Taking the P out of EPA; Benadryl and Tylenol, oh my; root canals south of the border; tarantula invasion; Florida Man... naked.
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Knee Deep in the Hoopla
Trump invites Jesus to the workplace and GOP prays for a tariff rebate | The Daily Show. (Video)
Ghislaine Maxwell offers to testify before Congress on Epstein if … Her attorney said she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right and decline to testify unless the committee agreed to grant her immunity and interview her outside prison.
E.P.A. moves to revoke the legal basis for tackling climate change. The agency’s administrator said the repeal would be “the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.” He said the proposal would also erase limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks on the nation’s roads.
There was no "missing minute" in Epstein jail video, government source says. The FBI, the Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice inspector general are all in possession of a copy of the video that does not cut from just before 11:59 p.m. to midnight of the night Epstein died by suicide in his cell.
The FBI’s leaders “have no idea what they’re doing.” A casualty of Trump’s purge speaks out.
DHS is posting Americana paintings and migrant mugshots. The art world is not happy. Homeland Security is sharing images of pastoral paintings bookended by posts cheering Trump’s deportation campaign. Some artists are pushing back.
Judge blocks Trump administration’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide must continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding as the nation’s largest abortion provider fights President Donald Trump’s administration over efforts to defund the organization in his signature tax legislation.
Does Benadryl do more harm than good? If you’re on a deserted island and Benadryl is the only allergy drug available, you should take it. But in almost every other case, there are safer, better options. Benadryl crosses the blood-brain barrier, causing grogginess and increasing the risk of falls, car accidents and potentially even dementia.
Tylenol may induce risky behavior. Acetaminophen seems to make people feel less negative emotion when they consider risky activities – they just don't feel as scared," explained neuroscientist Baldwin Way from The Ohio State University when the findings were published. The findings add to a growing body of research suggesting that acetaminophen's effects on pain reduction also extend to various psychological processes, lowering people's receptivity to hurt feelings, experiencing reduced empathy, and even blunting cognitive functions.
Americans are fixing their teeth in Mexico. More than a thousand dentists have set up shop in Los Algodones. Their patients are mostly Americans who can’t afford the U.S.’s dental care.
The beginning of the end for late night comedy? “I acknowledge we’re losing money,” comedian Jon Stewart told viewers this week. “Late-night TV is a struggling financial model. We are all basically operating a Blockbuster kiosk inside a Tower Records.”
Former CBS anchor warns Paramount merger marks 'the end' of the network and 'honest' journalism. "CBS was always a standalone network. It was autonomous. The news division was autonomous, and it was always unencumbered by pressures from politicians, including presidents, and unencumbered by bean counters. But now? I can see very clearly that the days that I remembered are long gone."
AI is eating the Internet. Google is now rolling out AI-generated answers in search results, essentially cannibalizing its own traffic. “Sure, Search might die, but I’d rather kill it myself first.” Like the dolphins in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, they’re waving as they swim away: “So long, and thanks for all the crawled content.”
If you've asked ChatGPT a legal question, you may have accidentally doomed yourself in court. Unlike a human lawyer with whom you enjoy sweeping confidentiality protections, ChatGPT conversations can be used against you in court.
“Ring cameras hacked”? Amazon says no, users not so sure. Steps to follow, just to be safe.
Millionaires multiply across the US, but most find it’s not all mansions and champagne. “It’s the new mass-affluent middleweight class, financially secure but two zeros short of private-jet territory.”
The tarantula invasion has begun. While freaking out about tarantulas is common, the trek is a perilous undertaking for the thousands of baseball-sized arachnids.
Naked Florida man hits house with SUV and won’t stop accelerating.
Quote of the Day:
Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies.
--Emily Brontë (Wikipedia link)
(More Emily Brontë quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Today’s holidays:
Father-in-Law Day, Intergalactic Friendship Day, International Day of Friendship, MSD World Day, National Cheesecake Day, National Support Public Education Day, National Whistleblower Appreciation Day, Paperback Book Day, Share a Hug Day, World Day against Trafficking in Persons, and World Snorkeling Day.
Astronomy Picture of the Day from NASA.
On This Day:
2023 – Died: Paul Reubens, American actor and comedian (born 1952)
2022 – Died: Nichelle Nichols, American actress (Lt. Uhura, Star Trek), singer and dancer (born 1932)
2022 – Died: Pat Carroll, American actress and comedian (born 1927)
2020 – Died: Herman Cain, American businessman and political activist (born 1945)
2016 – Died: Gloria DeHaven, American actress, singer, and dancer (born 1925)
2015 – Died: Lynn Anderson, American singer (born 1947)
2014 – Died: Dick Smith, American make-up artist (born 1922)
2007 – Died: Ingmar Bergman, Swedish director, producer, and screenwriter (born 1918)
2006 – The world's longest running music show, Top of the Pops, was broadcast for the last time on BBC Two. The show had aired for 42 years.
