2024 may not be Paris’s year…

In the last twelve months, Paris has seen a bed bug outbreak, trucker strike, trash worker strike, Eiffel Tower shutdown, and a souping of the Mona Lisa. But itchy mattresses, stinky streets, and cream of tomato hurlings aside, the real concern lies with the Summer Olympics. Some fear the City of Love isn’t prepared for the games, and that they could be a — pardon my French — sh**show. As if Parisians needed a reason to be chainsmokers…

In today's edition:

And so much more!

–Max, Max, Jen, and Alex

KEY STORY

Musk Sues OpenAI

Elon Musk sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, alleging the company has strayed from its initial mission of benefiting humanity

• Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 as a nonprofit dedicated to making AI “for the benefit of humanity”

• He left the firm in 2018 amid disputes over the company’s direction, primarily its decision to launch a for-profit business arm. Last year, Musk launched his own AI company, xAI

• Musk’s lawsuit accused OpenAI of violating its charter and selling out to Microsoft, its top investor. The lawsuit demands OpenAI make its AI open-source and forfeit money made in violation of its charter

Dig Deeper

• “[OpenAI] has been transformed into a closed-source…subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft,” the lawsuit reads. “It is not just developing but is actually refining [AI] to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of mankind”

• In an email to staff, OpenAI’s chief strategist said, “We believe the claims in this suit may stem from Elon’s regrets about not being involved with the company today”

• He also said he “categorically disagree[s]” with Musk’s allegations, saying they don’t “reflect the reality of our work or mission”

KEY STORY
Russia Leaks Secret German Convo

Russian media released a recording of a top-secret meeting of German officials discussing the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine and how to strike a Russian bridge

• In the conversation, top German officials discuss the presence of American and other NATO troops in Ukraine; dwindling British and French missile stockpiles; and NATO’s willingness to give Ukraine the missiles and expertise that would enable it to destroy the bridge that connects Russia to Crimea

• On the call, a German general noted that NATO troops are in Ukraine: “Many people with American accents run around in civilian clothes,” he said

Dig Deeper

• The Germans on the call went so far as to say they had done a top-secret analysis of the terrain around the Crimea bridge and to discuss the exact amount of preparation that would be needed

• They floated the idea of sending 100 missiles to Ukraine, with the top general adding, “There is no real reason to say we can’t do this; it only depends on the political red lines”

• In response to the news, a top Russian official said, “Our historic adversaries, the Germans, have once again turned into our archenemies”

KEY STORY

Obesity Epidemic

Obesity now poses a greater threat to global health than starvation, a new Lancet study found

• Per the new study, 1.03B people are now obese, while 550M people are underweight

• Global obesity has soared from 226M in 1990 to today’s 1.03B. For women, the prevalence of obesity increased in 95% of countries; for men, in 99%

• Meanwhile, undernutrition has fallen: Since 1990, the prevalence of underweight women has fallen in 65% of countries; for men, 75%

Dig Deeper

• The study also found that whereas obesity used to be primarily found in highly developed countries, such as the US, more recent data show that less developed countries – those in North Africa and South America, for instance – are driving increases in obesity

SPONSORED

Denim Reinvented

Together with Duer

Roca loves a classic pair of denim jeans, but we’ve found it difficult to wear jeans with our active lifestyle as we travel to bring you the most interesting stories. That is, until we found DUER — the denim that is made to move

• The performance denim collection by DUER is crafted with innovative performance fabrics designed for versatility — as if our favorite activewear and classic jeans had a baby

• To get technical, that’s because DUER pants are infused with 360-degree stretch, high-quality fibers for shape retention, and triple-stitched seams for added strength

• Plus, they have complete with temperature regulating and antimicrobial properties to keep you feeling fresh, cool, and dry

Dig Deeper

• So whether you’re dropping your kids off at soccer or being smuggled across a dense Croatian jungle — ok, maybe that second one is just our co-founder Max F — DUER helps you take the day in style and stride

• Try your first pair today! 

