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June 2, 2022
Friends, Romans, Elvis Impersonators: What a day in news. From an NFT insider trading scandal to an Elvis impersonator crackdown, today's issue is jam-packed. Let us know in today's poll if you're glad the Depp trial is finally over. On that note, time for my 2nd mega-pint of coffee...
In today's edition:
- Elvis impersonator crackdown
- Treasure Hunt Clue 3
- Egypt-themed cult in Georgia
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 Key Stories
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The Presley Crackdown
The company that owns Elvis’ name and likeness is cracking down on Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas
- Elvis impersonators are a staple of the city and its $2B wedding industry in particular. A single Elvis chapel may conduct nearly 10,000 Elvis-themed weddings each year
- Vegas chapels have reported that the company that owns the rights to Elvis has sent cease and desist letters, threatening consequences if they continue hosting Elvis-themed weddings
- The crackdown coincides with the release of a Tom Hanks-starring Elvis biopic in theaters in late June
Dig Deeper
- "It would devastate me to have this stop," one impersonator who performs 650 Elvis-themed weddings yearly told the Las Vegas Review Journal. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I couldn’t perform as Elvis for these couples. It’s at least 80 percent of my business as Elvis"
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Johnny Depp Wins Defamation Case
Johnny Depp won all 3 counts in the defamation lawsuit he brought against Amber Heard
- Depp had sued Heard, his ex-wife, for allegedly damaging his reputation and career with false abuse allegations. Heard then countersued, alleging that Depp made false claims that ruined her career and put her in danger
- The jury awarded Depp $15M in damages, however the judge cut that to $10.4M. The judge also ruled that Depp must pay Heard $2M, over false allegations made by his attorney
- Depp had said he brought the lawsuit to “clear my name.” “The jury gave me my life back”
Dig Deeper
- “No human being is perfect," Depp said, "but I have never in my life committed sexual battery [or] physical abuse." Meanwhile, Heard accused Depp of being a viciously jealous person, who constantly harassed and humiliated her
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Insider Trading NFTs
US prosecutors announced the first-ever insider trading charges over non-fungible tokens (NFTs)
- The charges accuse Nate Chastain, the former head of product at OpenSea — the largest NFT trading platform — of secretly buying 45 NFTs he knew were about to be promoted on the platform’s homepage
- He was arrested on Wednesday and now faces charges of wire fraud and money laundering, each of which carry up-to-20-year prison sentences
- The alleged scandal took place at the peak of the NFT boom in mid-2021. The NFT market has since lost much of its value
Dig Deeper
- The incident was first made public in September, when a Twitter user noticed public blockchain data showing OpenSea's head of product profiting off of a token the platform had just promoted. The case has spiraled since then
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Shanghai Leaves Lockdown
Shanghai, China's largest city, reopened after a 2-month lockdown that kept most of the city's 25M+ people locked in their homes
- The initial lockdown, which began on March 28 and was meant to last 8 days, was continually extended. Barriers were erected around apartment buildings to keep residents inside
- The lockdown resulted in shortages of medicine and food, prompting public outcry, which is rare in China
- The lockdown closed many factories, putting more pressure on the Chinese and global economies. China says it’ll continue using lockdowns to fight Covid-19
Dig Deeper
- The lockdown sparked enough discontent that there was speculation Xi Jinping would abandon his Zero Covid Policy, which says China will take all measures to crush any Covid outbreak. That hasn't happened, though, and Zero Covid remains China's approach
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 Roca Treasure Hunt |
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Today's Clue (Day 3 of 4):
Left Field: 338 ft
Right Field: 338 ft
But you’ll really need to hit it out the park…
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The SECRET Clue...
Forget this hunt, all you need is a library card to find me
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Day 1 clue: Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson
Day 2 clue: How do you recreate the Rosetta Stone?
Each newsletter this week contains a clue about a landmark in the United States. Thursday's newsletter will contain a bonus clue, which is automatically unlocked by referring 2 people to this newsletter. In total there will be 5 clues about 1 landmark.
- The first person to send a Google Street View screenshot of the correct place wins $2,000, second wins $300, third wins $200
- No in-person photos will be accepted. This is an entirely virtual game
- You have only 1 guess and it can not be changed
- You can guess at any time by replying to a newsletter, which goes out at 11:00 AM ET daily
- Winners will be announced on June 6
- Full rules are at the bottom of this email!
