Morning! While you were sleeping (or staying up to binge-watch Friends for the tenth time, or pulling an all-nighter in the library), a few things went down that you’ll probably want to know about. So grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and get scrolling.
Rumor Has It
Joe Jonas and Sophie Turner are getting ready to make the trip down the aisle once more to say “I do!”
On Thursday, the Game of Thrones star and the “Sucker” singer arrived the Château de Tourreau in Sarrians, France, which appears to be their wedding venue.
The couple was all smiles when they arrived and were greeted by a variety of friends. According to PEOPLE, banners reading “Sophie and Joe” and their wedding date were draped over the building.
According to TripAdvisor, Château de Tourreau is an exquisite private estate and is available for booking at approximately $4,656 per night. The Château, which sits on an expansive 17 acres of land, has beautiful gardens, streams and a 25 x 10 meter mirror pool. The luxurious estate can accommodate 29 guests, with 16 bathrooms and 16 bedrooms.
Photos show the wedding party spending time together at the pool, and overall just relaxing ahead of the upcoming ceremony.
The celebrity couple kicked off the celebrations earlier this week in Paris, E! News reports.
On Thursday, Turner and Jonas were spotted spending time with friends and family, including Nick Jonas, Priyanka Chopra, Kevin Jonas and Danielle Jonas.
Over the weekend, both Turner and Jonas posted the same sweet photo of themselves sharing a kiss on a bridge over the Seine River, with the Eiffel Tower in the background.
The couple’s ceremony in France will mark the second wedding for Jonas and Turner, who got married in Las Vegas after the Billboard Music Awards in May. Celebrity friend Diplo shared footage of that ceremony.
Turner and Jonas were planning on a traditional wedding ceremony in Europe for this summer, but a source told PEOPLE the two got married in the United States first to make it legal.
News You Can Eat
Even though we’re technically not supposed to eat pre-made cookie dough, we’d be lying if we said we haven’t occasionally snuck a bite or two. Well, now we don’t have to worry about eating the dough, because Nestlé Toll House had made an edible cookie dough to satisfy all of those cookie dough cravings.
The new Toll House Edible Cookie Dough comes in two flavors and are 100 percent safe to eat, Cosmopolitan reports.
The first flavor, Chocolate Chip Edible Cookie Dough, is based on Toll House’s classic chocolate chip cookie dough. The second flavor, Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Monster Edible Cookie Dough combines oats and candy pieces to make a delicious edible dough. Both flavors are also made with 100 percent real chocolate.
Honestly, they are just begging to be spooned directly into your mouth.
The 15-ounce pints of edible cookie dough have been spotted by a number of customers at stores, such as at a Publix Super Market in Sarasota, Florida, where Instagram user @familyfooddude praised the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Monster flavor.
According to PEOPLE, both edible cookie dough flavors are available at Publix stores and will become available in Meijer, select Walmart stores and other regional grocery chains throughout July 2019. Each container of edible cookie dough retails for about $4.97.
Then This Happened
The Supreme Court has blocked a citizenship question from being added to the 2020 census, causing a major setback for the Trump administration.
Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Supreme Court’s liberal bloc of judges on Thursday, rejecting the Trump administration’s justification for adding a citizenship question to the census.
Writing for the 5-4 majority, Roberts concluded that there was sufficient reason for concern about why the Commerce Department wanted to add the question, CNN reports. The Chief Justice criticized Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and the Trump administration for essentially fabricating a case for the citizenship question, rejecting the argument that it was solely a request of the Justice Department for help enforcing the Voting Rights Act.
“Altogether, the evidence tells a story that does not match the explanation the Secretary gave for his decision. In the Secretary’s telling, Commerce was simply acting on a routine data request from another agency. Yet the materials before us indicate that Commerce went to great lengths to elicit the request from DOJ (or any other willing agency),” Roberts wrote. “And unlike a typical case in which an agency may have both stated and unstated reasons for a decision, here the VRA enforcement rationale — the sole stated reason — seems to have been contrived.”
“We cannot ignore the disconnect between the decision made and the explanation given,” Roberts continued. “Our review is deferential, but we are ‘not required to exhibit a naiveté from which ordinary citizens are free.’”
“Accepting contrived reasons would defeat the purpose of the enterprise. If judicial review is to be more than an empty ritual, it must demand something better than the explanation offered for the action taken in this case,” he added. “We do not hold that the agency decision here was substantively invalid. But agencies must pursue their goals reasonably. Reasoned decisionmaking under the Administrative Procedure Act calls for an explanation for agency action. What was provided here was more of a distraction.”
Justice Clarence Thomas, joined in part by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, said he would have allowed the question on the census and called the majority opinion an “erroneous decision” that wrongly assumed the administration was acting in bad faith, CNN reports.
“This Court has never held an agency decision arbitrary and capricious on the ground that its supporting rationale was ‘pretextual.’ Nor has it previously suggested that this was even a possibility,” Thomas wrote in his dissent.
“An agency action is not arbitrary or capricious merely because the decisionmaker has other, unstated reasons for the decision,” he added. “Nor is an agency action arbitrary and capricious merely because the decisionmaker was ‘inclined’ to accomplish it before confirming that the law and facts supported that inclination.”
.....United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter. Can anyone really believe that as a great Country, we are not able the ask whether or not someone is a Citizen. Only in America!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2019
President Donald Trump responded to the court’s decision Thursday, calling it “ridiculous” and adding that he would try to delay the census.
The court’s decision leaves open the possibility that the Commerce Department could try again to add a citizenship question to the census, but it’s not clear if the department will have enough time to add the question before the census begins as the administration previously told the court that the questionnaire needed to be printed by the end of June, ABC News reports.
The data obtained from the 2020 census will be used for the allocation of congressional seats, as well as the distribution of federal funds to states and localities over the next decade.
Happy Thoughts
As part of its upcoming Prime Day, Amazon Music announced Thursday that Taylor Swift will headline a concert, which will stream live on Prime Video at 9 p.m. ET on July 10. Other stars like Dua Lipa, Becky G, and SZA will also perform at the concert.
