Happy National French Fry Day, Roca Nation. To celebrate, McDonald’s and Wendy’s are giving out free fries through their mobile apps — or are they just trying to steal the Roca app spotlight?! It’s unfortunate that this year's holiday landed on a Thursday instead of a… Fry-day. I’m sorry…

In today's edition:

• Inflation hits 2-year low

• Burger King’s bizarre new burger

• Hero or Villain?

 🔑 Key Stories

Antibiotics in Meat

A group of 71 investors managing $15.2T in assets is pressuring 12 fast food companies to stop using antibiotics

• Ranchers regularly give cattle antibiotics to treat illness and prevent the spread of disease. Scientists believe that is causing the drug-resistant diseases to spread

• Activists and investors have tried to pressure food companies to cut down on antibiotics for years

• 71 investors managing $15.2T in assets are now pressuring 12 fast-food companies to commit to only using meat produced with antibiotics when necessary. McDonald’s and Wendy’s are among targeted companies

Dig Deeper

• Several companies targeted by the initiative say they are already taking actions to address the concerns, such as monitoring and incrementally reducing antibiotic use in their supply chains

Inflation at 2-Year Low

Annual US inflation fell to 3% in June, the lowest year-over-year rate since March 2021

• Inflation peaked last June at 9.1%, the highest annual rate in 40+ years. It has declined every month since

• Per federal data, in June, inflation rose 3% from a year earlier. That’s down from May’s 4% rate and lower than economists’ 3.1% estimate

• Core inflation – inflation minus volatile energy and food prices – fell from 5.3% in May to 4.8% last month. Food prices rose .1% on the month while used vehicle and airline prices declined .5% and 3%. Shelter prices rose .4%, making it the largest driver of inflation

Dig Deeper

• The Federal Reserve (Fed) has raised interest rates 10 times since March 2022 to bring inflation closer to its target 2% rate. Doing so reduces inflation but hurts economic growth, increasing the risk of a recession. The Fed will meet later this month to decide whether or not to raise rates again

Musk Launches xAI

Elon Musk launched xAI, an AI company that seeks to challenge OpenAI

• Musk co-founded ChatGPT-creator OpenAI in 2015 but left the company’s board in 2018 amid disputes over its direction. He has since heavily criticized it and called AI humanity’s “biggest existential threat”

• This February, reports emerged that Musk was assembling an AI team to compete with OpenAI. He launched that on Wednesday, and per its website, its goal is to “understand the true nature of the universe”

• Musk will run the company, making it the sixth that he oversees

Dig Deeper

• The website says Musk himself will lead the company. Notable initial hires include former engineers for Google’s DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, and the University of Toronto. Those people are highly experienced in building AI models like the ones that power ChatGPT

10-Second Groping Rule

An Italian judge acquitted a janitor for sexual assault because he groped a 17-year-old for “only…10 seconds”

• Last April, a 66-year-old school janitor put his hand down a 17-year-old’s pants and under her underwear. “Come on darling, you know I’m only joking,” he said when she confronted her

• Prosecutors charged him with sexual assault and requested 3+ years in jail; the janitor admitted to grabbing the girl but said he did it as a joke

• A court ruled the touching wasn’t a crime because it “only lasted between five and ten seconds.” The verdict has caused #10secondi to go viral in Italy

Dig Deeper

• “This is not how an old man should ‘joke’ with a teenager,” the victim told a local newspaper after the verdict. “That handful of seconds was more than enough for the janitor to make me feel his hands. This is not justice”

🍿 Popcorn

ICYMI

• Always candid: “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star Rob McElhenney revealed that he has been diagnosed with several neurodevelopmental disorders and learning disabilities

• Hard Knock Jets: The NFL chose the New York Jets to serve as this year’s team on HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” a reality TV series that follows an NFL team through its training camp

