Good morning. In today’s edition:

• 🎮 Ads inside video games
• ⚽ Cape Verde stuns Spain
• 📸 Worst photographer in the world

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.80-minute read (1,012 words).

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“The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.”

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

Many GLP-1 users are getting smaller around the midsection. Unfortunately, their daily step counts are shrinking, too.

A recent study of 753 adults taking weight-loss drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro found that physical activity started to decline once treatment began.

• It’s one of the first large-scale analyses to track how exercise habits change once treatment begins by using data from real-world wearable devices.
• The team found average daily steps fell by ~10%, from 5,047 to 4,487, while moderate-to-vigorous exercise dropped from 28 mins/day to 22.

The findings, presented at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting this weekend, raise an important question: If the scale is moving in the right direction, why does exercise still matter?

It all comes down to muscle mass

While GLP-1 medications primarily target fat, they can also reduce lean muscle mass during rapid weight loss. But consistent exercise—especially resistance training—helps preserve patients’ strength, mobility, and long-term metabolic health.

Many doctors are also encouraging GLP-1 users to eat more protein to maintain their lean muscle mass while losing weight. Demand for whey protein has surged in recent months, with prices climbing to record highs and some suppliers reportedly sold out through the rest of 2026.

Looking ahead…The upcoming launch of a Medicare program providing weight-loss drugs for $50/month is expected to unleash pent-up demand for Wegovy, Zepbound, and other GLP-1 drugs. The program, set to begin July 1, is being hailed as one of the biggest drug rollouts in US history.

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EA is giving brands a new cheat code for reaching gamers: putting ads directly inside the game.

Yesterday, the video game giant behind College Football 26, The Sims, Apex Legends, and more officially launched EA Advertising, a new platform that lets brands integrate “directly into gameplay” across the company’s portfolio of titles.

Advertising gets a power-up

EA is sitting on one of the biggest attention machines in entertainment. The company says its games feature a combined 120+ million monthly users, with gamers playing the equivalent of ~700,000 NFL seasons in Madden and 1+ billion matches of EA Sports FC (formerly FIFA) every month. For brands, EA’s titles represent the advertising equivalent of 24/7 digital sports arenas packed with fans.

• EA has framed its latest move as an extension of real-world sports/entertainment advertising, where sponsor logos are already part of the experience.
• The company is betting those same formats can be carried into virtual worlds without feeling overly intrusive.

But that balance could be difficult to strike. Gamers have often pushed back when publishers add new monetization layers, especially when those changes appear inside games they already shelled out $69.99 to play. In 2020, EA ended up removing full-screen ads from UFC 4 after launch when players strongly objected to the move.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 US stocks close up across the board in first trading day following the recently announced US-Iran peace agreement (S&P: +1.7% | Dow: +0.9% | Nasdaq: +3.1%); benchmark crude oil prices fall to ~$83/barrel, the same level as early March. | SpaceX shares rise 20% in first full day of trading, after already rising 20% in their market debut on Friday.
• 🤝 Fox agrees to buy streaming device maker Roku for ~$22 billion in cash-and-stock deal partially funded by new debt. | Salesforce to acquire AI customer service platform Fin (formerly Intercom) for $3.6 billion.
• 🤖 KPMG pulls report on AI use in businesses following claims that several inaccuracies in the report were hallucinations from the author’s use of AI.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• ⚽ World Cup: Cape Verde—a tiny island nation of ~500,000 people off West Africa—holds global powerhouse Spain to a 0-0 draw; it’s “one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history," per The Athletic.
• 🙏 US singer/comedian Oliver Tree is among six passengers who died in a helicopter crash in Brazil on Sunday, his father confirmed.
• 🏈 Texas Tech QB Brendan Sorsby will leave school and enter the NFL Supplemental Draft; move comes amid legal challenges over Sorsby’s NCAA eligibility, after a Texas judge issued an injunction allowing Sorsby to play despite him admitting to gambling on sports (including his own team). | 🏀 Chicago Bulls reportedly hire Tiago Splitter, interim head coach for the Trail Blazers, as their new head coach.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🌎✈️ Google launches free flight simulator in its Google Earth software, which users can pilot directly from their browser.
• 💉 GLP-1 medications are linked to higher testosterone levels, sperm counts, and sperm quality in men with high BMIs, new 24-week study finds.
• 🛰️ Earth observation satellite successfully finds what it was looking for without first sending imagery back to Earth for analysis, in first-of-its-kind breakthrough.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🏛️ California Gov. Gavin Newsom and his wife are under federal investigation for unknown charges, the governor announced; Newsom, a Democrat, claims President Trump ordered the DOJ to investigate him because “I am considering running for President.”
• 🙏 US Air Force B-52 bomber crashes shortly after takeoff at Edwards Air Force Base in California, with all eight crew members believed dead. | ⚖️ Supreme Court rejects a challenge to New York’s 2021 firearm liability law allowing gunmakers to be sued for harm linked to their weapons, leaving the law in effect.
• 🇬🇧📵 UK government will ban children under 16 from using several major social media apps—including Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube—starting next year; Britain joins a growing number of countries with similar age-restricted bans.

☝️ You’re looking at some of the “winning” photographs from Icelandair’s recent contest to find the worst photographer in the world—and prove that even bad picture-takers can capture beautiful images of Iceland. Judges took 2,000+ hours to sift through 127,642 entries before deciding on a winner: Blanche Mortemard, who earned a free 10-day trip to Iceland and $50,000.

🤔 Did you know? US alcohol consumption is thought to have peaked in the 1830s, when the average American drank 7.1 gallons of pure alcohol per year (three times the average today). That equates to just over 1.7 bottles of 80-proof whiskey per week, or ~4 shots/day.

📰 Worth a read: Why so many Americans moved to the middle of nowhere

🖱️ What we’re clicking:

• Police dress up as World Cup mascots for drug bust
• 14 best burgers in the world right now
• How a Russian operative staged an arson attack on UK PM Starmer

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Yesterday we covered SpaceX’s debut on the public markets following a record-breaking IPO, which comes amid a debate over whether the Elon Musk-led space company is fairly valued at a market cap of $2+ trillion.

❓ Our question to you: On the whole, which of the following best describes your opinion of SpaceX’s current valuation?

• It’s overvalued: 70%
• It’s around fair value: 16%
• It’s undervalued: 14%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 551 votes and 44 longform responses.

🏟️ Keep up with the sports world in under 3 mins/day. Press Sports is a 3x/week newsletter designed to make you the smartest sports fan in the room (after a quick bathroom break).

🐙 Move over, Meg: How a massive, Kraken-like octopus ruled the seas 72 million years ago.

🏛️ Identity politics: Pew Research identified the 9 different political sub-identities in America—which one are you?

💼🎯 What do 310,000+ professional women know that you don’t? They’re reading The Assist—a 4x-weekly newsletter packed with leadership insights and career strategies from women executives. Subscribe free.*

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❓ Trivia: What’s the largest ocean on earth?

🥜 True or false?… Peanuts grow underground.

🤔 Riddle me this: What starts with M, ends with N, and has an X and a Y inside?

🧦 The Redwings Horse Sanctuary recently received an unusual donation from Premier League champion Arsenal FC: dozens of pairs of players' used socks.

In addition to making a fashion statement, the socks also protect the horses' legs from flies, hold their vet bandages in place, protect them from headcollar rubs, and keep their hair out of the way while their feet are trimmed.

❓ Trivia: Pacific Ocean

🥜 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: Man (X and Y chromosomes)

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