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- 🌊 The Tractors Descend on London
🌊 The Tractors Descend on London
Plus: NYC's $10k-a-month gym, 23andMe may go bankrupt, & more...
20% of Americans get their news from influencers.
If you hear a distant tremble, it’s Walter Cronkite shaking in his grave. A new Pew Research survey finds that one in five Americans regularly get their news from influencers.
Roca Nation, there’s no time for mourning, only adapting: We just ordered two ring lights, three cases of Bang Energy, and four hours of boxing lessons at Jake Paul’s gym. Who’s ready for our first “GRWM as we take down Big News” video?
😳 23andMe may shut down
🚜 Tractors to descend on London
💪 New York City's $10k-a-month gym
–Max and Max
KEY STORY
US Missiles to Hit Russia
President Biden gave Ukraine permission to use long-range American missiles within Russia
US officials said the move was a response to the deployment of North Korean soldiers in the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukraine is expected to use the missiles in Russia’s Kursk region, which is partially under Ukrainian control and which the Russians are trying to retake
Trump officials blasted the move – one accused Biden of “launching a whole new war” – and called it reckless escalation; Biden officials said those claims were overblown
Dig Deeper
Ukraine had requested permission for months, if not years. The Biden administration had repeatedly denied it the ability to do so over fears of escalating the war with Russia
The change signifies a major shift before Trump, who has vowed to end the war, takes office
KEY STORY
23 and Troubled
23andMe warned there is "substantial doubt" over its continued survival without new funding, as the genetics-testing company reported its seventh straight quarterly revenue decline
The company's value has plunged from $5.8B in 2021 to less than $150M. After announcing a 40% workforce reduction, shares are still down more than 70% in 2024
The company has said it will halt drug development efforts and focus on genetic testing and data sales. CEO Anne Wojcicki is attempting to take the company private at 40 cents per share, down from its $10 IPO price
Dig Deeper
In September, the company’s entire board resigned in protest of Wojcicki’s plans to take the company private
23 and Me projected in 2021 it would have 2.9M paid subscribers by March 2024. Instead, it reported just 562,000 in March, down from 640,000 in 2023
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KEY STORY
AI Can Book Your Travel?
OpenAI is preparing to launch an AI “agent,” which is effectively an autonomous personal assistant
The project, codenamed “Operator,” will be able to take multi-step actions – including booking travel, managing files, and even writing code – on behalf of users with minimal human oversight
Operator will be one of many personal AI “agents.” Anthropic recently launched its own, while Google, Salesforce, and others work on theirs
Many analysts believe these agents will be the next breakthrough in the field, as AI providers experience diminishing returns on more advanced technologies
Dig Deeper
Notable companies working on agents include Juna.ai – a startup that aims to automate industrial processes to “maximize production throughput, increase energy efficiency and reduce overall emissions” – and DoNotPay, an AI startup that aims to simplify interactions with burdensome procedures like parking tickets and student loans
KEY STORY
UK Farming Protest Takes London
Thousands of farmers are expected to descend on London to protest a new farming inheritance tax
The UK's top finance minister recently announced a 20% farming inheritance attack that would apply to farms worth over £1M ($1.27M)
Prime Minister Keir Starmer's spokesman says the change will only affect 27% of farms, though some agricultural groups say the number is closer to 64%.
More than 10k farmers are expected to visit Westminster – the site of the UK Parliament – in London today to protest the tax, which is scheduled to take effect in 2026
Dig Deeper
One analysis has found that the costs of this tax could be devastating: An average 200-acre farm would face an inheritance tax liability of £435,000, which is over 15x its annual profits of £27,300
Prime Minister Keir Starmer insists he's not overlooking farmers. “We’ve put £5B in the Budget for the next two years into farming,” he said. “That is the single biggest sum of money in a Budget over a two-year period that has ever been put down in relation to farming”
RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office
✈️ Spirit Airlines filed for bankruptcy
🇨🇳 China has suffered back-to-back mass-casualty attacks. The first happened on November 11 when a 62-year-old man drove his car into a crowd, killing 35; the second happened on November 17, when a 21-year-old committed a mass stabbing at a university, killing 8+
🤖 Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping agreed not to give AI control over nuclear weapons
🇺🇸 Donald Trump appointed veteran official Brendan Carr as head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates communications and telecoms
🤼♂️ Trump has reportedly grown annoyed over two candidates’ jostling to be Treasury Secretary, which is one of the most important administration positions
🗣️ “Queen of Polling” Ann Selzer announced she is quitting polling, weeks after her “gold standard” poll undercounted Trump’s support in Iowa by 16 points
COMMUNITY
🧐 Yesterday’s question: With Thanksgiving approaching, we’re curious: Is your extended family politically diverse? Will there be a range of views at your table? Does politics divide your family?
