US Affairs

Former US diplomat accused of spying for Cuba

Prosecutors are describing the act as one of “the most brazen and long running betrayals” in the history of US foreign service. US officials released charges yesterday against a retired US diplomat who has been accused of spying for Cuba for more than 40 years in what is considered one of the longest-lasting infiltrations of the US government.

Federal prosecutors have charged Manuel Rocha, a 73-year-old who served as ambassador to Bolivia and worked for years in Latin America in the US foreign service, with “clandestine activity” on Cuba’s behalf going back as far as the beginning of his career in 1981.

• His other posts included Argentina and the US Interests Section in Havana.

• Federal investigators recovered a number of recorded conversations in which he referred to the US as “the enemy”.

Court documents state Rocha made incriminating statements during three meetings within the last year with an undercover FBI agent posing as a Cuban intelligence operative. His charges come after a former US defense intelligence agency analyst convicted of spying for Cuba was released earlier this year after 21 years in prison.

This may be one of the most important tax cases in recent history

Earlier this week, the SCOTUS heard arguments from a couple suing the US for $14,729… and it could cost the nation trillions. The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in Moore v. US, which could cost the US an immense amount of money and negate a large portion of the tax system, all over $15,000.

How did we get here?

In 2018, Charles and Kathleen Moore paid nearly $15,000 as a one-time repatriation tax on profits held overseas due to changes in the tax law the year before. Now, the Moores are suing the federal government, claiming that they didn’t receive any profit from their investment and, thus, cannot be taxed. So far, two lower courts have ruled against them.

Now, the Supreme Court will have to decide on what exactly counts as income, more specifically, whether or not income has to be “realized,” or received, to be taxed under the 16th Amendment. Their decision might change the tax code as we know it.

What could this mean for the tax code?

Experts concerns state that, besides rewriting the system and costing the US tax dollars, a decision in the Moores favor could also open the government to more litigation over the 2017 tax law, which the DOJ estimates would cost the US $340 billion in tax revenue over the next decade.

The American Tax Policy Institute said that such a decision invalidating the current tax code could have a broad reach throughout the US tax system. Former House Speaker Paul Ryan claimed the Moores’ lawsuit was “misguided” and that if the case is ruled in their favor, it could “basically get rid of… a third of the tax code.”

College athletes are about to get paid bigtime

College football has been really interesting lately, and it’s potentially about to get even crazier. Not only have we seen an unprecedented conference shift, rule changes, a cheating scandal, and a 13-0 team that got cut out of the playoffs, but now we have an even bigger headline.

On Tuesday, NCAA President Charlie Baker proposed a plan to create a new tier within Division I college athletics. The groundbreaking proposal gives participating schools control over name, image, and likeness (more commonly known as NIL) decisions and initiates a “long-overdue conversation” about the current rules and regulations for compensating student-athletes, which has been a hotly debated issue.

• Schools would be required to invest a minimum of $30,000 per year per athlete for at least half of all eligible student-athletes into an “enhanced educational trust fund,” which by the sounds of it is pretty much just a normal trust fund.

• Student-athletes would be allowed to enter NIL deals directly with their schools rather than a third party.

This could be the future of college sports

Baker’s proposed new tier only includes “the highest-resourced colleges and universities,” which essentially means the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and ACC, which contain the largest and wealthiest athletic programs in the US. A new subdivision just for those schools could alleviate headaches around transfer limits, scholarships, and, most importantly, NIL rules.

However, some say the proposal still doesn’t solve the problem at the root of the issue, which is employment. The NCAA has lobbied for years to prevent college athletes from being named “employees,” but sports law experts see it as a necessary next step in order to give young athletes their piece of the pie.

The NCAA isn’t all smiles right now

The organization is drowning in multiple legal disputes, including an antitrust lawsuit that could require it to pay billions in damages to student-athletes. There are also talks of a looming Great Split, in which the Power Five conferences (soon to be Power Four) would secede from the NCAA to form their own organization. Sounds like they’ll be pretty busy

Miscellaneous

This company wants you to work… while you’re asleep

Well, not exactly. While this new device could be used for work, its meant for you to use the least productive part of your day… productively. A new tech startup, Prophetic, has raised over $1 million in an effort to develop a headband that could one day allow users to control their dreams.

The device is called the Halo, and in theory, would allow humans to explore their subconscious. The device, according to Prophetics website, would use a “closed-loop neurostimulation system” to “artificially recreate neural activation sequence patterns of natural lucid dreams on demand by utilizing multi-element focused ultrasound, generative 3D spatial pulse controls, fMRI training data, and EEG sensors.” What an earload.

This essentially means you could control your dreams while being fully aware you are dreaming (lucid dreaming), giving you access to the one third of your lifetime you usually aren’t awake for. Whether you’d use it to boost creativity, get some work done, or simply mess around in dreamland, would be up to the user.

Here’s a more simple breakdown

The headband is worn like a crown and releases sound waves into the region of the brain responsible for lucid dreams. The beams will then activate parts of the brain that control our awareness and decision-making.

• The product’s tech is based on ongoing research from the Donders Institute in the Netherlands.

