Breaking news this morning: The Chris Licht experiment at CNN is over. The network’s leader — embroiled in scandal after multiple scathing profiles — lasted just over a year as fixer-upper. He was hired to transform CNN into a bastion of hard-hitting, non-partisan reporting. It didn’t work. Although in fairness to Licht, that would be like being tasked to rebrand McDonald’s as a trendy vegan eatery. Not easy work.

In today's edition:

• Key Ukrainian dam collapses

• Finland’s $130,000 speeding ticket

• Remembering Oflag 64, Part 2

 🔑 Key Stories

Major Golf Shakeup

On Tuesday, the PGA Tour announced it will merge with Saudi-backed rival LIV Golf

• Last year, Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund invested $2B+ to finance its own golf league, called LIV Golf. That has since enticed some of the PGA’s top golfers to leave that tour and play for LIV

• The PGA Tour leadership heavily criticized the new league and tried to ban LIV golfers from PGA events. LIV sued, initiating a contentious legal battle

• But on Tuesday, the parties announced a merger that will end the legal battle

Dig Deeper

• The new company hasn’t yet been named. It’s also undetermined how LIV Golf players can rejoin the PGA Tour after this year, and what golf formats the merged entity will use in 2024

Ukrainian Dam Collapses

A large dam along Ukraine’s front line collapsed

• The Kakhovka dam is in a region of eastern Ukraine that Russia currently occupies. Water has been pouring out of it, prompting mass evacuations

• The dam was the primary water source for a nearby nuclear power plant, which uses the water to cool its reactors. Officials said there’s no immediate risk of a disaster as the plant has a backup water supply

• The dam is also a primary water source for Crimea, a region of Ukraine seized by Russia in 2014

• Ukraine accused Russia of blowing it up; Russia accused Ukraine of doing so to cut water to Crimea

SEC Sues 2 Crypto Exchanges

The US’ top financial regulator sued 2 of the world’s largest crypto exchanges

• The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulates the purchase and sale of financial securities. It considers most cryptos to be a type of financial asset called a “security,” and as such, believes crypto firms should be required to register with the SEC

• On Monday, the SEC sued Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, for failing to register with the SEC. It also accused Binance of transferring customers’ funds to another company owned by Binance’s CEO

• On Tuesday, – a day later – the SEC sued Coinbase, the US’ largest crypto exchange. Like the Binance suit, the SEC alleges that Coinbase is illegally trading securities, but it does not allege any improper use of customer funds

Dig Deeper

• Officials from both companies argued that crypto companies are being unfairly punished for the US’ lack of clear crypto regulation. Coinbase’s stock fell 12% on Tuesday; Binance’s stock isn’t publicly traded

National LGBT Emergency

The US’ largest LGBT-focused rights group declared a “national state of emergency” for LGBT people

• Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is the US’ largest LGBT lobbying organization. On Tuesday, HRC declared a “state of emergency” in the US, the first time it’s ever done so

• HRC said states have passed 75+ anti-LGBT laws this year alone that are “forcing families to uproot their lives and flee their homes in search of safer states”

• Those include laws that limit classroom instruction on gender-related issues or prohibit children from getting surgery or treatments to transition

US Has Alien Crafts?

A former US intelligence official said the US has “intact and partially intact vehicles” of non-human origin

• The allegations were contained in an article published on Monday by The Debrief, a science and national defense news outlet

• In the article, former US intelligence officer David Grusch was quoted as saying that the US has vehicles of “exotic origin” that were created by “non-human intelligence.” Several other military and intelligence officials cited in the report corroborated his account

• Grusch claims he discovered top-secret US programs to recover and conceal UFOs from the public, and that such behavior has been going on for decades

Dig Deeper

• Grusch said he reported some of his findings to Congress in 2021, but was subjected to disciplinary action as a result. He resigned in April to make his discoveries public, he told The Debrief. He said the Pentagon “cleared for open publication” all his allegations before he released them

🍿 Popcorn

ICYMI

• Return of the Tuck: Tucker Carlson released the first episode of his new Twitter show. The 10-minute episode had 25M views in its first 4 hours

• The Big Appleclypse: Smoke from wildfires burning in Canada blanketed New York City and parts of the Northeast. The “unhealthy” air appeared as an orange haze

• Back to safety: Bills safety Damar Hamlin put on a helmet and practice for the first time in a practice open to the media since he suffered cardiac arrest in January

Wildcard

• Like a bat out of Hel-sinki: A Finnish man was hit with a $130,000 speeding ticket for going 18.6 mph over the speed limit. In Finland, tickets are calculated as percentage of the offender’s income

• “Here lies GEICO caveman“: The extinct human relative Homo naledi buried their dead and engraved cave walls around 300,000 years ago, according to new research

• Thanks, Brexit: Syphilis cases hit their highest level in 75 years in England last year. Gonorrhea cases also jumped 50% to a total of 82,592 in 2022

👇 What do you think?

Today's Question:

Would you rather be the worst of the best or the best of the worst on a team?

Reply to this email with your answers!

See yesterday's results below the Wrap! 

🌯 Roca Wrap

Last month, Roca’s Max Towey and Jen Flanagan sat down with Susanna Bolten Connaughton. In 1999, she found an unopened trunk that had belonged to her father, an American prisoner-of-war (POW) during World War II. The trunk’s contents told a remarkable story of life in a place of brutality. This week – the 79th anniversary of D-Day – we’re sharing the story. For today’s Wrap, Jen wrote about our conversation.

Part 1, from yesterday, is posted here.

