Within a span of 12 hours yesterday, US government institutions located less than .5 miles from each other charted completely different paths on gun rights at a time when the country is reeling from a wave of mass shootings.

Let’s start with the Supreme Court

Yesterday morning, it struck down a New York law that requires people to demonstrate a specific need in order to carry a concealed weapon. The decision means that more Americans will have the right to carry weapons in public, particularly in major cities.

It’s the Supreme Court’s first big gun rights opinion in more than a decade. In two decisions in 2008 and 2010, it guaranteed the right of individuals to keep handguns in their homes.

How the vote went down: In a phrase that’s become almost cliche at this point, the case was decided in a 6–3 opinion, with the conservatives in the majority.

• Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas argued that the Second Amendment shouldn’t be held to a different standard than any other in the Bill of Rights.
• Writing in dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that 45,222 Americans were killed by firearms in 2020, and this ruling makes it harder for states to keep citizens safer by restricting access to guns for some people.

At least five other states—California, New Jersey, Maryland, Hawaii, and Massachusetts—have laws similar to New York’s. This ruling opens the floodgates for legal challenges to those regulations.

But later that night on Capitol Hill…

The Senate approved gun safety legislation by a count of 65–33, with 15 Republicans voting in support. It’s a huge breakthrough, representing the most significant gun reform action at the federal level in almost three decades.

What’s in the bill? Enhanced background checks for young gun buyers, funding for school safety and mental health, and incentives for states to enact red flag laws.

The bill will head to the House today, where it’s expected to pass easily.—NF

Citadel swaps deep-dish for stone crabs. Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin is moving his firm, Citadel, from Chicago to Miami, citing Florida’s better business environment. It’s the latest corporate departure from Illinois, coming after Caterpillar and Boeing also announced they were leaving. But this one may hurt the state’s tax coffers the most: Griffin, who’s worth $28.9 billion, was the wealthiest resident of Illinois and has donated more than $600 million to organizations in the region.

Biden cancels an additional $6 billion of student loan debt. The move applies to about 200,000 borrowers who claimed that they were defrauded by 150+ schools named in a class-action settlement, including some still in operation such as the University of Phoenix and DeVry University. The Biden administration has already wiped out $25 billion in student debt for 1.3 million borrowers, and a decision on broader loan forgiveness is expected to arrive this summer.

Black Mirror season 12: Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant could be getting a creepy upgrade: the ability to mimic the voices of your family members, dead or alive. The company said that the AI just needs one minute of provided recording to get the nuances of your dad’s disappointment just right. To introduce the feature yesterday, Amazon took the wholesome route, playing a video of a boy asking his grandma to read him The Wizard of Oz.

Vape nation is at risk of becoming a failed state. On Thursday, the FDA ordered Juul to stop selling its e-cigs in the US.

The FDA’s decision, which is not very dank of them, followed a nearly two-year review of Juul’s products and is the regulator’s most severe move to crack down on vaping yet. The investigation found that Juul’s benefit as a lower-risk alternative to cigarettes for adult smokers does not outweigh its part in the teen vaping epidemic. According to FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert M. Califf, products like Juul’s “played a disproportionate role in the rise in youth vaping.”

While the FDA’s ruling is sure to hit your nephew’s Apex Legends clan hard, it might hit Big Tobacco harder. Back in 2018, Marlboro maker Altria bought a 35% stake in Juul for $12.8 billion. Juul has since plummeted in value due to declining sales and crackdowns on certain products, and as of March 31, Altria valued its stake in the company at just $1.6 billion. It’s perhaps the worst corporate investment of all time, according to Axios.

Zoom out: Juul’s fall coincides with the plan the Biden administration announced this week to eliminate nearly all nicotine from cigarettes sold in the US, and with previous proposals that would ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars.—MK

Even with her own Hulu show and a Dunkin' coffee, Charli D’Amelio was officially unseated as the queen of TikTok Wednesday night by everyone’s favorite blank stare and shrug. As of Thursday evening, Khabane “Khaby” Lame, a 22-year-old, Senegalese-born comedian living in Italy, has 142.9 million followers compared to D’Amelio’s 142.3 million.

Who is the king of TikTok? Lame joined the app after losing his job as a factory worker in the early days of the pandemic. His content took off when he began dueting complicated life hack videos with snippets of himself accomplishing the same task in a much simpler way—all with an exasperated look of “you gotta be kidding me.”

He told the New York Times that his silent reactions were a “global language.”

Big picture: The party to celebrate his No. 1 spot will have to wait, because Lame, along with most social media stars, is in Anaheim, CA, for the first in-person VidCon since 2019. VidCon, the largest convention for people you normally see on a tiny phone screen, officially partnered with TikTok this year after ditching YouTube, its previous partner.—MM

Stat: Mars, the privately held giant known for its chocolate and pet food, reported annual sales of nearly $45 billion, meaning it raked in more dough than Coca-Cola last year (and Nestle, Unilever, and Mondelez, for that matter). The secret sauce for growth seems to be that pet unit—after investing billions on expanding it, about half of the company’s 140,000 employees work in its vet business.

Quote: “I’m looking for a music venue that won’t cave when there’s backlash.”

John Hinckley Jr. is trying to find a spot to host his musical act after venues in Brooklyn, Chicago, and Hamden, CT, all canceled, citing safety concerns. Hinckley spent more than three decades in a psychiatric hospital and a few years on conditional release for his attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981. The 67 year old has been releasing music anonymously since he left the hospital, but a judge ruled in 2018 that he could publicly release music under his own name. He was granted unconditional release earlier this month.

Read: Notes on Austin, TX. (David Perell)

Getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to when you beat a boss with almost nothing left in your health bar.

It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.

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Cheaper drugs: Watch one TikToker’s quest to get birth control from Mark Cuban’s pharmacy (part 1 and part 2).

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From mouse pads to laptop sleeves, the Excel Dictionary collection is sure to upgrade your desktop from AVERAGE() to next level.

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Today’s brainteaser comes from the wonderfully chaotic puzzle website Murderous Maths. Here goes:

The rules:

• You have three moves max.
• You can only slide one coin at a time.
• When a coin is moved, it must end up touching two other coins.
• While moving one coin you may not push another coin aside.

Picture this: You Slack another colleague to complain, and then realize you accidentally Slacked the annoying co-worker you complained about. What do you do?! Watch Office Politics for some ideas.

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