🌊 Where's the Beef Surge?

RIP, Richard Lewis 🐐

Richard Lewis and Larry David were born three days apart in the Brooklyn Jewish Hospital in 1947. Sixty years later, here they are in an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” arguing about whose colon was cleaner. It was one of Lewis’ 40 episodes on the show and one of their friendlier exchanges. Kudos to the nurses who had to handle both of them in the same week.

In today's edition:

And so much more!

–Max, Max, Jen, and Alex

KEY STORY

Russia’s Nuclear Criteria

Leaked files viewed by the Financial Times outlined Russia’s minimum criteria for the use of tactical nuclear weapons

• Per 29 classified Russian files viewed by the FT, Russia’s threshold for using tactical nukes is lower than publicly acknowledged

• The documents list specific scenarios in which tactical nuclear weapons could be used, such as if an enemy destroys 20% of Russia’s strategic ballistic missile submarines; three large surface warships; three airfields; or other types of military installations

• The documents were written between 2008 to 2014

Dig Deeper

• Other justifications include “containing states from using aggression,” “stopping aggression,” or if battlefield losses “would irrevocably lead to [Russia’s] failure to stop major enemy aggression”

• The files suggest that Russia had practiced scenarios in which tactical nuclear weapons could be used to repel a Chinese invasion, although those documents are dated

KEY STORY
Arab Voters Warn Biden in Primaries

~1 in 8 Michigan Democrats voted “uncommitted” during Tuesday’s primary to protest President Biden’s stance on the Gaza war

• Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes in 2020, and securing reelection may require him to win it again

• The state has a large Arab-American population – 278,000 –  that has been highly critical of the Biden administration’s policies toward Gaza. Ahead of the primary, some activists urged Arab Democrats to vote “uncommitted” to show Biden that there is enough Arab discontent to swing the state in 2024

• That initiative set a goal of 10,000 such votes. It ended up with 100,000+, or 13% of Democratic voters

Dig Deeper

• On the Republican side, Trump won 68.2% of the vote to Nikki Haley’s 26.5%, although Haley outperformed in areas with higher numbers of college-educated voters

• That exposed a long-standing issue for the Trump campaign, which lost that demographic 43% to 55% in 2020

KEY STORY
ATP Signs Saudi Deal

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund (PIF) signed a five-year “strategic partnership” with the men's professional tennis tour

• Last year, the PIF partnered with the ATP – tennis’ top pro tour – to host its Next Gen Finals for men’s under-21 players through 2027

• On Wednesday, ATP announced it had signed a five-year partnership with the PIF. Among other things, that will give the PIF naming rights over the ATP’s rankings and world number one award

• ATP’s chief executive called the deal “a major moment for tennis” and the “future of the sport”

Dig Deeper

• The PIF has invested billions into soccer, boxing, golf, Formula One, and other sports in order to diversify away from oil and change the country’s image

• Critics accuse the kingdom of “sportswashing,” or using sports to distract people from human rights abuses

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Dig Deeper

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KEY STORY

No Surge Burgers?

Amid customer blowback, Wendy’s said it will not raise menu prices during busy hours

• Earlier this month, Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner said, “Beginning as early as 2025, we will begin testing more enhanced features like dynamic pricing.” Dynamic pricing – “surge pricing” – adjusts prices based on demand

• Some customers called for a boycott while others labeled it “exploitative.” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called it “price gouging plain and simple” 

• On Wednesday, Wendy’s said it would not raise prices and that its “dynamic pricing” was misunderstood

Dig Deeper

• Beyond dynamic pricing, Wendy’s plans to invest $20M to install digital menu boards at all its US restaurants by the end of 2025

• Its CEO said the company will also implement “AI-enabled menu changes and suggestive selling,” which would allow it to proactively offer “discounts and value offers to our customers”

RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office

💰 Lawyers for Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) requested he be sentenced to between 63 to 78 months in jail, citing his autism and other health conditions. Prosecutors have requested he receive 100 years in prison

🪄 Harry Potter author JK Rowling said she was “sick of this sh*t” after media referred to a trans woman – and convicted murderer – as a “woman.” She wrote on X, “This is not a woman. These are #NotOurCrimes”

🏛️ The UK’s High Court tossed out a case in which Prince Harry demanded he receive the same level of publicly funded security as other royal family members, calling his level of protection within law

🇺🇸 Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the longest-serving Senate leader in US history, announced he will step down as minority leader in November

📈 Bitcoin surpassed $60,000 on Wednesday, passing the mark for the first time since November 2021. As of Wednesday, its price was up 39% this year

📉 Google CEO Sundar Pichai called AI chatbot Gemini’s highly-publicized gaffes “unacceptable.” The company lost $90B in market cap earlier this week, partially over concerns that its AI is losing public trust

COMMUNITY
Weekly Debate

Most news companies repress ideas they don’t agree with. We are different. To prove it, we’re making this a place where people can have a free and open debate. Each week we lay out a debate on Monday and feature responses below, replies to those the following day, and so on.

