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Plus: Blue whale dethroned as largest animal ever?

March 06, 2024

And the winner of the American Samoa primary is…

Jason Palmer! At first we thought it was a joke, but a complete rando who’s never been to American Samoa won the US territory’s Democratic primary. Granted, he only got 51 votes, but that was still 11 more than what President Biden got. So congrats to unknown candidate, Jason Palmer. This will look great on LinkedIn! 51 endorsements for Zoom campaigning.

BREAKING: Hate to take away from Jason Palmer’s spotlight, but Nikki Haley just announced she’s dropping out of the race. More below.

In today's edition:

🚨 National security leak on dating app

😳 Pittsburgh nudist bowling event

🇰🇵 Roca Wrap: The Defector - Part 2

And so much more!

–Max, Max, Jen, and Alex

KEY STORY

Dating App Leaker

A retired colonel allegedly leaked national security secrets to an undisclosed recipient he met on a dating app

  • The defendant, 63-year-old David Slater, retired from the US Army in 2020. He subsequently landed a civilian job with the government, for which he received a security clearance

  • From February to April 2022, Slater allegedly leaked sensitive information about Russia’s war in Ukraine to a “Ukrainian woman” he met on a foreign dating app. Below are excerpts from that individual’s correspondence with Slater

  • If convicted, Slater faces up to 10 years in prison

Dig Deeper

  • The “Ukrainian woman’s” messages to Slater:

KEY STORY
New TikTok Ban Threat

A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation that would ban TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sells it

  • The bill would give China-based ByteDance 165 days to sell TikTok or face a US ban. App stores would be forbidden from distributing it and web hosting services from supporting it

  • The bill would also give the president new powers to ban or restrict apps that are controlled by or based in China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran

  • TikTok called the legislation an “outright ban” and warned it would harm users and US businesses

Dig Deeper

  • The legislation – expected to receive its first vote this Thursday – is the first serious attempt by Congress in over a year to crack down on or ban TikTok

  • Biden’s re-election campaign began using TikTok last month

KEY STORY

Heavyweight No More?

Researchers are split over whether they have discovered the largest animal in history

  • The largest animal known to have existed is the blue whale, which can grow to weigh as much as 200 tons

  • Last year, though, paleontologists claimed to have discovered an ancient whale species, Perucetus colossus, that may have weighed as much as 340 tons. They claimed it resembled a modern-day manatee

  • Last Thursday, rival researchers published an article claiming P. colossus looked more like a modern whale. Based on that, they estimated it weighed 60-70 tons – much less than blue whales

Dig Deeper

  • However, another researcher who supports the claim that P. colossus is the largest species ever discovered contested the findings of the most recent study

  • “This extinct whale had a very different biology than that of recent whales,” he said. He is now making a 3D model of P. colossus based on the belief that it resembled a manatee

SPONSORED

Best Buy Introduces New Smart Home Category

The leading retailer in the distribution of Smart Home products has recently unveiled a new addition to its smart home lineup, Smart Shades

  • There are A LOT of windows out there, and with only a small 10% of them being automated, this is a market that’s already worth billions with projected double-digit growth over the next decade

  • Recognizing this, Best Buy has made a huge bet on an innovative startup, and has already stocked their product in over 100 retail stores. This up-and-comer is RYSE, and for a limited time, you can invest in their vision of owning the Smart Shades industry

  • Best Buy made similar bets on smart-home titans Ring and Nest, both of which saw billion-dollar exits at the hands of Amazon and Google

Dig Deeper

KEY STORY

Haiti Crisis Deepens

Amid a wave of violence at home, Haiti’s missing prime minister landed in Puerto Rico

  • Haiti – the Americas’ poorest country – is widely considered a failed state. Gangs control most of the country, including much of its capital city, Port-au-Prince

  • Late last month, Acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry embarked on an international tour to drum up support for a multinational force to restore order in Haiti

