Attention, Les Mis fans: Major roads leading to the French capital were barricaded with tractors and hay bales yesterday as the nation’s farmers air their grievances. The so-called “siege of Paris” comes after agriculturists nationwide erupted in protest over the government’s plan to cut subsidies for tractor fuel.

Even though the government axed the plan, the farmers aren’t turning their tractors around. Meanwhile, over the weekend, food security activists threw soup at the “Mona Lisa,” and the goals on their website included a better income for farmers. (This only dirtied the glass protecting the painting, and it could be worse: French farmers recently sprayed manure on a government building.)

The farmers say the move on Paris is meant to make officials address a host of economic hardships plaguing their industry and to remind urbanites where the ingredients for their baguettes come from. France is the EU’s largest agricultural economy, but for years, its food growers have struggled with an aging workforce, lower profit margins, and volatile food prices.

What’s on the barricade banners

The farmers want…

• The ability to charge buyers more and to deal with less bureaucracy. They are also expressing concern that current sustainability requirements in EU farm subsidies will make it more difficult to compete with foreign producers.
• Changes to international trade agreements that they say leave them hurt by foreign competition.

Attempting to appease the agitated agriculturalists, French President Emmanuel Macron announced yesterday that the European Union would stop negotiating a free-trade deal with a group of Latin American nations.

Zoom out: Feisty farmers in neighboring countries have also been staging protests over similar issues in recent weeks. Demonstrators in Germany and Belgium have blocked roads and dumped manure on city streets. Europe’s far-right politicians have sought to capitalize on the discontent by coming out in support of the disgruntled farmers. Some experts say that splashing gasoline on the farmers’ fiery sentiment is part of populists’ strategy ahead of the European Parliament election this summer.—SK

Creators (musicians, artists, fandoms) and readers (like you) make the internet worth spending time on. So why don’t they get more say in the apps they use?

Read Write Own by Chris Dixon explores what’s possible when internet services are controlled by users instead of CEOs. Translation? Social networks that reward users for engagement, games that let players keep their loot, AI tools that pay artists for their work, and the like.

How? When you think about blockchains, you might think about bitcoin prices or NFTs—this book isn’t about that. It’s about using blockchains like construction material for a better internet that’s built by the people keeping it thriving.

Get your copy of Read Write Own today to learn more.

US mistook attack drone for its own. The drone that struck a US military outpost in Jordan, killing three US soldiers and injuring at least 40 more, arrived at the base, known as Tower 22, at the same time as a returning US drone, prompting confusion over whether it was friendly, US officials told news outlets yesterday. Iran has denied responsibility for the attack despite equipping militias in the area. The analysis of how the attack happened came as the US carefully considers how to respond without widening the war in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the prime minister of Qatar said talks had yielded progress toward a cease-fire in Gaza in exchange for the return of more hostages to Israel.

China Evergrande, which owes $300 billion, ordered to liquidate. Yesterday, a Hong Kong court ordered the debt-burdened real estate firm to wind up its business—though it’s not clear if mainland Chinese authorities will enforce it. As one of the largest developers to struggle with debt, the company, which defaulted in 2021, has become a symbol of the real estate bust in China, which has so many homes sitting vacant that an ex-official admitted even its population of 1.4 billion could not fill them. Now, investors around the world will be watching the liquidation process to see how foreign investors fare as a test of how China’s system treats international businesses.

FanDuel parent Flutter lists on New York Stock Exchange. Rob Gronkowski visited the NYSE trading floor yesterday to celebrate the kickoff of the company selling shares in New York, which—for now—is a secondary listing to the European company’s primary London Stock Exchange listing. The move steps up its competition with DraftKings. And with US sports betting booming thanks to legal changes, the FanDuel parent wants to go all in and is proposing making the NYSE its primary trading venue, which would be a blow to the London exchange.

The world’s largest online retailer and the most popular robotic vacuum company yesterday scrapped plans for a $1.4 billion deal to clean crumbs together after European Union antitrust regulators said they would veto Amazon’s proposed acquisition of Roomba-maker iRobot.

