Daily Brew // Morning Brew // Update

June 04, 2026

Listen up. It seems everyone has been turning Spotify into their own personal oldies station. The WSJ reports that roughly 1 in 3 songs streamed on the platform this year from January through April was at least a decade old, and 1 in 6 was at least 20 years old, leading a spokesperson to call 2026 Spotify’s “most nostalgic year.” We think the trend can go even bigger, though. Forget decades—let’s throw it back centuries and make a Gregorian chant the song of the summer.

—Dave Lozo, Molly Liebergall, Matty Merritt, Abby Rubenstein, Holly Van Leuven

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

The drama at 60 Minutes
All-inclusive resorts having a moment
The colorful cake that’s all over your feed

MARKETS

Nasdaq

26,853.98

-0.89%

S&P

7,553.68

-0.74%

Dow

50,687.07

-1.21%

10-Year

4.491%

+4.0 bps

Bitcoin

$65,365.01

-3.11%

Virgin Galactic

$4.29

-6.54%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Stocks fell yesterday like a middle schooler proudly sporting their first pair of high heels, snapping the S&P 500’s nine-day winning streak, as oil prices rose amid concerns of escalating tensions with Iran.
Stock spotlight: Virgin Galactic continued to fall back to Earth yesterday. It soared in May and on Monday, only to have its worst day ever on Tuesday, with some of the volatility driven by retail traders looking to play in the space space in the lead-up to SpaceX’s IPO.

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THIS IS 60 MINUTES

Pelley fired from ‘60 Minutes,’ CBS chaos continues

Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

After a contentious meeting with the new boss, longtime 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley was fired by CBS News on Tuesday. It’s the latest example of rancor at the network since Bari Weiss took over its news division late last year.

Here’s the ticktock of how it went down:

Weiss installed Nick Bilton, a tech journalist and filmmaker who has the same amount of broadcast news experience as you (probably), as the show’s executive producer last week.
Pelley reportedly accused Weiss of “murdering” the show during Bilton’s first staff meeting on Monday and later released a statement saying Bilton’s hiring was an attempt to “curry a moment of favor” with the Trump administration.

The public clash between Pelley and Bilton follows accusations of politically motivated meddling lobbed at Weiss after she delayed a 60 Minutes segment on Venezuelans being deported to prison in El Salvador last year.

After Weiss told CBS News staff she looked for a “way back” following a meeting with Pelley, the jettisoned anchor released a statement describing Bilton, Weiss, and other executives he met with as “openly hostile.”

On background: Pelley’s ouster, along with several other recent high-profile terminations and departures from 60 Minutes, comes as CBS parent company Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros Discovery finalize a $110 billion merger that will need FCC approval.

If this sounds familiar….

…that’s understandable. Last year’s Paramount–Skydance merger was only OK’d by the FCC after CBS settled a lawsuit by President Trump against 60 Minutes, which was seen by some critics as a way of placating Trump. Not long after, Trump ally and Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison hired Weiss.

What’s next? The attention turns to Lesley Stahl and Bill Whitaker, who have been with CBS News since 1971 and 1984, respectively, and are the last remaining stalwarts from 60 Minutes. “I think they feel like if they leave, there’s nothing left of 60,” one insider told Variety.—DL

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They even just reserved the stock ticker $DRNI in preparation for a potential Nasdaq listing. But you can buy private shares for $3.10/share until June 18.

WORLD

Tour de headlines

Yellow Boat/Adobe Stock

Trump administration takes another big tariff swing. The US is proposing new tariffs on 60 trading partners, citing forced labor practices, as the Trump administration looks to restore import taxes through more regular bureaucratic processes after the Supreme Court struck down the nearly universal tariffs the president had unilaterally imposed. The US Trade Representative is proposing a 10% duty on goods from countries that prohibit forced labor—including the UK, Mexico, Canada, and the EU—and 12.5% for all other economies, including major trading partners like China, India, Japan, and Switzerland. Several of the countries that would be subject to the duties criticized the move, and the tariffs are subject to a public comment and review period before they can be implemented.—AR

House approves war powers resolution in rebuke of Iran strategy. The chamber held a roll call vote yesterday on the measure, which would force a stop to the war in Iran if President Trump did not receive congressional approval for it. It passed by a vote of 215–208, with four Republicans joining Democrats to bring it across the line. It’s considered largely symbolic, as the path for its advancement remains unclear. It was the House’s fourth attempt to curb the Iran war, with “yea” votes increasing successively. Republican leaders have decried the resolution as only serving to weaken Trump’s hand with Iranian negotiators.—HVL

It’s bad out there for bitcoin. The hodlers in your life might need you to hold them, as the cryptocurrency has been selling off recently. Even long-term crypto holders are getting spooked and selling, with such sellers having shed $2.4 billion worth of the crypto over two days this week, per an analyst at Compass Point. The token is down compared to the stock market by its biggest gap since 2019, CNBC reported. Meanwhile, other parts of the crypto universe are soaring, like the HYPE token, which is linked to the crypto exchange Hyperliquid. It has risen ~180% this year, according to CoinGecko data cited by Bloomberg.—AR

YARD SALE

Big Tech hunts for cash to pay for its AI spend

Morning Brew Inc.

