.

🇸🇦 1,300+ Muslims died from extreme heat during the Hajj pilgrimage. During this year’s Hajj period (from June 14-19), daily high temperatures ranged between 117°F-119°F around Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where ~2 million pilgrims gathered to make the Islamic pilgrimage. Saudi officials say roughly half of the fatalities were unauthorized pilgrims from Egypt, where 16 travel agencies had their licenses revoked for sending pilgrims to Saudi Arabia without government-issued Hajj permits.

Last week, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) rejected AT&T’s request to be released from its obligations as a Carrier of Last Resort (COLR), meaning the telecom giant must continue to provide landline services to residents across California into the future.

What is COLR? A provision of the law, usually pertaining to a utility monopoly, that mandates basic service be provided to all customers within a territory, no matter where they live.

California is one of the states that still keep COLR rules active (though maybe not for much longer). In many others, large telecom companies were able to eliminate them by promising to freeze residential telephone rates, Doug Dawson, president of telecom consulting company CCG Consulting, writes.

• AT&T has been a COLR in California since 1996, but recently asked to be released from these obligations, citing the high cost to maintain copper landlines + the wide availability of alternatives like mobile service and VoIP.
• However, in ruling against AT&T, the CPUC said California residents "highlighted the unreliability of [these] voice alternatives" at public hearings.

Between the landlines: One of the biggest benefits of landlines is being able to reliably call 911 in the case of an emergency and/or cell network outage. (Landlines still need electricity, but when the power goes out, massive generators at telephone providers kick-in to provide this juice.)

☎️ Zoom out: In 2010, ~75% of American adults lived in a household with a landline. By 2022, that figure had dropped to 27%.

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“Allowing people to replace one-to-two-hour drives to cities around the Bay with flights that take ~10-20 minutes.”

• Soon, the Weasley family car won’t be the only automobile in the skies. Electric air taxi startup Archer Aviation last week announced a partnership with developer Kilroy Realty to build a series of “vertiports” that would allow its air taxis to service five key Bay Area cities – San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Napa, and Livermore. Archer says its flight service, which will be available as early as 2025, is designed to be sustainable, low-noise, and competitively priced with ground transportation. More broadly, many flying car services are inching closer to a public debut, with Archer’s announcement coming one day after competitor Joby Aviation said the FAA has authorized its in-house software to perform tasks like matching passengers with air taxis, similar to ride-hailing apps like Uber or Lyft.

👶 Stat of the Day: If Elon Musk’s children were putting together a football team, they’d have enough to include a referee, too. The Tesla/X/SpaceX/Neuralink/xAI leader confirmed that he welcomed his third child with Neuralink director Shivon Zilis earlier this year – making Musk, who has long warned of the dangers posed by a falling global population, a father to 12 known children.

🤔 Did You Know? The world record for longest nonstop run by a human was set in 2005 by Dean Karnazes, who covered 350 miles over the course of nearly 81 hours without stopping.

📰 Worth a Read: The Woman Who Could Smell Parkinson’s → (NY Times)

• ☝️ The Bugatti Tourbillon, a $4 million electric hybrid sports car that can reach speeds of up to 250 MPH, was unveiled late last week; the Tourbillon’s naturally aspirated V16 engine combines with a trio of electric motors to deliver 1,800 horsepower, making it the most powerful Bugatti ever built.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

in partnership with Beam

• 💰 US markets closed mixed on Friday (S&P: -0.2%; Dow: +0.04%; Nasdaq: -0.2%). | 🏘️ The national median existing-home price in May was $419,300, a record high dating back to 1999 (when data collection started); sales of previously owned homes decreased for the third month in a row.
• 👚 Forever 21 is asking some landlords for rent concessions as high as 50% due to financial difficulties, per CNBC.
• 🚘💻 CDK Global, an automotive software company used by 15,000 car dealerships in the US, began restoring its systems following a cyberattack that pushed them offline last week; Bloomberg previously reported CDK was negotiating with an Eastern European-based hacker group that was demanding tens of millions of dollars in ransom to end the outage.