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 Popcorn |
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ICYMI
- Madden NFL 23 & Me: The late John Madden will grace the cover of his namesake game later this year for the first time since 2000
- Meta-nother firm? Sheryl Sandberg, Meta's longtime COO, announced that she's stepping down. Sandberg has been Zuck's #2 since 2008
- Bunker shot: Dustin Johnson was reportedly paid $125M to join the Saudi golf league, which he previously said he wouldn't join
Wildcard
- Scientists discovered the "biggest plant on Earth" off the Australian coast. The giant seagrass meadow is 3x the size of Manhattan
- Now we can live mas: Taco Bell announced it will make Mexican Pizza a permanent menu item. Pizza demand was reportedly 7x supply
- Late to class! A mountain lion wandered into a California school on Tuesday. It was contained in a classroom before authorities removed it
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 What do you think?
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Today's Poll:
Are you glad that the Johnny Depp v Amber Heard trial is over?
Yes
No, I need a mega-pint of wine
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Today's Question:
If you could have any person from history become US president, who would it be and why?
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See yesterday's results below the Wrap!
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 Roca Wrap
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Today's Wrap takes us to Tama-Re, where an Egypt-themed cult took over a small Georgia town...
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While growing up, Dwight York allegedly took a trip to Egypt and Sudan. An Islamic preacher looked into his eyes, he claimed, and “foretold that I was the one who would possess ‘the light.’”
York used this message as the basis for his cult: Ansaru Allah Community. From his base in Brooklyn, he preached a combination of black nationalism, Islamic mysticism, and Egyptian and Native American history. He declared himself a prophet and God in the flesh, and said the group would create its own country: "I'm talking about a real nation, our own nation, with our own passports, with our own tax system, where no one tells us what to do."
By the 1970s, the group had 3,000 members living throughout Brooklyn’s Bushwick area. People were separated by gender, with men given quotas – from $10 to $100 a day – to earn through begging. Women were told to get pregnant and go on welfare.
By the 1980s, the group controlled 5 apartment buildings in Brooklyn and had branches set up across the US and in the Caribbean and UK. It had been accused of organized crime, including arson, extortion, and bank robberies, and was implicated in at least 1 murder in New York City.
With legal pressure building, York bought an estate in upstate New York, where he moved with 300 of his followers. He renamed himself Malachi Z., declared that he was an alien teacher from the planet Rizq, and founded a new religion: The United Nuwaubian Nation of Moors.
York said the apocalypse was coming, and that his followers would be saved. He claimed the Nuwaubians were descendants of ancient Egyptians and had ties to the state of Georgia, and declared that they would move there, and create their own nation: Tama-Re.
York bought $1M of property and relocated to rural Georgia in 1993, where he lived in a mansion surrounded by his disciples, who lived in trailers. With the followers paying to be there and branches bringing in cash from around the world, York had pyramids, a sphinx, and a nightclub built. Prominent activists – including Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson – came to visit.
The locals were getting concerned, though: They were finding flyers warning of an apocalypse and upcoming trip to the galaxy of Ilyuwn; the sheriff was receiving death threats; armed men were patrolling the compound; and there was a surge in underage girls giving birth in local hospitals. The girls wouldn’t speak, and men would show up to take away their placentas.
Those girls led the Feds to Tama-Re, and in 2002, the FBI stormed the compound and arrested York. He was charged with child trafficking and 100 counts of molestation, although the FBI believed the actual number was over 1,000.
York is now serving a 135-year sentence, although many of his disciples remain loyal.
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If you have thoughts, let us know at Max@RocaNews.com!
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You've Unlocked Roca's Secret Section!
Roca's writer Jen Flanagan contributes this Wrap from Indianapolis, where she attended the Indy 500 race last weekend.
Nothing says you’re not in Paris like the Indy 500.
I had spent 2 weeks in May working remote from Paris, only to have my mandatory pre-US arrival Covid test come back positive. After a several-day delay, I got home – then headed straight to Indianapolis, Indiana to attend the Indy (Indianapolis) 500.
