🌊 Beef Went 0 to 100 Real Quick

Think you have a tab problem? Think again…

A self-proclaimed Mozilla Firefox superfan and “tab hoarder” shared a screenshot on X with 7,470 tabs open on her browser. It took her two years to amass the 7,470 open tabs, but in one fell swoop they went away. She managed to recover them with the browser’s profile cache functionality. Upon restoring her web session, she wrote, “I feel like part of me is restored.” So yes, I think we have overprescribed Adderall.

–Max, Max, and Alex

KEY STORY

Unrest in Georgia

Georgia – a country of 3.7M people in the Caucasus – is facing mass protests as people accuse the government of turning toward Russia

• After gaining independence from the USSR in 1991, Georgia tried to align itself with the West. That led Russia to invade in 2008, after which the government has tried to balance between the West and Russia

• Lately, though, the government has tilted toward Russia, mainly by pushing a Russia-style law that would make many media outlets and nonprofits register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power”

• The law would jeopardize Georgia’s shot at joining the EU and has sparked mass protests

Dig Deeper

• Russia has occupied a section of Georgia since 2008 and polls suggest that 80%+ of Georgians want to join the EU

• The bill, if passed, would jeopardize that: The EU’s foreign policy head recently said, “This law is not in line with EU core norms and values” and would “negatively impact Georgia’s progress on its EU path”

• The situation has sparked mass protests during which demonstrators have forced parliament’s closure and been arrested and tear-gassed

KEY STORY

Drake vs. Kendrick

It’s unclear if the feud is over between hip-hop superstars Kendrick Lamar and Drake

• An ongoing feud between the two superstar rappers has caused them to produce a collective eight diss tracks over the past month, with six coming between April 30 and May 5

• In recent tracks, Kendrick accused Drake of having plastic-surgery abs, hiding a child, and being a groomer; Drake accused Kendrick of beating his wife

• Social media posts suggest the feud has harmed Drake more than Kendrick

Dig Deeper

• While Drake and Kendrick have long-standing beef, the current battle stems from a song Kendrick released in March in which he took a shot at Drake and fellow superstar rapper J. Cole

• In the weeks since, Kendrick and Drake have traded escalating jabs, drawing hundreds of millions of views, streams, and tweets

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Dig Deeper

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KEY STORY

Private Equity Hospital Fails

On Monday, the US experienced one of its largest hospital bankruptcy filings in decades

• Steward Health Care System operates 32 hospitals across eight states, providing healthcare to 2.2M patients a year and employing ~30,000 people

• Steward was created in 2010 when private equity company Cerberus began buying up hospitals. Cerberus proceeded to sell off Steward’s land and hospitals, then sold Steward itself for $800M in 2021

• Steward’s subsequent collapse – which puts millions of people’s healthcare in question – has become a focal point of criticisms about private equity

Dig Deeper

• Steward's collapse has become a particularly large issue in Massachusetts, where it accounts for 7% of hospital capacity

• The state’s governor called the company a "house of cards and a charade,” and Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) tweeted, "De la Torre [the CEO] and his morally bankrupt business model have failed our hospitals, our providers, and our patients. He and his private equity allies must be held accountable"

KEY STORY

Ceasefire Talks Stall

Israel began attacking Rafah just after Hamas claimed to have accepted a ceasefire proposal

• On Monday morning, Israel ordered the evacuation of ~100,000 people from Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza. Amid that, Hamas announced it had accepted a ceasefire proposal. Israel said that was a “ruse” and that Hamas had not accepted Israel’s proposal but a “softened” one whose terms it could not meet

• On Monday night, Israel said it had begun “conducting targeted strikes against Hamas targets in…Rafah.” Israel ordered ~100,000 civilians to relocate to a humanitarian zone north of the city

• On Tuesday, Israel claimed it had seized Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt

Dig Deeper

• The proposal accepted by Hamas appears to have contained demands that Israel withdraw all its military forces before Hamas release any hostages, a term Israel had said it wouldn’t accept

• Israel ordered evacuations to a humanitarian zone north of the city that it said was equipped with tents, food, water, and medications

• Up to 1.5M people are believed to be in Rafah, alongside Hamas’ last four intact brigades and the group’s leadership

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🎓 After weeks of protests, Columbia University canceled its main graduation event. Rather than holding a university-wide ceremony, Columbia announced it would only have smaller school-specific ones (i.e., for the school of journalism)

🏛 The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush money trial found that Trump violated his gag order for a tenth time by saying in an interview that the jury consisted mostly of Democrats and was picked too quickly. “Going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction,” the judge said

