🌊 Merchant of Death Checks Back In

On today’s episode of “This Day in History”….

We bring you the Great Fires of 1871. From October 8 through October 10, wildfires claimed thousands of lives and destroyed millions of acres across the upper Midwest. Although the deadliest fire was in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the most famous one struck Chicago: The Great Chicago Fire claimed about 300 lives while destroying over three square miles of the city, including more than 17,000 buildings. For many years, a cow was blamed for it. The legend went that a cow belonging to a woman named Mrs. O’Leary knocked over a lantern that set off the blaze.

Later, we learned, a reporter made up that story. Even fake news used to be better.

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

Merchant of Death Returns

Viktor Bout – the Russian arms dealer released in exchange for Brittney Griner – has returned to selling arms, per a new WSJ report

• Bout became one of the world’s most prominent arms dealers by selling Soviet-made weaponry around the world. The DEA arrested him in a 2008 sting operation, during which they posed as Colombian rebels. He was sentenced to 25 years in US prison but released in exchange for Griner

• The WSJ now reports that Houthi delegates traveled to Russia to broker an arms deal with Bout, who arrange the shipment of various rifles

Dig Deeper

• The WSJ reported that the Houthis had traveled to Moscow under the guise of buying pesticides and vehicles. Instead, they met with Bout, who arranged two deliveries of AK-74s, a type of automatic assault rifle

• Bout also discussed selling the Houthis anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, people familiar with the matter told the WSJ

• The WSJ said it’s unknown whether he was brokering the deal at the Kremlin’s behest, or only with tacit approval

KEY STORY

Protecting Brain Data

California passed a law protecting brain data

• Many consumer products and apps – like those that help users meditate, improve sleep, or even treat mental illness – record user brain data. Such data is largely unprotected by existing privacy laws

• California’s new law extends personal privacy protections to include “neural data,” which covers not only direct brain data but any data that is passed through nerves throughout the body

• While medical device companies are subject to federal regulations, consumer neurotechnology was almost entirely unregulated before the new law

Dig Deeper

• The law – which Governor Newsom signed last week – passed through California’s State Assembly and Senate without a single dissenting vote

• Companies ranging from startups developing brain-analyzing technology to mega-corporations like Apple and Meta are now poised to face regulation over how they use user body data

• The new law could pave the way for other states: The Neurorights Foundation, which lobbied for this bill, is currently in conversations with representatives from Florida, New York, and Texas

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KEY STORY

Hurricane Milton Intensifies

Hurricane Milton intensified to a Category 5 on Monday (before being downgraded to a Category 4 on Tuesday) and is expected to make landfall as a strong Category 3 in Florida's Tampa area on Wednesday night

• Just ten days ago, Hurricane Helene sent a storm surge into Tampa Bay of up to seven feet. 12 people in the area died and workers are still cleaning up the damage

• Now, after intensifying at record speed, Hurricane Milton threatens Tampa Bay with its first direct hit in more than a century

• Evacuation orders are underway for the Tampa metro area, which has 3.3M people. Forecasts project a storm surge of 8-12 feet in the Tampa area

Dig Deeper

• A 2015 report found that 50% of homes in the Tampa area are at a ground elevation of under 10 feet

• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said, "At the strength [Hurricane Milton] is now, this is a really, really strong storm. The effects of that, not just from the storm surge but from wind damage and debris, will be really, really significant"

KEY STORY

More Time At Home

A Princeton University analysis of US census data found people are spending significantly more time at home

• Per the study, US adults are spending 1 hour and 39 minutes more at home per day than they did in 2003. The trend started before the C-19, with time at home increasing by about 2 min. per day each year from 2003 to 2019 before a massive jump in 2020

• While there has been an increase in the amount of time people spend at home with family, most of the jump came from of time spent alone: For each addl. hour people spent at home, 7 minutes came from family time while 21 came from time alone

Dig Deeper

• The trend is most notable in 15- to 34-year-olds, who now spend two more hours per day at home than in 2003

• “If you live in a culture that doesn’t value connection, and I mean meaningful connection… [then] what’s the point of leaving the house,” one NYU professor told the NYT

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🇺🇸 The US Supreme Court began its new term, which runs until June 2025. Cases on the docket include ones about the legality of “ghost guns,” state laws banning transgender surgeries on minors, and Mexico’s ability to sue US gun manufacturers

📲 A federal judge ordered that Google allow the creation of independent app stores on Android

👨🏻‍⚖️ A Russian court sentenced a 72-year-old American citizen to jail for seven years for fighting on behalf of Ukraine

🇮🇱 Israel held events to mark one year since the October 7 attack. The war in Gaza is also marking its one-year anniversary

🧬 The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2024 was awarded to a pair of researchers who discovered microRNA

COMMUNITY

🧐 Yesterday’s question: What’s a time your community has come together in an inspiring way?

🧠 Today’s question: What are more likely to exist: Ghosts or aliens?