This week’s Roca Votes Wrap asks: Do you consider obesity a major issue in your country? If yes, do you find semaglutide’s popularity a helpful or harmful development?

Want to respond to those replies or have additional thoughts? Reply to this email to let us know what you think!

Find yesterday’s poll results and more replies to this week’s debate below the Wraps.

COMMUNITY
Treasure Hunt

Welcome to the weekly Roca treasure hunt! The rules are simple:

• Every day we give a hint. You get one guess, which you submit by emailing [email protected] with a Google street view screenshot

• Unlock an extra hint each Thursday once you refer five friends

• The first person to guess the answer wins this week’s prize: A free year of Roca premium!

Clue 1: Three continents strong

Clue 2: Conceived by a coward

Clue 3: 🎶 Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin' 🎶

Clue 4: One, two, someone's coming for you

Know the answer? Send the Google street view screenshot to [email protected].

POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour

🚨 Jailaholic: A Kansas City Chiefs superfan known as “Chiefsaholic” pleaded guilty to bank robbery after stealing $800,000 in 11 robberies across seven states. He faces up to 50 years in prison

🐋 Whale of a tale: Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro allegedly harassed a humpback whale, prompting a formal investigation. He admitted to approaching the whale but denied bothering it

⚔️ Are you not entertained? A New Mexico high school teacher is accused of causing a student to sustain a wrist injury requiring surgery by having them fight with swords in class

🙏 RIP, Richard Lewis: Comedian and actor Richard Lewis died at 76 from a heart attack. He rose to prominence for his his recurring role as himself in HBO’s hit show “Curb Your Enthusiasm”

🐐 Come and herd it: ~60 goats escaped into a residential neighborhood in Arlington, TX on Tuesday morning. Local police helped round up the goats

🇬🇧 Will the real James Bond please stand up? British archaeologists are seeking help to identify the author of a mysterious note from 1966 that reads, “007 James Bond… P.S. Secret agent. Don’t tell anybody”

😋 High-quality and nutrient-dense: Skout Organic proves that recipes don’t have to be complicated to be delicious. Their snacks are made with simple, whole-food ingredients - for the whole family! Order yours today and save 20% with code ROCANEWS

ON-THE-GROUND
Roca in Serbia

We send our co-founder Max Frost to investigate topics around the world and he writes about them here. He’s currently writing from Serbia. Subscribers receive the full stories.

When the fascists were defeated, Josep Broz Tito had to decide what to do next. His decision was to eliminate the “Kingdom” of Yugoslavia and replace it with the “Socialist Federal Republic” of Yugoslavia.

Tito was a committed communist. Born in 1892 in Kumrovec, Croatia, then part of Austro-Hungarian Empire, he grew up poor and lacking education. He began working for trade unions and organizing strikes at factories in Germany and Austria-Hungary. 

When World War I began, he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army and became an officer. A year into the war, he was wounded fighting the Russians and became a POW. Spending 13 months in a Russian hospital, he learned to speak the language fluently. After that, he was forced to do construction on the Trans-Siberian Railway. 

In 1917, a revolution brought down Russia’s tsar. Amid the ensuing chaos, Tito broke out of his POW camp and made his way to Petrograd (St. Petersburg), where the government was trying to prevent the Bolsheviks from seizing power. Amid a crackdown on communists, Tito was sent to a camp in Russia’s Far East – only to escape from the train and meet a 15-year-old Russian girl who hid him. He would later marry that girl and return to Yugoslavia with her. 

Back in Yugoslavia, Tito worked with the Soviet Union to spread communism in Yugoslavia. In 1937, on the eve of World War II, he was named General Secretary of the Yugoslav Communist Party. In that role, he led the communist resistance – the Partisans – in their battle against Yugoslavia’s fascists. Tito secured the support of Soviet leader Josef Stalin, in addition to the Western Allied leaders, and became a war hero. 

