🌊 The Lost Planet of Our Solar System?

Happy Earth Day to all who celebrate 🌎.

Here’s a fun fact about Earth: We have no clue who named it. Every other planet is named after a Greek or Roman god except the one we call home. So if not bound by pagan nomenclature, how did we not come up with a cooler name like Arrakis or Mustafar (specifically in General Grievous’s voice)? Or just a normal name like Janet?

Wait… nobody else likes planet Janet?

In today's edition:

–Max, Max, Jen, and Alex

KEY STORY

Iran To Not Retaliate

Iranian officials have indicated they won’t retaliate over an Israeli strike

• The US claims that Israel fired a missile at Iran on Friday. Iran claimed “infiltrators” fired the drones from within the country

• Prior to the attack, Iran’s foreign minister warned that if Israel attacked, “The next response from us will be immediate and at a maximum level.” Since Friday, though, Iranian officials have repeatedly downplayed the attack, suggesting Iran won’t retaliate

• Satellite images appear to show minor damage to an airfield in central Iran. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that the strikes did not damage any Iranian nuclear facilities in the region

Dig Deeper

• Per a US State Department communiqué seen by The Intercept, “The downplaying of direct attacks…may indicate [Iran] lacks the desire, or capability, to match its bluster with professed military might…Iranian officials appear keen to avoid further escalation”

• While the attack was minor, analysts said it shows that Israel can overcome Iran’s air defenses, potentially sending a warning to Iran

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KEY STORY

TikTok Ban and Ukraine Aid

The US House voted overwhelmingly to approve $95B worth of funding to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan

• On Saturday, the US House voted to approve $60B in aid to Ukraine, $26B to Israel (some of which would go toward humanitarian efforts in Gaza), and $8B to Indo-Pacific allies, including Taiwan

• The House also passed a bill forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a US ban. The House sent all four of those measures to the US Senate as a single bill, greatly increasing the odds it will pass

• In response, several Republicans joined a bid by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)

Dig Deeper

• Greene said, “We should be funding to build up our weapons and ammunition, not to send it over to foreign countries”

• Late last year, a similar motion toppled then-Speaker Mike McCarthy, who was accused of being insufficiently conservative

KEY STORY

Biggest Election

India’s election began on Friday, marking the start of what will likely be the largest vote in history

• India has ~970M registered voters. The country holds general elections, typically every 5 years, to elect the lower house of parliament

• Voters don’t directly elect a prime minister; parliament chooses one. However, voters usually know who each party will likely select. The election will take place in phases between now and June 1

• Polls show this year’s overwhelming favorite is the BJP, the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is seeking a third term in office

Dig Deeper

• The BJP/Modi took power in 2014, when the BJP won 282 seats; in 2019, they won 303 seats

• Five years later, no opposition party appears to have anything close to the support needed to rival the BJP

KEY STORY

Planet Nine?

Planetary scientists said they have found the strongest evidence yet that a ninth planet exists in our Solar System

• In 2015, Caltech astronomers claimed that based on the unusual orbits of space objects beyond Neptune (trans-Neptunian objects, or TNOs), a ninth planet may exist in our Solar System. They claimed “Planet Nine” may orbit the Sun 250 times further from the Sun than Earth, explaining why it has never been directly observed

• In a new preprint article, the astronomers claimed that based on new statistical modeling, the most likely explanation for the unusual orbits of TNOs is the existence of a yet-undiscovered ninth planet

Dig Deeper

• One of the Caltech researchers, Dr. Konstantin Batygin, told Roca that he and his co-authors based their conclusion on the movement of TNOs with strange, unstable orbits

• Batygin said models incorporating a ninth planet “align closely” with those TNOs’ observed orbits, whereas “models without Planet 9 are highly inconsistent with the observations, suggesting that a P9-free solar system can be dismissed with a high degree of confidence”

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🇳🇬 29-year-old Nigerian Tunde Onakoya set the world record for the longest chess marathon with a 58-hour session in Times Square. Onakoya credits chess with saving him from poverty in Lagos, Nigeria. He said he hoped his stunt would help raise money for chess education for children

🎤 Spotify announced that Taylor Swift’s new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” broke Spotify’s single-day streaming record. It also added that Swift became its most-streamed artist in a single day ever

🚙 Volkswagen workers at a Tennessee plant voted to form a union, marking a victory in the United Auto Workers’ attempts to form unions across the American South

🪧 Pro-Palestine protesters have been staging a sit-in at New York City’s Columbia University since police arrested 100+ pro-Palestinian protesters for trespassing

🏀 Basketball phenom Caitlin Clark is reportedly signing a $28M deal with Nike that will give her a signature shoe

🎓 Amid controversy over its decision to cut its valedictorian’s commencement speech, the University of Southern California canceled all commencement speakers. Today’s Wrap dives deeper into that

COMMUNITY

We founded RocaNews because we wanted news companies to give us just the facts – not tell us what to think. That inspires us to do the “Roca Votes” story each week, in which we summarize a controversial topic and see how Roca Nation feels about it.

