Good morning! Several thousand Norwegians were accidentally notified they'd won the lottery, with some alleged prizes in the millions of dollars. Woof. Not a great week for Norway (more on that below).

That’s alright, though. If they’re looking to take a break from not winning anything, North Korea is opening a big, luxurious beach resort tomorrow. It’ll supposedly hold up to 20,000 visitors and treat them to 2.5 miles of beachfront malls, shops, restaurants, and water slides. Best of luck to any of those lucky “visitors.”

Programming note: In the interest of honoring America’s independence by maximizing our hot dog and ice cream intake, we’re taking the rest of the week off. Our next issue will arrive one week from today, on Monday, July 7.

SUPREME COURT

👩‍⚖️ Supreme Court drops bombs, dips for summer vacay

The Supreme Court said “so long” for the summer on Friday after dropping three major decisions, one of which challenged “Real Housewives of the Potomac" for its perch atop the world of D.C. drama.

🏳️‍🌈 School Pride: Christian and Muslim parents in Maryland challenged the local public school’s use of “LGBTQ+-inclusive” lessons for grades PK-5, arguing they should be able to opt their kids out on religious grounds.

• The court sided with the parents on this, arguing that the lessons were clearly pushing a specific viewpoint. Since that view violates the families’ religious beliefs, they must be able to opt their kids out.

🌽 Online corn: Many states — Texas, in this case — have recently passed laws forcing, uh, cornographic adult websites to use ID verification to confirm that users are over 18. An anti-censorship group sued, arguing the laws violate free speech rights.

• The court sided with Texas. Minors can’t buy this stuff in brick-and-mortar stores, so preventing their access in general isn’t out of bounds.

• Adult content being freely available online complicates things, though, and verifying ID is a privacy issue for some users.

• But the court said Texas’s age-verification law only “incidentally burdens” the free speech of adults, so it’s good to go.

👶 Birthrights: Alright, this one’s a doozy. Some background: A key part of the Civil War-era 14th Amendment has long been interpreted to mean that anyone born in the U.S. has citizenship from birth. The Trump administration is challenging that norm. They don’t believe birthright citizenship should be given to all babies (some parents are here illegally, on temporary visas, etc.). A lower, district-level federal court issued a nationwide injunction, freezing the new policy entirely while the case played out — a controversial tactic that’s becoming more and more common.

• The Trump administration won this one, but only sorta: the Supreme Court didn’t decide the merits of the new anti-birthright citizenship policy.

• The court’s decision only covers whether lower courts can issue so-called “universal injunctions” that halt administration policies nationwide.

• Per the Supreme Court, district courts do not have the power to issue universal freezes to federal policy. They can only freeze a policy for the specific people bringing the case to court.

• Whether the administration can axe birthright citizenship is TBD. And the policy is still frozen for the next 30 days, while that’s worked out by other courts.

The court’s opinion, written by Justice Barrett, is as spicy as something this lame can hope to be. It slams Justice Jackson’s dissent directly, saying it’s not tethered "to any doctrine whatsoever,” is “at odds with … the Constitution itself,” and “decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”

• Jackson also went all-in, writing that Barrett’s view “will surely hasten the downfall of our governing institutions, enabling our collective demise.”

Future: The high court returns in early October for a new season. Until then, it’s all vacations, books, speeches, and academic mumbo jumbo — with a few emergency court orders sprinkled in when necessary.

POLITICS

🏛️ Senate bills and sore losers

RIP, Senate clerks. An unlucky few nonpartisan career Senate staffers spent 16 hours reading aloud all 940 pages of Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. They started at 11:00 Saturday night and didn't finish until 3:00 Sunday afternoon.

This thing is Donald Trump’s baby, and he’s pushing the Republican-controlled Congress to get a final version of it passed by the Fourth of July (that’s Friday).

• The basic framework renews the soon-to-expire Trump tax cuts from 2017, throws more money at defense and immigration enforcement, and messes with the rules and budgets of popular programs like Medicaid.

• Senate Democrats forced the reading, hoping to highlight various parts of the bill they think will be unpopular, like potential Medicaid cuts.

In a repeat of last week, Republicans lost a battle with the Senate’s parliamentarian (the rules referee). They won’t be allowed to include certain things if they want their bill to qualify for the filibuster-free reconciliation process.

• Some TikTok chatter claims Senate Republicans want to just fire the parliamentarian and push forward without her input.

• Technically, that’s possible. And Trump wants it badly. But that last happened 25 years ago, and senators have given no indication that they’re on board with the move now.

The Senate voted 51-49, with two Republicans joining Democrats on Team No, to move forward with debate on the bill. But a zillion votes on proposed changes are still in the works, and the clock is ticking on Trump’s desired July 4th deadline. Once this thing actually passes, we’ll let you know the gist of what ended up in the final version.

Elsewhere in politics…

• Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo will run for NYC mayor as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to Zohran Mamdani.

• Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon (R) will retire in 2026, hurting Republicans’ already slim chances of holding the House.

• The powerful Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) is pushing Target to reverse course and reinstate its DEI programs.

• After a fight with Trump over his One Big Beautiful Bill, swing-state Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) won't run for reelection in 2026.

TRIVIA

About one-third of the 11,000 residents of the tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu have requested climate visas to Australia. They’re fleeing a low-lying country that’s sometimes only 65 feet wide and one that many scientists fear could eventually be washed away by the ocean. Thankfully, Australia and New Zealand are coming in clutch for many little nearby islands. Anyway, while we’re on the topic of islands, today’s question: What is the largest island in the United States?

Hint: It’s not Long Island.

BRIEFS

● Ukraine said Russia launched its biggest-ever aerial attack over the weekend, with about 537 missiles and drones. The vast majority were either shot down or jammed. Meanwhile, Ukraine pulled out of a 1997 treaty banning the use of landmines.

● President Trump on Sunday said that “a group of very wealthy people” is ready to buy TikTok and promised more details in “about two weeks.” China’s government would need to consent to the sale, but has given no indication that it would do so.

● Marius Borg Høiby, the 28-year-old stepson of Norway's Crown Prince Haakon, got slapped with some horrific criminal charges on Friday. The troubled sorta-royal-by-marriage allegedly raped and assaulted a "double-digit" number of victims.

● The University of Virginia's president resigned on Friday, handing a big win to the Trump administration’s push to end college DEI programs. Part of that is pulling federal funding from noncompliant schools and pushing out the administrators responsible.

● Former President Biden and Vice President Harris were among the mourners at the funeral of slain Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman in Minneapolis on Saturday. Gov. Tim Walz gave the eulogy. The suspected assassin, Vance Boelter, is in custody.

QUOTE

ANSWER

Should Donald Trump somehow get his way, the answer would be Greenland. For now, we’ll have to settle for the Big Island of Hawaii at 4,028 square miles. Rounding out the top 10 are Puerto Rico and eight random islands in Alaska that nobody’s ever heard of. New York’s Long Island comes in at number 11. That feels kinda low, but it is the biggest island in the contiguous 48 states.