  • Since last Thursday, Haitian gangs have unleashed a wave of violence. They have freed thousands of prisoners, attacked two of Haiti’s largest airports, and killed a slew of police officers

  • One of Haiti’s most powerful gang leaders, street name “Barbecue,” has declared that his intent is to “get [Henry] to step down.” Amid the violence, until Wednesday, Henry’s whereabouts were unknown

Dig Deeper

  • Henry has since landed in Puerto Rico, although he hasn’t spoken publicly since Friday. Calls to his office are reportedly going unanswered

  • In response to the violence, Haiti’s government has declared a state of emergency, instituted a curfew, and called up its military

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🗳️ Following Donald Trump’s dominant Super Tuesday performance, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley exited the 2024 presidential race. She didn’t endorse Trump. “I wanted Americans to have their voices heard. I have done that,” Haley said, adding that Americans must “turn away from the darkness of hatred and division”

📈 The prices of Bitcoin and gold both hit record highs on Tuesday, fueled by optimism that the US Federal Reserve will begin lowering interest rates this summer

🇺🇸 Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) won’t seek re-election. She was the first Democrat to win an Arizona Senate seat in 30 years, but left the party in 2022 due to tension over her centrist views. She faced a difficult re-election

💸 Prosecutors brought a dozen additional charges against Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) accusing him of obstructing justice by giving false statements about alleged bribes

🇩🇪 Elon Musk blamed “eco-terrorists” for a suspected arson attack that shut down a Tesla plant in Germany. Germany’s government linked the attack to an environmental group that accused Tesla of “[eating] up earth, resources, people, and labor"

☀️ AccuWeather predicted that California will be free of “widespread drought” through “at least 2025.” The weather company based that prediction on above-average snowfall over the past two winters

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.

This week’s Roca Wrap asked: Are food companies exploitative?

The media appears to have immediately gone to the extreme end and made it appear Wendy was charging more during busy hours. Now Wendy says it was they may charge less during non-busy hours to drive more business to their doors. Which is true? Did anyone do "due" diligence in reporting? It appears not, unless more facts are reported.

Same can be said about Kelloggs. Did the CEO really mean let them eat cake? Or did the young, smart-mouth kibitzers (sarcastic) make it appear that way? Maybe the message was "cereal is good anytime of day, and is an affordable, quick choice."

Anthony

Most of the cereal products in this country are full of sugar and lack nutrients and are just empty calories. It’s not exploitative, it’s just disappointing to see a wealthy CEO preying on the poor and it is going to cost them more money in healthcare bills later in life. Cereal should be a sweet treat, not the foundation of someone’s diet. 

Meaghan from Austin, Texas

Have additional thoughts or replies to Anthony or Meaghan? Keep the debate going and reply to this email!

Today's Poll:

What do you consider to be the biggest benefit of automated window shades?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

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

Clue 2: A King's game and a companion's check

Clue 3: Two by two (or add 10 and 3)

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

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🏀 Clarkmania: Caitlin Clark’s record-setting performance for Iowa against Ohio State on Sunday attracted 4M+ viewers at its peak, making it the most-watched women’s regular-season game since 1999

🎳 Let’s go balling! A Pittsburgh nudist group will host a “Balls Out Bowling” event in April, requiring attendees 18+ to bowl nude, although women may wear bottoms

📱 Find My Grandma: A Denver jury awarded a grandmother $3.76M for a police raid on her home triggered by an incorrect Find My iPhone ping

💸 Don’t stop believin’: The booth used in the filming of the iconic dinner scene in the final episode of “The Sopranos” auctioned for $82,600. The diner that sold the booth used the funds for renovations

😱 Double trouble: A 35-year-old woman from Minnesota is accused of switching places with her twin after a crash involving her vehicle and a horse-drawn carriage killed two children

💨 Smuggling… what?! A San Diego man has been charged in the first-ever case of smuggling greenhouse gasses into the US. He allegedly imported the chemical compounds used in refrigeration

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.