• #TalibanEndorsed: After Meta-owned platform Threads suspended Taliban-associated accounts, senior Taliban leader Anas Haqqani praised Twitter for “freedom of speech”

Wildcard

• Shame-ify: E-commerce company Shopify embedded a cost calculator in employees’ calendar apps to eliminate pointless meetings

• Lactose intolerant nightmare fuel: Burger King Thailand introduced “The Real Cheeseburger” – a meatless burger with no condiments and 20 slices of American cheese

• Miami miracle: A 6-year-old Miami girl named Ah’lyric escaped a kidnapping by biting her abductor, per police records. Police have since arrested a 32-year-old male suspect

👇 What do you think?

Today's Question:

Will AI influence your daily life over the next year?

Reply to this email with your answers!

See yesterday's results below the Wrap! 

🌯 Roca Wrap

"I don’t have much time left…I won’t live until Christmas.” So said Hipólito Mora weeks before he was assassinated two weeks ago.

Mora was born in Michoacán, a state in western Mexico. Little about his early life is known, besides that he served prison time in the US for drug trafficking. After being deported to Mexico, he operated a lime farm in the state of Michoacán.

Michoacán is known for its rich agriculture: Ranging from the Pacific Ocean into the mountains, it produces vast amounts of avocados, limes, peaches, and other crops. Michoacan’s farmers also have a tradition of growing opium poppies and marijuana. As traffickers used the state’s coastal cities to import drug ingredients, Michoacán became a trafficking hub.

By 2006, the state was firmly under the control of a local drug cartel called “La Familia.” That year, Mexico’s president launched a war on the country’s cartels and sent thousands of troops into Michoacán to break La Familia’s influence. That worked, but another cartel – the Knights Templar – quickly replaced it.

Reporting from Michoacan in 2013, the Associated Press (AP) called it “the Mexican state most visibly dominated by a drug cartel.” The AP reported, “Gunmen in vehicles marked only with the Knights Templar symbol, a red cross, roam the countryside, burning businesses and homes of anyone who refuses to pay them protection money.” The Knights Templar controlled the state’s territory and government and killed those who got in its way.

Amid this, Hipólito Mora returned to his lime farm to find his son asleep.

His son said he was not delivering limes because the cartel was now setting the dates that lime farmers could harvest and sell their crops, and the dates that buyers could purchase them. This was on top of charging local farmers and businesses “protection” money.

On February 24, 2013, Mora convened a meeting where he made the case for forming an anti-cartel militia. Having persuaded some 250 people to join him, the group donned their personal weapons and set out for cartel properties. The cartel had been tipped off about the pending attack but left behind cars and weapons which the militia took for themselves.

As word of Mora’s uprising spread, similar groups formed in the surrounding areas of Michoacan. In the following months, a region of Michoacan erupted in rebellion against the cartel. The militias conducted ambushes and engaged the cartel in gunfights; the cartel responded by blockading whole towns, sometimes for months at a time.

By the end of 2013, Mora’s militia had kicked the cartel out of his region and drawn enough national attention that Mexico’s military deployed thousands of troops to guarantee Michoacan’s security. At that point, Mora addressed a cheering crowd to tell them, “We reached an agreement that we are going to return to our homes and work. But I told [the army] that if they leave us alone for one day, we are going to return to duty again.”

In the decade that followed, the army lost control and the militias were infiltrated by cartels.

A new cartel – known as the Viagras Cartel or Carteles Unidos – largely replaced the Knights Templar, conducting many of the activities that group once did.

Michoacan’s government is believed to have reached deals with the cartel in order to keep a larger, national cartel out of the state. In 2014, Mora was arrested after being accused of having links to the killings of other militia members.

The charges were later dropped, although the allegations tainted his reputation and contributed to a belief that the militias had become criminal groups in their own right. Mora admitted as much in 2020, saying, “Some leaders let the self-defense groups fill up with pure criminals and put on the self-defense shirt.”