Unlike in many Eastern European countries, the Soviet Red Army played a limited role in liberating Yugoslavia from the fascists. That gave Tito a unique level of independence among post-war communist leaders. He used that to create his own brand of communism – “Titoism” – and rejected Stalin’s authority over him. 

The move shocked and offended the USSR, causing a rift between it and Yugoslavia that seemed like it could spiral into war. Tito alleged that Stalin repeatedly tried to have him killed, once writing him directly, “Stop sending people to kill me. We've already captured five of them, one of them with a bomb and another with a rifle…If you don't stop sending killers, I'll send one to Moscow, and I won't have to send a second.”

The feud cooled off after Stalin died in 1953. 

But Tito had broken from Soviet dominance. He proceeded to enact “Titoism,” which called for less centralized power and more individual freedom than Soviet communism. On foreign policy, he joined the “Non-Aligned Movement,” a group of countries including India, Egypt, and Indonesia, that claimed to be neither pro-US nor pro-Soviet in the Cold War. 

Tito – known for being a charming and suave diplomat – used this leverage to extract favors and money from both sides. The ensuing cash helped industrialize Yugoslavia and financed housing, education, and healthcare.

Yet while it was a “softer” communist dictatorship, it was a communist dictatorship. Dissidents were jailed and people had their careers and lives ruined for challenging the party. It was “freer” than a totalitarian state, but it was not free. 

As such, Yugoslavia was not behind the Iron Curtain. While the countries around it went rogue – Bulgaria tried to assassinate a pope, Albania became known as the “North Korea” of the Balkans, Romania forced its people to have children – Yugoslavia let its people travel internationally, was open to tourists, and had good ties with the West. In many ways, it had more in common with Greece or Italy than the countries of the Iron Curtain.

That shapes the Serb perspective today: Serbia considered itself the “heart of Europe,” the center of a prosperous and Western-looking country. Then, suddenly, it found its so-called Western friends bombing and sanctioning it. In the years since, NATO and/or the EU invited Albania, Bulgaria, and other former “pariahs” to join. But not Serbia. 

Serbs therefore felt – and feel – betrayed, as the rest of my conversations in Belgrade will show.

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

ROCA WRAP
Everything Will Be Fine

From the day the war in Ukraine began, I tried to stay in touch with Andrew and Natalya, the army engineer and nurse I had stayed with in Mariupol the prior summer.

Three days after Russia invaded, Natalya sent me a message: “I’m in Mariupol. The hospital has a lot of injured and dead, children…I’m resting three hours a day…I can’t sleep.”

She had sent her kids to her mother’s. Andrew, her boyfriend, was in a different part of Ukraine, but she didn’t know exactly where.

I arrived in Ukraine a day later, having hitchhiked to the border with a truck driver who had been bringing humanitarian supplies from Slovakia.

That driver lacked proper documentation and the Slovak authorities wouldn’t let him in, so I went knocking on car windows at the border.

Eventually, a Ukrainian man named Ivan, also bringing humanitarian supplies, offered me a ride – not just over the border, but to Khust, his village in southwestern Ukraine.

Over the following days, I watched the war play out in his community.

We were far from the front line but Russia was bombing targets across the country and no one knew how quickly Ukraine’s army might capitulate.

My first night in the village, Ivan shook me awake in the middle of the night, ranting about a nuclear disaster, “Another Chernobyl.”

It was a false alarm – he was panicking about a Russian attack on a nuclear power plant – but such was the panicked mood.

In the following days, Ivan’s home and church swelled with people fleeing the rest of Ukraine, all of whom were strangers who just happened to know someone who knew someone who knew of a place to stay in Khust.

“When the bombs were falling, when the planes were flying, when my brother said, ‘pack your bags, we are leaving,’ God was always with me,” one woman said. “We didn’t know where we were going but we were given a telephone number and ended up here. Even to just sleep three or four hours, thank you, God. For everything, thank you God.”

One night, a man named Sasha arrived at Ivan’s house with his kids and wife.

Sasha said there had been over 150 missile alerts a day and that planes had been constantly exploding overhead, sending shrapnel into his community.

Eventually, the sirens and falling metal became too much and his family packed up the car and drove 30 hours to the village, bombs striking the road in front of them as they drove.