Who should belong to the EU?

In 2000, Serbia’s ultranationalist leader, Slobodan Milosevic, was overthrown. Nicknamed the “Butcher of the Balkans,” Milosevic had overseen the country’s support for Serb militias in Croatia and Serbia, as well as its war in Kosovo. His policies turned Serbia into a pariah. 

Protests brought down Milosevic in 2000. In the following years, Serbia experienced assassinations, war crime arrests, and other unrest. By the middle of the decade, though, public opinion turned against the government, which had opposed signing a deal that would have brought Serbia closer to the EU. In elections in 2008, a wave of pro-European sentiment brought an EU-oriented government to power.  

That government declared that joining the EU was its top priority. In 2009, it applied to do so. Serbia’s then-leader also became the first Serbian leader to visit the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial and sought to have Serbia’s parliament condemn that massacre. To many, that seemed like a turning point. 

Serbia initially made progress toward joining the EU, but momentum then slowed. Since Serbia’s current leader took power in 2017, progress appears to have slowed further or stalled. Pro-EU Serbs accuse that leader – a populist who served as Milosevic’s information minister – of fueling violent nationalism, restricting free speech, and being corrupt.

If Serbia joined the EU, it would be the organization’s poorest member. Its GDP per capita is $11,000, versus a $41,000 average for the organization. The union’s current poorest member is currently Bulgaria, whose per capita income is $16,000.

Beyond money, Serbia would be one of the union’s most corrupt and least democratic countries, by a number of measures. It would also be among the closest with Russia, at a time when the EU is seeking to present a united front in support of Ukraine. And it has a major territorial dispute with Kosovo, whose 2006 declaration of independence it refused to recognize. 

Within Serbia, the population is split over whether they support the EU. Polls often show a majority of Serbs do want to be in it, but graffiti around the cities read, “F*ck the EU.” Opposition to NATO, which often overlaps with the EU, is intense. One businessman I spoke to guessed support is 50/50.

Yet granting an EU spot to a less-than-prosperous country wouldn’t be unheard-of. In 2007, Bulgaria and Romania joined and immediately became the organization’s poorest and, by various indicators, most corrupt members. Croatia joined in 2013, and the prime minister who oversaw those EU negotiations is currently in prison for corruption. 

In Bosnia and Serbia, many people ask why those countries – Bulgaria, Romania, and Croatia – were allowed into the EU while their countries were not. Many blame various anti-Muslim (in Bosnia) or anti-Serb conspiracies. 

It’s not an unfair question, though: Why did the EU accept countries that were far below the standards of existing members, both politically and economically? And why would the EU even want Serbia?

To hear answers to those questions, I met with an EU official in Belgrade. The next installment will feature that conversation.

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

ROCA WRAP
The Raid

This is part 2 of our Wrap Series on The Defector. Read Part 1 here if you missed yesterday’s newsletter!

On February 22, 2019, Oswaldo Trump called an Uber to the North Korean embassy in Madrid.

He opened the embassy’s front door to find police cars blocking the path. His plot foiled, he had to escape – and fast.

Several hours prior, just before 5 PM, a man identifying as Mathew Chao knocked on the North Korean embassy’s door. Claiming to be a Dubai-based investor, Chao said he had a gift for an embassy official.

The embassy staff brought him into a courtyard and went to get the official.

While Chao waited, he opened a gate to the outside, allowing a group of assailants – in ski masks and armed with knives and fake pistols – to enter. Within minutes, the group – speaking American English and the South Korean style of Korean – had zip-tied, handcuffed, and masked the embassy’s four male staff.

The top official’s wife and son, meanwhile, were locked in a room. An assailant wearing a black scarf over his face and holding what appeared to be a gun kept watch. The other assailants took that top official, So Yun-sok, to the basement.