Decades after her father, 2nd Lieutenant Seymour Bolten, passed away, Susanna Bolten Connaughton discovered a drab-green trunk buried in her parents’ garage.

Combing through its contents, she pieced together a part of her father she never knew.

On June 6, 1943, the first 35 American prisoners-of-war (POW) arrived at the Oflag 64 POW camp in Poland. Twenty-one-year-old Seymour arrived a few days later. The camp – surrounded by wooden guard towers, barracks, and barbed wire fencing – was formerly a school.

On the surface, the American POWs appeared to accept their fate. Using YMCA supplies, they organized a “school” and spent their days teaching each other various skills, and competing in sports.

Despite meager rations and barren living conditions, the POWs’ American colonel required them to participate in activities to stay physically and mentally fit, and engaged with the world. Seymour used his college German to become one of the camp interpreters.

One of Seymour’s fellow prisoners, J. Frank Diggs, had been a reporter for the Washington Post before the war and came up with the idea for a monthly newspaper.

He received permission to publish it– The Oflag 64 Item – as long as the camp’s German censor approved all its content. Once a month, armed guards took Seymour and Diggs to a “German” print shop – in reality, a seized Polish print shop – where Seymour translated Diggs’ instructions to the typesetters.

The lighthearted 4-pager reported on camp shows, lectures, and sporting events.

Susanna shared some of the article headlines:

To announce 72 new POWs: “The Oflag’s welcome mat took a hell of a beating last month when 72 new officers trudged through the gate.”

After the German slang for a POW – Kriegy – they created a “Kreigy-itis” test: “T/F: Kreigies have ice cream for dessert twice a week; T/F: No one in the Oflag makes any noise after lights out.”

What the German officers didn’t know, though, was that the POWs were building secret information channels and plotting escapes.

“If the Germans were watching them play softball, there were 10 others of them digging a tunnel and stashing the dirt,” Susanna said.

The resistance effort took off with a little help from British POWs held at Oflag 64 before the Americans arrived. They gifted the Americans a few radio parts and a map of the tunnel system they had started to dig.

The American POWs formed a secret Security & Escape Committee that coordinated sending coded letters, tunnel digging, and the completion of the radio, nicknamed “The Bird.”

As a camp interpreter, Seymour was a part of the resistance effort.

This allowed him to observe officers for snippets of intelligence, and translate information – although most of it was published by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry in Berlin – from the camp’s German newspapers, magazines, and radio broadcasts.

That talent eventually led to the formation of another camp newspaper. But instead of harmless camp news, this one contained secret war updates.

The idea came from another POW named Larry Allen, a Pulitzer-prize-winning Associated Press war correspondent. He had created a daily news sheet in his previous camp called Headlines by the AP, and with Seymour, he created a version for Oflag 64 bylined the Szubin Bureau of the AP.

When the Germans repatriated Larry to the U.S., Frank Diggs took Larry’s place and they renamed it, The Daily Bulletin.

With Seymour adding just the right touch, the hand-lettered Daily Bulletin read between the lines of the propagandized news while weaving in The Bird’s updates – so as not to reveal the source.

Each day the POWs lined up to read The Daily Bulletin, which they pinned outside their Mess Hall. “One of the few things my father told me about his POW camp experience was that even the Germans stopped by to read The Daily Bulletin, Susanna said. The Germans knew it provided the most accurate information.”

***

Ultimately, they never used the tunnels to exit the camp.

In January 1945, the Soviets “liberated” Oflag 64, which had peaked at ~1,500 POWs. Seymour eventually returned to the US and launched his career with the CIA, beginning at the East German and Soviet desk.

While a POW, Seymour kept every letter he received and copies of every letter sent, and a copy of every issue of The Item. He and Diggs carried home about 200 issues of The Daily Bulletin. In the 1970s, they donated them to the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center.

While Susanna knew her father was a POW, she never knew how Seymour and his fellow POWs managed to organize a life in a world of isolation.

“Imagine you’re 20 years old, in Poland, the middle of nowhere,” Susanna said. You have frostbite, you’ve lost 40 pounds, you’re living on German black bread made with sawdust. They could have given up, but instead, they created humor and life from the darkest of conditions.”

Seymour passed away on June 6, 1985 – 42 years from entering Oflag 64, 41 years from D-Day, and 38 years from yesterday.

***

The stories Susanna shared with us only skim the surface of what she learned about her father and the other POWs at Oflag 64. She is working on a book, The Interpreters, with the full story. She has also been working with a Polish-American Foundation and the Friends of Oflag 64, who are building a museum in an original Oflag 64 building.

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

 🌊 Roca Clubhouse

Yesterday's Poll:

On a given night, are you more likely to cook at home, or order takeout?
Cook at home: 85%
Order takeout: 15%

Yesterday's Question:

Have you ever learned something new about your parents by discovering one of their old belongings?

Michael from Dallas, Texas: "I discovered that I was adopted when I found an old car registration in my mom's glove box. I went to ask my mom why there was a different last name (not my grandparents) and the truth came out."

Nicole from Florida: “Not exactly an object, but on my first visit to the Vatican city, at 22 years old, I found out my father speaks fluent French when he started talking to a Swiss Guard for directions. His mother was born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco and went to school in Nice, France. Apparently she didn't speak English till he was 14 years old. My mind was blown”

🧠 Final Thoughts

Thank you all for the incredible feedback to our series on Oflag 64! We’re excited to bring you more original content this year. If you have any ideas for unique interviews, let us know by replying to this email.

Happy Hump Day!

—Max and Max