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SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 🏒🏆 Stanley Cup Finals: The Edmonton Oilers came back from a 3-0 series deficit to force Game 7 against the Florida Panthers; the puck drops at 8 pm ET tonight. | ⚾🏆 Men’s College World Series: No. 1 Tennessee will face off against No. 3 Texas A&M in a deciding Game 3; first pitch is at 7 pm ET tonight.
• 🍿 Inside Out 2 earned $100 million in its second weekend at the US box office, marking the highest such total for an animated movie (and seventh-highest ever); with $724.4 million in global sales, Inside Out 2 has already surpassed Dune: Part Two as 2024’s top-grossing film.
• 🏃‍♀️ Sha'Carri Richardson is heading to Paris: the 24-year-old qualified for her first Olympic Games on Saturday, with her 10.71-second 100-meter dash marking the fastest by a woman this year; Richardson was barred from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics due to a positive THC test.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

in partnership with NoNetz

• 🚬 The FDA authorized the first menthol-flavored e-cigarettes for adult smokers, acknowledging for the first time that vaping flavors can reduce the harms of traditional tobacco smoking.
• 🏠☄️ A Florida family is suing NASA for $80,000 in damages after a piece of space debris – later identified as remnants of a cargo pallet released by the ISS that failed to burn up in atmospheric re-entry – punched a hole in their roof.
• ⚡ Texas will need to provide nearly double its current amount of power within six years, according to a new report from the state’s main electric grid operator.

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MISCELLANEOUS

• 🚆🥵 Amtrak warned of train delays in the Northeast Corridor due to an ongoing heat wave. | 🌧 Torrential rain in the Midwest caused flooding that prompted rescues and evacuations in multiple states.
• 💰🗳️ Presidential campaign financial disclosures for May were filed last week; Trump and the RNC outraised Biden and the DNC for the first time this year ($141 million vs. $85 million).
• ⚖️ The Supreme Court voted 8-1 to uphold a federal law that bans people under domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms. (Read more)

CLICKBAIT

• 🐶☀️ What – And When – Are The Dog Days of Summer?

Monday: Two-year anniversary of SCOTUS’ decision overturning Roe v. Wade

Tuesday: Four states hold non-presidential primaries; Half Christmas

Wednesday: WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich will stand trial in Russia

Thursday: Biden faces Trump in first 2024 presidential debate, hosted by CNN; NBA Draft takes place; Season 3 of The Bear premieres

Friday: National Pride Day; Iran holds election to replace deceased President Ebrahim Raisi

On Friday, we covered how Congress is currently considering some new updates to mandatory conscription – including a proposal that would make women eligible for the draft.

❓ Our question to you: In your opinion, should American women aged 18-25 be required to register for the US military draft?

• 👍 Yes: 39%
• ♂️ No, it should remain only men: 19%
• 🚫 No, nobody should have to register: 32%
• 🤷 Unsure/other: 10%

Click here to read the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 3,801 votes and 396 longform responses.

Hundreds of yogis gathered in Times Square last week for the Solstice in Times Square: Mind Over Madness Yoga event.

😇 Bright lights, chill city... The event has been ongoing for 22 years. It's always held on the longest day of the year, at one of the busiest intersections in the world, to promote peace and calm.

• "Summer Solstice Yoga in Times Square with its inspiring yoga teachers, has become an iconic setting to reaffirm your yoga practice under the Broadway lights and the invigorating sun," said co-founder Douglass Stewart, who started the annual gathering in 2003 with two of his friends. 

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

1. Burs
2. Cogn
3. Ec
4. Flor

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1. Burs = bag or purse (e.g., bursal, bursary)
2. Cogn = Know (cognizant)
3. Ec = Out of place (eccentric)
4. Flor = Flower (floral)