Iran, primaries, IRS deal, ballroom, golden arch, slurred speech; AI not smart enough to take over- yet; troubling food news
It's National Strawberries and Cream Day!
A quote from John Adams was projected on the side of "Main Justice" on Tuesday night. (Ryan Reilly / NBC News) © Ryan Reilly
I had my last infusion today; tests look good; another PET/CT scan in August. So hopefully the summer will be uneventful. Thanks for hanging in; I truly appreciate it. We’ve dropped a few subscribers; if you like our daily diversion, please share the newsletter with a friend.
There will be an issue tomorrow to make up a bit for last week’s absence (but mostly to cover Colbert’s last Late Night.) Next week is Tuesday-Friday; no issue on Monday, Memorial Day. Have a safe holiday weekend!
—Kevin G. Barkes (KGB)
KGB Report is assembled by an aging human and contains no intentional A.I. generated material.
(Most) everything you need to know for today:
May 21 is the 141st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 224 days remain until the end of the year. As of this writing, 974 days remain in Trump’s term of office.
Knee-deep in the hoopla:
Trump says willing to wait for a few days to get ‘right answer’ on Iran peace deal. Iran foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Iran was pursuing negotiations "with seriousness and good faith, but it has strong and reasonable suspicion over America's performance." (Reuters via Yahoo News)
The price of Trump’s primary wins. The victories of candidates he endorsed serve to reinforce his grip—but also hurt his standing with the broader public.
(The Atlantic gift article)The Wall Street Journal- yes, the Wall Street Journal- calls Trump’s $1,776 billion anti-weaponization fund “rotten”… “Imagine the fun Democrats will have documenting it all between now and 2028 as the worst kind of Washington political payoff.” (Wall Street Journal gift article)
What to know about the Trump administration ending tax audits of Trump. The agreement is completely untested. (Wall Steet Journal gift article) That’s because only someone as congenitally venal and brazen as Trump could entertain such a bizarre method of extorting money from taxpayers and simultaneously shield himself from all past, present, and future investigations into his breathtakingly corrupt actions.
Ah, but the Department of Justice is still on the case: DOJ charges ex-prosecutor with emailing secret Jack Smith report to herself under file name “Bundt Cake Recipe”.
Republicans forced to abandon latest tactic to fund Trump ballroom. A growing number of Republicans don’t want to put their names behind this White House ballroom. (The New Republic)
There’s a 1,000-capacity golden government ballroom just a mile from the White House. Just over a mile from the White House sits the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, with the main event space described as a “show-stopping masterpiece of Neoclassical architecture.”(Newsweek via MSN)
No ballroom? Plan B: Trump officials say they can build 250-foot arch without Congress’s approval. To build a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery, the administration hopes to rely on a 101-year-old authorization for a different project on the site. (Washington Post gift article)
Trump slurs through rambling commencement speech. (The Daily Beast via MSN)
James Murdoch, media scion, strikes deal for New York Magazine and Vox. Don’t worry, he’s the “liberal” Murdoch. (AP)
AI watchdog warns of ‘rogue deployment’ risk at top labs, with capabilities growing fast. Independent assessment finds AI agents at major companies can cheat, deceive, and work unsupervised—but lack the sophistication for a sustained takeover. (Decrypt)
Lots of disturbing food-related news:
Natural food colors embraced by MAHA linked to health problems. New research shows that some of the natural color additives being turned to as alternatives are associated with an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes and cancer.
(Wall Street Journal gift article)High blood pressure, heart attacks linked to common preservatives in food. “There is no food group/item to remove from the diet in order to fix things,” they say, and recommend consumers choose fresh, uncooked, unprocessed items, or if looking for the fastest to prepare and eat, choose “frozen options which are preserved through a low temperature, not necessarily through the addition of food additive preservatives.” Really? Have you read the ingredient list on that frozen dinner? (CNN via Yahoo News)
New Trump rules will make meat processing a lot deadlier. The industry spent big to get faster line speeds. Experts say it will increase injuries to workers and make the food you eat less safe. (The New Republic)
Joey Chestnut to defend hot dog eating title while on probation after pleading guilty to battery. A judge has granted him permission to travel outside the state, allowing Chestnut to defend his title and the signature Mustard Belt on Coney Island this summer. (AP)
Late Night:
The Daily Show: Trump’s Iran war plan was dumber than you thought and U.S. indicts 94-year-old Castro. (Video)
Jimmy Kimmel Live: Trump wages war on Republicans, makes his bank account great again and farewell to Colbert. (Video)
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Not made in the U.S.A. | Chickens on a plane | Big hearts, tiny check (Video)
Cold Open: Where did 6/7 come from? What does 6/7 mean? (Video)
Marine biology organization offers Stephen Colbert his dream job. (Latenighter)
Keep scrolling… lots of interesting stuff in Quote of the Day, Holidays, On This Day, Birthdays, and Deaths. I can pretty much guarantee you’ll learn something new.