On one of my last days in Paris, I had remarked to a French friend about the intensity of French patriotism: It seemed every street was named after a French cultural or military icon, and all the windows had French flags hanging from them.
“Really?” she said. “I went to a baseball game in the US last year, and thought the same thing, but about the US. The national anthem before every sporting event? We don’t do that here.”
Had she attended the Indy 500, that baseball game would have paled in comparison…
“Today you’ll hear the two greatest man-man sounds: the rev of the IndyCar engine and the crackle of the Pratt & Whitney afterburning turbofan!” said my friend’s Uncle D, a former fighter jet pilot, when he picked us up to head to the race that morning.
His first reference was to the race itself – the “rev of the IndyCar engine” – as the 33 drivers race at speeds over 220mph to complete 500 miles the fastest. The speeds seem superhuman, the sense of danger always looming. 70+ people have died at the track since its opening in 1909.
But Uncle D was also referencing the sound of patriotism: The “crackle” of jet engines as Thunderbird jets performed two flyovers while America the Beautiful, the National Anthem, and (Back Home Again In) Indiana are performed below.
The race always takes place Memorial Day weekend, and much of it is dedicated to honoring those who died while serving in the US military. “You would be hard-pressed to identify a more patriotic event than the Indianapolis 500,” reads a 2016 IndyStar article about the race.
300k+ people attend each year, transforming the town where the race is held – Speedway, Indiana – into one of the most densely populated places in the US. That also makes the Indy 500 the largest single-day sporting event in the world.
According to Skeeter, a man from Detroit I met tailgating, the patriotism and the competition makes the Indy 500 the greatest sporting event in the US. Like many other fans, Skeeter was wearing American-flag inspired clothes. He had camped outside the stadium in his RV for 3 weeks to attend all the pre-race qualification matches before the race itself.
“I’ve been coming here since the 1980s for this,” he told me. “Tradition, sport, America.”
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 Roca Clubhouse
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Yesterday's Poll:
Which water bottle brand do you prefer: Aquafina or Dasani?
Aquafina: 55.9%
Dasani: 44.1%
Yesterday's Question:
What's the first paying job you ever had? Did you enjoy it?
Katherine from Washington: "Growing up in western Washington, of course my first job was a barista at an independent drive-through coffee stand! I loved it, tips were great and it's a fun job- the rest of the country needs to get on board with drive-through coffee stands, they're great!"
Ben from Chicago: "When I was around 12-13 years old I worked at the renaissance festival in MN selling "the Queen's caramelized apples." We had to dress up in medieval outfits and talk in an English accent. I didn't like the clothes or customers, but I also didn't mind sneaking an occasional treat for myself."
Jenny from California: "I was a lifeguard. I can assure you I made minimum wage in California. It looks like I picked the wrong county to work!"
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Share The Current with friends, and win free swag! Some are secrets, some are awesome Roca gear.
Let's make this wave a tsunami, and share away!
Copy and send your referral link to others: https://sparklp.co/5b5757bc
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PS - You've brought 49 friends to The Current so far.
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 Final Thoughts
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It's already Thursday, which is shocking. And almost as shocking is that there is still a $2,500 pot waiting to be claimed by the first 3 people to solve the Roca treasure hunt.
You have the power. YOU CAN SOLVE THE RIDDLE!
- Max and Max
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Rules for the Roca Treasure Hunt
1. Each newsletter this week – Tuesday through Friday – contains one clue. Thursday's newsletter will contain a bonus clue, which is automatically unlocked by referring 2 people to this newsletter
2. Use the clues to guess the location. The location is visible on Google Maps and within the USA
3. Each reader can submit ONLY ONE response, which must be a reply to one of our newsletters, which goes out weekdays at 11 AM ET
4. Submissions must be a screenshot of the location on Google Street View. We will not accept in-person photos; this is entirely virtual
5. The winners will be determined by (1) a screenshot of the correct location (as determined by RocaNews) and (2) timestamp of when RocaNews receives the email. If winning responses are submitted at the same time (by the minute), prizes will be split evenly
4. The first person to submit the correct response wins $2,000, the second wins $300, and the third $200
5. By competing, you agree to the terms & conditions at bottom of this email
6. May the most skilled detective win!
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