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  • 🌊 Can Sleeping Outdoors Be Illegal?

🌊 Can Sleeping Outdoors Be Illegal?

Plus: USC valedictorian nixed for controversial views

April 18, 2024

Houston, we have a phone problem.

The average American checks their phone 144 times per day, according to a new study. Assuming 8 hours of sleep, that comes out to a phone glance every 6 minutes and 40 seconds — I had to check my phone to do that math. Now, this study might sound like a bad thing but
do you really think our great-great-grandparents would’ve resisted the urge to compulsively play Fruit Ninja and check Snap Map if they had the chance?

In today's edition:

đŸ‘©đŸœâ€đŸŽ“ USC valedictorian speech nixed

đŸ‡§đŸ‡· Dead man in wheelchair signs loan?

đŸ‘šâ€âš•ïž The Numbers Guy

–Max, Max, Jen, and Alex

KEY STORY

Porter Banned for Life

The NBA banned Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter for life over sports betting violations

  • Porter, 24, split time between the Raptors and its minor league (G-League) affiliate

  • On Wednesday, the NBA accused Porter of giving a sports bettor information about his health status prior to a March 20 game, then limiting his own playing time. Another bettor affiliated with Porter bet on Porter underperforming and won $1.1M

  • It also accused Porter of placing 13+ bets on NBA games, including one on the Raptors losing. In total, the NBA claims he bet $54,094, netting him $21,965

  • Due to Porter’s violations, the NBA banned him for life

Dig Deeper

  • The league began investigating Porter in mid-March after betting apps notified the NBA of the suspicious bet that won $1.1M

  • The NBA’s commissioner said, “There is nothing more important than protecting the integrity of NBA competition
which is why Jontay Porter
[is] being met with the most severe punishment”

KEY STORY

SCOTUS’ Homelessness Case

Next week, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) will hear arguments in a case challenging the ability of cities to criminalize outdoor sleeping

  • Grants Pass is a city of 38,000 people in Oregon. The city’s homeless population exceeds the number of beds at the city’s homeless shelter, causing some to sleep in parks and other public areas. However, the city also had laws criminalizing outdoor sleeping

  • A case challenging those laws has made its way to SCOTUS. A ruling could affect the ability of cities and states to prevent people from sleeping on streets when there aren’t enough beds available

Dig Deeper

  • The case hinges on a series of lawsuits that have interpreted the Eighth Amendment to mean that courts cannot criminalize somebody’s “status,” or state of being. In this context, those rulings hold that states cannot criminalize the state of being homeless

  • SCOTUS’ rulings could have implications for the ability of cities and states to limit public camping and, potentially, broader legal ramifications on the protections afforded to people’s “status”

SPONSORED

More Salt. Fewer Problems

Healthy people often avoid sodium due to well-intended but widespread misinformation

  • Low-carb or other health-focused diets are often low in salt – which can affect many aspects of your day-to-day

  • You might feel “off” during a workout, foggy while planning a presentation, or low-energy throughout the day

  • It's easy to blame stress, lack of sleep, or dehydration, but the real culprit might be a sodium deficit

  • Increasing your sodium intake can lead to a noticeable improvement in how you feel and perform

Dig Deeper

KEY STORY

Tesla to Texas?

Tesla’s board asked the company’s shareholders to re-approve Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package

  • In February, a Delaware judge struck down a $55B pay package for Musk, calling it excessively large

  • The size of that package – “over 33 times larger than the plan’s closest comparison,” a court said – was directly tied to Tesla’s performance, meaning that if Tesla had been less successful, Musk’s payout would’ve been smaller

  • On Wednesday, Tesla’s board asked shareholders to re-approve Musk’s $55B package. It also requested that Tesla move its incorporation from Delaware to Texas, which the board called Tesla’s “home”

Dig Deeper

  • Many analysts called the board’s efforts to relocate the company an attempt to sidestep Delaware’s legal system