🚀 Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s military to rehearse the use of tactical nuclear weapons. He said the drills were a response to “provocative statements” by French President Emmanuel Macron, who has said he is open to sending troops to Ukraine

⌂ A new Federal Reserve study found a record-low 40.1% of American renters expect to ever own a home. The figure is a decline from last year’s 44.4% and the lowest figure since the Fed started tracking the stat in 2015

✈️ The FAA opened a new investigation into Boeing after it said Boeing had notified it that some of its 787 jets may not have undergone required inspections. The FAA is investigating “whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records,” it said

🇨🇳 Chinese leader Xi Jinping is currently conducting his first trip to Europe in five years. On Monday, he met with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

😳 Florida woman: Police arrested a Florida woman for breaking into a neighbor’s home while naked. She first knocked at the door but then broke a window and climbed through

🦓 Shug it off: Officials announced the safe capture of Shug, a zebra missing for nearly a week in Washington state. Shug was one of the zebras who escaped from a trailer on the highway last week

💸 Double or nothing: The Massachusetts State Lottery revealed that a woman won two $1M lottery prizes within 10 weeks

🥖 Oui have a winner: An 18-member team of French bakers set a new Guinness World Record by baking a 461-foot baguette. The previous record was set by Italian bakers in 2019

✌️ $180… nachos? Food prices at the Miami Grand Prix were staggering. Carne asada nachos cost $180, leading F1 fans to post viral menu pictures online

Roca Wrap
Two Views on Gaza: Part 1

David Hasan has seen the war in Gaza through humanitarian eyes; John Spencer, through the Israeli army’s.

Both spoke with Roca and shed light on how the conflict has caught civilians in the middle.

Hasan is a neurosurgeon at Duke University Medical School. An American who has lived in the US for decades, he was born to Palestinian parents in Kuwait and knew from the war’s beginning that he wanted to do humanitarian work in Gaza. While he thought that would come after the war’s end, an opportunity arose that allowed him to enter Gaza in December as part of the first humanitarian group to do so after October 7.

Hasan flew to Cairo, Egypt, from where he traveled in a convoy across the Sinai Peninsula. On the way, he was repeatedly stopped at checkpoints, sometimes for up to five hours.

As he approached Gaza, hundreds or thousands of aid trucks sat idle on the roadsides, waiting for permission to enter the territory.

Once he did enter Rafah, Gaza, he found an unimaginable scene: Up to half of the buildings were destroyed; people were waiting in hours-long lines for food and water; and tens of thousands of people had taken shelter in the hospital where he would be staying. Immediately after arriving there, he spent a week conducting surgeries, often without being able to provide anesthesia, pain medications, or ventilators.

The environment was a breeding ground for infection, he said: The doctors were often sick, and he estimates that 70% of his patients who died did so from infections.

To Hasan’s surprise, there was no bombing during the day, just the constant buzzing of Israeli drones overhead. Around 7 PM each night, though, the bombs would start to fall – and would continue to do so until sunrise.

They never fell on the hospital but hit nearby, making sleep nearly impossible. When the bombing stopped in the morning, the victims would start arriving: On foot, by donkey, on push carts.

Hasan spent a week in that environment, treating “horrific” injuries. When his time was up and he left, he stared at his business-class airline meal for an hour wondering why he was able to leave.

Three months later, he went back to Gaza.

John Spencer also knew in October that he wanted to go to Gaza – but for a totally different reason.

Spencer served for over 25 years in the US Army, including two combat deployments in Iraq. After leaving the service, he joined the Modern War Institute at West Point, where he became the chair of Urban Warfare Studies and an expert in “military operations in dense urban areas, megacities, urban, and subterranean warfare.”

In that capacity, he spent extensive time in Israel, establishing close ties with its military, the IDF.

Shortly after the October 7 attack, Spencer traveled to Israel and wandered through the kibbutzim – collective farms – that were targeted by Hamas. He watched video footage of murders, rapes, and beheadings – content so horrific he has publicly advised people against watching it – to assemble a full picture of the attack.

When Israel invaded, he tapped his contacts to embed with their units as they entered Gaza.

This week’s Roca Wraps will share both Spencer’s and Hasan’s experiences on the ground in Gaza. Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow.

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Thank you all for sending in so many responses to yesterday’s discussion topic. We are proud to be one of the few news outlets that actually shares a wide range of opinions. We hope you’ll keep the replies coming today!

— Max, Max, and Alex