KEY STORY

US Begins Airdropping Meals

The US began airdropping meals into the Gaza Strip

• Insecurity has made it difficult for aid groups to bring food into Gaza. Amid the chaos surrounding a food shipment last week, 100+ people were killed, some by aid trucks and some by Israeli soldiers

• A day after that, the US announced it would begin airdropping meals into Gaza. It began doing so on Saturday, when three US cargo planes dropped 66 bundles of food containing 38,000 meals. Jordan airdropped a smaller amount

• The Biden administration said it was preparing further drops, adding, “The truth is…that the aid flowing into Gaza is nowhere near enough”

Dig Deeper

• The US said it monitored the drops to ensure civilians – and neither criminals nor Hamas – took the aid

  Separately, there was mixed messaging about whether a ceasefire deal was near: The US said Israel had “more or less accepted” one, while Hamas continued to demand a complete Israeli withdrawal

• March 10 or 11, when Ramadan starts, is being treated as the unofficial deadline for a ceasefire

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🗳️ Donald Trump dominated primaries in Idaho and Missouri over the weekend, although Nikki Haley won Washington, DC’s primary – her first victory of the primary season. She won the district with just 1,274 votes

⛪ On Friday, Pope Francis called gender theory an “ugly ideology,” saying it “cancels out the differences [between men and women] and makes everything the same,” which he conflated with “canceling out humanity”

📈 Nvidia’s market cap closed on Friday at $2.06T, marking its first time above $2T and making it only the third US company – joining Apple and Microsoft – to finish a trading day above that threshold

💰 Businessman Jose Uribe admitted to bribing Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) with car payments in exchange for the senator’s help with criminal cases against him. That marked the first guilty plea in the criminal cases against Menendez

💰 Gang members stormed Haiti’s main prison, freeing a majority of its ~4,000 prisoners. A police officer-turned-gang leader also announced a coordinated effort by gangs to remove Haiti’s current prime minister

🏀 On Saturday, LeBron James became the first NBA player to reach 40,000 career regular-season points. James – the oldest active NBA player at 39 – said “being the first player to do something, it's pretty cool in this league”

COMMUNITY
Weekly Debate

Most news companies repress ideas they don’t agree with. We are different. To prove it, we’re making this a place where people can have a free and open debate. Each week we lay out a debate on Monday and feature responses below, replies to those the following day, and so on.

Read the Roca Wrap below and then let us know: Are food companies exploitative?

COMMUNITY
Treasure Hunt

Welcome to the weekly Roca treasure hunt! The rules are simple:

• Every day we give a hint. You get one guess, which you submit by emailing [email protected] with a Google street view screenshot

• Unlock an extra hint each Thursday once you refer five friends

• The first person to guess the answer wins this week’s prize: A free year of Roca premium!

Clue 1: 311

Know the answer? Send the Google street view screenshot to [email protected].

Congratulations to Louis from Portugal for being the first to correctly guess last week’s location: the address 1428 Elm Street from the movie franchise A Nightmare on Elm Street

Clue 1: Three continents strong: Elm trees are found in Europe, Asia, and North America

Clue 2: Conceived by a coward: The film was created by Wes Craven. Craven also means cowardly

Clue 3: 🎶 Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin' 🎶: Opening lyrics to the song "Ohio" by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. Ohio is where the film takes place

Clue 4: One, two, someone's coming for you: Freddy Krueger's theme song from ANOES

Clue 5: It's implied that Freddy used to live here: It's never explicitly acknowledged, but a lot of fans believe it's implied that the house used to belong to Freddy Krueger

Bonus Clue: Bo Burnham: The house was bought by comedian Bo Burnham's girlfriend, filmmaker Lorene Scafaria, in 2013

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🏈 Worthy first-rounder: Former Texas Longhorns wide receiver Xavier Worthy set the 40-yard dash record with a time of 4.21 seconds at the NFL Combine on Saturday

🏀 (Hawk)eyes on the prize: Iowa Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark broke “Pistol” Pete Maravich’s NCAA Division I basketball scoring record of 3,667 career points, which stood for 50+ years

👅🦶Toe-dally unacceptable: An Oklahoma school district came under criticism after local media aired a video of a high school student licking toes during a school assembly

🐎 Too much horsepower: Cleveland police officers pursued and captured two horses on Interstate 90 after the animals escaped, halting traffic

🍔 Q: Don Gorske, a 70-year-old retired prison officer from Wisconsin, extended his Guinness World Record for most Big Macs eaten in a lifetime to over 34,000

💰 “Drop the pants!” An armed robber in Texas made a security guard remove his pants while he robbed a Chase Bank ATM. The video was captured on camera

ON-THE-GROUND
Roca in Serbia

We send our co-founder Max Frost to investigate topics around the world and he writes about them here. He’s currently writing from Serbia. Subscribers receive the full stories.