2004 – The film "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" was released. (Video)
2003 – Three years after the death the last Pyrenean ibex, Celia, a clone of her was born only to subsequently die from lung defects. Within minutes, the Pyrenean ibex became the first and so-far only species to have ever gone de-extinct as well as go extinct twice.
2003 – In Mexico, the last classic Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the assembly line. (Video)
1999 – The film “The Blair Witch Project” was released nationally in the US. (Video)
1998 – Died: Buffalo Bob Smith, American television host (born 1917)
1996 – Died: Claudette Colbert, French-American actress (born 1903)
1992 – Died: Joe Shuster, Canadian-American illustrator, co-created Superman (born 1914)
1983 – Died: Lynn Fontanne, English actress (born 1887)
1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He was never seen or heard from again.
1975 – Died: James Blish, American author and critic (born 1921)
1974 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon released subpoenaed White House recordings after being ordered to do so by the Supreme Court of the United States.
1971 – Apollo program: On Apollo 15, David Scott and James Irwin in the Apollo Lunar Module Falcon landed on the Moon with the first Lunar Rover.
1966 – The “three chord masterpiece” by The Troggs, Wild Thing, hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. (Video)
1965 – U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.
1962 – The Trans-Canada Highway, the then longest national highway in the world, was officially opened.
1956 – A joint resolution of the U.S. Congress was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, authorizing In God We Trust as the U.S. national motto.
1948 – Professional wrestling premiered on US prime-time TV (DuMont Network)
1945 – World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sank the USS Indianapolis killing 883 seamen. Three hundred went down with the ship; most died during the following four days from exposure, dehydration, saltwater poisoning, and shark attacks until an aircraft noticed the survivors.
1932 – Premiere of Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, the first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first Academy Award winning cartoon short. (Video)
1918 – Died: Joyce Kilmer, American soldier, journalist, and poet (born 1886)
1898 – Died: Otto von Bismarck, German lawyer and politician, 1st Chancellor of Germany (born 1815)
1866 – The New Orleans massacre of 1866 took place when a peaceful demonstration of mostly Black Freedmen was set upon by a mob of white rioters, many of whom had been soldiers of the recently defeated Confederate States of America, leading to a full-scale massacre.
1733 – The first Masonic Grand Lodge in the future United States was constituted in Massachusetts.
1729 – Founding of Baltimore, Maryland.
1718 – Died: William Penn, English businessman and philosopher, founded the Province of Pennsylvania (born 1644)
1619 – In Jamestown, Virginia, the first Colonial European representative assembly in the Americas, the Virginia General Assembly, convened for the first time.
762 – Baghdad was founded.
(For comprehensive lists of the day’s historical events, check here, here, and here.)
Some Birthdays:
1977 – Jaime Pressly, American actress
1974 – Hilary Swank, American actress and producer
1970 – Christopher Nolan, English-American director, producer, and screenwriter
1968 – Terry Crews, American actor and football player
1964 – Vivica A. Fox, American actress
1963 – Lisa Kudrow, American actress and producer
1961 – Laurence Fishburne, American actor and producer
1960 – Richard Linklater, American director and screenwriter
1958 – Kate Bush, English singer-songwriter and producer
1956 – Anita Hill, American lawyer and academic
1956 – Delta Burke, American actress
1954 – Ken Olin, American actor, director, and producer
1948 – Jean Reno, Moroccan-French actor
1947 – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian-American bodybuilder, actor, and politician
1947 – William Atherton, American actor and producer
1945 – David Sanborn, American saxophonist and composer (died 2024)
1941 – Paul Anka, Canadian singer-songwriter and actor
1940 – Clive Sinclair, English businessman, founded Sinclair Radionics and Sinclair Research (died 2021)
1939 – Peter Bogdanovich, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter (died 2022)
1939 – Eleanor Smeal, American activist, founded the Feminist Majority Foundation
1936 – Buddy Guy, American singer-songwriter and guitarist
1929 – Sid Krofft, Canadian-American puppeteer and producer
1922 – Henry W. Bloch, American banker and businessman, co-founded H&R Block (died 2019)
1890 – Casey Stengel, American baseball player and manager (died 1975)
1863 – Henry Ford, American engineer and businessman, founded the Ford Motor Company (died 1947)
1818 – Emily Brontë, English novelist and poet (died 1848)
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