🌊 Love Is A Full-Time Job

Before writing the intro, we always check the holiday calendar.

Usually the “holidays” listed for a given day are super obscure and — as much as we’d like to be the first to wish you a happy National Maple Syrup Day — we ignore them. But today is Wright Brothers Day, and we would like to acknowledge them. A century ago, two brothers insisted that it was possible to fly...

... and as you can see, they were Wright.

–Max and Max

KEY STORY

Love: A Full-Time Job

The US government ruled that Netflix’s Love is Blind participants should be classified as employees, not contractors

• The hit reality show – which features contestants going on blind speed dates before traveling, moving in with, and marrying their romantic matches – requires a 24/7 commitment from its stars and can take over a month

• The ruling comes months after Netflix paid $1.4M to contestants to settle a lawsuit accusing the company of paying reality contestants below minimum wage

• The government’s decision could have far-reaching consequences for reality shows and even spark reality show unionization, analysts say

Dig Deeper

• The show seeks to find out if "love is truly blind" by putting 30 men and women in "pods" where they can't see the person they're dating. They have to decide whether or not they'll marry the person based on a week of literally blind dates

• The government’s decision could have far-reaching consequences for reality shows and even spark reality show unionization, analysts say. Last year, Bethenny Frankel – former cast member on The Real Housewives of New York City – spoke out about the need for unionization among reality show contestants

KEY STORY

January 6 Battle

Democrats and Republicans are drawing different conclusions from the newly-released January 6 report

• The report – issued by the Justice Department’s (DoJ’s) monitoring body – found that no FBI agents were present at the Capitol Riot, but 26 FBI informants were. The report says the FBI knew five of them would be at the protest, including three it had sent to monitor domestic terrorism suspects

• The right said those findings prove their claims that the FBI provoked the capitol storming; the left said they prove their claims that the FBI did not provoke the capitol storming

Dig Deeper

• Vice President-Elect JD Vance posted on X, “For those keeping score at home, this was labeled a dangerous conspiracy theory months ago”

• Meanwhile, an AP fact check deemed the Republican claims “False”: “The report found that no undercover FBI employees were at the riot on Jan. 6 and that none of the bureau’s informants were authorized to participate”

ROCA’S SPONSOR

A Green Concrete-Based Tech Company

Together With Aquipor

One of the coolest startups we’ve come across at Roca is AquiPor, a company that is solving the problem of urban flooding

• Traditional concrete doesn’t absorb water – that’s why raining often causes cities to flood

• AquiPor has solved that by creating porous concrete that captures stormwater where it falls. It then filters that water and allows it to naturally return to the ground

• Based in the Pacific NW, AquiPor’s patented distributed water system is game-changing in scope and potential – especially given the US’ massive $380 billion investments  in making cities more resilient to climate change

• AquiPor is currently fundraising. You can learn more and invest at this link

KEY STORY

Goodbye Government-Funded Media?

Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced the “No Propaganda Act”

• The proposal would end government funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) over alleged liberal bias in funded outlets’ coverage. The CPB partially funds NPR, PBS, and ~1,500 local stations

• While CPB’s direct contributions to NPR are small, CPB helps fund hundreds of NPR’s member organizations. They in turn may member fees that account for 40% of NPR’s revenue

• While previous attempts to cut CPB funding have failed, Musk’s DOGE and Trump’s disapproval of the CPB may create the perfect storm for its opponents

Dig Deeper

• NPR and PBS have struggled in recent years: NPR averaged 42M radio listeners a week this year, down from 60M in 2020, while PBS has a negligible number of people under 50 watching its primetime programming

• In case you were curious, Senator Kennedy is not related to President Kennedy or RFK Jr.

KEY STORY

The Spy Who Fooled Andrew?

The UK’s Prince Andrew is facing scrutiny over his ties to an alleged Chinese spy

• On Monday, the UK government revealed that Chinese businessman Yang Tengbo was accused of cultivating ties with Andrew to influence British elites on behalf of China. Tengbo denies these claims

• A senior advisor to Prince Andrew once wrote that “outside of [the prince’s] closest internal confidants, [Yang sits] at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on”

• Per the BBC, King Charles has been briefed on the matter and Prince Andrew will not be joining the Royal Family for Christmas

Dig Deeper

• Yang Tengbo first arrived in the UK in 2002. He earned a master's degree from the University of York and founded a “travel services” business in the UK in 2005

• Prince Andrew claims to have “ceased all contact” with the businessman. His office stated that “nothing of a sensitive nature was ever discussed” between them