“I'm really glad that most young people I meet share this understanding that Yugoslavia was not a good project.”

So said Boris, a medical student in Belgrade. Directly before, I had met Danica, a 24-year-old lawyer. I told him that Danica disagreed and even had a poster of Tito, the Yugoslav dictator. 

“Wow,” Boris said. “That's weird.” He said most people he meets agree that Yugoslavia – a socialist dictatorship – was a bad idea. 

“I really think that at the beginning of the 20th century, before the First World War, Serbia really had a chance to prosper. Our king back then brought Austrian and German workers, carpenters, architects, to build the city. Most of the things you see here are from that period, like the 1920s, 1930s.

“[But Serbia] started conglomerating with Croatia and Bosnia, and that created tensions because Serbia had the army but didn't have the culture and the economical potential that Slovenia and Croatia had. As part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they already had developed infrastructure, factories and everything to support their growth. Serbia was really poor, but had the people. And so that was a source of tension.”

I played devil’s advocate. Weren’t things better then? Wasn’t there peace and prosperity?

“That's bogus. Those things did not exist. For example, how did Tito create peace after he broke up with the [USSR] in 1948? He sent all of the dissidents and those who did not agree with him to the gulag.”

I told him that Danica who we were just with said things were good then: There was nothing to worry about, a guaranteed job, apartment, and healthcare. 

“If you align with the Communist Party. That's the asterisk. I have a personal story to tell you about that. 

“So, my grandmother, she was an engineer and she worked at a porcelain factory. They were working for the electric industry. And her boss held his keys in his hands, like this, and said, ‘You'll get an apartment if you join the party.’ So, a lot of peer pressure. And for the people that glided with the system, of course, it was great. But that was not the case for, maybe not the majority, but definitely a huge chunk of the country.

“This pains me a lot. Like, they nationalized all the property, right? So, if you're a farmer or something and you have all this land and someone comes in one day and says, ‘Oh, this is not your land, it's the state’s.’ And you have to give up your land. Now, you are cultivating the state land and they are giving you the money for it. So, like, you can't invest in it. You can't invest your own money, your own work, because it's not yours anymore.”

But didn’t the system work? At least compared to other communist countries, Yugoslavia was significantly wealthier. It actually exported goods and could allow its people to travel and study abroad without them defecting, unlike Soviet citizens. 

“Yugoslavia, when it broke apart from Stalin, started getting Western help. I think that's the answer. So, like, the Yugoslav state managed to get fair loans, both from the Soviet Union and from the States and from the other European countries…A lot of Yugoslav people will tell you, ‘We had all this growth in the 60s.’ And I actually looked into that and you can see that almost any country had huge growth in the 60s.”

“People take pride in that growth, but it was not unique,” he said. 

Before our conversation ended, Boris conceded one point: People in Yugoslavia could get apartments, cars, vacations: “You could work as a janitor and support a four- or five-member family. But usually people don't think about the things I mentioned, I think most people are just kind of apolitical, right? So, like, realistically, they're like, ‘Yeah, sure, I'll sign the paper.’”

To Danica, communism wasn’t a bad deal: Give up “some” freedoms and live a cushy life. 

To Boris, it was a deal with the devil: “Sign the paper,” relinquish your land, stop speaking freely, and let the government give you material comforts. 

Two different Belgraders – one a lawyer, one a doctor, both in their twenties – and two different takes on the validity of a communist dictatorship.

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

ROCA VOTES
Are Food Companies Exploitative?

On an earnings call in mid-February, Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said, “We are planning to invest approximately $20 million to roll out digital menu boards to all US company-operated restaurants by the end of 2025.”

He continued, “We will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing and daypart offerings along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling.”

Dynamic pricing implies the price for menu items would vary depending on demand.

The news landed quietly – until it made its way into the social media spotlight last week.

“Calling in a bomb threat to Wendy’s every day at lunch to get an affordable baconator is the American dream,” one tweet read.

Another showed a side-by-side of “My parents in their 30s” and “Me in my 30s.” The meme depicts the parents buying a house, and “me” at Wendy’s hearing, “Your maximum bid of $6.25 for a cheeseburger has not been accepted at this time.”

A Bloomberg columnist called it “exploitative,” while Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tweeted, “@Wendys is planning to try out ‘surge pricing’ — that means you could pay more for your lunch, even if the cost to Wendy’s stays exactly the same. It’s price gouging plain and simple, and American families have had enough.”

