🌊 New Planet Type Just Dropped
Plus: Teens sue xAI, Susie Wiles' cancer, & a male sex toy heist
Happy St. Patrick’s Day.
If you see any typos this morning, just know that I’m half Irish and it’s really hard to work with “Shipping Up to Boston” blasting on full volume. In all seriousness, whether your drink of choice today is a shamrock shake or a Guinness (preferably after the Tuesday morning stand-up), we wish you a happy St. Patrick’s Day. ☘️🇮🇪
🪐 New planetary category
😳 Teens sue xAI for deepfakes
🚔 Male sex toy heist
– Max and Max
New Planet Category Identified
Astronomers have identified a planet 35 light-years away that may belong to a new category of planets.
Scientists have long sorted small planets into two types: Rocky gas dwarfs with hydrogen-heavy atmospheres, or water-rich ocean worlds. L 98-59 d fits neither.
Using computer models to reconstruct nearly 5B years of the planet’s history, researchers found that the planet’s interior is a deep magma ocean that locks away vast amounts of sulfur, which slowly leaks into the atmosphere as hydrogen sulfide.
The findings suggest the diversity of planets in the galaxy may be broader than previously thought.
Europe Rebuffs Trump on Hormuz
Major US allies rebuffed President Trump’s call for military help in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump had called on allies to deploy ships to help open the strait – the closure of which has pushed oil prices up 45%. Trump warned that a failure to help would be “very bad for the future of NATO.”
Germany, Spain, and Italy ruled out any immediate military mission, with Germany’s defence minister saying, “What does Donald Trump expect from a handful of European frigates in the Strait of Hormuz that the mighty US navy cannot manage alone?”
British PM Keir Starmer said any deployment needs a legal basis and “as many partners as possible.”
Teens Sue xAI
A group of teenagers sued xAI, alleging Grok was used to generate sexually explicit images of them without their consent.
In recent months, Grok drew scrutiny after allowing users to alter photos of real people to make them appear nude or sexually explicit.
On Monday, three teenagers from Tennessee filed the first suit by alleged minor victims, claiming a single perpetrator used Grok to create explicit images of more than 18 girls.
A suspect was arrested in December, while Musk said in January that he was “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.”
Bovino Set to Retire
Greg Bovino, the former head of the US Border Patrol’s enforcement operations, announced his retirement.
Bovino led high-profile immigration enforcement operations in LA, Minneapolis, Chicago, and other major cities. He was removed as Border Patrol commander in January after federal agents under his command shot and killed two US citizens in Minneapolis, and was reassigned to oversee the El Centro, California sector.
On Sunday, Bovino announced his retirement to Breitbart, confirming what two Customs and Border Protection officials had already told NBC News.
Coffee that’s GOOD for Your Gut
Together with Everyday Dose
The Roca team drinks A LOT of coffee, but we’d be lying if we said we didn’t struggle with the bloating and cramping that comes along with it.
But when Everyday Dose came onto the scene, everything changed. Their low-acid coffee contains functional mushrooms that support the gut-brain balance and aid digestion. We felt the difference right away.
Without compromising on true coffee flavor, Everyday Dose has managed to get our stomachs back in order, so our brains can focus on what’s important: Delivering you the world’s best unbiased news.
Say goodbye to morning discomfort. Try Everyday Dose today and save 44% and get Free Shipping + 5 Free Gifts. Plus, get an additional 10% OFF with code ROCANEWS!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
-Michelangelo (attributed)
Who is James Fishback?
The right-wing ideologies of Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson have been spreading like wildfire on social media, particularly among young conservative men. James Fishback — running for Florida governor — wants to bring those ideologies to life.
He wants to end immigration, claims Israel controls America, and suggests Jews are responsible for diluting the country’s Christian population.
We examine Fishback’s rise and his chances of becoming Florida’s governor in today’s deep-dive. Read it here.
Politics
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer, President Trump announced on Monday.
A federal appeals court voted 2-1 on Monday to let the Trump Administration continue deporting migrants to third countries – nations other than a deportee's home country – while litigation in the case proceeds.
The Kennedy Center’s board of trustees voted to close the institution for two years starting after an Independence Day celebration this July, approving a $257M renovation plan backed by President Trump.
Tech
Chip-making company Nvidia expects its two flagship AI chip lines to generate at least $1T in sales through the end of 2027, CEO Jensen Huang announced at the company's annual conference on Monday.
National
A wave of severe storms affected more than half the US population on Monday, forcing airlines to cancel around 4,000 flights and prompting schools and federal agencies in the mid-Atlantic to close early.
What does Roca Nation think?
🤔 Yesterday’s Question: Did you watch the Oscars last night? If so, how was it? If not, why not?
