🌊 The Early Winners of the AI War

28 years ago today, more than 150 million people tuned in…

for the announcement of the OJ Simpson trial verdict. In that half hour, America stopped working: Phone call volume dropped 58%, NYSE trading volume dropped 41%, and an estimated $480M in productivity was lost. Then the "Not Guilty" came in, and somewhere an economist's first reaction was "Hmm, I wonder how much GDP we just lost?"

–Max, Max, and Owen

KEY STORY

Drug War Ceasefire

Mexico’s new president vowed an end to the nation’s drug war while taking office

• Mexico’s “war on drugs” began in 2006, when the then-president deployed troops to reduce violence in a cartel-controlled state. The military was soon confronting cartels across the country, though, and Mexico has since been in the most violent period in its history

• Mexico’s last president, AMLO, promised a “Hugs, Not Bullets” policy that tackled the “root causes” of cartels’ power without using violence. That backfired, though, and crime rose

• In her inaugural address, Mexico’s new president Claudia Sheinbaum – who has promised to continue AMLO’s leftist policies – declared, “There will be no return to the irresponsible drug war”

Dig Deeper

• Sheinbaum promised to focus her government’s efforts on intelligence gathering and criminal investigations instead of confrontation

• Her inauguration comes amid great violence: At least 50 people have been killed since September 9, when a prolonged gun battle began between rival cartels in a northern Mexican town

KEY STORY

Israel-Hezbollah War Intensifies

At least eight Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon on Wednesday

• All were between ages 21 and 23. Seven were killed in an ambush by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, just over the Israeli border

• The deaths show the conflict is intensifying: Israeli troops were operating up to several hundred meters inside Lebanon and facing guerrilla warfare

• Meanwhile, Iran said its “action [against Israel] is concluded” unless Israel strikes back. A day prior, Israeli PM Netanyahu had vowed to do so, saying, “Iran made a big mistake – and it will pay for it”

• President Biden has said the US would not support Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities

Dig Deeper

• Meanwhile, further details emerged about Iran’s launch of 181 missiles at Israel

• The only death was a Palestinian man at the West Bank. Most missiles were shot down by air defense systems, although one landed near Mossad (Israeli intelligence) headquarters

• The US, Jordan, France, and the UK all played a role in defending Israel from that strike

ROCA’S SPONSOR

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Together with Brad’s Deals

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• But if those reasons haven't been enough to entice you to join Prime, maybe some lesser-known incentives will tempt you to sign up

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KEY STORY

Big Tech's AI Vice-Grip

Startups are struggling to compete against Big Tech in the large language model (LLM) AI race

• An LLM is a type of AI program that can recognize and generate text, among other things – like ChatGPT

• On Wednesday, Character.ai – a three-year-old startup that was building LLMs – told the Financial Times that it is giving up on the LLM race after Google poached its founders, hired 20% of its staff, and paid $2.7B for access to its technology

• Last week, ChatGPT announced it would double prices and switch to a for-profit company in order to better compete with industry incumbents

Dig Deeper

• What remains of Character.ai will shift its focus to celebrity chatbots and other projects: “The worry for Character.ai is the things it is doing can easily be replicated by big tech firms with financial firepower and huge global reach,” Character.ai’s new interim CEO said

• Former Google engineer Noam Shazeer founded Character.ai in 2021, four years after he launched Meena, a chatbot he claimed was so powerful it could one day replace Google’s search engine. Google execs reportedly chose not to release Meena to the public due to safety and fairness concerns

KEY STORY

Helene Disrupts Global Tech

Hurricane Helene's destruction of Spruce Pine, a small town in North Carolina's Appalachian region, could disrupt the global tech supply chain

• Spruce Pine is the world’s biggest producer of quartz, an essential ingredient in semiconductor chips – which power most modern digital technology – and solar panels

• Due to Helene, operations at the quartz mine in Spruce Pine have halted. It's unclear when they'll resume and when the nearby railroads will be fixed

• A short-term closure would not have a significant impact, but a long-term closure would, analysts say

Dig Deeper

• In a 2023 book about global materials, UK journalist Ed Conway wrote, “It is rare, unheard of almost, for a single site to control the global supply of a crucial material. Yet if you want to get high-purity quartz... it has to come from Spruce Pine”

• Beyond quartz, Spruce Pine has a population of 2,194 and is also known for its hiking

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

👋 Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, was accused by three women of once slapping his ex-girlfriend in public

💸 Reports emerged that the official who would replace NYC Mayor Eric Adams if he resigns took political donations from one of the businessman accused of orchestrating illegal contributions to Adams

🏆 A day after the debate, several influential news outlets suggested that JD Vance won the vice presidential debate 

🇺🇦 Ukraine withdrew from an eastern town it had been defending for two years. The city once had 10,000 residents

💰 ChatGPT-founder OpenAI secured a record $6.6B in fundraising, doubling its valuation to $157B

COMMUNITY

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🧠 Today’s question: Who’s the most underappreciated US President?

