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- 🌊 The Art of the Mineral Deal
🌊 The Art of the Mineral Deal
Plus: Young people unhappier, NFL strikes back, & woodpecker terrorizing in Massachusetts
Celebrities who follow Roca.
A question we often get is if there are any celebrities who read Roca. To our parents’ and high school bullies’ surprise, the answer is yes — and they reflect our audience’s political diversity quite well. Here are a few of them:
Casey Neistat (YouTube legend)
Channing Tatum (actor)
Cory Booker (Dem. Senator and incredible yapper — 25 hour filibuster!)
Elise Stefanik (Rep. Congresswoman)
James Corden (talk show host)
Jeb Bush (Republican politician)
Joe Rogan (podcasting legend)
Katie Couric (journalist)
Lester Green (Beetlejuice)
Mark Cuban (businessman)
Samuel L Jackson (actor)
Before you unsubscribe over James Corden, just remember that we don’t pick our Instagram followers…
😔 Young people less happy today?
☎️ NFL Draft prank call under investigation
🚘 Rogue woodpecker terrorizes Massachusetts
–Max and Max
KEY STORY
US + Ukraine Sign Mineral Deal
The US and Ukraine signed a long-anticipated resource deal
The countries were expected to sign such a deal in February, however, the meeting to do so ended up with the Zelensky-Trump Oval Office clash
On Wednesday, they finally signed a deal that will establish a fund to invest in Ukrainian natural resources. The US and Ukraine will each contribute 50% of the fund’s finances, with US military aid counting as contributions toward it
A board with three Americans and three Ukrainians will oversee the fund, which will invest to extract Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, oil, and natural gas
The revenue of those investments will be split 50/50 between Ukraine and the US
Dig Deeper
US officials have said the fund will give the US an economic stake in Ukraine that will incentivize the US to defend Ukraine in the future
While Trump has described the fund as repaying the US for its support, Ukrainian officials have said the agreement is intended to build a long-lasting investment partnership between the countries and invest in Ukraine’s reconstruction and development
KEY STORY
Young People: Unhappy?
The first results from an ongoing study of 200,000 adults found that today’s young people worldwide are less happy than those in the past
The Global Flourishing Study surveyed people across 22 countries to measure social, economic, health, and demographic factors and determine if people were “flourishing”
Initial results show that more than ever before, young people are struggling with happiness, mental and physical health, purpose, financial security, and relationships
While the drop in youth flourishing was reported in a range of countries, no country had a larger gap between younger and older adults than the US
Dig Deeper
Studies consistently show that people tend to experience high levels of happiness when they are young, lower levels in middle age, and higher levels again in older age, creating a U-shaped curve. In the new study, participants indicated that they are struggling for longer, with low levels of flourishing until age 50, when they began to rise
The study’s lead author said, “It is a pretty stark picture. Are we sufficiently investing in the well-being of youth?”
QUOTE OF THE DAY
You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
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Dig Deeper
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KEY STORY
NFL Prank Calls
The NFL is investigating a series of prank phone calls to players during last week’s NFL draft
After news broke that Shedeur Sanders – who dropped from an expected first- to fifth-round draft pick – was the victim of a prank call impersonating an NFL executive during the draft, at least six other players came forward with similar experiences
While the son of the Atlanta Falcons' defensive coordinator took responsibility for the call to Sanders, the NFL said the incident was not connected to the other cases
The Falcons and their defensive coordinator were respectively fined $250,000 and $100,000 by the NFL
Dig Deeper
Chase Lundt, an offensive tackle drafted in the sixth round, said, “It’s been quite crazy of a day... I fielded a couple prank calls before it, so I was kind of up and down…like if anything was real or not”
The situation sparked criticism from many, including star NFL analyst Adam Schefter, who said, “This is about young college men on the brink of realizing their NFL dreams, getting calls from other college students mocking them and joking around with them at a time when there's nothing funny about it”
KEY STORY
US Economy Shrinks
The US economy shrank at a .3% rate in the first three months of 2025, although fundamentals remained strong
It was the first time the US economy shrank since 2022 and worse than most economists’ forecasts. It compares with 2.4% GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2024
Despite the contraction, the underlying data don’t suggest a struggling economy: Consumer spending and investment – indicators of the economy’s underlying health – increased slightly, from 2.9% growth in Q4 2024 to 3% in Q1 2025
The drop was therefore attributed to a record surge in imports, as companies tried to get ahead of tariffs. Imports are subtracted from GDP when calculating it
Dig Deeper
GDP, which counts all final private and government spending in an economy, is measured as: Consumption + Investment + Government spending + (Exports – Imports), a formula that means imports lower GDP
Economists largely attributed Q1's GDP drop to an import shock caused by tariff policy. Trump, meanwhile, wrote, “NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS…I didn’t take over until January 20th . . . When the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”
RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office
🇺🇸 The Trump Administration informed Congress that it will designate Haitian gangs as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO)
📉 Inflation declined from 2.7% in February to 2.3% in March, close to the Fed’s 2% target
🏫 The Supreme Court appeared likely to allow the country’s first state-funded religious school to open in Oklahoma
💲 Testifying in federal court, Google CEO Sundar Picha called the Justice Department’s push to force Google to sell Chrome “far-reaching” and “extraordinary”
👩⚖️ A judge ordered the release of a Palestinian student protester at Columbia University who was arrested during a citizenship interview earlier this month
What does Roca Nation think?
