Woah, big headline this morning: Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chairman of News Corp and Fox Corp. The 92-year-old Australian magnate announced the move in a letter to his employees. The winner of the succession battle? His son Lachlan. L Murdoch — what we’re calling him — will assume the throne to his father’s media empire. Enjoy retirement, Rupert… we’ll take it from here.

In today's edition:

• State capital sued for homelessness

• McDonald’s hit with a hot coffee lawsuit

• Person of the Week: Ian Wilmut

 🔑 Key Stories

V-Buck Refund

The ​​Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is accepting refund applications for Fortnite users who were tricked into purchasing in-app items

• US video game developer Epic Games released “Fortnite: Battle Royale” in 2017. The game itself is free, but in-app purchases cost real money

• Last year, Epic agreed to pay $245M to settle an FTC lawsuit alleging it designed its platform to trick users into buying in-app items and allow children to buy them without parental approval

• The FTC is now accepting refund applications in relation to that settlement

Dig Deeper

• Last December, Epic Games also separately settled with the FTC over a lawsuit accusing it of illegally gathering data on children under the age of 13. It agreed to pay $275M – the largest fine the FTC has ever imposed for breaking one of its rules

Sacramento Sued Over Homelessness

Sacramento’s district attorney sued the city for failing to solve its homelessness problem

• Sacramento is a city of ~500,000 people and California’s capital. As of last year, it had 9,300 homeless people, up 67% from 2019. Many of them live on the streets, where some form encampments

• Last year, Thien Ho, a Democratic candidate for district attorney of Sacramento, defeated a more progressive candidate by promising to crack down on homelessness. On Tuesday, Ho sued the city for what he called its failure to address the issue, which he said has caused the city's “utter collapse into chaos”

• Ho said the lawsuit is intended to make the city do its job; Sacramento’s mayor called it grandstanding

Dig Deeper

• “What we’re asking to do through the lawsuit is to require and force the city to do its job, to keep the streets clean and safe, to enforce the law,” Ho said

• Sacramento’s mayor said the city is trying to avoid “the futile trap of just moving people endlessly from one block to the next.” He called Ho’s lawsuit a “performative distraction” and suggested it was counterproductive

US Soldiers Drug Smuggling?

South Korean police accused 17 American soldiers of illegally importing, selling, and using synthetic marijuana in the country

• Synthetic marijuana is a class of drugs that imitate the effects of THC, marijuana’s psychoactive ingredient. All forms of it are illegal in South Korea

• On Wednesday, South Korean police accused 22 people – including 17 US soldiers – of importing, selling, or using synthetic marijuana. They said US soldiers had used the US postal system to import synthetic marijuana disguised as vape cartridges and then sell or use the drug

• The US military said it “does not condone any behaviors among its personnel that violate South Korean laws, rules or directives” and said that it “supports [South Korea’s] investigation”

Dig Deeper

• In South Korea, police submit findings to a prosecutor, who then decides whether or not to bring charges against the accused. As a result, none of the 17 soldiers have been arrested yet, although two of the civilians have. With several exceptions, South Korea has primary authority to prosecute US soldiers for crimes

Fed Holds Rates Steady

The US Federal Reserve (Fed) declined to raise interest rates on Wednesday

• The Fed is tasked with keeping inflation near 2%. It does so by raising interest rates, which it did 10 times between March 2022 and May 2023

• Inflation fell to 3% this June but rose to 3.2% in July, causing the Fed to raise rates again. It rose again in August to 3.7%. Interest rates currently sit at a 22-year high

• On Wednesday, the Fed decided not to raise interest rates this month, but said it will likely do so one more time this year and keep rates high for longer than previously expected. Stocks fell slightly on the news

Dig Deeper

• “The process of getting inflation sustainably down to 2% has a long way to go,” the Fed’s head said. The Fed also noted that it has not seen traditional signs of an economic slowdown, such as rising unemployment and decreased consumer spending

• Some called the Fed’s decision good news and said strong growth suggests the US could avoid a recession; others disagreed, arguing a recession looks likely

🍿 Popcorn

ICYMI

• Hollywood ending? The Writers Guild of America had “encouraging talks” with studio executives on Wednesday. At 143 days, the strike is closing in on the longest ever

• NFL death update: Authorities say that the man who died at a Patriots game after a rival fan punched him in the head didn’t suffer a “traumatic injury” but had a preexisting medical issue

• I’m suin’ it: An elderly woman is suing a San Francisco McDonald’s for “severe burns” caused by a hot coffee spill. She claims McDonald’s employees “failed to properly secure the lid”

Wildcard

• EUber outlook: An Uber executive has warned that the EU’s proposal to classify gig workers as employees could lead to the shutdown of its ride-hailing service in “hundreds” of EU cities

• Sh**shank Redemption: First responders pulled a Michigan woman from an outhouse toilet after she climbed into it to retrieve her Apple Watch and got stuck

• A killer mistake: A murder suspect – on the run for two years before his arrest earlier this month – was accidentally released from an Indiana jail due to a booking error

👇 What do you think?

Today's Question:

What is the weirdest thing you believed as a kid?

Reply to this email with your answers!

See yesterday's results below the Wrap! 

🌯 Roca Wrap

Ian Wilmut’s life-defining accomplishment came from a conversation he overhead at a Dublin bar.

Ian Wilmut was born on July 7, 1944 in the small English village of Hampton Lucy.

He originally wanted to join the UK’s navy, but after being deemed ineligible due to colorblindness, he found a new passion in biology. Inspired by his childhood work as a farmhand, he decided to study agriculture at the University of Nottingham. During his studies, he discovered an interest in a cutting-edge field: Animal genetics.

In 1966, Wilmut spent eight weeks working in the University of Cambridge laboratory of Christopher Polge.

