🌊 U-F-NO! Astronaut Stranded in Space

Yesterday was Roca’s 4-year anniversary.

And all we can say is thank you. Quitting our jobs to pursue our mission of delivering nonpartisan news to the millions of people who no longer trust the news was the best decision we ever made. But without you all, we’d probably be munching on Funyuns and watching reruns of the Olympic Australian breakdancer Raygun in our parents’ basements. So thank you for your support and belief in our mission. Here’s to many more years!

–Max, Max, and Owen

KEY STORY

RFK Drops Out

RFK Jr. ended his independent campaign and endorsed Donald Trump

• In a Friday speech, RFK accused the Democrats of “weaponizing the government agencies…abandoning democracy…suing the opposition… [and] disenfranchising American voters”

• “What alarms me is the resort to censorship, media control, and weaponization of the federal agencies,” he said, comparing the current government-media relationship to that in Russia

• RFK then said that Trump shares his concerns about ending the war in Ukraine (“This alone would justify my support for his campaign”), improving public health, and defending free speech, and urged his supporters to vote for Trump

Dig Deeper

• Hours later, Trump brought RFK out at an Arizona rally

• “One of the issues that [Trump] talked about was having safe food and ending the chronic disease epidemic,” RFK said

• “Don’t you want healthy children? And don’t you want the chemicals out of our food? And don’t you want the regulatory agencies to be free from corporate corruption? And that’s what President Trump told me that he wanted”

KEY STORY

Stranded in Space – Until 2025

NASA announced that the two astronauts stuck at the International Space Station will be there until 2025

• On June 5, the astronauts were brought to the ISS on the long-delayed maiden voyage of Boeing’s Starliner. While their stay was supposed to last eight days, issues with the Starliner have prevented the astronauts’ return. Boeing has said it can bring them back, but NASA expressed skepticism

• On Saturday, NASA announced that it now expects the astronauts to return in February 2025. It will employ a SpaceX, not Boeing, spacecraft for the return mission

Dig Deeper

• The announcement – on the pair’s 80th day in space – is a blow for Boeing and a win for SpaceX

• While NASA’s leader said he is “100 percent” certain that Boeing’s Starliner will bring astronauts to space again in the future, NASA considered a Boeing return mission to be riskier than a SpaceX one, hence the decision

ROCA’S PARTNERS

Get Priceless Financial Advice

Together with Money Pickle

• Money management presents many options: Save or invest, build a retirement pot, or optimize for taxes. But too many options make it impossible to choose – and in today’s changing markets, every missed opportunity could set you back

• Money Pickle fixes this: You can talk to their trusted financial advisors from the comfort of your own home and get personalized advice on investments, retirement, and financial goals

• Here’s how it works: Schedule a free online meeting, and you’ll get matched with a vetted, unbiased advisor who aligns with your personal goals

• They’ll talk you through the advisor process, give you their professional opinion, discuss services that might benefit you – and, of course, cover the cost of the call

• So, if you’re based in the US and want an advisor’s bespoke advice on your financial goals, you can start for free with Money Pickle

• Find out more here!

KEY STORY

IS Attack in Germany

Islamic State declared responsibility for an attack that killed three people in Germany

• The attack targeted a festival celebrating the 650th anniversary of the founding of a German town. The assailant stabbed 11 people, leaving three dead and six with life-threatening injuries

• Islamic State declared responsibility, writing that the attacker “carried out the attack in revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere”

• Authorities arrested three people, including the alleged attacker, who had stayed at a refugee shelter; a 15-year-old accused of knowing about the attack; and another man

Dig Deeper

• The attack comes with IS resurgent in Iraq, Syria, and Central Asia

• Earlier this month, a US-allied Syrian Kurdish general told the Wall Street Journal, “This year has been the worst year since we defeated Islamic State,” adding that IS is recruiting from camps in the Iraq-Syria border region, where many former IS members and their families are living

KEY STORY

Israel + Lebanon Exchange Fire

Israel and Hezbollah had their largest exchange of rocket fire since a 2006 war

• On Sunday morning, after meeting with the US and observing Hezbollah preparing to launch rocket attacks at Israel, Israel bombed dozens of rocket-launch sites across Lebanon

• Hours later, Hezbollah retaliated with a barrage of drones and 300+ rockets that targeted 11 military sites in northern Israel

• Neither side’s attacks caused significant casualties, with one reported injured in Israel and three militants reported killed in Lebanon

Dig Deeper

• Hezbollah said its strikes were retaliation for Israel’s killing of the group’s military commander last month

• The situation could give both sides the ability to de-escalate, defusing weeks of sky-high tensions, or could lead to further attacks

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

💰 Fed Chairman Jerome Powell gave his strongest indication yet that the Federal Reserve will cut rates next month

🛥️ Italy opened a manslaughter investigation into the yacht sinking that killed UK tech billionaire Mike Lynch

⛽ The EU warned of a “severe ecological disaster” in the Red Sea after Yemen’s Houthi militia struck an oil tanker carrying 150,000 tons of crude oil

🎤 Following the Democrats’ headline-grabbing convention, Donald Trump announced a series of speeches and rallies across the Midwest

🚔 Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France

COMMUNITY

🧠 Today’s question: What about the fall are you most excited for?