  • The reapproval of Musk’s pay package attempted to satisfy the Delaware judge’s concerns that shareholders were not fully aware of the details of the package when they approved it in 2018

KEY STORY

USC Drops Valedictorian Speech

The University of Southern California canceled a graduation speech by this year’s valedictorian

  • On April 5, USC selected Asna Tabassum, a Muslim, as valedictorian and, therefore, as a graduation speaker

  • Tabassum’s Instagram bio contained a link to a page that denied Israel’s right to exist and called Zionism a “racist settler-colonial ideology,” which sparked complaints

  • This week, USC announced Tabassum won’t speak at graduation, citing efforts to ensure “campus security and safety.” In a statement, Tabassum said she is the victim of “racist hatred”

Dig Deeper

  • The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the US’ premier Muslim advocacy group, called USC’s decision “cowardly”

  • In a statement, USC denied that its decision to cut Tabassum’s speech violated her free speech. “To be clear: this decision has nothing to do with freedom of speech. There is no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement,” the statement read

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

đŸ—ïž Ahead of a trip to Pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the 2024 election, the Biden administration revealed plans to increase a key tariff on Chinese steel products from 7.5% to 25%

đŸ–Šïž NPR editor Uri Berliner resigned. Earlier this month, Berliner accused NPR of being close-minded and left-leaning, prompting the company to suspend him for five days

đŸ›ïž The Justice Department agreed to pay ~$100M to 100 victims of Larry Nassar, the former US national women’s gymnastics team doctor who sexually assaulted his athletes

💊 Eli Lilly – the world’s most valuable pharma company – announced Wednesday that in a late-stage trial, its weight-loss drug was found highly effective at treating severe sleep apnea

🌇 A rumor led 1,300+ African migrants to convene yesterday at New York City’s city hall, which was holding a hearing on black migrants’ experience in the city’s shelter system. A false rumor had convinced hundreds that those who testified would be given green cards or working papers

✈ A Boeing whistleblower testified to the US Senate that the company “absolutely” retaliates against employees who raise safety concerns

COMMUNITY

We founded RocaNews because we wanted news companies to give us just the facts – not tell us what to think. That inspires us to do the “Roca Votes” story each week, in which we summarize a controversial topic and see how Roca Nation feels about it.

This week’s topic asks: Should podcast hosts push back? If so, when? 

First, podcasters are not journalists and therefore do not have a professional or ethical responsibility to push back some arbitrary amount that you decide is right. Second, Joe Rogan and many other podcasters are limited in the amount of knowledgeable push back they could even provide when they are talking to an expert whose life's work and experience make them much more qualified on a subject than them (even though that doesn't necessarily mean they're right). Often times, they may have other guests on with different or opposing views as a previous guest on a given subject, which is probably even better. Last, it is not as if you leave a Rogan episode feeling like it lacked depth. Compare the substance of a 3 hr Rogan conversation with the softball questions supposed "real journalists" ask our political leaders on mainstream networks all the time. 

Kian from Denver

Many podcasters are journalists. It depends on what a podcast is set up to achieve. It's not a requirement for podcasters to be uninformed and poorly prepared. If they are well set they definitely are able to follow up on what a guest has said. Depending on whether your podcast is softball or hardball, guests may expect questions, but podcasting is a technology first, not a set way of sharing knowledge. 

David replies to Kian

Today's Poll:

Should your government define “misinformation”?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.


Yesterday’s Poll: Do you have a problem with hearing interviews of guests whose views diverge from the mainstream?