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

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

✉️ Better late than never: A 70-year-old UK woman applied in 1976 to be a motorcycle stunt rider, her dream job. Last week, her application was returned to her with a note that read, “Late delivery by Staines Post Office”

🌲 Detroit is so back: An organization has begun planting a giant sequoia forest in Detroit. The group says that within 25 years, the trees will be up to 80 feet tall with trunks so girthy you can’t wrap your arms around them

🥖 Don’t carboload the geese! Park authorities in Portland, Maine, warned people against feeding the geese excessive carbs and protein. Too much of those can make it hard for them to migrate south during winter

🍕 …And don’t feed the homeless! A court in Tempe, Arizona, banned a man from visiting city parks after he continued feeding a group of homeless people there despite orders not to

🧹 Leave my chores alone: A British man admitted to breaking into a woman’s home and doing her chores, including hanging her laundry to dry, refilling the bird feeders, mopping the floors, and putting away groceries

ROCA WRAP

The Newest Filing

Hot Topic 

One of the most contentious topics in the news cycle is Donald Trump’s alleged effort to overturn the 2020 election result. Today, we provide the newest details released about it.

The federal case against Trump over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election result has effectively been on hold since the spring, when Trump’s lawyers claimed he should have presidential immunity. This summer, the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have immunity for official acts committed while in office.

Last week, a new filing was released that contained the government’s reasoning for why Trump shouldn’t have immunity for his efforts to overturn the election result.

“Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one,” it concluded. It based that on the claim that Trump was “acting in his capacity as a candidate for re-election, not in his capacity as president.”

The filing rehashes much of what was already known but includes some new details.

Pre-Election

Beginning in July 2020, Trump said that mail-in voting would rig the election.

"With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” he wrote. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???"

"[T]he only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged, remember that,” he said at a campaign rally in August 2020.

Three days before the election, one co-conspirator, apparently Trump adviser Steve Bannon, said, “What Trump’s going to do is just declare victory …That doesn’t mean he’s the winner, he’s just going to say he’s the winner.” Bannon then noted that Biden supporters preferred voting by mail and said, “Trump's going to take advantage of it – that's our strategy. He's going to declare himself a winner."

Election

The filing then details how Trump’s lead dissipated as votes were counted in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia. Trump’s team launched legal challenges, but none were successful. One unnamed Trump campaign official told Trump that “if the Campaign took these claims to court, they would get slaughtered, because the claims are all ‘bullshit.’”

Former Vice President Mike Pence similarly told Trump that he had seen no evidence of material fraud and suggested he accept defeat and run again in 2024. Trump was quoted as saying around this time, "It doesn't matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”

Post-Election

In the following weeks, Republicans split between those who rejected the fraud allegations and those who supported them. The latter pressured the swing state officials not to certify their election results. Much of the pressure was directed by Trump at Georgia’s Republican governor and secretary of state. During this period, one Trump staffer noted, “You can see why we're 0-32 on our cases. I'll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it's tough to own any of this when it's all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership."

As the legal challenges failed, Trump told Pence not to certify the results. When Pence refused, Trump told him that “hundreds of thousands” of people “are gonna hate your guts” and “people are gonna think you're stupid.” Hours later, Trump tweeted, “The BIG Protest Rally in Washington, D.C., will take place at 11.00 A.M. on January 6th. Locational details to follow. StopTheSteal!"

Within the Trump camp, pressure mounted on Pence and attention focused on January 6, the day Pence was to certify the results.

January 6

On January 5, Steve Bannon said, "All Hell is going to break loose tomorrow."

Trump tweeted through that night and the morning of January 6 to pressure Pence not to certify the election: “All Mike Pence has to do is send them back to the States, AND WE WIN. Do it, Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!" said one representative tweet on the morning of January 6. Minutes before the rally, Trump called and pressured Pence one last time. During that call, Pence reiterated that he lacked the authority to do what Trump wanted.

Speaking near the White House on January 6, Trump restated his fraud claims and said, “[W]e will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen.” He then added, “We're going to walk down to the Capitol.”

At 2:13 PM, rioters broke into the Capitol. At 2:24 PM, Trump tweeted, “Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

The riot delayed the certification of the results, however, at 3:41 AM on January 7, Pence certified the results of the 2020 presidential election, verifying Joe Biden’s victory.

Response

Trump has characterized the timing of the brief’s release as election interference.

“They should have never allowed the information to be – to come before the public,” he said, calling it a “hit job” and “egregious PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT.”

It “should not have been released right before the Election,” he added.

We anticipate significant hate mail for publishing this, but it’s news. We just give you the information so you can form your own opinions.

ROCA VIDEO
Have Cars Destroyed Cities?

In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, which created 60,000 miles of new roads – enough to wrap around the Earth two and a half times. This act revolutionized America: It created cities, changed culture, and invented suburbia as we know it today.

America's car-centric culture has had its pros and cons. This video explores both sides of it, seeking to answer the question: Have Cars DESTROYED Cities?

Make sure to subscribe to the channel!

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Incredible stories on your communities coming together! We wish we could feature more, but there’s already so much…

Have a great Tuesday. And no spreading rumors about Mrs. O’Leary’s cows.

–Max and Max