🌊 No Tips For You, Uncle Sam!

Steve Harvey after Miss Universe 2015: Nobody can screw up an award more than me.
The 2017 Oscars: Just topped you (sorry, La La Land). I’m the winner!
Women’s gymnastics judges in Paris: Hold my room-temperature champagne.

If you’re not up to speed on the latest in gymnastics drama, here’s a 2-second recap: In the floor routine final — the event with the music and lots of flipping on the giant square — the judges originally declared a Romanian gymnast the bronze medal winner. After a scoring appeal, they took it away and gave it to US gymnast Jordan Chiles. The Romanian gymnast broke down crying, but the drama wasn’t over yet. After Chiles got to celebrate her bronze on the medal stand, the gymnastics body changed course again and gave back the bronze to the Romanian gymnast. Now the US is appealing and Romania has proposed sharing the bronze between their gymnast, Chiles, and another! What is happening? Please bring in Jon Taffer!

–Max, Max, and Owen

KEY STORY

Workloads Can Kill

Workers who feel stressed and underpaid are 2x as likely to develop a heart condition, per a new study

• The study looked at 6,000 Canadian white-collar workers over 20 years, during which they answered questionnaires about their work and stress

• Those who felt undervalued and stressed were 97% more likely to develop atrial fibrillation, a condition that causes irregular heartbeats and can lead to a range of negative effects. High salaries only partially alleviated the consequences: Highly paid but highly stressed workers were still 83% more likely to develop atrial fibrillation than low-stress workers

Dig Deeper

• The lead researcher called for more “workplace interventions” to minimize stress

• “Examples of organizational changes include slowing down the implementation of a large project to prevent increased workload, implementing flexible work hours, and holding meetings between managers and employees to discuss day-to-day challenges,” he said

KEY STORY

Nord Stream Sabotage Breakthrough

Germany said a Ukrainian sabotaged Nord Stream

• In Sept. 2022, Nord Stream – pipelines bringing Russian gas to Europe – was blown up. Western gov’ts blamed Russia; Russia blamed the West. No culprit was ever identified, though

• On Wed., though, Germany issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man it says conducted the sabotage. He allegedly rented a German yacht and sailed it to the Baltic Sea shortly before the attack. Authorities have since found traces of explosives on the boat

• Two other Ukrainians – experienced divers – are also under investigation

Dig Deeper

• Until now, little evidence has been uncovered about who was behind the sabotage. In May 2023, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported that President Biden had ordered the CIA to conduct the sabotage, but that was not corroborated

• Sweden and Denmark suspended their probes into the explosion earlier this year but Germany continued its own, leading to this week's warrant

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Dig Deeper

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KEY STORY

Taxless Tips: The Future?

Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have promised to eliminate taxes on tips

• At a campaign rally in Las Vegas in June, Donald Trump said that if elected, he would eliminate taxes on tips. He said he had the idea after talking to an ex-waitress in Vegas. Last weekend, also in Vegas, Kamala Harris made the same promise

• While such policies can often take years to develop, it’s possible Congress could actually enact such a change next year: The tax cuts enacted by Trump in 2017 will largely expire in 2025, after which Congress will likely pass a new tax bill

Dig Deeper

• The IRS currently requires workers to report all their tips, which are then taxed as income. In reality, service workers often report only some of their tips

• Many tipped workers also do not earn enough to pay federal income tax, meaning their tis already aren’t taxed: A study from Yale found that 37% of tipped workers do not pay any income tax, 11% pay a 0-10% rate, and 52% pay 10-20%

KEY STORY

Algerian Boxer’s Lawsuit

Algerian boxer Imane Khelif sued several people for online bullying, including Elon Musk and JK Rowling

• Khelif has been embroiled in controversy since her Italian opponent resigned after taking a single punch. Khelif went on to win the gold medal

• Rowling called Khelif a male and accused her of “enjoying the distress of a woman [Khelif] just punched in the head” and “shattering” her opponent’s ambition. Musk shared a post that read “men don’t belong in women’s sports”

• Khelif filed an online bullying lawsuit with France, whose laws prohibit cyberbullying

Dig Deeper

• The International Boxing Association (IBA) – boxing’s governing body – had disqualified Khelif a year before the Olympics for having too much testosterone. The Olympic IOC committee – which stripped the IBA of its authority because it’s led by Russia – has since deemed Khelif eligible

• The IBA’s president said that Khelif has a sexual development disorder, having XY (male) chromosomes and high testosterone, but female genitalia

• The lawsuit describes Khelif as the victim of “misogynistic, racist and sexist” cyberbullying. Khelif’s lawyer described the attacks as a “digital lynching”

• French law outlaws cyberbullying, including insults, defamation, malicious messages, and more

• Khelif said her gold medal came with a “special taste [after] these attacks”

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

📉 In the year through July, US inflation fell to 2.9% – the first time it’s fallen below 3% since 2021. Core CPI – which excludes volatile food and energy prices – was 3.2% in the year through July, also the lowest rate since 2021. The data strengthens the likelihood that the US Federal Reserve will cut rates this September

🍫 Mars agreed to purchase Kellanova – the maker of Cheez-It, Pringles, Eggo, and other foods – for $36B in the biggest merger so far this year. Mars makes M&Ms and is one of the world’s largest privately-owned businesses. Kellanova was the snack-food division of Kellogg’s until it split off into a cereal and snack-food division last year

🔋 Chinese EV company Zeekr claimed to have created the world’s fastest-charging electric vehicle (EV) battery. Its batteries – which will start rolling out later this month – can be charged from 10% to 80% in 10 and a half minutes at an ultra-fast charging station. By comparison, Tesla’s Model 3 requires a 15-minute charge to reach roughly half capacity

