☕️ Orange paint

Do Just Stop Oil’s controversial protests have an effect? June 21, 2024 [View Online]( | [Sign Up]( | [Shop]( [Morning Brew]( PRESENTED BY [AT&T In-car Wi-Fi]( Good morning. It’s Take Your Dog to Work Day, and don’t be surprised if they start contributing right away in your office. Things your dog is already good at: - Circling back - Providing deliverables - Herding cats - Eating the other team’s lunch And they always keep their eye on the ball. —Cassandra Cassidy, Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Adam Epstein, Neal Freyman MARKETS Nasdaq 17,721.59 -0.79% S&P 5,473.17 -0.25% Dow 39,134.76 +0.77% 10-Year 4.254% +4.0 bps Bitcoin $65,061.80 +0.41% Trump Media $26.75 -14.56% Data is provided by *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 4:00pm ET. [Here's what these numbers mean.]( - Markets: As your refrigerator magnet says, all good things must come to an end. Stocks’ hot streak [went cold]( on Thursday as the S&P 500 closed lower after briefly touching another record high earlier in the day. Meanwhile, Trump Media took a 15% nosedive, continuing a weekslong selloff since the former president was convicted of 34 felonies.  CLIMATE [Just Stop Oil goes hard in the orange paint]( [Just Stop Oil members spray orange paint on private jets in London]( Images Two climate activists from Just Stop Oil (JSO) were arrested at a London airfield yesterday after they sprayed orange paint on private jets, adding fuel to a fire the group set off with a string of controversial demonstrations in recent days. JSO posted on X that the two activists cut a fence to the private airfield in an apparent [attempt]( to target Taylor Swift’s jet, which has been scrutinized for having record-high carbon emissions. Local police later said the pop star’s jet hadn’t been parked there. First came the rocks. Less than 24 hours earlier, other JSO protestors sprayed their signature orange paint on 4,500-year-old [Stonehenge]( drawing ire from British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who called it “disgraceful,” as well as Druids and pagans, to whom Stonehenge is a sacred place. (The paint dissolved and the monument wasn't damaged.) Members of the group have made headlines in the past for blocking traffic, throwing paint on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting, and running onto Wimbledon courts. How they’re doing it According to its [website]( JSO is a “nonviolent civil resistance group demanding the UK Government stop licensing all new oil, gas and coal projects.” How’s it funded? Through a mix of donations from the public and wealthy individuals. Most of its money comes from the Climate Emergency Fund, a network tied to the granddaughter of oil baron J. Paul Getty. In the past, it received funding from green energy industrialist Dale Vince and from Hollywood screenwriter and director Adam McKay (of The Big Short and Don’t Look Up). Is Just Stop Oil stopping oil? Not in any discernible way—at least yet. Last year, Sunak [granted]( 100 new North Sea oil and gas licenses and committed to issuing more. But the group seems unlikely to stop its disturbances, and from their POV, there’s no reason to: A [study]( from the University of Bristol found that radical protests often help raise awareness, and that dislike of protestors had no impact on the public’s support for the issues themselves.—CC PRESENTED BY AT&T IN-CAR WI-FI [Are we there yet?]( [AT&T In-car Wi-Fi]( The classic question dreaded by road-tripping parents, weary travelers, and pretty much anybody who’s ever sat in the driver’s seat. It’s a valid question, really—boring road trips are def no fun. That’s why you need to hook up your car with AT&T In-car Wi-Fi. You can [stay connected everywhere your adventure takes you]( from a beachside getaway to a cozy cabin in the mountains. Plus, [AT&T In-car Wi-Fi covers more roads than any other carrier]( so you won’t have to worry about spotty service, dropped calls, or annoying lag times. Even better? AT&T In-car Wi-Fi starts at $10/mo. + taxes and fees with an eligible Unlimited plan®. [Say bye-bye to snoozefest traveling](. WORLD [Tour de headlines](#) [The US Supreme Court]Saul Loeb/Getty Images SCOTUS upheld a tax on foreign income. The Supreme Court’s 7–2 ruling to validate a Trump-era tax provision on US businesses’ foreign profits was overshadowed by a decision it didn’t make on the wealth tax. Experts thought the court might use the foreign income case to preemptively rule on the constitutionality of a tax on Americans’ net worths, which the Biden administration and other Democrats have proposed. But the justices [made a narrow ruling]( punting on the wealth tax issue for now. Some saw that as a win for Biden, as it keeps alive the possibility of a tax on wealthy Americans’ estates. The court still has a number of significant cases to decide this session, including one on Trump’s demand for total immunity. Anthropic claims its new AI model is the industry’s best. The company, founded by former OpenAI executives, yesterday announced its latest artificial intelligence model, Claude 3.5 Sonnet. According to Anthropic, it’s twice as fast as the previous version and [performs better]( than competitors “on a wide range of evaluations.” The company also said it showed “marked improvement” in understanding humor and complex instructions. Anthropic is more focused on enterprise business than some of its rivals in the increasingly crowded AI space. Donald Sutherland died at 88. The beloved Canadian actor, best known for his roles in M*A*S*H, Animal House, and the Hunger Games franchise, died yesterday [after a long illness]( his son, actor Kiefer Sutherland, confirmed on social media. The elder Sutherland won an Emmy award in 1995 for his role in the TV movie Citizen X, and though he’s considered one of the best actors of all time to never win an Oscar, he was awarded an honorary Academy Award in 2017. He accumulated more than 200 film and TV credits over the course of his six-decade career. AUTO [Thousands of car dealerships just got hacked…twice]( [Cracked car windshield]( Scialabba Imagine if Google Workspace or Microsoft Teams crashed, but you still had to go on with your workday. Well, that’s the vibe at car dealers across the US this week: Following back-to-back cyberattacks on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, one of the auto industry’s most popular softwares is temporarily [shut down]( leaving workers no choice but to record