In today’s episode of 2023 news stories that would be difficult to explain to your grandma, we bring you the Kai Cenat riot. A popular Twitch streamer named Kai Cenat hosted a PlayStation giveaway at Union Square in NYC Friday. Thousands showed up, and chaos ensued: Kids set off fireworks, trampled on cars, and attacked police officers. The NYPD defused the situation and made dozens of arrests, including that of Kai.
Suppose a positive takeaway from this is that gamers do go outside.
In today's edition:
Navalny gets 19 more years
Zoom to workers: No more Zoom!
Who is Travis Scott?
🔑 Key Stories
Fusion Ignition x2
US scientists have achieved net energy gain from nuclear fusion for a second time
Nuclear fusion – which powers the Sun – involves fusing atoms to release energy. Scientists have been able to achieve it for decades but struggled to generate more energy from the reaction than what they put into it, an achievement known as “ignition”
In December, a US government laboratory claimed to have achieved “ignition.” On Sunday it announced it had achieved it again
Some see fusion as the future of limitless, clean energy; others say such technology is still far away
Dig Deeper
In nuclear fusion, particles are combined; in nuclear fission, particles are split into smaller elements – a process that releases energy that can be used to generate electricity
Navalny Given 19 More Years
A Moscow court sentenced Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to a further 19 years in jail
Navalny is a Russian politician who amassed a large following in the early 2010s for accusing Putin and his allies of corruption. He organized several massive protests and is one of Putin’s most influential critics
In 2020, Navalny was poisoned with a rare nerve agent; in 2021, he returned to Russia and was arrested. He was later sentenced to nine years in jail
On Friday, he was given 19 more years for “extremism.” He called his sentence “Stalinist” and said it is meant to intimidate “you, not me”
Dig Deeper
Navalny also faces further terrorism charges, for which he predicted he will be sentenced to ten years in jail. Several of his closest allies are also in jail and several of his organizations operate in exile
US Women’s Soccer Team Exits
Sweden knocked the US women’s soccer team out of the World Cup
The US women’s team has won four Olympic gold medals, three more than any other country, and four FIFA World Cup titles, two more than any other country
The US women’s team won the 2015 and 2019 World Cups, but after hiring a new coach came in a disappointing third at 2021’s Tokyo Olympics
The US went into this year’s Cup as favorites but barely survived the first round of play. In its first “knockout” match, it lost to Sweden in penalty kicks, resulting in the US’ women’s earliest Cup exit ever
Dig Deeper
“This is like a sick joke,” said Megan Rapinoe, one of the team’s most accomplished players who missed a crucial penalty kick against Sweden. She had previously said she will retire later this year
The coach didn’t respond to reporters’ questions about his future with the team
First Postpartum Depression Pill
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first oral pill to treat postpartum depression (PPD)
PPD is depression that occurs “postpartum” – after giving birth. Studies suggest that 10-15% of women experience PPD
The FDA approved the first-ever PPD treatment in 2019, but that was injected through IV and patients had to be monitored by a doctor during treatment
On Friday, the FDA approved the first oral pill for PPD. Studies showed it was effective and relatively fast-acting. It is unclear how much the drug will cost
Dig Deeper
The drug will now undergo a 90-day review period before it will be eligible for sale to patients
🍿 Popcorn
ICYMI
RFK v. YouTube: Democratic presidential candidate RFK Jr. sued YouTube for allegedly violating his right to free speech. YouTube has taken down numerous videos of RFK Jr. who has questioned the safety and effectiveness of vaccines
Simone says… gold: Seven-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles won the US Classic in her first return to competitive gymnastics in over two years
Billionth bite of the Apple: Apple announced it now has over 1B paying subscribers to its services business, which includes iCloud, Music, Fitness+, Pay, Apple Card, and Apple TV+
Wildcard
Oh, the irony…: Zoom asked its employees to return to the office for the first time since 2020. After peaking at $159B in October 2020, Zoom’s market cap has since fallen to $21B
About damn done? Lizzo has lost 220,000 Instagram followers since a group of tour dancers filed a lawsuit on August 1 alleging harassment against them. Lizzo has denied the charges
Hide and goal seek: Police captured a high-ranking Italian fugitive in Corfu, Greece, after they recognized him in a photo of people celebrating Napoli’s Italian soccer league championship
👇 What do you think?
Today's Question:
Should your country’s government invest more or less in nuclear fusion?
Reply to this email with your answers!
See yesterday's results below the Wrap!
🌯 Roca Wrap
Last week was supposed to be Travis Scott’s week.
In 2018, Scott – real name Jacques Bermon Webster II – released Astroworld. It topped the charts, was widely considered a classic, and catapulted Scott to superstardom. After a long, five-year wait, Scott released his follow-up album on July 28.
But hours later, Houston police released a 1,266-page report that detailed how ten people died at a Travis Scott concert in 2021. Was it a coincidence?
Scott spent his early years with his grandma in a rough Houston neighborhood. "Growing up…I saw people looking weird, hungry, and grimy,” he recalled in a 2011 interview. “It gave me my edge [and made me] who I am right now."
