🌊 Nuclear Energy Is So Back

What a week for the Roca YouTube channel.

Don’t look now — actually please do, it’ll help the views — but the Roca YouTube channel is popping off. Over the last week or so, several of our Pennsylvania videos have gone viral. Huge thanks to all of you who’ve tuned into our main channel or the We The 66 podcast one. Our goal is to cover people and places as they are — no editorializing, no sensationalizing, no reverse engineering political narratives. People and places never fit neatly into Big News’ narratives. Onto Wisconsin!

–Max, Max, and Owen

KEY STORY

Nuclear Revival

Three Mile Island, the site of the US’ worst nuclear disaster in history, is set to resume operations to help fuel new Microsoft data centers

• In 1979, Three Mile Island suffered a partial nuclear meltdown. The event registered a five (out of seven) on the International Nuclear Event Scale, exposing ~2M nearby residents to small amounts of radiation

• Other reactors at the site remained undamaged. On Friday, Microsoft signed a deal to restart one of those, which closed in 2019 for economic reasons, and have it provide 835 megawatts – enough energy to power 700k homes – for new data centers

Dig Deeper

• Separately, Amazon recently announced that it would use nuclear to power a data center in Pennsylvania

• Traditional nuclear plants remain expensive and time-consuming to build. Many companies – including startups backed by Sam Altman and Bill Gates – are testing innovative solutions like small reactors and fusion projects

KEY STORY

Israel-Lebanon: War Nearing?

War between Israel and Hezbollah looks increasingly likely as tensions escalate between the sides

• Last week, Israel blew up Hezbollah walkie-talkies and pagers, killing dozens and injuring thousands of the group’s members

• On Friday, a Hezbollah commander summoned at least 15 of the group’s top-ranking military leaders for a meeting to discuss how to proceed. Israel bombed the meeting, killing most or all in attendance, including Hezbollah’s acting military operations chief

• That commander’s unit – tasked with defending southern Lebanon and invading Israel – is now in shambles

• On Saturday and Sunday, the sides exchanged their most intense fire since they began exchanging fire on October 8. Hezbollah struck the suburbs of Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, while Israel struck Hezbollah sites across Lebanon

Dig Deeper

• Israel’s stated goal is to force the group’s withdrawal from the southernmost point of Lebanon so Israelis can safely return to northern Israel. Hezbollah could either accept Israel’s demands or escalate

• Hardliners on both sides are pushing for escalation. The US is trying to mediate to prevent that and has warned Israel against launching a war

KEY STORY

Election Update

With six weeks to go, Trump is campaigning less than usual and fundraising less than Kamala Harris

• New election data showed that, in August, Harris’ campaign out-raised Trump and the Republicans’ entire fundraising operation, $190M to $130M. Pro-Harris committees (PACs) raised an additional $171M, for a total of $361M to Trump/the Republicans’ $130M

• Harris will now likely have a fundraising lead for the rest of the campaign

• Meanwhile, Trump is campaigning much less than in the past: An Axios report found that Trump has held 24 rallies since June versus 72 in the same period in 2016

Dig Deeper

• Over the weekend, Harris accepted terms for a late-October debate on CNN, but Trump declined, saying it was “too late”

• The two candidates are reportedly in talks to air back-to-back interviews on 60 Minutes, the country’s most-watched news program, on October 7

KEY STORY

OceanGate Hearings Begin

Hearings for OceanGate’s Titan submersible – which imploded in June 2023 en route to the Titanic – began last week

• In the hearings, OceanGate’s former operations director, David Lochridge, said he had warned of potential safety issues before he was fired in 2018. He said he believed the Titan disaster was “inevitable” and that the “whole idea” of OceanGate was “to make money.” He added, “There was very little in the way of science”

• A mission specialist aboard the support ship recalled that the last thing she saw was “five smiling faces.” She broke down in tears during her testimony, saying, “They were just happy to go. That’s the memory I have”

Dig Deeper

• The purpose of the hearings, which the US Coast Guard is running, is to uncover what happened to the Titan and what can be learned from it. The hearings will continue through Friday

• Investigators revealed that one of the crew’s final messages before it lost contact with the ship was, “All good here”

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🏙️ At least four people were killed and 17 injured when multiple people opened fire in a nightlife district of Birmingham, Alabama

🔫 On a live stream with Oprah, Kamala Harris said, “If someone breaks into my house, they’re getting shot”

💰 OpenAI is nearing the largest venture capital fundraise in history

🔒 Sean “Diddy” Combs is on suicide watch at a Brooklyn prison

🎁 UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised to stop taking clothing gifts after it emerged that he had taken $38,200+ in glasses and clothing from a media mogul who fundraises for his Labour Party

COMMUNITY

🧠 Today’s question: Does Googling your symptoms make you feel better or worse about your health problem?