History highlight:
1992 – After 30 seasons Johnny Carson hosted his penultimate episode of The Tonight Show and the last featuring guests (Robin Williams and Bette Midler). Midler’s performance earned her the Primetime Emmy Award in 1992 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. (Video)
Quote of the Day:
Religion is like a fire extinguisher. You never know when you’re going to need it. So it’s best to have one handy.
--Al Franken (Wikipedia link)
(More Al Franken quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Today’s holidays:
American Red Cross Founder’s Day, Brown Bag It Thursday, Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Hummus Day, I Need a Patch for That Day, International Tea Day, Mental Health Action Day, National Apéritif Day, National Memo Day, National Mourvèdre Day, National Notebook Day, National Strawberries and Cream Day, National Waitstaff Day, Rapture Party Day, Sister Maria Hummel Day, World Chardonnay Day, and World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development.
On This Day:
2024 – The Greenfield tornado killed five and injured 35 across rural Iowa, United States. Wind speeds in excess of 480 kilometres per hour (300 mph) were estimated. (Video)
2017 – Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus performed their final show at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
2011 – Radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on this date. He was wrong.
1999 – Soap star Susan Lucci won her first Emmy after 19 nominations. And the crowd goes wild. (Video)
1992 – After 30 seasons Johnny Carson hosted his penultimate episode of The Tonight Show and the last featuring guests (Robin Williams and Bette Midler). Midler’s performance earned her the Primetime Emmy Award in 1992 for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program. (Video)
1992 – The “Long Island Lolita” was arrested.
1991 – Former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a female suicide bomber near Madras.
1990 – The final episode of “Newhart” aired on CBS, with one of the most memorable series finales in television history. (Video)
1988 – Margaret Thatcher held her controversial Sermon on the Mound before the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
1981 – Transamerica Corporation agreed to sell United Artists to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $380 million after the box office failure of the 1980 film Heaven’s Gate.
1980 – “The Empire Strikes Back” was released in the U.S. (Video)
1979 – White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.
1972 – Michelangelo‘s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is damaged by a vandal, the mentally disturbed Hungarian geologist Laszlo Toth. ("Pietá? Oh my God, I thought they said piñata!"-National Lampoon)
1971 – Marvin Gaye's 11th album, "What's Going On" was released; considered the best album of all-time by critic surveys in Rolling Stone (2020). (Video)
1960 – Huge earthquakes rock Chile. By the time they end, the quakes and their aftereffects killed 5,000 people and left another 2 million homeless.
1946 – Physicist Louis Slotin was fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory. (Video)
1932 – Bad weather forced Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
1927 – Charles Lindbergh touched down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
1924 – University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a “thrill killing“.
1917 – The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 caused $5.5 million in damages, destroying some 300 acres including 2,000 homes, businesses and churches, displacing about 10,000 people but leading to only one fatality (due to heart attack).
1904 – The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded in Paris.
1901 – Connecticut enacted the first speed-limit law in the United States.
1881 – The American Red Cross was established by Clara Barton in Dansville, New York.
1758 – Ten-year-old Mary Campbell was abducted in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War. She was returned six and a half years later.
(For more comprehensive lists of the day’s historical events, check here, here, and here.)
Some Birthdays:
1992 – Olivia Olson, American singer and actress
1986 – Da’Vine Joy Randolph, American actress
1974 – Fairuza Balk, American actress
1966 – Lisa Edelstein, American actress and playwright (Video)
1960 – Jeffrey Dahmer, American serial killer (died 1994)
1957 – Judge Reinhold, American actor and producer
1951 – Al Franken, American actor, screenwriter, and politician (Video)
1945 – Richard Hatch, American actor, writer, and producer (died 2017)
1941 – Ronald Isley, American singer-songwriter and producer (Video)
1924 – Peggy Cass, American actress, comedian, and game show panelist (died 1999)
1921 – Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 1989)
1917 – Raymond Burr, Canadian-American actor and director (died 1993) (Video)
1916 – Harold Robbins, American author and screenwriter (died 1997)
1916 – Dennis Day, American singer and actor (died 1988)
1904 – Fats Waller, American singer-songwriter and pianist (died 1943) (Video)
1898 – Armand Hammer, American physician and businessman, founded Occidental Petroleum (died 1990)
1688 – (O.S.) Alexander Pope, English poet, essayist, and translator (died 1744)
(A more complete list of today’s birthdays.)
Some Deaths:
2013 – Leonard Marsh, American businessman, co-founded Snapple (born 1933)
2013 – Frank Comstock, American trombonist, composer, and conductor (born 1922) (Video)
2005 – Howard Morris, American actor and director (born 1919) (Video)
2005 – Stephen Elliott, American actor (born 1918)
2000 – John Gielgud, English actor (born 1904)
2000 – Barbara Cartland, English author (born 1901)
1996 – Lash LaRue, American actor and producer (born 1917)
1973 – Vaughn Monroe, American singer, trumpet player, bandleader, and actor (born 1911)
1952 – John Garfield, American actor (born 1913)
1895 – Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer and conductor (born 1819) (Video)
1542 – Hernando de Soto, Spanish-American explorer (born 1496)
(A more complete list of today’s deaths.)
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