Yes: 10%
No: 69%
Depends: 21%

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

đŸ‡§đŸ‡· She’s dead serious: Brazilian police reported that a woman brought a 68-year-old deceased man in a wheelchair to a bank and attempted to have him sign for a $3,250 loan

🚔 NBA DoneBoy: Utah police arrested rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again for a “pattern of unlawful behavior.” He has been under house arrest since 2020, when he allegedly filmed a music video with guns

🐍 Mamba mentality: A Tennessee man was charged with two counts of attempted aggravated robbery after he allegedly tried to rob a convenience store three times, the third time with a snake

🐘 Elephant in the road: An elephant escaped from a circus in Butte, Montana and wandered through the city’s streets before handlers recaptured it without harm

đŸ‘©â€đŸ« Spicy suspension: An Ohio high school student will miss her senior prom after being suspended for bringing a bag of Takis to school. The school bans the chips due to a teacher’s severe allergy

ROCA WRAP
The Numbers Guy: Part 2 of 2

After publishing the Great Barrington Declaration, Harvard epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff found himself a marked man.

The opinions of Kulldorff and his two co-authors – from Stanford and Oxford, respectively – had landed them on the radar of various governments.

The US NIH director ordered a “devastating take down” of their positions and labeled them “fringe,” German and British officials called the trio ”pseudoscientists,” and the head of the WHO denounced them.

“There was an enormous attack,” Kulldorff told Roca. “There was a very concerted, strong effort against us.”

But each time they were attacked, Kulldorff said, “The Guardian or the New York Times or Washington Post” would write about the Great Barrington Declaration. “And they will write critically about it, but they will include a link to it. So people will click on a link and then read the one-page document. And people are smart.”

In telling people to read his document, Kulldorff landed afoul of the Big Tech companies, who were working with the government to repress content that challenged government recommendations. Those companies – including Twitter, Meta, LinkedIn, and YouTube – placed him on their blacklists, limiting his reach.

At Harvard, Kulldorff found himself isolated.

While he claims a majority of his colleagues held the same positions on lockdowns as him, he said few were willing to say so publicly, leaving him on an island.

When he tried to debate his pro-lockdown colleagues, they refused.

By early 2021, Kulldorff was drawing attention for his stances on vaccines, namely that having had the virus – â€natural immunity” – should be considered a sufficient replacement for vaccination.

That March, he tweeted, “Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.”

A pro-vaccine group responded to that tweet by writing to Twitter, “Dear Twitter Team
This Tweet directly contradicts CDC’s advice.” A senior Twitter employee responded, “Thanks team – we’re looking into this.”

The tweet was then labeled “misleading” and Kulldorff’s account was suspended.

In spring 2021, Kulldorff’s hospital and Harvard both enacted vaccine mandates. While Kulldorff stressed that he supported vaccination for some groups, he declined vaccination, citing natural immunity from a recent Covid infection that had left him hospitalized. “We know from almost every virus that we have this [natural immunity],” he told Roca. “It would have been extremely surprising if there was no immunity from having recovered from Covid.”

Kulldorff filed both religious and medical exemption requests. While he knew of others whose exemptions were granted, his was not. His hospital proceeded to terminate him, while Harvard placed him on leave.

Two years later, Harvard terminated his contract altogether.

The correctness of Kulldorff’s stances aside, his case has become a lightning rod in the debate about free speech.

To his opponents, he sowed confusion that spread anti-lockdown sentiment, thereby harming public safety and costing lives. His censorship, therefore, was justified.

To his supporters, Kulldorff is a case study of how the government and Big Tech forced a pro-lockdown consensus by censoring differing viewpoints, potentially while causing significant harm in violation of the constitution

Kulldorff maintains that his core positions were entirely correct.

When Roca pointed out that Covid has claimed the lives of up to 1.2M Americans, Kulldorff said, “The thing is, we can't avoid all those deaths. It's unavoidable, no matter what we do.”

“So the lockdowns didn't save anybody's lives. The level of harm didn't save anybody.”

You may or may not agree with that. The question is: Does he have a right to say it?

If you’re interested in hearing from Dr. Kulldorff directly, you can check out our podcast with him on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Reply to this email to let us know what you think!

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

PSA! There’s a new We the 66 podcast dropping today with one of the world’s most prominent academics. Make sure you subscribe to “We the 66” on Youtube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts to listen this afternoon.

— Max, Max, Alex and Jen