Wishing you all a very special National Ice Cream Cone Day. Although many foods are erroneously traced to the St. Louis World Fair of 1904, the ice cream cone is one that almost certainly came from it. Prior to the fair, nobody had ever thought to make an edible cone-shaped ice cream holding device. American ingenuity — and sugar craving — strikes again!

In today's edition:

• Border town crisis

• Florida kids steal car

• 20 Questions!

 🔑 Key Stories

State of Emergency at Eagle Pass

4,000+ people have illegally crossed the border near Eagle Pass, Texas, in recent days

• Crossings at the US-Mexico border hit a record high last fiscal year and have stayed high. Most people who cross are released into the US pending future court dates

• Eagle Pass is a small city of ~28,000 people that borders the Rio Grande, a river that forms part of the US-Mexico border. In recent days, 4,000+ people have crossed the border there, prompting its mayor to declare a state of emergency

• State and federal officials, in addition to ~800 soldiers, have since arrived to help process the migrants

Dig Deeper

• The Biden administration is currently in a legal battle with Texas over a string of buoys and razor wire the state installed near Eagle Pass to deter crossings

• In a post on X, Texas’s governor accused the federal government of cutting that razor wire, allowing for the migrant surge. “I immediately deployed more Texas National Guard to…install more razor wire,” he wrote. Eagle Pass’s mayor denied that, saying migrants had managed to cut through the wire

You Know Everything, AI

Several prominent authors are suing OpenAI for alleged copyright violations

• ChatGPT is powered by a large language model (LLM) trained on massive amounts of data

• On Tuesday, a union representing several major authors sued OpenAI for allegedly training ChatGPT with content from their books. The authors said they have not received money from OpenAI or given it permission

• Authors involved in the lawsuit include George RR Martin, who wrote the book series that inspired Game of Thrones. OpenAI said it is optimistic it can work “cooperatively” with authors

Dig Deeper

• The suit alleges that ChatGPT can give highly detailed summaries of the authors’ books, suggesting ChatGPT trained on those books’ content. It also alleges that ChatGPT can create high-quality knockoffs using the books

• For instance, the lawsuit noted that a programmer had used ChatGPT to write an AI-generated version of the final two books of a series which Martin is currently writing

Murdoch to Retire

Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire founder of News Corp and Fox, announced he will retire in November

• Murdoch inherited two Australian news outlets from his father and grew them into a global media empire with film, TV, and other holdings

• Today, Murdoch’s holdings include the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London, the New York Post, HarperCollins, and dozens of other media properties, in addition to Fox News, which he founded in 1996

• Murdoch, 92, has been co-running his companies with his eldest son, Lachlan, for years. On Thursday, he said he will retire in November and Lachlan will take over

Dig Deeper

• “For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change,” he wrote in a memo. “But the time is right for me to take on different roles”

• While Lachlan will replace Murdoch as sole executive at both Fox and News Corp, Murdoch’s four children will have to determine his successor themselves upon his death

Rumble Not Demonetizing Brand

Rumble rejected what it called an “extremely disturbing” letter from the UK’s government asking it to demonetize Russell Brand’s account

• Rumble is a social media platform dedicated to free speech. Brand – who several women have accused of sexual assault – has 1.4M followers on it. He often discusses controversial topics on the app

• On Thursday, Rumble received a letter from the UK’s government asking it to demonetize Brand’s account, like YouTube did

• Rumble called that request “disturbing” and refused, saying his content had nothing to do with accusations against him

Dig Deeper

• The UK’s government reportedly sent similar letters to Meta, X, and TikTok. TikTok responded that it will “continue to keep Mr Brand's content under review”; it is unclear if the other companies responded

• Elon Musk, who owns X, opposes “cancel culture”: “No more canceling,” he wrote of Brand

🍿 Popcorn

ICYMI

• Angus’s autopsy: Actor Angus Cloud died of an accidental overdose from a mixture of drugs that included fentanyl. The 25-year-old star played the drug dealer Fez on HBO’s “Euphoria”