• Prince Andrew was once second in line to the throne until Queen Elizabeth II stripped him of his royal duties over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and and sexual assault allegations against him

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

🌀 1,000+ people are feared dead after a cyclone hit the French territory of Mayotte, located between mainland Africa and Madagascar

💰 Japanese tech mogul Masayoshi Son appeared alongside President-elect Donald Trump to announce that his company, SoftBank, plans to invest $100B in the US during Trump’s next term

🇨🇦 Canada's Finance Minister resigned, citing disagreements with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over how to respond to Trump's threat of 25% tariffs on Canadian goods

🇩🇪 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a no-confidence vote, ending his government and setting the stage for February 23 elections

🇸🇾 In his first statement since departing Syria, former ruler Bashar al-Assad said he fled the country at Russia’s insistence

🔫 A teacher and teenage student were killed and six students injured during a shooting at a private Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin

COMMUNITY

🧐 Yesterday’s question: Who would you have chosen as Person of the Year?

🧠 Today’s question: What do you think is the explanation for the mass drone sightings in New Jersey?

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

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

⚖️ Not So Shocking News: This Texas man was sentenced to 100 years in prison for his role in a Thanksgiving multi-state shootout that left one person dead

🇺🇸 “It’s Not You, It’s Your Morals”: A Washington, DC waitress was fired for refusing to serve Republicans. She said, “It’s not, ‘Oh, we hate Republicans’. It’s that this person has moral convictions that are strongly opposed to mine, and I don’t feel comfortable serving them”

🇵🇹 Remote Control: The chair of Edmonton's police commission announced plans to serve the final two years of his board term from Portugal

👮‍♂️ Strip Search Gone Wrong: Two on-duty Auckland, New Zealand, police officers are under investigation after security footage showed them taking turns performing on a stripper pole inside a private residence

👀 Eye-Ronic Art: The city of Bend, Oregon has asked residents to stop putting googly eyes on public sculptures, citing mounting costs to carefully remove the adhesive without damaging the art

ROCA WRAP

Word Man

Nigel Richards rarely talks and doesn’t read books. He didn’t go to college and isn’t a writer.

But at one thing, he is the best: Words.

Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 1967, Richards didn’t play his first Scrabble game until he was 28 and his mom suggested he might enjoy the game, given his mathematical mind and photographic memory. An industrial technician at the time, he was about to become the greatest Scrabbler in history.

Two years later, in 1997, he cycled 220 miles (350 km) from Christchurch to the city of Dunedin, where he won the New Zealand title on his first attempt. Upon victory, he cycled home again.

What happened next became Scrabble legend: From New Zealand, he became a world champion, racking up titles around the world. In 2008, he became the first player to hold the US and British titles simultaneously, a task that required him to “forget” 40,000 British English words.

Then in 2015, he did something never seen before: He won the French-language Scrabble World Championship despite not speaking a word of French. He did it after memorizing the entire French dictionary in nine weeks.

Richards’ approach to Scrabble is purely mathematical: Where others see words, he sees probability distributions and pattern recognition, enabling him to memorize entire dictionaries not by understanding the meanings of words, but by storing abstract sequences of letters in his brain.

Competitors would watch Richards in awe as he sat perfectly still, his long beard and thin frame giving him the appearance of a modern-day wizard. He rarely speaks, responding to his opponents' plays with nothing more than a nod. Between matches, while others strategized or socialized, Richards could often be found cycling around the tournament venue.

Richards pulled off his latest feat this week, winning the Spanish language Scrabble title – without speaking Spanish. Despite his stardom, Richards – now widely known as the Scrabble GOAT – remains an enigma.

He rarely gives interviews and deflects praise. When asked about his extraordinary memory, he says it’s simple: “It’s just a matter of learning the words.”

ROCA VIDEO
Investigating New Jersey’s Drone Mystery

On Sunday, we rented a car and drove to northern Jersey to interview Senator Jon Bramnick, former CIA pilot Tracy Walder, drone eyewitnesses, and other locals to get to the bottom of #DroneGate. We also visited "Ground Zero" of the drone sightings, the Round Valley Reservoir. This video stars Roca’s third founder, Billy.

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Speaking of flight, we hope you get the chance to check out the above video detailing our investigation of New Jersey’s drone mystery. It was great to spend time in New Jersey (our lawyers made us write that, fearing a defamation case after yesterday), and we look forward to more investigations like this in the future.

Have a great Tuesday and congrats to all of our “Love Is Blind” contestant readers!

–Max and Max