orders with pen and paper. Hand cramps galore. It’s not clear how many dealerships have been affected or whether customer data has been stolen, but around 15,000 US car dealers—including General Motors and Group 1 Automotive sellers—use the hacked software company in question, CDK Global, to manage payroll, sales, operations, and pretty much everything else. Some dealers have kept business rolling (albeit more slowly) despite not being able to access ongoing deals or customer info. The outage is worse where CDK services are integrated throughout daily operations. According to employees commiserating on [Reddit]( - Some dealerships can’t even look up car parts, receive calls on work phones, or pay out earnings. - One user described their place of work’s contingency plan as “everyone freaking out and writing sh*t down on sticky notes.” The outage could last for several days, CNN [reported](. That could drag on summer car sales and the 3% to 3.5% of GDP that the US auto industry generates each year.—ML SPONSORED BY APPLE CARD [Apple Card]( Summer spending should be easy. Instead, it’s often a total rigmarole. Want better insight into your expenses? We recently spilled the deets on how to [get a crystal-clear picture of where exactly your money is going]( as the warmer season sets in. [Check out the article](. E-COMMERCE [Amazon chooses paper over plastic]( [Amazon Prime boxes on conveyor belt.]( Cremaschi/Getty Images Plastic, air-filled pillows that pop with the decibel level of a firework will soon be a thing of the past in Amazon packages. The company [said]( yesterday that it has eliminated 95% of the single-use box fillers from its packaging in North America and will likely be completely air pillow-free by the end of the year. The previous buffers will be replaced with recycled paper, which Amazon found is not only easier to recycle but also does a better job protecting your impulse purchases. Amazon was caught in a plastic web. In April, nonprofit conservation organization Oceana estimated that the e-commerce giant [created]( 208 million pounds of plastic waste in 2022 from packaging products in the US. And despite the company’s use of plastic packaging dropping 11.6% globally that year, its use went up about 10% in the US. Amazon has already phased out all plastic packaging in Europe and India. Big picture: This is Amazon’s most significant commitment to reducing its plastic waste to date. The company claims it will remove nearly 15 billion plastic air pillows from circulation every year.—MM STAT [Prime number](#) [Kendrick Lamar]Timothy Norris/Getty Images Drake hasn’t been humiliated this badly since he caught Ashley kissing Sean and then got dumped by her on Degrassi. Kendrick Lamar gathered an army of rappers, NBA players, and other celebrities for a Juneteenth concert in Los Angeles on Wednesday that quickly [turned into a Drake roast]( of historic proportions. Lamar performed his diss track, “Not Like Us,” five times for the rapturous audience, leading the internet to declare him the winner of a yearslong, high-profile feud with Drake. “Not Like Us” broke a Spotify record for the song with the most plays in a single day, and went on to become Lamar’s biggest hit in two decades as a solo artist. QUIZ [Hot quiz summer]( [New Friday quiz image]( The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to taking an outdoor shower after a long day at the beach. It’s that satisfying. [Ace the quiz](. (FYI—we are using a different software provider, so don’t be alarmed if the quiz looks different.) NEWS [What else is brewing](#) - [McDonald’s]( announced that its $5 meal deal—a McDouble or McChicken sandwich, small fries, four-piece Chicken McNuggets, and small soft drink, all for five bucks—will launch on June 25 for a limited time. - [Sony Music]( bought the Queen music catalog for ~$1.3 billion, making it one of the most valuable rock songbooks. - [Rapper Travis Scott]( was arrested yesterday in Miami on charges of trespassing and disorderly intoxication. - [Snap]( agreed to pay $15 million to settle a gender discrimination lawsuit that alleged the social media platform paid women less and offered them fewer promotions. - [The Los Angeles Lakers]( reportedly hired former NBA player and current podcaster JJ Redick to be its next head coach, despite his having no coaching experience. RECS [Friday to-do list] Laugh: A rhino is flipped upside down and [airlifted]( to a safer place. Update your Spotify: New York Times critics’ [40 best songs]( of 2024 so far. Go to the movies: The Bikeriders, [which stars Austin Butler]( in a leather jacket riding a motorcycle, hits theaters today. Grow up: This interactive shows how many people are [older and younger]( than you are. Listen: Per My Last Email explains why you should pay more attention to introverts at work. Check it out on [Apple]( [Spotify]( or [YouTube](. Tap into the lithium boom: Lithium demand’s set to soar 20x higher. EnergyX’s tech can extract 3x more lithium. No wonder GM invested. [Invest for $9/share by June 27]( Cash waves: Summer’s here, so we wrote about how to absolutely [ace your summer money game]( *A message from our sponsor. GAMES [The puzzle section](#) Jigsaw: Your task is to pick up the pieces of Stonehenge and put them back together. [Play the jigsaw](. Friday puzzle You might want to grab a pencil and paper for this one... With one straight cut you can slice a pie into two pieces. A second cut that crosses the first one will produce four pieces, and a third cut can produce up to seven pieces. What is the largest number of pieces that you can get with six cuts? SHARE THE BREW [Share Morning Brew]( with your friends, acquire free Brew swag, and then acquire more friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag. We’re saying we’ll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link. Your referral count: 0 [Click to Share]( Or copy & paste your referral link to others: [morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=4904f90a]( ANSWER 22. [Here’s an explanation](. Word of the Day Today’s Word of the Day is: rapturous, meaning “showing extreme pleasure and happiness or excitement.” Thanks to Matt J. from Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, for allowing us to enjoy the suggestion. Submit another [Word of the Day here](. ✢ A Note From AT&T In-car Wi-Fi *Based on independent third-party data. Requires eligible car and wireless service plan. 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