🌊 A Cure for Type 1 Diabetes?

Folks, it could mean anything…

Oklahoma starting QB John Mateer is in hot water after screenshots of old Venmo transactions suggesting a gambling habit surfaced. What do the Venmo transactions say? Let’s just say Mateer doesn’t have a future in organized crime: One of them read “Sports gambling” and the other “sports gambling (UCLA vs USC).” The latter was posted the day after UCLA and USC played in 2022. Mateer denies the allegations saying the Venmo captions were part of a running joke.

Now get ready for the Sooner Nation internet sleuths to get to work and dig up some old Arch Manning “drugs which I definitely do” Venmo transactions to emerge.

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

Diabetes Breakthrough

A diabetic man's body is producing its own insulin after scientists genetically edited his cells

• Type 1 diabetes occurs when the immune system destroys insulin-producing pancreatic cells, forcing patients to rely on insulin injections. Previous transplant attempts required lifelong immunosuppressive medications

• Last week, Swedish researchers showed how a 42-year-old man became the first type 1 diabetic person whose body makes its own insulin without any immunosuppression

• Researchers made three specific genetic modifications to the donated islet cells, effectively making them invisible to the recipient's immune system. The modified cells were injected into the patient's forearm muscle and demonstrated stable insulin production within four weeks

Dig Deeper 

• Scientists got rid of genes that normally trigger immune recognition while adding a protein that signals immune cells to leave the transplanted tissue alone

• While the man received only a fraction of the cells needed for complete insulin independence due to safety considerations, his body continued producing insulin without rejecting the cells for twelve weeks

• The company behind the trials, Sana Biotechnology, expects to file for clinical trials as early as 2026

KEY STORY

Anthropic Offers AI for $1

Anthropic offered its AI chatbot Claude to the US government for $1

• President Trump recently enacted an “AI Action Plan” called for accelerating artificial intelligence adoption across federal agencies, and the US government recently approved Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Google's Gemini as official AI vendors

• On Tuesday, Anthropic announced it would provide Claude to all three branches of the federal government for $1 for the next year, following OpenAI's similar announcement last week

• The Amazon-backed company offered both Claude for Government and Claude for Enterprise versions to federal agencies, Congress, and the judicial branch, with CEO Dario Amodei saying America's AI leadership requires government access to capable, secure AI tools

Dig Deeper

• OpenAI made the first move last Wednesday by offering ChatGPT Enterprise to participating federal agencies for $1 per agency for the next year. The company plans to open its first Washington office early next year and had already secured a Defense Department contract worth up to $200M

• Google also entered negotiations with the government to offer its Gemini chatbot at a similar price point

• While the low fees generate little direct revenue, tech companies benefit from winning influence and learning which applications prove most popular at different agencies

QUOTE OF THE DAY

KEY STORY

New Labor Stats Head

President Trump nominated E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics

• Two weeks ago, Trump fired the previous commissioner following weak July employment data, claiming the numbers were "rigged" to make Republicans look bad. The Bureau of Labor Statistics produces critical economic data, including monthly employment reports and inflation measurements

• On Monday, Trump announced Antoni's appointment, stating he "will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE." Antoni, chief economist at the right-wing Heritage Foundation, had previously criticized BLS data collection methods and wrote that "the Biden-Harris Labor Department seems to exist in the land of make-believe"

Dig Deeper 

• Economists raised concerns about the nomination and preserving the independence of federal statistical agencies that the Fed relies upon for monetary policy decisions. The BLS has historically functioned as an independent body, allowing the Fed to make interest rate decisions based on trusted economic indicators

• The appointment came amid Trump's criticisms of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whom he has threatened to fire over interest rates and the Fed's headquarters renovation

KEY STORY

Gruden v. NFL

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled that former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden's lawsuit against the NFL can proceed in court rather than through arbitration

• Gruden resigned as Las Vegas Raiders head coach in October 2021 after the publication of offensive emails he sent between 2011 and 2018 while working as an ESPN analyst

• Gruden filled a lawsuit alleging that the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell orchestrated a "malicious and orchestrated campaign" to destroy his career by selectively leaking only his emails out of 650,000+ reviewed during the Washington investigation