• Sunk-o Mode: Lawyers involved in the Astroworld festival case cannot access rapper Travis Scott’s cell phone records because it was reportedly lost in the Gulf of Mexico

• Airbn-banned: Airbnb removed 59,000 fake listings and blocked 157,000 more from joining this year to combat fraudsters scaring off consumers

Wildcard

• Insults were meant to fly: Kenneth Petty – Nicki Minaj’s husband – was sentenced to four months of house arrest for posting social media clips threatening rapper Offset

• Florida man kids steal car: Two Florida children, aged 10 and 11, stole their mother’s car and drove it three hours away before police stopped them on a highway

• Carbonated moon: Scientists discovered that an ocean on Europa – one of Jupiter’s moons – contains carbon, which is a key ingredient for life

👇🏻 What do you think?

Today's Question:

Just 20 Questions!

🗣 20 Questions

Every Friday, we ask Roca readers 20 questions, then feature our favorite answers the following week.

In a country where much divides us, fast food helps keep us together. The purpose of today's 20 Questions is to settle some of the most enduring debates about fast food. We understand these are controversial topics, but stay strong. And if it's too overwhelming, we'll meet you at the Golden Arches down the street.

We look forward to reviewing the results from today's This or That: Fast Food edition. Thank you!

Here's the link. Have an AMAZING WEEKEND!

 🌊 Roca Clubhouse

Yesterday's Poll:

Will inflation be a top political issue in the upcoming presidential election?

Yes: 80%
No: 20%

Yesterday's Question:

What is the weirdest thing you believed as a kid?

Jill from Fenton, Michigan: “Before Kindergarten I had to get a TB test and my parents told me it was a “TV” test to see how much TV I was watching. I thought this was true for the longest time”

Joel from Sydney, Australia: “I grew up believing that dog saliva was GOOD for a small cut, even better than Neosporin.”

Laura from Lake Stevens, Washington: “"If you swallowed a watermelon seed it would grow in your stomach " I was so scared of watermelons.”

“Not sure I want to tell my name” from Manassas, Virginia: “My friend and I had a cabin made out of railroad tides and plywood. We had a metal beer keg as a furnace in the cabin to keep warm. On day we had a fire going and needed to put it out but it was burning hot. So we decided to go outside and piss down the chimney to put the fire out. Just as we starting pissing, the roof ( made of plywood and pine needles exploded into flames and caught fire ) we burned our cabin down. The chimney was so hot it caused the fire. Since that day we thought our piss was flammable because the fire started just as we started to piss down the chimney”

Mike from Durvall, Washington: “Quicksand was a real threat. Swallowing gum could cause damage. Love lasts forever”

Last Week's Responses:

Last week, we gave you a throwback "Ratings" edition of 20 Questions. We gave you a list of people, things, places, and abstract concepts, and asked you to rate those on a scale of 1 to 10. Below is the most common answer per prompt.

1. Fall breezes: 10

2. Mark Cuban: 5

3. Crunchy peanut butter: 9.5

4. Creamy peanut butter: 9

5. The conversation starter "Are you a spender or a saver?": 2

6. Cats: 6

7. Cat people: 4

8. Horoscopes: 2

9. Thrifting (the activity): 6

10. The term "pet parent": 1

11. Taylor Swift when she was a country star: 5

12. Taylor Swift today: 8

13. Ashton Kutcher: 5

14. Grocery stores charging for plastic bags: 2

15. Balloon animals: 5

16. Someone calling you "buddy": 4

17. Someone calling you "pal": 2

18. Your 4th grade chemistry teacher: An unintentional trick question. We got a lot of “who took chemistry in 4th grade?”

19. The electoral college: Two-way tie between 2 and 10

20. Piña coladas and getting caught in the rain: 10

🧠 Final Thoughts

Thanks for another great week, Roca, and see you on Monday!