Hope you had a great weekend and didn't let any almost Russian coups get in the way of your relaxation. We covered the situation on our social media (including with this now-viral TikTok from Max F.) and learned the valuable lesson that you're always one Moscow march away from a long weekend in the news biz. See the latest below, and apologies in advance for the Shrek cover.

In today's edition:

• Honesty researcher busted for fraud?

• Iconic toy making a comeback

• Rush’s Adventure

 🔑 Key Stories

3M to Pay $10.3B for PFAS

3M announced it would pay $10.3B to settle lawsuits over its use of PFAS, or “forever chemicals”

• PFAS are types of chemicals that don’t naturally degrade and have been shown to harm health. 3M, a US company, uses them for many of its 60,000 chemical and industrial products, including firefighting foam

• 4,000+ states and municipalities have accused 3M of polluting their environments with PFAS. 3M was set to face trial this month; the settlement avoids that

• 3M — which won’t admit guilt under the settlement — will provide $10.3B over 13 years for PFAS testing and treatment, and has said it will stop manufacturing PFAS by 2026. It’s the largest drinking water-related settlement in US history

Dig Deeper

• The US government recently determined that nearly all PFAS exposure is dangerous. In announcing that, the Environmental Protection Agency said it would soon require near-zero PFAS levels in drinking water

US Covid-19 Report

The US government released a report last week that said the Wuhan virology institute (WIV) “probably did not use adequate biosafety precautions at least some of the time before the pandemic”

• It said poor safety practices increased “the risk of accidental exposure to viruses,” but said there is no known “specific biosafety incident at the WIV that spurred the pandemic”

• Separately, US officials said one of the earliest Covid-19 patients was working on a US-funded project at the WIV. The US NIH funded EcoHealth, a research organization, which in turn funded research at the WIV

Dig Deeper

• A topic of debate has been whether Wuhan researchers engaged in “gain-of-function” research, which involves making viruses more transmissible or deadly to study them. Wuhan researchers did modify bat coronaviruses, although scientists are divided over whether the modifications qualify as gain-of-function research. NIH has said it never funded gain-of-function research

Russian Coup Averted, Part 1

Yevgeny Prigozhin – the leader of Russia’s Wagner military group – launched and then called off an attempt to overthrow Russia’s generals

• Wagner has been fighting on behalf of Russia in Ukraine, the Middle East, and Africa since 2014. It’s played a major role in recent battles in Ukraine

• Wagner’s chief, Prigozhin, has become outspoken against Russia’s top generals. He accuses them of mismanaging the war and failing to support him

• Earlier this month, Russia’s military announced Wagner would need to come under its control. Prigozhin said he would not do so

Russian Coup Averted, Part 2

On Friday night, Prigozhin released a message that accused Russia’s generals of tricking Putin into invading Ukraine for their personal gain

• Wagner troops then took over a major Russian city and the military base overseeing the war in Ukraine. He then announced that Wagner was coming to Moscow to capture the generals

• Wagner briefly came under Russian aircraft attack but mostly marched unopposed to 200 km south of Moscow

• They then stopped, and Belarus’ president said he brokered a deal where Prigozhin would come to Belarus and Putin would drop charges of treason and offer amnesty to Wagner troops

Dig Deeper

• The Washington Post and The New York Times subsequently reported that US intelligence was aware Prigozhin was planning a rebellion

Hunter Biden Whistleblowers

2 IRS whistleblowers told Congress the Justice Department (DoJ) gave Hunter Biden preferential treatment to ensure he wouldn’t face felony charges. He pleaded guilty to 2 misdemeanor tax charges last week

• Merrick Garland – the Biden-appointed attorney general who oversees the DoJ – denied their claims

• Congress also released a 2017 text in which Hunter told a Chinese businessman, “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled”

• The whistleblowers said they did not find proof that President Biden knew of that message

Dig Deeper

• One of the whistleblowers’ identities is public; the other’s isn’t. The public one said, “I am alleging, with evidence, that DoJ provided preferential treatment, slow-walked the investigation, did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts of interest in this investigation”

• Garland said the allegations “[constitute] an attack on [the DOJ], adding that “nothing could be further from the truth”

Erase Yourself from the Web

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• It contacts and follows up with data brokers all over the world on your behalf. For an individual to do that, it can take hundreds of hours

• With Incogni, you can kick back and worry less about identity theft, health insurers raising your rates based on info from data brokers, robo calls, scammers taking out loans in your name, and all the other terrible things bad actors do with personal data (we at Roca are certainly tired of spam calls!)