• On Monday, the court ruled 5-2 that the NFL's arbitration clause was "unconscionable" and didn't apply to Gruden as a former employee, paving the way for a trial

Dig Deeper

• The emails emerged during the NFL's investigation into workplace misconduct at the Washington Commanders

• The Nevada Supreme Court determined that allowing Commissioner Goodell to oversee arbitration in a case where he was named as a defendant would be inappropriate

• The justices wrote that "by its own unambiguous language, the NFL Constitution no longer applies to Gruden" as a former employee

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🇦🇺 Australia will recognize Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly in September, joining the UK, France, and Canada in similar moves

🇷🇺 Russian troops broke through Ukraine’s first-line of defenses as Putin seeks to gain the upper hand ahead of talks with Trump in Alaska on Friday

🖥️ AI search startup Perplexity has offered to acquire Google's Chrome browser as a federal judge considers forcing its sale to address Google's search monopoly

⚕️ Canadian medical researchers published guidelines in the Canadian Medical Association Journal detailing key findings about cannabis and psychosis risks

💻 Reddit decided to block the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine from indexing posts and comments after discovering AI companies were using it to scrape data without paying licensing fees

What does Roca Nation think?

💪 Yesterday’s Question: What are America’s “Big Four” cities?

🧐 Today’s Question: Do you believe AI will have a net positive or negative effect on society over the next 20 years?

Reply to this email with your response!

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🧑‍🔬 The Iceman is Foundeth: Polish scientists discovered a British meteorologist, who vanished in Antarctica in 1959, after 66 years

🏫 PTA goes NRA: A North Carolina mother fired multiple shots into the air at a back-to-school fair after her son got into a fight, sending over 100 attendees fleeing into traffic

🦸 Superman to Supercop: Former Superman actor Dean Cain joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement as an agent, trading his cape for a badge under the Trump Administration

🖨️ Office Depot-presso: Starbucks Korea has banned "bulky items" after customers began bringing desktop computers, printers, and office partitions into cafes to set up makeshift workspaces

🤼‍♂️ Lawn and Order: The UFC is planning to hold a major fight card on the White House South Lawn in 2026 as part of America's 250th anniversary celebration

ROCA WRAP
Delivery Domination

Nigeria

A food delivery startup in this West African country just raised $9M as it seeks to become the African UberEats.

Cities in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation with over 200M people, face notorious traffic congestion and sprawling geography that have historically made food delivery a low-margin, high-complexity business, driving away international competitors. With foreign businesses finding it difficult to tap into the market, one local company has been left with the lion’s share.

Chowdeck, founded in October 2021 by three Nigerian entrepreneurs, has managed to stay profitable in a market where global giants have retreated. The startup now operates in 11 cities across Nigeria and Ghana, serving 1.5M customers through a network of 20,000 riders who average 30-minute delivery times despite the country's legendary gridlock.

While foreign brands including Glovo and Bolt Food, both big in Europe, withdrew from Nigeria, Chowdeck leaned into local complexity by focusing on delivering traditional Nigerian meals – an operationally harder challenge that built customer trust. The company's logistics system has adapted to local conditions, with more than half of deliveries in dense areas arriving by bicycle to navigate traffic more efficiently.

Chowdeck plans to open 40 fulfillment centers by year's end and 500 by the end of 2026, launching two to three new locations weekly. The company also acquired Mira, a point-of-sale provider, positioning itself as both a logistics and software provider for African restaurants. The startup entered neighboring Ghana in May and within three months was handling 1,000 daily orders without paid advertising, with plans to quintuple that volume by the end of next month.

In a market where quick commerce has burned through billions globally, Chowdeck is betting that local insight beats foreign capital.

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Folks, this is just another friendly reminder to not break up a fight at school by firing gunshots into the air. My Uncle Gary tried that once at my summer camp, and it was a while before I got to see him again.

Hope you all have an amazing day. Thank you for reading Roca and supporting our mission of delivering fast, fun, and fair news.

–Max and Max