At age six, he moved to a suburban neighborhood with his mom, who worked at Apple, and his dad, a soul musician and business owner. Scott attended private elementary and middle schools and has said his dark and melodic style traces to bands he heard then, specifically Coldplay, The Fray, and the Sex Pistols.
Scott transferred to a public high school, where we acted in musicals and began making beats. “My dad used to come in my room like, ‘Turn that s**t off!,’” he remembered in 2011, adding that Scott’s parents wanted him to focus on a traditional career.
Scott graduated high school early and enrolled at the University of Texas-San Antonio, but dropped out to focus on music. “My grandparents were extra educated, my grandfather has his doctorate in philosophy. When I dropped out of school, it was the worst man. They cut me off,” he has said.
But before he dropped out, Scott, then 19, asked his mom for money for books and a laptop. He used it to fly to New York, where he began rapping and making beats full time. Within four months, he had decided New York wasn’t the place for him and moved to LA. “That’s when I started…getting attention,” he’s said, specifically from rap blogs that liked his beats.
It wasn’t enough, though: On a trip back to his parents’ house in Houston, they kicked Scott out for being a “bum” and shut off his phone. When he got back to LA and was able to reconnect his phone, he had 14 messages from T.I., a famous rapper: “They were like, ‘Yo, can you come by the studio?’”
Next, he got a call from Kanye’s crew.
He’s not sure how Kanye found out about him, but he was soon in New York City, where Kanye greeted him with a Taco Bell Doritos taco on a “fancy platter.”Scott ended up signing with Kanye, who mentored him and featured him on a 2012 album.
Scott – like Kanye – was known as a double-threat, gifted at both rapping and making beats. Under Kanye’s guidance, Scott released his first studio album in 2015.
Two years later, Scott started dating Kylie Jenner, the half-sister of Kim Kardashian, Kanye’s then-wife. Kim and Kanye divorced last year; Scott and Jenner split up earlier this year.
Like Kanye, Scott released a series of smash-hit albums that were wildly successful among both critics and the general public. He developed a massive following and became known for his rowdy concerts, including ones in 2015 and 2017 where he was arrested for inciting violent behavior among concertgoers.
In 2018, Scott released Astroworld, cementing him as one of the world’s hottest musicians. That year, he began headlining an annual Houston music festival of the same name.
On November 5, 2021, around 50,000 people attended the sold-out event. The festival had two stages, but to maximize the crowd at Scott’s show, they closed the second one, forcing all 50,000 into the main stage.
Scott began his performance around 9 PM. At 9:25 PM, Scott noticed someone passed out in the crowd and paused: “Make sure he good.” When he noticed an ambulance driving through the crowd he said, “If everybody good, put a middle finger up in the sky.”
A crowd crush – when people are so densely packed together they can’t breathe – was happening, and at 9:38 PM, Live Nation agreed to end the show early. Scott told police that someone told him through his earpiece, “It’s getting kinda hectic out there,” but that no one told him of the unfolding crisis or that the show should end early.
As the crowd pressed against the venue’s barriers, security workers claim that they tried to stop the performance but Scott’s team refused. One concert production team worker recalled, “I don’t get paid enough for this, I am out of here.” “Nobody wanted to tell Travis no,” another said, adding that Scott’s staff didn’t want to end the show before Drake, the surprise guest, performed.
Scott stayed onstage until 10:13 PM, at which point he returned to his trailer. In the end, ten people had died and hundreds were injured.
In June, a grand jury decided not to indict Scott or five others for their roles in the event. The county’s district attorney said the jury “found that no crime did occur, that no single individual was criminally responsible.”
On July 28, Scott released “Utopia,” his first album since the incident. Hours later, police released their 1,167-page report, which contained all the details here.
Scott’s spokesperson called it “outrageous that HPD has chosen to resort to tactics that attempt to discredit Travis and his team.” Scott’s lawyer said, "They knew when the album was coming out, and they released the report just hours after the release, probably hoping to drum up bad publicity for Travis.”
Houston’s police chief said it was purely coincidence, adding, “The truth is that there is probably not one person who will forgo buying the album because of the release of the HPD report.”
He appears to have been right: By the night of the album’s release, all 19 of Utopia’s songs were in Spotify’s top 20, and the album had set Spotify’s 2023 single-day streaming record.
If you have thoughts, let us know at [email protected]!
🌊 Roca Clubhouse
Yesterday’s Poll:
Burning Qurans and other religious texts should be…
Legal: 48%
Illegal: 30%
No opinion: 22%
Yesterday's Question:
Just 20 Qs!
🧠 Final Thoughts
We hope you all had great weekends. We're especially excited about this week's set of Wraps: Today, we give you the Travis Scott story; tomorrow, a tale of 11 Indian women who won the lottery; after that, the story of a Bolivian drug trafficker who is on the run.
The world is an interesting place and it excites us to learn about what's happening and share that with you. See you tomorrow!
—Max and Max
