Canada’s people-to-maple-tree ratio is growing, as its population recently became 40 million strong.

The land of making New England winters look like a tropical paradise reached the demographic milestone mostly by politely telling foreign workers, students, and refugees to come on in.

The government has set an ambitious goal of adding 500,000 new permanent residents a year by 2025 to bolster Canada’s economy by keeping it young. While many other high-income economies are struggling with an aging native-born population and a shrinking workforce, Canada hopes that newcomers will care for its elderly, invent new tech, and cook up Timbits.

• Around 96% of the 1+ million people Canada added to its headcount last year came from foreign arrivals, according to Statistics Canada.
• That puts its population growth rate at 2.7%, the fastest rate among the world’s high-income economies, per Bloomberg.

The country seeks to admit the most employable folks by considering potential immigrants’ age, language skills, and education. But some say adapting to the influx of people is not as simple as laying out a giant “welcome/bienvenue” mat.

There are concerns that Canada’s housing supply and infrastructure will have trouble accommodating so many new residents, especially in its urban areas. Skeptics point to surging home prices in large cities as evidence that the immigration ramp-up is straining resources.

Meanwhile, some proud Francophones in Quebec worry that the arrival of more English speakers from all over the world might dilute the province’s unique cultural identity.

But Canadian society is not apologizing for welcoming immigrants…69% of Canadians disagree with the idea that there is too much immigration to the country, according to a recent survey by the Environics Institute for Survey Research.—SK

That’s how VenHub rolls.

These fully autonomous, 24/7 smart stores are setting out to transform how people shop entirely. Customers order from an app, then robots fill the order.

And entrepreneurs love the go-anywhere flexibility of these smart stores. VenHub’s robotics and AI can help store owners achieve up to 5x higher margins and open new locations in 98% less time. They’ve racked up $44m in smart-store preorders already.

With 152k+ convenience stores in the US generating $652b in sales, making convenience even more convenient is a huge market opportunity.

The best part is, they want you to ride with them as a shareholder. And you can even get a 15% discount on the share price by investing before midnight PT on June 21. Learn more here.

The search is on for lost Titanic tour sub. On Sunday, the mini-submarine lost contact with its owner, OceanGate Expeditions, which operates eight-day journeys for tourists to see the ship’s wreckage. The Coast Guard is searching for the submersible, which vanished ~900 miles off Cape Cod’s coast while it was diving toward the wreck. There are believed to be five people on board, including British billionaire Hamish Harding. OceanGate, which began offering its $250,000 tours in 2021, briefly lost a submersible last summer, but that one was recovered after a few hours.

Airbus lands largest-ever aircraft deal. Indian budget airline IndiGo announced a $50 billion deal to buy 500 single-aisle jets from European manufacturer Airbus at the Paris Air Show (an annual industry trade show) yesterday. The planned purchase surpasses the previous record for an aircraft deal, set by Air India for 470 planes earlier this year and will more than double IndiGo’s fleet, which currently stands at 300. That this is the second record-breaking aviation deal by an Indian airline in six months is no coincidence—the country is gearing up for a spike in air travel demand due to immense population growth and sustained interest in travel post-pandemic.

US and China agree it’s time to “stabilize.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken finally made the trip to China that he postponed after the spy balloon incident. And even though US–China relations right now are more complicated than your friend’s dicey situationship, both sides agreed at a meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping to stabilize the relationship and keep it from deteriorating further. But Blinken didn’t leave the meeting with many concrete answers about how that might happen or with the improved military communications he was hoping for.

Some of Reddit’s most popular communities have interrupted their regularly scheduled programming to bring you nothing but pictures of John Oliver, in a continued protest of controversial platform changes.

The uprising stems from Reddit’s plan to start charging popular third-party apps millions of dollars per year, effectively shutting down those services.

Site moderators who volunteer to run the communities involved in the hijinx implied that the clowning around is a response to “threats” the company made to replace them after days of user-led boycotts. The original protests shuttered public access to more than 8,000 subreddits, forced marketers to pause on-site ad spending, and made Google search results—which frequently feature Reddit links—worse.

Not wanting to get ousted, the mods of r/pics, r/aww, and r/gifs reopened the subreddits—with a twist. They held votes in which the majority of their 20+ million members each decided to keep the protest going by ditching their community’s typical entertainment for “sexy” photos, “adorable” photos, and GIFs, respectively, of the British late-night host (who approves).