In response to the blowback, Wendy’s “clarified” Wednesday that it would not – and had never planned to – raise prices during high-demand periods, claiming it had been misunderstood. The statement added, “Any features we may test in the future would be designed to benefit our customers... Digital menuboards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers.”

Despite the social media outrage, dynamic pricing is common in many industries: Airlines charge more for holiday flights, hotels charge more on weekends, and taxis/Ubers charge more at night. One could also argue that restaurants already deploy dynamic pricing strategies with lunch menus, happy hour discounts, and “market prices” for fancier items.

But the Wendy’s news came days after another food company – Kellogg’s –was accused of being exploitative. 

When it emerged in mid-February that Americans were spending a higher share of their income on food than in any period over the last 30 years, Kellogg’s CEO said that consumers who are “under pressure” should consider “cereal for dinner.”

“If you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they might otherwise do, that’s going to be much more affordable,” he said, adding that Kellogg’s is capitalizing on the situation with an ad campaign that says, “Give chicken the night off.”

As with Wendy’s, one could argue that it’s just business and that what the CEO is saying is true. Social media, meanwhile, filled up with “Let them eat Corn Flakes” memes as many users deemed the proposal immoral, as they did the Wendy’s one.

This week’s Roca Votes question is: Are these food companies exploitative? Or is it acceptable what they are trying to do?

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

ROCA VOTES
Are Food Companies Exploitative?

On an earnings call in mid-February, Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner revealed, “We are planning to invest approximately $20 million to roll out digital menu boards to all US company-operated restaurants by the end of 2025.”

He continued, “We will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing and daypart offerings along with AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling.”

Dynamic pricing implies the price for menu items would vary depending on demand.

The news landed quietly – until it made its way into the social media spotlight last week.

“Calling in a bomb threat to Wendy’s every day at lunch to get an affordable baconator is the American dream,” one tweet read.

Another showed a side-by-side of “My parents in their 30s” and “Me in my 30s.” The meme depicts the parents buying a house, and “me” at Wendy’s hearing, “Your maximum bid of $6.25 for a cheeseburger has not been accepted at this time.”

A Bloomberg columnist called it “exploitative,” while Senator Elizabeth Warren (D - MA) tweeted, “@Wendys is planning to try out ‘surge pricing’ — that means you could pay more for your lunch, even if the cost to Wendy’s stays exactly the same. It’s price gouging plain and simple, and American families have had enough.”

In response to the blowback, Wendy’s “clarified” Wednesday that it would not – and had never panned to – raise prices during high-demand periods and said it had been misunderstood. The statement added, “Any features we may test in the future would be designed to benefit our customers... Digital menuboards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers.”

Despite the social media outrage, dynamic pricing is common in many industries: Airlines charge more for holiday flights, hotels charge more on weekends, and taxis charge more at night. One could also argue that restaurants already deploy dynamic pricing strategies with lunch menus, happy hour discounts, and “market prices” for fancier items.

But the Wendy’s news came days after another food company – Kellogg’s – was accused of being exploitative. 

When it emerged in mid-February that Americans are spending a higher share of their income on food than any period in the last 30 years, Kellogg’s CEO said that consumers who are “under pressure” should consider “cereal for dinner.”

“If you think about the cost of cereal for a family versus what they might otherwise do, that’s going to be much more affordable,” he said, adding that Kellogg’s is capitalizing on the situation with an ad campaign that says, “Give chicken the night off.”

As with Wendy’s, one could argue that it’s just business and that what the CEO is saying is true. Social media, meanwhile, filled up with “Let them eat Corn Flakes” memes as many users deemed the proposal immoral, as they did the Wendy’s one.

This week’s Roca Votes question is: Are these food companies exploitative? Or is it acceptable what they are trying to do?

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

Join Roca Nation

This was an example of a “Roca Votes” Wrap. To read the rest of the Wrap, try a free two-week trial for Roca Premium and you’ll also unlock:

• A daily Wrap

• Ad-free newsletter

• Daily On-the-Ground

• And so much more!

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Big day for Roca today! We’re officially moving into a new office and for the first time in company history, we have more than one bathroom for our team — which we consider a luxury. It’s the small things!

Happy Monday and don’t forget to let us know your thoughts on this week’s Roca Votes debate.

— Max, Max, Alex and Jen