I did not. Awards shows are too long and have too much filler. With the internet, if anything truly entertaining happens, I’ll eventually see it there.
Plus, I’ve lost trust that the academy is any good at judging movies.
Rachel from Sugar Land, TX
I have nothing against the Oscars, but hanging out with friends & watching Selection Sunday & a thrilling World Baseball Classic game between the US and the Dominican Republic was a lot more fun!
Daniel from Charlottesville
No, I did not watch the Oscars. I am pregnant with my second child and raising my toddler. Not that I ever cared that much, but the older I get and the more out of touch celebrities become, I get less and less interested in anything that has to do with them. Most movies these days are typically garbage anyways. I have so many other things I’d rather be doing with my time than watching America’s delusional elite sit in a room patting themselves on the back for three hours.
Savannah from NC
🍔 Today’s Question: What is your go-to fast food order?
Reply to this email with your response!
🤑 Spud-tacular Justice: An Irish bookkeeper won $31,000 in a racial discrimination case after her British manager repeatedly shouted “potato” at her in a mocking Irish accent.
⚖️ Too Hot to Handle: A German tourist’s $100,000 lawsuit against an NYC taqueria was thrown out after he claimed the restaurant’s salsa caused him gastrointestinal distress, tongue blisters, and emotional damage.
👮🏻 A Grain of Suspicion: UK police busted a drug ring, finding £750,000 in narcotics and, for reasons unclear, 20 kilos of stolen cornflakes.
🐟 A Real Carpool: A Dutch engineer built a motion-sensing, fish-controlled car and used it to set a Guinness World Record after his goldfish Blub drove 40 feet in under a minute.
📦 Off the Rails: $250,000 worth of male sex toys were stolen from a freight train last month, somewhere between Los Angeles and Dallas.
The Failed City
From the 1950s until 1975, Lebanon was a land of optimism. Poor, young, and religiously divided, yes, but also beautiful, growing, and sophisticated. Beirut was a financial and cultural capital of the Middle East; American and European celebrities and businesspeople chose to vacation on Lebanon’s coastline. Visitors could famously ski in the morning and be on a Mediterranean beach by afternoon.
Driving up the Christian coast toward the border with Syria, we saw this optimism – and the tragedy that came next – in physical form.
As we approached Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest city, churches and Jesus statues gave way to mosques and flags – white with black text – proclaiming, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.” As we exited the highway, we passed a poster of Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Al-Qaeda leader-turned-ruler of Syria.
If before we were in Hezbollahland, and we were coming from Jesusland, we were now in Sunniland.
Lines of faded, grey high-rise towers stretched in front of us as we entered the city. If we looked to the right, we could see what looked to be dense, crumbling neighborhoods ascending the mountainside; if we looked anywhere else, it was a city of past-their-prime apartment towers. And as we drove through them, I noticed that many of the men had long beards and the women were veiled – a stark contrast with where we had come from.
Sponsored by Merlin Labs
As of 2018, 95% of commercial flights had less than 440 seconds of manual flying. Even back then, long before AI, the rest was done by autopilot.
While that data applies to commercial aircraft, the same is true for many military ones: Despite large chunks of flights being conducted without a pilot’s manual support, soldiers still have to be put in harm’s way. And outside of conflict zones, military aircraft crash far more often than commercial ones.
Merlin is seeking to change this. The company is pioneering technology that combines advanced sensors and deterministic flight control systems to safely perceive the environment and make decisions in real time.
Merlin is bringing its technology to the US military, having secured a contract to bring autonomous flying capabilities to the C-130J, one of the military’s primary transport aircraft. The system that powers this is designed to constantly improve as it flies, learning from flight data to become safer and more efficient.
Merlin is initially looking to apply this technology to cargo aircraft, but its goal is far more ambitious: The same system that flies a C-130J transport could also help pilots fly tankers, fighter jets, or other aviation platforms.
The urgency was driven home just this week: On Thursday, two American KC-135s were severely damaged during operations near Iran. One crashed in Iraq, while the other managed to land safely. The next aircraft Merlin aims to deploy its technology with is the KC-135, and it recently won a contract to do so.
The situation highlights how Merlin’s technology could change the playing field: Safer and more efficient aircraft, with fewer personnel in harm’s way. Merlin Labs is going public under the ticker MRLN on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Tuesday.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts
Last night we hit 700k subscribers on YouTube! It took us over eight months to get our first 100k but just a month and a half to get the most recent 100k. We’re on pace to hit 1M by July. Thank you to all of you who’ve checked out our videos and a special thank you to all of you who’ve appeared in one. You all make them special and give us an advantage that the legacy media don’t have.
Have a wonderful St. Patty’s Day!
–Max and Max