While Mora’s armed power declined, he remained an outspoken critic of the cartels

In 2020, he ran to be Michoacan’s governor, saying he wanted “to help citizens and not to plunder the state.” Last year, he met top Mexican officials and warned that “in terms of safety, we are worse than ever.”

“They have to fight all the cartels, not just one,” Mora said of government policy. He also recently alleged that a cartel leader was operating meth labs throughout Michoacan and warned that he didn’t “have much time left.”

On March 5, Mora survived an assassination attempt, the second against him.

After that, Michoacan’s government assigned him permanent security and ordered him not to leave the state capital. Last month, though, he returned to his lime orchard in his hometown. “I’m taking care of my own business,” he wrote on Facebook on June 28. “I like the countryside”.

The following day, a group of cars pulled in front of his fortified truck, blocking him. They opened fire, killing Mora and 2 of his security, then lit his car and body on fire.

Mora’s allies accused the government of leaving him unprotected and failing to defeat the cartels. Some within government, meanwhile, accused Mora of doing more harm than good: "The illegal armed self-defense movement…did not bring anything positive to the state," Michoacan’s governor said.

A year before he died, Mora gave a speech in which he talked about his son, whom a cartel had killed in 2014. “He knew he wouldn’t die of old age. He knew his enemies would kill him. He knew it and he lived with the knowledge that he would soon suffer a fatal attack,” he said with tears in his eyes.

Mora then spoke of himself: “But what I do want to make very clear is that the day they attack me, if they give me even the slightest opportunity, I will go down fighting.”

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

 🌊 Roca Clubhouse

Yesterday's Poll:

Does Jonah Hill's behavior seem acceptable?
Yes: 58%
Nol: 42%

Yesterday's Question:

Invent a premise for a game show:

Paul from Taranaki, New Zealand: "I think that with the current emergence of AI we may be able to develop a Show where we can disguise contestants and have others try to determine their true identity. Kind of like Masked Singer but a bit more socially active. By that I mean to highlight unconscious prejudices, be they racially or gender based. Physical or mental disabilities, could be featured somehow too. The aim would be ostensibly to correctly identify the contestants but the kicker is the revelations of unrealized filters we all possess and how they ultimately shade our perception of others humanity.”

Pete: "'The Bridge' = Quiz show where contestants race to cross a 20ft high bridge over a pool by answering questions. Get one wrong and a trap door drops you.”

Yesterday’s Wrap Replies:

Many of you emailed us about our Wrap yesterday (and every day) so we wanted to start sharing a few thoughtful replies each day. Thank you all for being so engaged!

Marie from Fredericksburg, Virginia: “Hello, I love your newsletter and thank you for remaining unbiased! I just read the article on Dr. Kanner and Case 1. Although understandably the articles are kept brief, it should be noted Dr Kanner caused much pain and distress to families for many years accusing mothers,in particular, for causing autism in their children because of being cold and unfeeling. The term “ refrigerator moms” was the label coined during this time. Being a mother of an autistic child, I cannot imagine the constant, heartless judgment that must have caused. It is still discussed today as so detrimental to the autistic community that it overshadows any other accomplishments of Dr Kanner.”

Danielle from Chicagoland area: “While I enjoy the spotlight on ASD I just had a quick note that I wanted to share. The non-profit quoted at the end of the Wrap, Autism Speaks, is viewed very negatively by people in the autism community. It is actually considered a hate group by many people on the spectrum due to their desire to eliminate or "cure" autism. This, coupled with the fact that only a very small percentage of their profits actually go towards helping people with autism, makes them a questionable charity at best”

Kevin from Mohnton, PA: “Thanks for the interesting and positive wrap. I think it was written respectfully.”

🧠 Final Thoughts

Thank you all for the significant feedback you sent in regarding yesterday's Wrap. We appreciate both the compliments and suggestions – they help us learn each day!

Hope you all have great Thursdays. See you tomorrow.

—Max and Max