🧐 Yesterday’s Question: Is it just nostalgia or were Disney movies in the 90s (Hercules, Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Pocahontas, etc.) better?
By and large, yes. Most of those movies have a narrative depth that could practically bring you to tears. Throw in the incredible music and you could call most of those movies masterpieces. In more recent years, Disney just hasn’t been consistent. There have been a few winners — (Tangled, one of my favorite Disney movies, and Brave, an extremely underrated modern addition to the Disney filmography). But they have become a propaganda company rather than an art company. They’ve lost the magic.
They really were just better. There are some Disney movies nowadays that are very good, like Soul, Coco, and others, but it was called "the Golden Age of Disney" for a reason. Most of the new movies don't seem to have the same magic that they used to. The older movies are still extremely relevant. Can you name 5 Disney movies from the last 5 years that have even remotely the same impact that Lion King has even 30+ years later?
Disney in the 90’s was definitely incredible (Aladdin and The Lion King are my personal favorites), but I don’t want us to forget the amazing Disney movies of the 00’s and 10’s. Movies like Tangled, Meet the Robinsons, Big Hero 6, Encanto, and yes, even Frozen, are genuinely great movies that belong up there with the Golden age of the 50’s and Renaissance of the 90’s. I haven’t kept up with the past couple new releases, and I’m not a big fan of the live action remakes, but the run of Disney movies in the 90’s-10’s is a gold mine.
🧠 Today’s Question: Should members of Congress have term limits?
POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour
🦘 Roo on the Run: A runaway kangaroo hopping down a highway in Alabama caused a car crash before being subdued by local law enforcement
✈ Flight Fright: A passenger on a Southwest Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Chicago was arrested after allegedly stripping naked mid-flight and defecating on her seat
🖼 Abstract Art Attack: An unattended child scratched an iconic $50M painting by Mark Rothko at a museum in the Netherlands
🖼 Trash or Treasure: A Dutch town hall said it may have accidentally thrown out a valuable Andy Warhol painting from 1985, along with roughly 50 other pieces of art, during a building renovation
🐦 Feathered Menace: A woodpecker has terrorized a town in Massachusetts, attacking its reflection in the windshields of at least 25 cars since March
ROCA WRAP
Coup Captive
Belarus
This country released a US citizen jailed on coup charges.
Belarus is a landlocked country that gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. It’s since maintained close relations with Russia, a neighboring country with a similar language, culture, and history. Belarus’ president, Alexander Lukashenko, is one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and often called “Europe’s last dictator” for his authoritarian policies.
In 2020-2021, Lukashenko was reelected for a sixth consecutive term, allegedly winning 80% of the vote. The election – widely considered fraudulent – sparked massive protests across the country and prompted a crackdown by Lukashenko’s government, which arrested over 65,000 people; tear gassed and tortured protesters; and shut down internet access. Lukashenko called the protests a “coup attempt” orchestrated by the West.
In 2021, Youras Ziankovich, a lawyer and naturalized American citizen who was born in Belarus, was arrested while having lunch in Moscow, Russia, with Lukashenko’s former spokesman, who had become an opposition politician.
Ziankovich was reportedly hooded, handcuffed, and transported to Belarus, where he was convicted in a secret trial for allegedly plotting a coup against Lukashenko and given a 13-year prison sentence.
On Wednesday, though, four years into his term, Belarus released Ziankovich after negotiations with the US.
US envoy for hostage negotiations Adam Boehler told CNN the release was a sign that Lukashenko, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, wanted to “warm relations with the United States.” Boehler added that Belarus has long been isolated from the West, and “they know that President Trump is not going to do anything if they’re holding Americans.”
Ziankovich is set to arrive back on US soil on Thursday. According to Boehler, “He’s quite happy to be in American hands.”
EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts
Must be a tough day for all of you Duke, Yankees, and Cowboys fans out there with the Lakers’ loss last night. Sorry, we joke. We wish you another happy LeOffseason.
For the rest of you, we hope you have a great rest of your day and think of that Steve Jobs quote. It’s really spectacular how life falls into place.
–Max and Max