Dig Deeper

• While other personal data removal services only focus on one type of data broker, Incogni helps remove your personal information from all broker types, including People Search Sites. Roca readers exclusively get 55% off Incogni annual plans with code ‘ROCA10’

🍿 Popcorn

ICYMI

• Congrats, Scooter: A 7-year-old Chinese Crested dog named Scooter was crowned the world’s ugliest dog at the 2023 World’s Ugliest Dog contest. Scooter is hairless and has backward hind legs 

• Anyone here speak Miami? Linguists say South Florida has created a new English dialect. Spanish-to-English translations have led to phrases such as “I made a party” and “we got down from the car”

• Mr. Blessed: Mr. Beast, the world’s most popular YouTuber, says he was invited earlier this month to go on the Titan submersible but declined the offer

Wildcard

• Jersey jet setter: A New Jersey man who bought United Airlines’ lifetime flying pass in 1990 for $290k has flown over 23M miles since. In 2019 alone, he took 373 flights

• Furby or not Furby: Toy giant Hasbro has announced the return of its iconic toy, the Furby. The fluffy creatures first launched in 1998 but were retired in 2016

• Dress Wars: Princess Leia’s white dress from the final scene of Star Wars: A New Hope is expected to fetch over $1M at auction this week. The starting bid is $500k

👇 What do you think?

Today's Question:

If you could trade jobs with someone you know, who would it be and why?

Reply to this email with your answers!

See yesterday's results below the Wrap! 

🌯 Roca Wrap

Stockton Rush was born into a wealthy San Francisco family in 1972. He dreamed of being an astronaut, and at a young age he met a family friend who happened to be the astronaut that commanded the Apollo 12 moon mission.

That astronaut advised Rush to get his pilot’s license, which he did at age 18. Rush became one of the world’s youngest commercial pilots, and while a student at Princeton, spent his summers in Saudi Arabia, flying chartered planes around the Middle East and Asia.

Rush hoped to first become a military pilot and then an astronaut. Poor eyesight disqualified him, though, dashing his hopes. He instead became a jet engineer while investing his inheritance in engineering companies.

Rush still dreamed of traveling to space – until 2004. That year, he attended the launch of billionaire Richard Branson’s SpaceShipOne, the first commercial spacecraft sent into space.

Branson used the launch to declare the age of space tourism, which Rush said turned him off. “I didn’t want to go up into space as a tourist,” he said. “I wanted to explore.”

He then took up scuba diving, having decided to explore the ocean instead.

“I loved what I saw, but I thought, There’s gotta be a better way,” he told Smithsonian Magazine in 2019. He resolved to use a submarine.

Only several dozen privately owned submarines existed, so he decided to build his own. He launched it in 2006 for the first time, traveling to a depth of 30 feet. He caught “the deep disease,” he said, and began diving to progressively deeper depths.

While Rush entered the submarine business out of passion, he saw opportunities in exploration, resource extraction, and more. In 2009, he deemed there was a viable travel business and co-founded OceanGate, an adventure company.

Early trips took guests to depths up to 1,600 feet, exploring coral reefs and oil rigs. In 2016, a trip to a shipwreck generated significant buzz. That gave him the idea of visiting the Titanic.

The Titanic was around 12,500 feet below sea level, though, which required new technology. While most subs were made of steel and titanium, Rush conceived of a carbon-fiber vessel that would be easier to transport and launch while being strong enough to withstand deep ocean pressure. He also patented a system to alert crew of pending catastrophic failure from pressure.

The vessel would be sealed from the outside and controlled with a gaming controller. It was 22 feet long, had no seats, one window, and could hold 5 people on the floor.

OceanGate named its new vessel “Titan," and manned tests began in December 2018.

After consecutive successful trips to 650, 3,200, 6,500, and 9,800 feet, Rush set off alone for a trip to 13,000 feet. Although the descent suddenly stopped at 10,000 feet and he lost contact with the support team, Rush successfully reached 13,000 feet and returned to the surface, setting the stage for future trips.

Titan was supposed to begin taking passengers to the Titanic in 2019 for $125,000 a spot. But the trips were delayed until early 2020, at which point the vessel’s depth limit was reduced from 4,000 to 3,000 meters – 9,842 feet – insufficient for reaching the Titanic.

Between that and the pandemic, Rush delayed the first Titanic trips to May 2021.

Modifications were made to Titan, and it made its first Titanic trip in July 2021. 5 more followed that year, the price doubled to $250,000, and 7 more trips were made in 2022.

In December, Rush said that he did have concerns about diving. “What I worry about most are things that will stop me from being able to get to the surface,” he said on CBS, citing “overhangs, fish nets, [and] entanglement hazards.” He said those were easy to avoid, though, and added, “I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed.”

In texts sent in February, Rush assured a prospective client that “while there’s obviously risk it’s way safer than flying in a helicopter or even scuba diving.”

He added: “There hasn’t been even an injury in 35 years in a non-military sub.” The client still decided not to travel.

Last Sunday, Rush was one of 5 people aboard the Titan when it began its final trip. The vessel disappeared shortly after its departure; on Thursday, OceanGate confirmed that all aboard had died.

If you have thoughts, let us know at [email protected]!

 🌊 Roca Clubhouse

Yesterday's Poll:

Most people are naturally...
Optimistic: 47%
Pessimistic: 53%

Yesterday’s Question:

Just 20 Qs!

🧠 Final Thoughts

We hope you all had terrific weekends. We divided ours between trying to make sense of what was happening in Russia, and debating what motivated the Titan's passengers to take that trip. Never a boring day at Roca!

Have great Mondays.

—Max and Max