Amazon now has to pay iRobot a $94 million termination fee—most of which will go toward the $200 million loan iRobot took out to stay afloat in 2022, Ars Technica reported. Following the cancellation of the Amazon deal, the autonomous vacuum company also announced that it would lay off 350 people—or 31% of its staff—and replace its CEO of over 25 years.

EU regulators were worried that…Amazon would rig marketplace searches for robotic vacuums to prioritize results for Roombas while delisting competing products. Meanwhile, in the US, the FTC feared that Amazon could gather an alarming level of personal information if it controls too much of the smart-home market, since Roombas can map a house’s layout, size, and furniture…aka helpful wealth data for marketers.

Still…Amazon already has major footholds in the realms of virtual assistance (Alexa), home security (Ring), healthcare (One Medical), and wi-fi (Eero).

Zoom out: As regulators in the US and Europe increasingly crack down on Big Tech dealmaking, analysts warn that large companies are going to have a hard time completing any major M&A, Bloomberg reported.—ML

A decadeslong mystery could soon be solved, and Benoit Blanc didn’t even have to get involved. Former US Air Force officer and commercial real estate investor Tony Romeo believes that he’s found Amelia Earhart’s lost plane 87 years after she disappeared with it in the Pacific Ocean.

The possible discovery came after Romeo, the CEO of Deep Sea Vision, sold commercial real estate to fund his $11 million expedition to search for the plane. In September, he set off with a 16-person team and began to collect sonar data across 5,200 square miles of the ocean floor using a high-tech autonomous submersible. Ninety days into the journey, they looked through the submersible’s data and found a blurry outline of what they say appears to be Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra near Howland Island, halfway between Australia and Hawaii.

• Though nothing has been confirmed, experts say the potential plane location would be consistent with historical data.
• Romeo and his team plan to return to the suspected location to get evidence that it is indeed Earhart’s plane. If it is, Romeo says it belongs in the Smithsonian.

Romeo’s not alone…there have been at least six other private trips by intrepid explorers seeking to recover the plane since Earhart’s pioneering flight abruptly ended in 1937. The Wall Street Journal estimates that the missions, excluding one, cost a collective $13 million.—CC

Stat: Meghan Markle may no longer be Her Royal Highness, but she’s now the queen of streaming: Suits took the crown for the most streamed series of 2023 in the US, according to a new Nielsen report. Americans watched the legal drama (which went off the air in 2019) via Netflix for 57.7 billion minutes last year, breaking records previously set by The Office and Stranger Things for streaming in a single year. When it comes to original streaming series, another American export to the UK reigned supreme as Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso took the No. 1 spot. However, for all of Ted’s pluck, no originals made it into the Top 10 most streamed shows overall.

Quote: “I wanna apologize for some of the things I wrote about in my book. If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about I am deeply sorry.”

While we believe no apology is necessary for gifting the world Michelle Williams saying “fo’ shiz” in the audiobook, Britney Spears appeared to apologize to Justin Timberlake for what she wrote about her ex-boyfriend and fellow former Mouseketeer in her best-selling memoir last year. Though the apology Spears issued on Instagram didn’t name Timberlake directly, the post went on to say she loved his new songs. The conciliatory words came after Spears’s fans boosted her 2011 song “Selfish” to the top of the iTunes chart last week in an apparent effort to push Timberlake’s newly released song with the same name down.

Read: Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands. (Associated Press)

Talk like a local: An international urban dictionary.

Baby shark: A wildlife photographer is believed to have captured the first-ever images of a newborn great white.

Sounds like a stretch: How a fugitive who fled the country after being accused of murder got caught by an ad for a yoga teacher.

By the foot: The most and least expensive neighborhoods in the US.

Get freaky: Drink your coffee in style with our best-selling Excel Freak in the Sheets mug. Snag one here.

Navigating AI: Take a behind-the-scenes look at how to get started with AI and the questions to consider.