Read the Wrap below and let us know: Should the University of Southern California have cut the commencement speech of its pro-Palestine valedictorian?

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

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🥇 Gold Theory: NBC will reportedly provide heart rate monitors to the parents of athletes competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics and display the results on screen to rejuvenate its broadcast

👊 Michigan grandmothers vs. Everybody: A Michigan grandmother allegedly helped her granddaughter assault a fellow elementary school student. Police say she held her granddaughter’s rival down in a school bathroom while her granddaughter punched her

🦝 I like to lose it, lose it: After nearly three weeks of looking, a Texas man caught a loose lemur named Julian. He found the lemur on his boat earlier this month

👨‍⚖️ Marky Mark Narced: Soccer legend David Beckham is reportedly suing Hollywood star Mark Wahlberg over a business dispute worth ~$10.5M. Beckham is accusing Wahlberg’s fitness company of fraud

🛳 Gonna need a sober boat: Florida police arrested a boat tour captain for boating under the influence after he reportedly fell overboard with 30 passengers. The captain blew a .118 BAC

ROCA VOTES
Let Her Speak?

The University of Southern California (USC) has canceled the graduation speech of its pro-Palestine valedictorian. University officials cited safety concerns, though doubts abound.

Our question today is: Did USC make the right move?

The valedictorian in question is Asna Tabassum.

Tabassum is a first-generation American of South Asian descent and a Muslim. The 22-year-old majored in biomedical engineering and minored in "Resistance to Genocide." 

She ranked among the top of her class, and university officials selected her to be the valedictorian, which involves giving her a speech at graduation. Days later, though, the university rescinded its offer.

Tabassum has a link in her Instagram bio to a personalized “Free Palestine” site.

The page shares an anti-Israel message: “[Palestine] is being occupied by the state of israel, a jewish ethnostate established by zionists in 1948.” It says that “the only way towards justice” is “one palestinian state” and “the complete abolishment of the state of israel.”

Tabassum claims that her “Resistance to Genocide” minor helped inform her worldview.

“I don’t believe it’s ironic for me to minor in something called resistance to genocide, and then speak out on it and then be revoked because I’m penalized for something that people have an issue with,” she said.

In an interview this week, she confirmed her views on Israel, saying, “It is the very values and the very lessons USC taught me that I stand by.”

Two campus Jewish organizations protested USC’s selection of Tabassum as valedictorian.

In a social media post, one of them labeled Tabassum’s post “antisemitic bigotry” and called on USC to reconsider its selection.

On April 15, USC’s provost sent a letter to students announcing that Tabassum would no longer be speaking at graduation, citing safety reasons.

The provost said the university had received threats over Tabassum speaking, and that “after careful consideration, we have decided that our student valedictorian will not deliver a speech at commencement. While this is disappointing, tradition must give way to safety,” he wrote.

He claimed the decision “has nothing to do with freedom of speech.”

Beyond the alleged safety concerns, defenders of USC’s decision highlight that Tabassum’s speech would have been a distraction from what graduation truly is about: The students, their families, and the university community.

If Tabassum – a pro-Palestinian activist who minored in “Resistance to Genocide” – made her speech about the plight of Palestinians, the day might have had a cloud over it and become a media and political event.

The decision’s many critics – including hundreds of USC students who protested on Friday – believe it had nothing to do with safety.

Tabassum said she had not "received any physical threats” and claimed that university officials would not share specific safety concerns or threats.

Instead, she said the university is “rewarding hatred” and described herself as the victim of a “campaign of racist hatred because of my uncompromising belief in human rights for all.”

Amid the controversy, the university has since announced that it won’t allow any outside commencement speakers: “Given the highly publicized circumstances surrounding our main-stage commencement program, university leadership has decided it is best to release our outside speakers and honorees from attending this year's ceremony”

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

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Happy Monday Roca! We’re curious: If we discover a new planet, what would you name it? Send us your best options!

— Max, Max, Alex and Jen