🌊 Chess 2 Before GTA VI

North Carolina’s sexiest collard farmer.

John Krasinski, step aside. There’s a new sexiest man in town, and this guy knows how to harvest a crop. North Carolina’s “sexiest collard farmer” contest is underway, and there’s already some drama brewing. The way it works is each contestant must submit a picture and then the people will vote on the sexiest collard farmer by liking their photos. The problem is that one of the contestants submitted a photo that may have violated Facebook’s guidelines for nudity. The contest’s judges decided not to post it, and the guy is not happy about it. We would share the picture, but this is a kids’ newsletter. And, to be candid, no adult should have to see it either.

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

Misinformation-Ception

A Stanford “disinformation expert” appears to have made up his sources while testifying under oath

• Free speech concerns have landed a Minnesota law banning political deepfakes in federal court

• Amid the legal battle, Minnesota’s government paid Prof. Jeff Hancock – who is “well-known for his research on how people use deception with technology,” per his bio – $600 an hour to testify in support of the state

• Hancock’s testimony cited 15 academic papers regarding misinformation. Yet it has since been revealed that two of the papers appear to have been made up, apparently produced by AI hallucination

Dig Deeper

• For example, Hancock’s testimony says that one paper – “The Influence of Deepfake Videos on Political Attitudes and Behavior” – was published in the Journal of Information Technology & Politics in 2023, however, there is no record of that paper’s existence

• The lawyers challenging the law wrote that the errors call “the entire [testimony] into question"

KEY STORY

Tourist Tragedy

A poisoning has killed six tourists in Laos and several more fighting for their lives

• Laos, a poor country between Vietnam and Thailand, is popular among backpackers in Southeast Asia, known for its parties and stunning landscapes

• Last week, six tourists – from the UK, US, Denmark, and Australia – died in Vang Vieng, a town famous for parties in tubes on a river. It’s unclear whether the poisonings were intentional or accidental

• Laotian police have since arrested the owner of the hostel where the victims stayed, while Western governments updated their travel advice for Laos

Dig Deeper

• Five of the victims were young women, while the American was a 57-year-old man

• Numerous arrests have been made and the hostel where the drinks were served shut down, however, reports indicate the tourist business is continuing to boom in Vang Vieng

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KEY STORY

Chess 2

The world’s chess championship begins today, but will be overshadowed by the absence of the GOAT

• Magnus Carlson – the highest-rated chess player of all time and 5-time world title winner – will not play

• He instead dropped a series of promos for his startup, FreeStyle Chess. The co. will host Fischer Random Chess (FRC) tournaments. Popularized by the late US champion Bobby Fischer, FRC randomizes the back row pieces. Such randomness allows for more innovative play as opposed to using memorized lines

• Chess’ popularity has quadrupled since January 2020: 1 in 10 Americans now have Chess.com accounts

Dig Deeper

• Freestyle Chess has raised $12M from venture capital investors and 25 of the world's top players have already committed to play in its tournaments. It counters new technology that has helped humans create established chess “lines,” or sets of moves that are the objective best options

• FRC, by contrast, creates 960 possible combinations along the back row, as opposed to just one in classical chess. Its randomness lets players showcase more real-time strategic skills as opposed to these memorized sequences

KEY STORY

NYPD Turns Hispanic

In the New York Police Department (NYPD), there are more Hispanics in the rank of police officer than any other demographic group

• The NYPD is the largest city police force in the US. It employs more than 40,000 people, making it bigger than the FBI, too

• Per the latest breakdown of all cops on the force, 35.9% of police officers – the initial rank when becoming a cop – are Hispanic. Only 33.5% are white

• The shift comes 20 years after NYC paid $91M to settle a discrimination lawsuit by the Latino Officers Association

Dig Deeper

• The demographics of the NYPD are moving more in the direction of the city's demographic breakdown in general: Of NYC's 8.4M people, whites comprise 31.2% of the population, Hispanics 29%, Blacks 23.1% and Asians 14.5%

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🚙 California Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans for new electric vehicle rebates if the Trump administration eliminates the federal $7,500 tax credit, a sign of how he plans to counter Republican leadership in Washington

🇺🇿 Three Uzbek nationals were arrested in connection to the murder of Zvi Kogan, a prominent Israeli rabbi killed in Abu Dhabi

🇮🇱 Israel's security cabinet is set to discuss a cease-fire agreement that could end fighting with Hezbollah

🇺🇸 Ryan Kobayashi, father of missing Hawaii woman Hannah Kobayashi, was found dead in Los Angeles after he went in search of his daughter

🇺🇸 The Blue Man Group announced it would end its runs in Chicago and New York City, the latter after 33 years

COMMUNITY

🧐 Yesterday’s question: What’s the most addicting, bingeworthy TV show you’ve ever watched?

🧠 Today’s question: Give us your top three food/drink staples of Thanksgiving. This is a HARD three limit…

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

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🏥 Too Much Hair Is Bad for the Gut: A 16-year-old girl had a 2.5-inch hairball removed from her stomach at a Massachusetts hospital

🚔 Liam Payne's Fatal Fall: New reports indicate that former One Direction star Liam Payne may have tried to escape his hotel room shortly before his fatal fall from a hotel balcony in Argentina

🇺🇸 How To Kill Friends and Influence People: Texas influencer Ashley Grayson was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempting to hire someone to murder three individuals, including a business rival and online critic

🇲🇽 Ain’t That a Kick in the Head: A viral video from a pickleball tournament in Mexico shows a player kicking an opponent in the head after losing a match. The incident occurred after championship point, leading to widespread condemnation of the behavior

🇬🇧 Mind Your Own Jizzness: A UK Covid vaccination worker, Jordan Fitzpatrick, was charged after admitting to ejaculating in his boss's beard balm following an argument

ROCA WRAP

Camp City

Halifax, Canada

This city is letting homeless people camp legally instead of evicting them.

A coastal city of 518,000 people, Halifax has seen its homeless population surge from 18 people sleeping rough in 2018 to over 200 today. Causes of the spike are debated, with people placing blame on everything from drug use to soaring rents and the fact that no new public housing has been built there since 1995.

Many North American cities facing the same problems have reacted by banning homeless encampments. Halifax, though, has taken a different approach: The city has designated nine sites where people can legally pitch tents and where portable toilets and weekly outreach services are provided. Already, though, some of these sites are over their proposed twelve-tent capacity limit – and not everyone is happy that they exist.

While some residents consider the encampment dwellers their neighbors, others say the policy is bringing crime, drug use, and other nuisances to their areas. Even encampment residents are divided, with some telling local media that they appreciate not facing constant eviction, while others argue that resources should go toward permanent housing instead of supporting tent cities.

The sustainability of the program is also in doubt as the harsh Canadian winter approaches. The city’s need to conduct snow clearing operations has already led to the de-designation of some camp sites, while cold temperatures have led to the relocation of some residents to indoor shelters. 

Halifax is trying out a new solution to homelessness, but will it work?

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Quick housekeeping note: We will publish newsletters tomorrow and Friday but will be off Thursday. Friday’s will be a special-edition newsletter, so we hope you enjoy it.

We have much to be grateful for this year. You all have made Roca into something great and far beyond what we could’ve hoped it would be. Thank you, thank you, thank you. See you tomorrow.

–Max and Max