Amid this, a Roca reader emailed me to say that his soon-to-be-adopted son was trapped at an orphanage in Chernihiv, a city at the center of the Russian offensive. Two of the three nearby schools had already bombed, the man said, and he was terrified the orphanage would be next.

I mentioned this to Sasha, who said his mom was also stuck in Chernigiv. “I’m going to pick her up, I’ll get the boy too.” Chernigiv was days away from Khust along mined roads with bombs falling from the sky, but Sasha said he would get the boy like he was going to pick up milk.

“I’m going back to Kyiv soon anyways,” he added. “I need to feed my cat.”

Three weeks later, on March 18, Natalya messaged me, “I haven’t heard from Andrew in two weeks :(.” She then sent a picture of her destroyed home: “I have no home anymore.”

Mariupol had been largely overrun, she said, and she had fled with her kids to western Ukraine.

10 days later: “Have you heard from Andrew?” “No, nothing unfortunately.” 

Then in May, two months later: “Hear anything? “No. He’s not listed in a prison. The chances that he’s alive are low. I don’t want to believe it. I simply can’t.”

She heard nothing after that.

But then last February, a video appeared on a pro-Russia Telegram page about Ukrainian prisoners of war.

In the video, dated February 22, 2023, was Andrew, appearing pale and gaunt but saying he was alive and well. It was the first time in 11 months that Natalya had seen him or heard of his situation.

It’s now been a year since that video was released.

This week, Natalya – who is serving in the army in eastern Ukraine – told me she has not been able to contact Andrew but has met other freed POWs who confirmed he was with them.

“Everything is in order with him,” she said. “He’s a confirmed POW. We’re waiting for him in the exchange queue”.

Meanwhile, the boy from Chernigiv was evacuated to America and Khust remains at peace, although still – after two years – wondering if Russian bombs will soon be falling on it.

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

ROCA WRAP
Everything Will Be Fine

From the day the war in Ukraine began, I tried to stay in touch with Andrew and Natalya, the army engineer and nurse I had stayed with in Mariupol the prior summer.

Three days after Russia invaded, Natalya sent me a message: “I’m in Mariupol. The hospital has a lot of injured and dead, children…I’m resting three hours a day…I can’t sleep.”

She had sent her kids to her mother’s. Andrew, her boyfriend, was in a different part of Ukraine but she didn’t know exactly where.

I arrived in Ukraine a day later, having hitchhiked to the border with a truck driver who had been bringing humanitarian supplies from Slovakia.

That driver lacked proper documentation and the Slovak authorities wouldn’t let him in, so I went knocking on car windows at the border.

Eventually, a Ukrainian man named Ivan, also bringing humanitarian supplies, offered me a ride – not just over the border, but to Khust, his village in southwestern Ukraine.

Over the following days, I watched the war play out in his community.

We were far from the front line but Russia was bombing targets across the country and no one knew how quickly Ukraine’s army might capitulate.

My first night in the village, Ivan shook me awake in the middle of the night, ranting about a nuclear disaster, “Another Chernobyl,”

It was a false alarm – he was panicking about a Russian attack on a nuclear power plant – but such was the panicked mood.

In the following days, Ivan’s home and church swelled with people fleeing the rest of Ukraine, all of whom were strangers who just happened to know someone who knew someone who knew of a place to stay in Khust.

“When the bombs were falling, when the planes were flying, when my brother said, ‘pack your bags, we are leaving,’ God was always with me,” one woman said. “We didn’t know where we were going but we were given a telephone number and ended up here. Even to just sleep three or four hours, thank you, God. For everything, thank you God.”

One night, a man named Sasha arrived at Ivan’s house with his kids and wife.

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

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COMMUNITY
Weekly Debate

Yesterday’s Poll:

What’s your general view of pharma companies?

Generally supportive: 13%
Generally skeptical: 72%
Mixed: 15%

EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts

Happy Leap Day Roca! If you’re looking to be today’s office know-it-all, here’s the breakdown: Earth makes one revolution around the Sun every 365.25 days. Leaps years have an extra day, February 29th, to sync calendars with Earth’s orbit. Without that extra day, our calendar would be fall out of sync by six-ish hours every year.

And one more fun fact: Our Executive Director Jen is working from France where she just discovered the world’s only four-year newspaper published exclusively on February 29 to celebrate Leap Year. The first issue was published in 1980, and Jen is reading issue 12 today.

See you tomorrow,

— Max, Max, Jen and Alex