Others are playing hardball: A ransomware group, BlackCat, is currently threatening to release confidential Reddit data unless the company gives them $4.5 million and withdraws the proposal to make third-party platforms pay.—ML

The best thing about long weekends? Short weeks. Here’s a preview of what to expect over the next four days…

Summer officially arrives: The summer solstice is on Wednesday, marking the astronomical beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s also the longest “day” of the year above the equator. Soak in those 9pm sunsets, because they won’t last forever…

Modi to visit the White House: President Biden will wine and dine India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a fancy state dinner when Modi travels to Washington, DC, later this week. Expect several big business deals to be announced as the US and India look to build on their strategic friendship.

Jerome Powell to testify before Congress: The Fed chair will make the short trip from his office to Capitol Hill on Wednesday for a routine visit to share his POV on the economy with Congress. Last week, Powell did not hike interest rates for the first time in 15 months, but said rate increases could resume later this year.

Everything else…

• The NBA draft is on Thursday. The Spurs are expected to take Victor Wembanyama as the first overall pick.
• The Bear and its way-too-stressful kitchen scenes return to Hulu with Season 2 on Thursday.
• The College World Series takes over Omaha.

Stat: Runaway inflation is now threatening one of the UK’s most sacred national spaces: the pub. British brewers have been cutting back on the alcohol in their beers without charging consumers less for their product. Greene King has lowered the potency of its Old Speckled Hen pale ale from 5% to 4.8%, and Shepherd Neame has slashed the amount of alcohol in two of its ales, per CNN. According to the Mail on Sunday, lower ABV means lower taxes—savings the brewers aren’t passing along to drinkers.

Quote: “When you have RFK Jr. and Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk, all tag-teaming, those tres hombres at the same time, that probably includes just about every follower on Twitter. So, it’s pretty overwhelming.”

Vaccine scientist Peter Hotez found himself swept up in a Twitter tempest this weekend after he posted a Motherboard article about vaccine misinformation on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Rogan himself responded, offering to donate $100,000 to the charity of Hotez’s choosing if he would come on the show and debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democratic presidential candidate and longtime vaccine skeptic. Billionaires Elon Musk and Bill Ackman were among the many Twitter users who then tweeted in support of the challenge. Hotez said he won’t debate science but is willing to come on the show alone. Still, he claimed the online attention caused a pair of anti-vaccine activists to show up at his house.

Read: Can you actually make money betting against Jim Cramer? (Intelligencer)

This Barbie gives house tours: Margot Robbie shows you around the Barbie Dreamhouse (YouTube).

Today I learned: The difference between a windmill and a wind turbine. 

Weird science: The story of how MDMA made a white supremacist change his views.

Undoctored: 100 incredible photos—without any photoshop.

Unexpected expense? That’s where emergency funds come in. Money Scoop teaches you why and how to save money for a rainy day.

Hear this: The world’s first hearing aids with dual processing were just unveiled by Hear.com. Double the power, double the clarity. All backed by cutting-edge German technology. Start your 45-day no-risk trial today.*

Pitch perfect: Nailing that 30-second summary for your tech startup is hard work. We partnered with Dell Technologies to host a bootcamp that’ll help you stand out. Save your seat.*

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Brew Mini: Today’s puzzle features a karaoke favorite and a clump of grass. Talk about range. Play the Mini here.

Canada vs. the world

You just read about Canada reaching a population of 40 million. But how does that compare to other places around the world? In today’s quiz, we’ll give you a country, and you have to determine whether it has more or fewer people than Canada.

1. Iraq
2. Poland
3. Australia
4. Tanzania
5. Saudi Arabia
6. Colombia
7. Not a country, but…the combined population of Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan

Some of retail’s biggest names are offering workers the option of accessing their hourly pay on demand. Get the inside scoop from Retail Brew.

If data and spreadsheets aren’t your jam, but you know the value of Excel knowledge, listen up: Learn shortcuts and productivity hacks with our course.

🩺 Protecting patient data is vital in today’s digital health industry. Join IT Brew tomorrow for a conversation about compliance and InfoSec in health tech.

*Source: https://www.cnbc.com/select/why-americans-are-stressed-about-money/

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