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POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

📬 Steal, steal, Mr. Postman: A Missouri postal worker was accused of stealing $1.5M worth of checks from his mail distribution center. He is also accused of having fraudulently obtained tens of thousands of dollars worth of pandemic-related aid

🚑 It was an emergency! An Oklahoma man was accused of stealing an ambulance to attend a court hearing about a stolen car. The ambulance he stole had been left running and unattended

👨🏻‍⚕️ A knife’s a knife: A UK surgeon was accused of using a Swiss Army knife to open the chest of a patient after he allegedly failed to find a sterile scalpel

🍝 More addictive than meth: A Florida woman was jailed for more than a month after police mistook Spaghetti-Os residue for crystal meth. While she was in jail, lab tests confirmed it was Spaghetti-Os

😳 Naked Trump Statue: A 43-foot (13-m) tall naked, hanging Donald Trump effigy has been erected on the road from Las Vegas to Reno. The statue – whose creators are anonymous – hangs from a crane and weighs 6,000 lbs

ROCA WRAP

RocAround the World

.Every Thursday we gather a collection of interesting stories from around the world. Today’s are from Nepal, Spain, and Pakistan.

Growth Spurt 

Mt. Everest is growing faster than normal.

Mt. Everest – known in Nepal as “Sagamartha,” meaning “Goddess of the Sky” – was formed 50M years ago when the Indian and Eurasian plates collided. That collision is ongoing, meaning Everest is still getting taller.

Now, a new study suggests something beyond that collision is boosting Everest’s height.

All of the mountains around Everest were created by the same collision, which led one group of researchers to ask why Everest is so much taller – 250 meters – than the next-tallest. In a new paper, the researchers claim to have found the answer.

According to their findings, two rivers around Everest merged 89,000 years ago, leading to an increase in erosion around Everest, thereby creating a large gorge in the mountain that reduced its weight. That, in turn, allowed Everest to grow faster than other Himalayan mountains, explaining how it became so much taller.

This growth spurt won’t last forever, though, the researchers say.

While it’s currently causing Everest to grow by between .16 and .53mm a year, “This effect will not continue indefinitely,” said one of the study’s authors.

“The process will continue until the river system reaches a new equilibrium state.”

As tall as it is, even Mt. Everest’s growth will slow eventually.

Blasphemy Police

Police in Pakistan allegedly organized the killing of a blasphemer.

Pakistan was established as a homeland for the Indian subcontinent’s Muslims. Its name literally means “Land of the Pure” (“Pak”=pure, “stan” = land of) and is also an acronym of Pakistan’s regions: Punjab, Afghan (the northwest region), Kashmir, Indus (or, some say, Islam), Sind, and Balochistan.

As the “land of the pure,” Pakistan has strict religious laws – including the death penalty for people convicted of blaspheming Islam, such as by criticizing the prophet Muhammed. Minority religious groups are often accused of blasphemy, which can also be used as a way to settle scores. On numerous occasions, blasphemers have been lynched, either before being arrested or while in jail.

This week, Pakistan’s government accused the police of killing a doctor accused of blasphemy. A mob alleged the doctor had insulted Muhammed, prompting the burning of his clinic and his arrest. Shortly after turning himself in to the police, the man was found dead.

The police claimed the doctor had sparked a shootout. However, the government has said the police appear to have faked that in order to have the man killed.

A blasphemer is dead, but is Pakistan any more pure?

Sell Outs?

Spain is accused of selling out Venezuela's opposition leader.

In July, Venezuela held presidential elections to determine whether or not Nicolas Maduro would remain in power. Despite the government’s jailing and disqualifying challengers, many Venezuelans rallied around an opposition leader named Edmundo González. While election data showed that González won the election, Maduro declared victory and initiated a crackdown that forced González to take refuge in the Dutch embassy in Venezuela.

After five weeks, González relocated to the Spanish embassy. While there, the embassy admitted two of Maduro’s closest aides, who held negotiations with González. Soon after, González left for exile in Spain and Maduro’s government published photographs of González signing a document allegedly accepting Maduro’s victory.

Last week, González said that the Venezuelans admitted to the Spanish embassy forced him to acknowledge Maduro’s victory as a prerequisite for leaving Venezuela. He said the letter was signed under "coercion, blackmail, and pressure."

Various officials said left-leaning Spanish leaders were in on the plan, including one unnamed senior Brazilian official who said, “Maduro pushed [González] out of the country through intimidation and…the Spanish state was the main facilitator.”

The situation has sparked a backlash among Spanish conservatives, who have called for the resignation of Spain’s foreign minister and ambassador to Venezuela. Yet the Spanish government has rejected the allegations and denies any complicity in González’s validation of Maduro’s rule.

ROCA VIDEO
Holocaust Survivor Shares Her Incredible Story with Roca

When she was just six months old, Louise Lawrence-Israels' parents hid her and her brother in an abandoned attic in Amsterdam. It was January 1943, and the situation for Jews in the Netherlands was deteriorating. They remained in that attic for nearly three years. She shared her story with RocaNews' official podcast, We The 66. We'd like to give a special thanks to Louise and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, which allowed us to film this interview in its halls.

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EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Let us know if you have any guest suggestions for We The 66! We are always looking for fascinating stories to cover. Also, if you live in the Asheville area or know anyone in that area, please send us an email. We are eager to get an on-the-ground perspective from there. Have a great day.

–Max and Max