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

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🎬 The Name Awakens: A British family was told to change their seven-year-old son’s name or get Disney’s approval after their passport application was rejected. The kid’s name is Loki Skywalker Mowbray, and he was born on May 4

🔥 Flames of betrayal: A California firefighter was arrested on suspicion of starting five separate wildfires in the state within the last six weeks. He is suspected of starting them on purpose

💰 “Actually it was six billion jillion”: California officials received a report of a vehicle break-in where the victim claimed $1M was stolen from a cardboard box in the car

🏀 A’ja unstoppable: Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson, 28, was unanimously named 2024 WNBA MVP, her record-tying third MVP award. She received all 67 first-place votes

🚗 Most legal Florida parkjob: An SUV was parked on top of a dumpster in Florida. A construction worker forklifted it there after seeing the car parked in a work zone

ROCA WRAP

Monday Morning Madness

Here are five unusual stories to start your Mondays off right. 

Squatter’s Rights!

A Kentucky man was forced out of his home after letting a friend stay in his garage.

The man said that he had invited his friend and her boyfriend to stay over while they were fixing their car in his driveway. They ended up moving a mattress into the garage, getting cable installed, and changing the lock on his garage. When the man put up an eviction notice, a fight broke out, leading a judge to issue a protective order to defend the squatter from the homeowner.

The homeowner has a hearing to challenge the protective order scheduled for next week. He hopes getting that overturned will pave the way for the end of the situation: “I need to take care of things, and I want to sleep in my own bed,” he said.

Wee Little Fix

An Australian man installed a $3,000 sprinkler system to stop people from peeing in his driveway.

The Sydney resident’s home is situated near two bars, whose patrons – male and female – have a late-night habit of stumbling outside and going “wee” on his driveway.

While one of the pubs’ owners claims to have offered to buy a gate for the property, the man said he had no choice but to “take matters [into his] own hands.”

He’s since installed a motion detector active between 6 PM and 6 AM that, when triggered, activates a light and starts a three-minute-long soaking.

Master Hunter Confirmed

A Florida man slayed 20 snakes to win this year’s Florida Python Challenge.

The annual competition awards $10,000 to the person who hunts the most Burmese pythons in the Everglades in a 10-day period. The pythons are an invasive species that pose a considerable threat to the environment. In this year’s competition, 800+ people from 33 states and Canada collectively hunted 195 snakes.

While the competition was slightly smaller than last year’s when 1,000 people removed 209 snakes, the park service applauded the effort: “Every invasive python that is removed makes a difference for Florida’s environment and its native wildlife.”

Windowsception

Microsoft announced the release of a new app called Windows App for Windows, allowing users to run Windows and Windows apps.

It replaces the Microsoft Remote Desktop app on most platforms, which was used to connect to remote Windows systems. Despite the potentially confusing name, the new app provides a unified way to access Windows PCs with Remote Desktop, cloud-hosted Windows 365, Microsoft Dev Box systems, and remotely hosted apps provisioned by work or school.

Rodent Roulette 

A mouse crawled out of a passenger’s meal on a Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) flight from Oslo to Málaga, forcing the flight to make an unscheduled landing in Copenhagen.

Airlines usually strictly prohibit rodents on board because the animals can chew through electrical wiring. An SAS spokesperson said that “in line with our procedures, there was a change of aircraft” and that the airline flew passengers to Málaga on another flight.

ROCA VIDEO
Interviewing Voters in the Rust Belt

We explored Steel Country, Pennsylvania. In the 1900s, this region housed America's industrial giants. However, over the past six decades, many industries have relocated overseas or to the southern states. We visited Erie, Freedom, and Ambridge to get a feel for life there and understand what's on people's minds as the 2024 election approaches.

Shoutout ”the Orbit” in Amrbidge, PA for great hospitality. Check them out!

Make sure to subscribe to the channel!

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Hope you all had a great weekend. We have some beautiful fall weather this morning in New York. Looking around the country, it looks like many of you are getting some fall weather, too. 56 degrees in Madison? 63 in Detroit? 56 in Denver? And… 83 in Atlanta. Sighs. Have a great day.

–Max and Max