The end of affirmative action was a lot more personal and emotional — a lot more raw — than Americans are used to seeing from the Supreme Court.

• Why it matters: There have always been impassioned dissents. But it's rare for the justices to argue, out in the open, the way regular people argue, Axios court-watcher Sam Baker writes.

What's happening: The justices might write incandescently about the holes in another justice's legal reasoning, but they rarely make it personal. They rarely invoke anecdotes from their own lives to make or bolster a point. They rarely draw assumptions about each other's motives.

• But in 237 pages worth of opinions yesterday, it was clear — in ways the justices rarely allow to be clear — that the disagreements here were rooted in the real world, not simply competing interpretations of the equal protection clause.

It was clear that the court's three justices of color were drawing on personal experience, not just legal formalism.

• And it was clear, frankly, that some of them were mad at each other.

🔬 Zoom in: Justice Clarence Thomas seemed to be mad at Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who wrote a stinging dissent accusing the court's majority of "let-them-eat-cake obliviousness" — and an "ostrich-like" hope that ignoring race would make racial inequities disappear.

• Thomas wrote his own opinion, as he often does — ostensibly to agree with the majority ruling, but also to take on Jackson.
• "As she sees things, we are all inexorably trapped in a fundamentally racist society," Thomas wrote. He said Jackson set out to "label all blacks as victims," adding: "Her desire to do so is unfathomable to me."

Jackson's dissent focused on the majority opinion, addressing Thomas only in a footnote — but a brutal one.

• "Justice Thomas' prolonged attack responds to a dissent I did not write in order to assail an admissions program" that does not exist and "ignites too many more straw men to list, or fully extinguish," she wrote.

🥊 A final zinger: Justice Sonia Sotomayor responded with what she called "the most obvious data point available to this institution today."

• "The three Justices of color on this Court graduated from elite universities and law schools with race-conscious admissions programs, and achieved successful legal careers," she wrote.

Share this story ... Go deeper: Inside the chamber.

All three major U.S. stock indices have increased during President Biden's time in office. But the gains are smaller than those of his last two predecessors, Axios' Dan Primack and Thomas Oide report.

• Why it matters: Biden this week signaled plans to run for re-election on his economic record, embracing the term "Bidenomics."

🧮 By the numbers: The S&P 500 has climbed 15.7% since Biden's inauguration. That trails Trump's 40% and Obama's 53.8%, at the same point in their presidencies.

• The Dow Jones Industrial Average grew 10.3% for Biden, 34.8% for Trump and 48.06% for Obama.
• The tech-heavy Nasdaq is where Trump came out on top, at a whopping 161.7%. Obama hit 70.2%. Biden oversaw a tech sector correction that put his Nasdaq performance at just 3%.

🥊 Reality check: Stock market performance isn't necessarily a gauge of economic health.

• More meaningful metrics include GDP, employment and real wages.

That said, the market partially reflects how investors view the economy. And most American adults have money in the market, directly or indirectly.

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This week's scorching heat wave, along with dangerously poor air quality because of wildfire smoke, is a preview of the compound climate disasters that experts fear will become increasingly common as the planet warms, Axios' Andrew Freedman writes.

🖼️ The big picture: The U.S. heat wave — and heat and wildfires throughout Canada — come as multiple global climate indicators, from ocean temperatures to surface air warmth, set all-time records.

• This month is likely to be the world's hottest June on record by a large margin — leading into July, which tends to be the planet's hottest month.

What's happening: Since early May, the weather pattern across North America has been unusual, with hallmarks of a warming climate.

• Over Mexico and Texas, an unusually powerful heat dome is only just now weakening, after shattering all-time heat records.

💬 "Climate change makes U.S. heat waves about 5°F warmer" than they would be in a preindustrial world, Michael Wehner, a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told Axios via email.

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Former Broward County Sheriff's Deputy Scot Peterson wept when a jury in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., acquitted him yesterday of failing to confront the gunman during the 2018 Parkland school massacre.

• Why it matters: It was the first trial in U.S. history of a law enforcement officer for conduct during an on-campus shooting, AP reports.

Watch the video of Peterson's reaction.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will say today that the country’s top business leaders are telling her they're confident that the U.S. economy is resilient and can outrun a recession, Axios' Hans Nichols has learned.

• Why it matters: The West Wing is convinced the economy is healthier than some Wall Street analysts have suggested. But Biden officials know they need to convince the public.

Context: This week, the West Wing deployed multiple powers of the presidency — including a "Bidenomics" speech in Chicago — to double down on the economy before next year's election.

Driving the news: Yellen will use a speech today at PosiGen, a solar energy company in New Orleans, to say: "I continue to believe that there is a path to reducing inflation while maintaining a healthy labor market."

• "This sentiment is echoed by business executives I’ve met with, who have increasingly voiced confidence in our economy," she adds in prepared remarks.

The big picture: As Biden officials crisscross the country to talk up the economy, they're bolstered by solid data from Washington.

• Gross domestic product grew at a 2% annualized rate in the first quarter, a notable upward revision from the most recent estimate of 1.3%, Axios Macro reported yesterday.
• Earlier this week, a new survey showed that consumer confidence is surging, and reached its highest level since early '22.
• New orders for durable goods jumped 1.7% last month. May's employment report showed an addition of 339,000 jobs.

🥊 Reality check: Core inflation, which excludes volatile energy costs, is still north of 5%. While the Fed paused its rate-hiking, there are strong hints Fed Chair Jay Powell isn't finished.

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President Biden, on a fundraising trip to Manhattan, sat down with MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace at 30 Rock for a rare live interview.

• About last weekend's attempted coup in Russia, he said: "We knew things ahead of time." He didn't elaborate.

On his '24 campaign, Biden said: "I know the polling numbers are not good, but they were the same way when I ran and won [in 2020]. Everybody thought I was going to get clobbered in a primary."

• "And the same thing — I remember I was saying that I thought the Democratic Party was going to do extremely well in the off-year election." That would be last year's midterms — and he was right.

Video: Biden says Supreme Court legitimacy "is being questioned."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis got casual — albeit in coat and tie — with Fox News host Jesse Watters yesterday at Grimaldi's Coal Brick-Oven Pizzeria on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.

• On his campaign for the GOP's '24 nomination, where he's far behind President Trump in polling, DeSantis said: "Most people aren't even paying attention now."

"[W]e're laying the groundwork to be able to do well in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada and Super Tuesday. It's laborious," he told Watters, who takes over Tucker Carlson's 8 p.m. slot on July 17.

• DeSantis said Vice President Harris is Biden's "impeachment insurance. No matter what Biden does, nobody wants Harris."

His favorite pizza? "I like the grandma slice [a New York staple]. I love the Margherita."

• Watch a clip.

🇺🇦 "One Good Reason" — an inspiring documentary that debuted earlier this month at the Tribeca Film Festival (now free online) — follows the journey of a Ukrainian family with two young children as they flee the war, and are welcomed by an American couple in rural Wisconsin who offer to be their sponsors.

• Why it matters: It's a celebration of the American character when it comes to embracing refugee families.

🧀 The Hnatiuk family of Ukraine finds connection and community with the Luchterhand family of Unity, Wisc. (population: 384), from making borscht the Wisconsin way (with cheese!) to tapping maple trees for syrup.

• The film is from Emmy Award-winning directors Perri Peltz and Matthew O'Neill.
• It was produced by Tribeca Studios in partnership with ServiceNow, on which Welcome.US built Welcome Connect. That's a connection platform where displaced persons seeking refuge in the U.S. can safely find and message potential sponsors in their native language, and make decisions about their future.

Watch the trailer ... Watch the 25-min. film.