My side of the family is so politically diverse that many have cut off a chunk of us and we just don't have Thanksgiving together anymore, let alone talk at all. My husband's side is less diverse, but it still is not a favored conversation topic because family peace matters more to them.
My family is crazy politically diverse. No two people hold the same opinion and there are people at both extremes and in the middle. You would think that they would avoid politics considering all of the differences, but it is one of our main topics. Thankfully, we can all have civil discussions about politics with no tears or heated arguments. The Turkey v. Ham debate, however, has led to major division in the family and some people even cutting each other off.
It has become more diverse it the last few years. My family works in public service (public education, public health, etc), and we usually are pretty liberal. I married into a Mexican household, which is interesting to live in. Socially they are very conservative, but politically they lean liberal. It's been a wild ride recently with them celebrating and mourning Trump's victory. My sister married into an outspoken MAGA family. Thanksgiving may become a fun time of year now!
🧠 Today’s question: Who’s the hardest person to shop for?
POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour
✈️ Bullet Points to Cancelation: A Southwest Airlines flight was canceled at Dallas Love Field airport after a bullet struck the Boeing 737-800 under the flight deck while it was preparing for departure to Indianapolis
🇺🇸 $10,000 Gym Membership: A New York City gym is charging members $10,000 per month. It promises to boost longevity
🇺🇸 Emu-Tional Escape: Two emus named Thelma and Louise have been on the loose in South Carolina for three months after hopping a fence, with their owner warning they are "feral and not trained"
🚄 Special K for a Special Guy: Two English drug dealers were arrested after leaving what police called "a hefty amount of ketamine" on a train, then asking station authorities for help tracking it down
👮 Enough Weaseling Around: A Japanese police investigation into repeated shoe theft identified the culprit as a weasel
ROCA WRAP
RFK to HHS: Good or Bad?
Roca Votes
We typically don't ask nakedly partisan questions, but RFK Jr. is no typical politician. He has staunch followers and critics on both sides of the party line.
So today we ask: Do you support the nomination of RFK to HHS?
Last Thursday, Donald Trump appointed RFK Jr. to be the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary. HHS oversees several major health agencies, including the NIH, CDC, and FDA. RFK Jr. – a lifelong Democrat who was one of the nation’s leading environmental lawyers – has accused those agencies of being “captured” by Big Pharma, meaning they are working to benefit, rather than regulate, the industry.
RFK Jr.'s supporters view him as a noble crusader against Big Pharma – the biggest spender of all corporate lobbies, spending $5.8B on lobbying between 1998 and 2023 – and Big Food, which allegedly profits off of our unhealthiness. RFK often cites chronic conditions – including obesity, allergies, infertility, and autism – as the most urgent health issues facing the country and a sign of a national health crisis.
RFK also asks questions about controversial topics.
“When I was a kid, the autism rate among American children, and in 70-year-old men today in my generation, is 1 in 10,000,” Kennedy said. “In my children's generation, it's 1 in every 34 kids, in every 22 boys.”
Kennedy alleges that at least part of this relationship is linked to some, but not all, vaccines.
RFK has also taken issue with the vaccine schedule. “Of the 72 vaccine doses now mandated... for American children, none of them – not one – has ever been subject to a pre-licensing, placebo-controlled trial,” he’s said.
He insists he's not anti-vax but anti-pharma, which he accuses of capitalizing on a “gold rush” that followed the passage of the Vaccine Act.
RFK’s critics view these stances as disqualifying, labeling him as an anti-vaxxer who doesn’t believe in modern medicine and will wreak havoc on American health institutions. Many in the medical establishment believe that vaccinations are more responsible for rising life expectancies than anything else, and that efforts to question this risk undoing decades of progress.
Some agree with RFK’s diagnoses but not his solutions. Former CDC Director Tom Frieden said, “There are some things that RFK Jr. gets right. We do have a chronic disease crisis in this country, but we need to avoid simplistic solutions and stick with the science.”
If he’s confirmed, RFK Jr.'s plans for HHS Secretary include getting rid of fluoride in US drinking water, requiring more rigorous testing for vaccines, banning hundreds of food additives and chemicals, and increasing access to psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, and more.
The decision to elevate RFK Jr. has thus been met with both across-the-aisle dismay and excitement.
Many in both parties expressed shock that a "conspiracy theorist” could be put in charge of institutions that he routinely rails against. Yet others in both parties celebrated, including Colorado’s Democratic Governor Jared Polis, who wrote on X that he was “excited for the news.”
So now we ask you: Do you support the nomination of RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary?
Let us know by replying to this email!
EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts
We noticed a pattern in our inbox yesterday with your answers to the Thanksgiving question. And that pattern is this: Almost none of you has an extended family that isn’t politically diverse. We can never lose sight of the fact that — in our hyper-polarized nation — there’s family on the other side. Our own extended families are super politically diverse. We strongly believe that nonpartisan news can help lower the temperature and make Thanksgiving dinner more enjoyable.
–Max and Max