Polge had pioneered cryopreservation, a process wherein biological material is frozen to preserve it for an extended period. Wilmut joined the lab for his PhD and wrote his thesis on cryopreserving boar semen. After completing his studies, Wilmut started his career at an animal research center in Cambridge, working on various projects involving animal reproductive physiology.

In the early 1970s, Wilmut moved to Scotland, where he went on to work for the Roslin Institute, a research institution specializing in animal sciences.

He worked extensively on emerging gene editing techniques. Yet his big breakthrough didn’t come until he traveled to Ireland in 1986 for a conference. While at a bar, he overheard somebody talking about how a Danish scientist had transplanted the nucleus of a fertilized egg into that of an unfertilized egg. That procedure had been successful, he overheard, and led to the birth of live animals.

Wilmut quickly grasped the implications of what he overheard: That genetic information from one animal could be moved between cells, opening the door to advanced gene editing. Furthermore, he reasoned, it implied that DNA from one animal could be successfully transplanted into that of another, allowing scientists to create genetically identical cells – clones.

At the time, scientists widely believed it was impossible to clone large mammals. Yet Wilmut and his team worked for years on doing just that. Wilmut was interested in particular in producing genetically modified farm animals, so he began experimenting with sheep cells. He and his team experimented with a process called “somatic cell nuclear transfer” (SCNT), wherein the nucleus of a mature, fully-grown (“somatic”) cell was transferred into an egg cell.

In 1995, Wilmut’s team used SCNT to successfully produce two twin Welsh sheep, named Megan and Morag, that were cloned from the same embryo.

They were the first animals to be cloned from differentiated cells – those that have matured to the point that they have a specific function – yet they weren’t fully-grown somatic cell. The breakthrough made some waves in the scientific community but went largely unreported.

Then in 1996, Wilmut’s team took on an even more ambitious task: Producing a clone from a fully-grown somatic cell.

To do so, they transplanted DNA from the somatic cells of a Finn Dorset sheep into the egg cells of a Scottish Blackface sheep. That produced 277 embryos in all, but only 13 developed enough to be implanted into a surrogate mother, and only one led to a pregnancy.

For weeks, researchers slept near the lone pregnant sheep, ready to call a veterinarian if a problem arose. But the cell developed normally, and on July 5, 1996, that sheep gave birth. They named the calf – the first mammal cloned from an adult somatic cell – Dolly, after Dolly Parton.

Dolly’s birth remained a secret until February 22, 1997, when Wilmut’s team published a paper announcing the discovery. The breakthrough became a landmark event in science – and sparked controversy.

Critics argued that it could potentially lead to human cloning, with unforeseen and possibly dangerous consequences. “Cloned Sheep in Nazi Storm,” “The Clone Rangers Need to be Stopped” and “Golly, Dolly! It’s the Abolition of Man” the headlines of some outlets read. Supporters, however, saw it as a significant breakthrough in medical research and gene editing.

Dolly was not healthy: She suffered from arthritis early on and died in 2003 at the age of six. Yet Wilmut’s discovery contributed to several medical advances that have contributed to modern medicines and medical treatments. Since Dolly, researchers have cloned deers, horses, bulls, and – in 2018 – macaque monkeys.

Wilmut admitted in 2006 that his colleague, Dr. Keith Campbell, deserved “66%” of the credit for developing Dolly, as Wilmut only supervised the project. Yet Wilmut won numerous awards and distinctions for his work, including a knighthood in 2008, although – controversially – he never won a Nobel Prize.

Last week, Wilmut died of Parkinson’s disease, at age 79. His legacy lives on in Dolly, who was donated to National Museums Scotland by the Roslin Institute, where she had been on display since 2003.

If you have thoughts, let us know at [email protected]!

 🌊 Roca Clubhouse

Yesterday's Poll:

Should the US Senate have a formal dress code?
Yes: 81%
No: 19%

Yesterday's Question:

What was the moment in which you felt most motivated?

Tracy from Virginia: “When I became a teen mom, I knew that I needed to finish my education and do well so that I could provide my child (and future children) with whatever they needed for their future. There was no greater motivation for me!"

Margo: “I have had a lifelong fascination with the concept of motivation. At one point, I even read two huge volumes - the Journals of A.H. Maslow, as he seemed to be the authority on the topic. I enjoyed his writings but they did not provide me with any of the answers I sought. I never really felt very motivated about anything in life. I always wondered how and why other people were. Instead, I just floated from one thing to the next... whatever seemed to be most interesting at the moment. And when I got bored, I just moved on to the next thing. So obviously, I'm not rich or famous. I guess I never felt like I had to prove myself to anyone else. But I have had a very good life. One that I consider to be satisfactory and quite pleasant. And if I had my life to do over again, I would live it exactly the same way. All that "motivation" out there seems very stressful"

Danielle from Michigan: “The first time I ever took pre-workout.”

Yesterday's Wrap Replies:

Yesterday’s Wrap told the story of war correspondent Marie Colvin.

Ann from Oklahoma City: “That was incredibly fascinating, thank you! Her biography (In Extremis: The Life and Death of the War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum) is now in my ThriftBooks shopping cart:D Love to hear about amazing people/writers living brave lives”

Mary-Ann: “Thank you for telling her story. I think she was born with no fear. She helped so many people all over the world, yet I never heard of her until today.”

🧠 Final Thoughts

If you need a pick me up to get you through the rest of the week, we recommend this music video, starring one of Ecuador’s most infamous drug lords… from a max security prison. It’s not clear how a camera crew was able to film him in prison, given he’s perhaps the country’s most prominent prisoner. Let alone how he managed to access the rooster that he’s petting in one of the scenes.

Happy Thursday!

—Max and Max