On World Meteorology Day, we need to set the record straight on "chance of rain." A recent viral video falsely stated that "chance of rain" isn't the likelihood of rain but rather the % of your area that has a 100% chance of rain. It turns out, however, that it's both! It's equal to the forecast confidence multiplied by the percent of your area that will be affected. Still don't trust it?

In today's edition:

• Influencers charged in crypto scheme

• Jack Daniel's dog toy foe

• Part 4: The Iraq War, 20 Years Later

 🔑 Key Stories

Covid Files Coming Soon?

President Joe Biden signed a law to declassify all information related to Covid's origins within 90 days

• 8 US agencies are investigating Covid-19’s origins. 4 say it came from animals; 2 are undecided; and 2 – the FBI and Department of Energy – say it leaked from a lab

• This month, the US House and Senate unanimously passed a bill ordering all info about Covid's origins to be released in 90 days; Biden made that law on Monday

• “We need to get to the bottom of [Covid's] origins… including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Biden said in a statement

• The law allows the US to omit names of sources

Dig Deeper

• Senator Josh Hawley, who introduced the bill, said US officials need to be held accountable for information they knew but didn’t share publicly. “Huge victory for transparency. Now time for accountability,” he said following Biden’s signing of the bill

Did Life Come from Outer Space?

Researchers found a building block of life in dirt samples retrieved from an asteroid

• Most organisms store genetic info in DNA, which is then transcribed and implemented by RNA. RNA has 4 bases: Adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil

• Some scientists theorize that life, or its building blocks, may have come to Earth from outer space

• On Tuesday, Japanese researchers released a study that analyzed dirt retrieved from an asteroid ~186M miles from Earth. It found traces of uracil, an RNA base, supporting the theory that space objects “played a role… in the emergence of the first life”

Dig Deeper

• Previous analyses of space objects that collided with Earth have found RNA bases in them, but scientists said it was impossible to prove those weren’t contaminated after arriving on Earth. Ryugu’s samples were isolated to prevent contamination

Operation Blue Lotus

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced an initiative to crack down on fentanyl

• Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50x stronger than heroin. In 2021, ~⅔ of the US’ record 108,000 overdose deaths were caused by fentanyl

• US officials say 2 powerful Mexican cartels dominate fentanyl trafficking into the US and that a vast majority of it enters the US by land from Mexico

• On Tuesday, the DHS head announced “Operation Blue Lotus,” which plans to spend $600M to buy more vehicle screening devices, increase border staffing, and take other steps to stop fentanyl trafficking

Dig Deeper

• The DHS said that in its first week, Blue Lotus stopped 900+ pounds of fentanyl, 700+ pounds of meth, and 100+ pounds of cocaine from entering the US. It also resulted in the arrests of 18 suspected traffickers

Jake Paul, Lindsay Lohan Charged

The SEC charged 8 celebrities for promoting cryptos without disclosing that they were paid to do so

• The celebrities were: Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, Lil Yachty, Akon, Austin Mahone, Ne-Yo, and Kendra Lust

• Justin Sun is a China-born entrepreneur who owns companies that operate cryptos Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT). The SEC – a US body that regulates markets – accuses him of artificially inflating those cryptos’ values and paying celebs to promote it while keeping those payments secret

• All but 2 of those celebrities – Soulja Boy and Mahone – settled for a collective $400k

Dig Deeper

• Sun and the others used an “age-old playbook to mislead and harm investors,” an SEC official said. “This is the very conduct that the federal securities laws were designed to protect against”

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🍿 Popcorn

ICYMI

• Born-again Virgin: Virgin Orbit, the space company of British billionaire Richard Branson, may not face insolvency after all. A Texas investor plans to inject $200M

• Finders keepers? A previously unknown Jackson Pollock painting was found during a Bulgarian police raid of international art smugglers. It could be worth ~$50M

• We the Dunces: Americans' IQs dropped in 4 out of 5 categories from 2006 to 2018, per a new report. From 1932 until 2006, the scores had always gone up

Wildcard 

• "Honey, put down the Bad Spaniels": The Supreme Court is considering whether Jack Daniel's can stop a lookalike squeaky dog toy called Bad Spaniels

• Wrong side of the tracks: Badgers in the Netherlands are causing train delays by burrowing under the tracks. Rail authorities have found 40 compromised locations

• Whoops, wrong animal: A Kansas man looking for antler sheds, the antlers dropped by male deer, found human skeletal remains. Officials are now investigating

👇 What do you think?

Today's Question:

Are first impressions that important? If so, why?

Reply to this email with your answers!

See yesterday's results below the Wrap! 