A month prior, North Korea’s acting ambassador to Italy had disappeared in an apparent defection

A year before that, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the UK had defected to South Korea, making him the seniormost official to have done so. The assailants in Madrid told So Yun-sok that they wanted him to do something similar: They wanted him to defect to their country, a “free” North Korean state.

The plot didn’t go to plan, though.

One of the staff’s wives in the embassy escaped by jumping off a balcony and then alerted police, who were dispatched to the North Korean embassy. Because diplomatic rules prohibiting them from entering, the police waited outside.

Inside, the assailants grabbed flash and hard drives.

They also seized So Yun-sok’s phone, but he reportedly refused to defect. The plan in disarray, the group’s leader, Oswaldo Trump – real name Adrian Hong – called an Uber, but police were blocking their access to the car.

He called another to the back door, scrambled out with three other assailants, and rode 625 kilometers to Lisbon, Portugal. After paying the €900 fare, the group boarded a flight to Newark, NJ.

Five days later, then-President Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a summit in Hanoi, Vietnam. During that, Hong approached the FBI to tell them about the raid and turn over the hard drives.

He proceeded to detail the involvement of a Marine veteran, Christopher Ahn. On April 18, 2019, the FBI raided Hong’s apartment, found Ahn there, and arrested him.

Since 2019, Anh has been fighting extradition to Spain while on house arrest in Los Angeles.

Hong has been on the run and is now wanted by North Korea, Spain, and the US. The FBI has said the men face a “credible” threat of assassination by North Korea. Protecting them from extradition has become a prominent cause among groups opposing North Korea’s government.

Countless accusations have been made about what happened in Madrid.

Some have alleged the assailants were CIA spies who were trying to steal information from the North Korean embassy; others alleged they were kidnappers. A third group believed they were trying to disrupt Trump’s meeting with Kim, either on behalf of South Korean or the US governments, both of whose officials expressed concerns he’d make a bad deal with Kim.

Ahn, Hong, and their supporters have claimed the raid was staged at the request of North Korean diplomats who wanted to defect. They say the diplomats then got cold feet, though, causing the effort to fall apart. They say that by punishing them for the raid, the Spanish and American governments are doing the North Korean government’s bidding.

For now, Anh is fighting to stay in America while Hong is on the run. Both claim to have fought for freedom and ended up on the wrong side of the law.

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

ROCA WRAP
The Raid

This is part 2 of our Wrap Series on The Defector. Read Part 1 here if you missed yesterday’s newsletter!

On February 22, 2019, Oswaldo Trump called an Uber to the North Korean embassy in Madrid.

He opened the embassy’s front door to find police cars blocking the path. His plot foiled, he had to escape – and fast.

 Several hours prior, just before 5 PM, a man identifying as Mathew Chao knocked on the North Korean embassy’s door. Claiming to be a Dubai-based investor, Chao said he had a gift for an embassy official.

The embassy staff brought him into a courtyard and went to get the official.

While Chao waited, he opened a gate to the outside, allowing a group of assailants – in ski masks and armed with knives and fake pistols – to enter. Within minutes, the group – speaking American English and the South Korean style of Korean – had zip-tied, handcuffed, and masked the embassy’s four male staff.

The top official’s wife and son, meanwhile, were locked in a room. An assailant wearing a black scarf over his face and holding what appeared to be a gun kept watch. The other assailants took that top official, So Yun-sok, to the basement.

 A month prior, North Korea’s acting ambassador to Italy disappeared in an apparent defection. 

A year before that, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the UK had defected to South Korea, making him the senior-most official to do so. The assailants in Madrid told So Yun-sok that they wanted him to do something similar: They wanted him to defect to their country, a “free” North Korean state.

The plot didn’t go to plan, though.

Join Roca Nation

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EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

And just like that, it’s like 2020 all over again. Let us know your thoughts on the primary results so far. Are you excited for this campaign season? Already tired of it? What would be the most helpful way for us to cover it? Our email is open.

See you tomorrow,

— Max, Max, Alex and Jen