🔍 The US government is considering breaking up Google, Bloomberg reported. Earlier this month, a federal court deemed Google a monopoly because of deals it struck to unfairly maintain its search engine dominance. The government is now considering how to proceed, and, per Bloomberg, one option on the table is breaking up the company. That would be the first such government effort since unsuccessful ones to break up Microsoft 20 years ago

🦠 The WHO declared a global health emergency over mpox (formerly monkeypox). A new strain, first identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is circulating widely in Africa, where it’s infected 15,000+ and killed 500+ in at least six countries 

🤖 xAI, Elon Musk’s AI company, launched Grok-2, a new chatbot. While it trails ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, the independent rating group LMSYS said Grok-2 outperforms the best bots created by Meta or Anthropic – a major win for xAI. Grok-2 is available to paid X subscribers

COMMUNITY

🧐 Yesterday’s question: How long before a flight do you arrive at the airport? Have a feeling that people will be passionate about this one…

🧠 Today’s question: If you could change one thing about grocery stores, what would it be?

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

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🍬 What a meth! A charity in Auckland, New Zealand, unknowingly distributed candies filled with potentially lethal doses of methamphetamine after receiving the sweets as a donation

🏰 Trial by Disney+: Disney World contends that a man cannot sue over his wife’s death from a severe allergic reaction at the theme park due to the terms he agreed to during a free trial of Disney+. He used his Disney+ account to buy his and his wife’s Disney World tickets

🚗 Fast, furious, and $50k: A Virginia driver allegedly offered a homeowner $50,000 to avoid calling the police after his car crashed through her property

🚛 Call 1-800-RateMyMeth: The DEA reported that federal agents discovered 2,300+ lbs of methamphetamine concealed by celery in a truck at a farmer’s market near Atlanta

🍦 Justice served sweet: A Massachusetts restaurant is donating part of its dessert sales to a 12-year-old boy after the health department shut down his ice cream stand

ROCA WRAP

Thursday Morning World Review

There’s a lot of interesting news that we don’t feature. Here are three interesting stories we came across around the world this week.

Bring in the Moms

Dublin’s zoo is bringing in women to teach its orangutan how to breastfeed.

The zoo’s 19-year-old orangutan, Mujur, has not been able to breastfeed her children, two of whom have died soon after birth. When Mujur got pregnant again, the zoo’s authorities couldn’t leave the baby’s fate to chance.

The zoo put out a call for lactating mothers to teach Mujur how to breastfeed. 30 women accepted it, and for one to two hours each morning, they’re now feeding their own infants in front of Mujur, who appears to be learning: She’s been watching the women and has been seen imitating some of their actions.

Mujur still struggled to feed the baby after it was born on July 31, but the baby is now being bottle fed and there are signs that Mujur continues to improve.

“You find yourself rooting for her,” one of the breastfeeding mothers added. “You are going from being a mother yourself to trying to help a mother-to-be.”

Silent Faces

The Taliban ordered clothes shops to cover mannequin faces.

Since regaining control over Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have reimposed their version of strict Islamic rule across the country. They’ve put in a hyper-conservative dress code, restricted women from working and traveling, and banned female education for girls beyond the sixth grade

In January 2022, they introduced an edict banning the depiction of human faces. Teams from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice have since been enforcing the rule throughout Afghanistan. In some places, they have decapitated mannequins by cutting and snapping off the heads.

The teams regularly visit shopping centers in Kabul, the capital, where plastic bags or foil now cover most mannequins’ heads.

“In some areas, the ‘Vice and Virtue’ visit on certain days, so [shopkeepers] cover and then uncover the faces of the mannequins,” an anonymous Kabul shopkeeper said.

Still, some staff report that customers appear unfazed by the head coverings: “There are more serious problems,” another shopkeeper said, referencing the economic climate and the restrictions on women’s education and work. “This is not very important for Afghan people. We make do with it.”

Beds for Prisoners

This Democratic Republic of the Congo promised to give beds to all its prisoners.

With 84M People, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is Africa’s third-most populous country, after Nigeria and Ethiopia. It’s also one of its poorest, with a rampantly corrupt government that is absent in much of the country.

The combination of a large population and weak institutions means conditions for Congolese prisoners are lacking, to say the least. The country’s largest jail – in the capital Kinshasa, population 17M – was built in 1957 for 1,500 inmates. Today, it holds over 15,000. Beyond abysmal food and sanitation conditions, many of these prisoners don’t even have a place to sleep.

This week, the country’s justice minister announced the delivery of 2,000 mattresses to that prison. 

"[I] guaranteed that no prisoner would sleep on the floor anymore. Based on the instructions given to the director of the central prison of Makala, we have already provided the prison with the first batch of mattresses,” he said.

While 5,000 more mattresses are on the way, even that’s not enough: Last week, the justice minister also announced the release of 527 prisoners to reduce overcrowding.

Now, he says, life for Congolese prisoners won’t be so rough: “Starting next week,” he claimed, “no prisoner will have to sleep on the floor.”

ROCA VIDEO

Blackpool: The UK’s Most Deprived City

We traveled to Blackpool as the first stop on our investigative trip to the UK’s Rust Belt. In this video, we walked around the city with Blackpool’s most famous Youtuber, Stephen Cheatley (@A Walk on the Wild Slide). We also talked with the man famous for £1 burgers, @Chris Higgitt Youtube Virgin.

Make sure to subscribe to the channel!

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

We are currently in the horseradish capital of the world, Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Last night, we resisted the temptation to order cheese curds at a grill. That may be the last time we are able to muster such strength. We also met up with a fascinating Roca Reader, who lives in western Wisconsin and identifies as a libertarian anarchist. We look forward to sharing that with you.

–Max and Max