🌯 Roca Wrap

By the end of 2004, the Iraq War had become a bloody, inter-religious conflict.

Shia and Sunni groups were fighting each other and simultaneously attacking the American-led coalition and the new Iraqi government it was building. The most prominent Shia insurgent group was the Mahdi Army; the top Sunni insurgent group was al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis and around 900 Americans died in both 2004 and 2005.

In February 2006, a bomb attack destroyed a mosque that was one of Iraq’s holiest Shia sites. Shiite militias responded with bomb, rocket, and machine gun attacks on Sunni mosques.

Beyond the insurgents’ war against the Americans, a full-scale war was now underway between Iraqis.

The US-led coalition still tried to build up an Iraqi military and government, but most efforts failed. The government was predominantly Shia, and Sunnis accused it of repressing them.

Shias in Sunni areas accused Sunnis of ethnic cleansing; Shias in Sunni ones claimed the opposite. Iraq had become one of the world’s most violent countries.

In that period, al-Qaeda in Iraq took over swaths of the country, including a region called Anbar. Many Sunnis in Anbar first supported al-Qaeda, which was leading the fight against the US. But they eventually resented the group’s dominance, treatment of tribal leaders, and extremist form of Islam.

In 2006, they launched the Anbar Awakening.

Local tribes flipped from attacking the government and coalition to working with it. Soon, 50,000+ Anbaris joined the fight against al-Qaeda. In June 2006, the US killed al-Qaeda in Iraq’s leader; by early 2007, al-Qaeda had lost control over much of its territory.

In January 2007, President Bush ordered a change in strategy. In what became known as “the Surge,” he ordered the deployment of 20,000 more troops to Iraq and extended the 12-month tours of 150,000 troops already there. The goal was to establish a "unified, democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and is an ally in the War on Terror.”

The Surge first resulted in a spike in violence: Over 100 US troops died each month from April to June – the only time in the war 100+ troops had died in 3 consecutive months. But then, the Surge started to work.

Overseeing the Surge was General David Petraeus, who implemented a new counterinsurgency strategy. That focused on relationships with Iraqis: Americans spent more time in neighborhoods, paid to bring more insurgents to their side, and sought to reduce civilian casualties.

By September, US monthly fatalities were at their lowest point in a year and would never again exceed 52 in a month.

In February 2008, Iraq’s defense minister said that the surge was “working very well.”

That June, the Pentagon said "the security, political and economic trends in Iraq continue to be positive.” 

A month later, the US sustained 13 fatalities – the lowest number since the invasion’s opening month.

At the end of the year, 148,000 US troops remained.

Barack Obama became president in January 2009 having campaigned on ending the war. A month later, he promised a partial withdrawal by August 2010, with some troops staying until 2011 to train Iraqi forces.

On December 18, 2011, the last 500 soldiers deployed to Iraq left the country. They wouldn’t be gone for long, though: In June 2014, Iraq’s government requested American troops to help it contain a rapidly growing terror group that had grown out of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

That group – the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – was swallowing up territory and killing thousands.

The Iraq War was over, but another was about to begin.

***

This is the final installment of this series. Be sure to check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 if you missed those.

Did you serve in Iraq? If so, we'd love to hear from you and share your insights. And generally, we want to hear from all of you if you are enjoying the series and if we should do more wrap series like this.

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

 🌊 Roca Clubhouse

Yesterday's Poll:

Favorite coast?

East Coast: 56%

West Coast: 44%

Yesterday's Question:

What’s a song that as soon as you hear it, you’re changing it?

Max from Ohio: “Mr Brightside.  I dont understand why this is so popular. Also Pharrell's "Happy" - it's actually a somber melody.  Was also played at every company gathering as a "hype" song back when I worked in the corporate world. Nothing like upper management demanding happiness.”

Julie from New Mexico: “Anything by Bruce Springsteen! He mumbles like he has mashed potatoes in his mouth. An immediate switch!”

Elisha from Pennsylvania: “Apparently there is a game where you can be "Rick Rolled"... this means that out of nowhere (you could be minding your business cooking or working out or paying  bills)...the song Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley is played at you. It goes like this: My kid would ask "Hey Mom, what's for dinner?"  and as soon as I reply, the song plays.  Over the last year I have been "Rick Rolled" over 100 times so now ANYTIME that song starts, I'm turning it off. Kids think it's hilarious. IT is not." 

🧠 Final Thoughts

To the many of you who joined our beta yesterday, we'd love to give you a big, warm, Roca welcome! We hope you enjoy the app as much as our existing users have been.

Everyone else: You'll have access to the future of news soon. In the meantime, thank you for reading the Current 🌊

—Max and Max