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

⚾️ Baseball’s “Mona Lisa”: The jersey that baseball legend Babe Ruth wore when he “called his shot” before hitting a home run in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series sold for $24.12M, setting a new record for the most expensive sports collectible

📩 Snail mail (Wales’ version): A postcard that was sent 121 years ago finally arrived at its destination in Wales. The card dates back to 1903 but never reached its intended recipient

🧃 Baby won’t stop wining: A Japanese restaurant in California mistakenly served alcohol instead of apple juice to a two-year-old girl, leading to an emergency room visit

💸 Revenge = Priceless: A woman at a Louis Vuitton outlet in China reportedly made staff count $110K in cash for two hours, only to leave empty-handed as part of a revenge plot over a previous encounter

🫂 And after all… you’re my brother: Liam Gallagher, lead vocalist of the legendary Britpop band Oasis, may be reuniting with his brother and former bandmate, Noel

ROCA WRAP

Monday Morning Madness

We hope you had a nice weekend. Today, we have five quirky stories to spice up your Monday mornings. 

Till Fraud Do Us Part

A 39-year-old Kentucky man was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for hacking into a state database to fake his death and avoid paying child support.

In January 2023, he accessed the Hawaii Death Registry System, created a false death record, and completed a state death certificate worksheet, assigning himself as the medical certifier and using a doctor’s digital signature to certify his death. This fraudulent entry registered him as deceased in multiple government databases. He was also found to have sold access to various systems and databases to other cybercriminals on the dark web. 

He admitted to these crimes to avoid paying over $100,000 in outstanding child support. He received an 81-month sentence for computer fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Atlas Goes Beast Mode

Boston Dynamics’ latest version of its humanoid robot, Atlas, showcased a new ability to perform push-ups.

The company launched Atlas in April. It teased this upgrade in a short video during a recent conference and later on its official YouTube channel. The robot uses real-time perception with depth sensors to generate point clouds of its environment, allowing it to perform push-ups that mimic human movement.

“Atlas demonstrates our efforts to develop the next generation of robots with the mobility, perception, and intelligence needed to be commonplace in our lives,” Boston Dynamics stated.

Mega Mishap

Lionsgate pulled the new trailer for Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” after internet users discovered that quotes in it were fabricated.

Lionsgate – the movie’s US distributor – is planning a theatrical release for September 27. Coppola is personally financing the $100M+ production and marketing of the film, which has received many negative reviews. 

The trailer attempted to downplay criticisms of the film by showcasing negative reviews of Coppola classics like “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now.” However, fans noticed that many of the quotes attributed to critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert weren’t from their official reviews.

“We offer our sincere apologies to the critics involved and to Francis Ford Coppola and American Zoetrope for this inexcusable error in our vetting process. We screwed up. We are sorry,” a Lionsgate spokesman said.

Back That Seat Up

Rapper Juvenile stormed off an American Airlines flight after a heated exchange with flight attendants who attempted to move him from his first-class seat to economy.

The incident occurred on Wednesday during his New Orleans to Dallas flight. Juvenile – known for his hits like “Back That Azz Up” and “Slow Motion” – took to Instagram Live to share the clash with his followers. He claimed the crew asked him to switch to economy, but he refused and chose to leave the flight, stating, “I’m a celebrity. I’m telling you this is going to be repercussions.” His wife reportedly wasn’t asked to change seats and questioned her husband’s downgrade, to which the airline explained that the incident resulted from an unplanned aircraft change.

“F*ck American Airlines,” Juvenile said in another video. “They gonna try and put me in coach. Motherf*cker, I ain’t never flew coach. F*ck y’all. I feel played.”

Charlie’s Great Escape

Charlie, the last elephant in South Africa’s national zoo, was released back into the wild after 40 years in captivity.

Captured in 1984 from Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park at two years old, Charlie was taken to a South African circus and trained to perform tricks. In the early 2000s, he was transferred to the national zoo.

In recent years, animal welfare groups advocated for Charlie’s release due to concerns about his health, particularly signs of distress common in captive animals (the zoo called those claims “inaccurate”). But on Tuesday, a group announced that Charlie had arrived at his new home in a private reserve after a “nail-biting four-hour trip to freedom.”

ROCA VIDEO

Will Pro-Palestine Liberals Vote for Kamala?

On Wednesday, we visited a pro-Palestine rally in Chicago's Union Park. Tens of thousands of people gathered there to protest the Democrats' Israel-Palestine policy and march toward the United Center, where the DNC was taking place. In order to better understand these voters' frustrations, we asked them what their message was to the Democrats and who they plan to vote for.

Make sure to subscribe to the channel! 

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Today we head to Michigan for the next leg of our election year swing state tour. We will be traveling to Flint, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and northern Michigan. Collectively, we’ve spent little time in the state aside from a few trips to Lake Michigan and the University of Michigan campus, so we’re excited to explore. Pure Michigan, here we come!

–Max and Max