Meta and Google are in a very “who wants to give us more money?” era. Both companies announced new methods of fundraising and monetization yesterday in an effort to foot the ever-growing bill for their AI spending plans.

Google will sell more stock:

Parent company Alphabet increased its recently announced stock sale from $80 billion worth of shares to nearly $85 billion.
Even at the original amount, this was already set to be the world’s largest equity raise ever.

Meta will sell an AI agent to businesses for the first time:

The bot is designed to chat with customers via WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. Eventually, it’s also intended for higher-level tasks, like market research and product insights, Meta said.
It’ll be included with a subscription to one of Meta One’s business-focused tiers. Big businesses that use Meta’s WhatsApp Business Platform will be charged for the new AI agent on a usage basis.

Zoom out: Big Tech is sparing no expense to build out AI infrastructure. In April, both Google and Meta raised their capital expenditure forecasts for the year—Google from top levels of $185 billion to $190 billion, and Meta from top levels of $135 billion to $145 billion. But despite Big Tech’s gargantuan AI capex, data center construction is currently behind schedule, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.—ML

COMPLIMENTARY TOWEL

Vacationers are going all-inclusive this year

Nick Iluzada

Those “are these hot dogs or legs?” photos are set to have a huge comeback, as interest in all-inclusive resorts is booming for this summer. Historically popular with budget travelers, the all-inclusive vacation is now appealing to higher-income travelers and families looking for luxury at a fixed cost without surprises.

Whether it’s wanting a break from being subject to how inflation has jacked up the cost of a strawberry daiquiri, or simply the joy of not having to plan four kid-friendly dinner outings, travelers are increasingly booking the worry-free getaways. Hotels.com said that searches for all-inclusive resorts from the start of this year through June 1 jumped 70% compared to last year. And hotel chains are taking note:

Hyatt’s reported revenue from its all-inclusive portfolio in the Americas grew 8.6% last year, and occupancy for these resorts was at 84% for the first three months of this year.
Marriott said it would double its footprint in the Caribbean and Latin America to nearly 1,000 properties by 2030. At least 13 of those are unique, luxury, all-inclusive resorts.
Some all-inclusives now cater to high-income vacationers with amenities like private butlers, Bloomberg noted.

Once people get there, they usually want to return. According to a recent study commissioned by Hyatt Inclusive Collection for Skift, 84% of people who have stayed at an all-inclusive resort were repeat visitors, while 45% of travelers said they had stayed at an all-inclusive spot at least four times.—MM

READER POLL

Have you stayed at an all-inclusive resort?

Yes, and I still dream of the buffet.
Yeah, and it wasn’t worth it.
Not yet, but I want to.
No, it’s not my style of travel.

MOLLY EXPLAINS THE INTERNET

Small sprinkle cake is a viral trend

Screenshot via @thedotcakes/Instagram

The Dubai Chocolate craze may be over, but you will never be safe from the words “viral dessert.” The new one that has influencers in a vice grip is called a “dot cake.” It’s simply cake in a cup with frosting that’s covered in tiny spherical rainbow sprinkles.

The dessert was originally made by a Long Island bakery that only sells them there, online (for pickup), and at one gourmet grocery store’s two locations on New York City’s Upper East Side, where lines wrap around the block and the cakes often sell out within an hour, despite them tasting “unspeakably awful,” according to the New York Post.

The scarcity aspect is probably part of the reason that videos of influencers trying the desserts—and scraping the hard sprinkle layer for ASMR points—garner hundreds of thousands to millions of views online.
Countless restaurants and content creators are now making homemade dot cakes (and posting about them).

Why do sweet treats keep going viral? Maybe it’s a recession indicator, but then again, DŌ cookie dough went viral in 2017 when the economy was pretty healthy. Maybe the GLP-1 era provides extra traction for the popularity of a single-serving cake. Or maybe we’re all just grasping for monoculture and immersive experiences anywhere we can find them.

Regardless, the dessert is already a meme. “If the Knicks lose, we blame it on the dots cakes,” the New York meme page @nolitadirtbag posted earlier this week.—ML

Three Headlines and a Lie

Three of these headlines are real and one is faker than your willpower to cut up all those veggies for dinner. Can you spot the odd one out?

The country’s first livable Lego house in Oregon has a complex plumbing system
Martin Scorsese backs AI company and says he’s using it to storyboard movies: ‘we have to be open to how’ cinema can ‘evolve’
This fish species survived 100,000 years without males. Scientists thought it should be long dead—but it's thriving
The exclusive retreat where wealthy kids learn how not to blow an inheritance

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ANSWER

We made up the one about the Lego house.

Word of the Day

Today’s Word of the Day is: rancor, meaning “deep-seated bitterness or ill will.” Thanks to Sally from Atlanta, GA, for the not-at-all hostile suggestion. Submit another Word of the Day here.

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