• Afshin Mehin, who designed the N1 brain implant for Elon Musk’s Neuralink, is working on the Halo.

• Halos will cost about $1.5k to $2k each, and customers can reserve one ahead of time with a $100 down payment.

While many say lucid dreams can help tap into their creative side or help solve difficult problems, it’s yet to be proven. However, a device like the Halo might just show us how much we can do while we aren’t awake.

Couples who don’t have kids are saving more than you’d think

While children can be a everlasting source of understanding and happiness, it doesnt change the fact that they are a endless pit of money. That may explain why more American couples are saying no to having children, opting for the double-income-no-kids (DINK) lifestyle.

US birthrates plummeted during the Great Recession and have fallen since. In a Pew survey from October 2021, 44% of non parents ages 18–49 said they were unlikely ever to have kids, compared with 37% in 2018. The 17% who cited financial reasons may have a valid point, as the DINK lifestyle is getting ever more popular.

• Child-free couples living together earn an average of $138,000 per year, which is $9,000 more than couples with kids, according to Federal Reserve data analyzed by Rocket Mortgage.

• Fed findings also show that DINKs’ median net worth of $399k is bigger than that of couples with children ($251k) or adults with any other family status.

Finances aren’t the only reason couples aren’t having kids… Experts say economic uncertainty, lack of paid maternity leave, costs of childcare, and parental anxiety all have an effect on the recent wave of couples deciding not to have children.

However, it also pays (not financially) to have children in more ways than one. Having kids is part of the human experience, and many parents say bringing a human into the world and watching them move through life is the most rewarding experience one can have. There are practical benefits too:

• The Social Security Argument states that we need enough working people to provide funds to social security than those drawing it out.

• Having kids also leads to higher levels of happiness, according to The Institute for Family studies.

So don’t write off having a booger eater just yet, you may be creating the next genius or, more likely, newsletter writer (you’re welcome mom).

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Grab Bag

Swifties are making big $$$ on Etsy, and its easy to see why

If you don’t know already, the newest Time Person of the Year (Taylor Swift) is extremely popular… and very rich. Not even mentioning her ride or die fanbase, its easy to see why her merch sales have taken over Etsy.

Being popular and rich have a positive correlation — the artist has generated over 26.1 billion streams on Spotify alone in 2023, earning her an estimated $100 million plus. This says nothing of Swift’s many more billions of streams on other platforms, her multibillion-dollar tour, her record-setting movie, nor any of her other business ventures.

But Taylor isn’t the only one making $$$ off of her popularity

If you go to Etsy.com and type in “Swiftie,” over 130k products will flood your screen. Type in “Taylor Swift” and that number jumps past 170k. Compare that number to Swift’s peers and you’ll recognize just how significant this number is:

• BTS: 90k+ products

• Harry Styles: 33k+ products

• Beyoncé: 9.8k+ products

• Billie Eilish: 2.2k+ products

“Unofficial” fan-made Swiftie merch has crashed the Etsy marketplace.. and it’s lucrative for those participating.

A survey of 862 concert goers by CNN Business showed that the average price spent on EACH of a Swiftie’s concert outfits was $291.62. With many of them getting the merchandise from Etsy.

Fanmade merch has been around for a long time, but with the recent Swift hype matched with her record breaking numbers, it doesn’t look like it’ll slow down anytime soon.

For aging artists, this is the next frontier

The legendary band Kiss is letting digital versions of themselves to take over. Kiss is becoming the first US band to go all digital, and forgo live touring. If I was still doing concerts at their age, I would too.

In what was supposed to be the group’s final show on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, the band revealed a “new KISS era” in which 3D avatars of members, including Gene Simmons, will go on tour.

The actual humans will say goodbye to their famous black and white face paint, which is another sign that, in the AI era, musicians are attempting to achieve a kind of immortality by creating digital renderings of themselves.

Kiss’s plan, which is still at least a few years from becoming a reality, takes its inspiration from another band: ABBA. 3D avatars of the Swedish pop stars have been performing in the ABBA Voyage show in London since May of 2022. And according to Bloomberg, the experimental show has proven to be “one of the savvier bets in modern music history,” bringing in more than $2 million per week.

With increasingly sophisticated tech evolving into the coming years, expect seeing more of your favorite pop stars give up live gigs in place of their 3D counterparts.

Snippets

Finger Food: A woman is suing Chop’t Creative Salad Company because it allegedly served her a salad that contained part of a severed finger. Yikes.

Lactose Legume: Kraft Heinz Co. is debuting a dairy-free boxed Mac and cheese in the US that’s made with coconut oil powder and fava bean protein.

Successor Spotlight: The long awaited trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6 is here, the successor to GTA 5, which was the fastest entertainment product in history to make $1 billion.

Shocking News: Panera’s caffeinated Charged Lemonade was blamed for a second death after a man in Florida drank three and suffered a fatal heart attack.

Wiki Reads: Wikipedia’s 25 most-read articles of 2023 include J. Robert Oppenheimer, Deaths in 2023, 2023 Cricket World Cup, India, and “The Last of Us.” Topping the list is ChatGPT, with almost 50 million page views.

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