05/29/25
Good morning! It’s Thursday, May 29th.
Learn About Composting Day
What’s to learn? You just put it in a bucket, wait until it smells bad, and then put it outside. Lesson done.
Truly, what would you do without me?
And now, the news.
Israel-Hamas
Starting in Gaza, where Israeli Defense Forces say they have Mohammed Sinwar, the man believed to be the leader of Hamas’ armed wing and the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7thattacks, who was killed in October.
This puts ceasefire talks further at risk, since Sinwar would have had the final say in any agreement about the release of the remaining hostages that Hamas has.
His death was mentioned in passing, and without any more info, in a speech before Parliament. Just a casual oh did I not tell you about this?
Hamas has not verified this claim.
Prison Break in the Ozarks
There are two prison break stories to talk about!
One’s bad enough. But two!
Starting in Arkansas, where the search is on for a former police chief (!) and convicted killer who is serving a decadeslong sentence but escaped the medium-security prison where he was being held on Sunday.
I’ll tell you this much… when they find him, he’s not going to be in medium-security again.
I’m not going to tell you how he escaped because even though we all know the core of my audience comes from people searching “MLS Soccer” on podcast apps (that’s real), we don’t know what my prison audience is!
They’re looking for him, but if you’re in the area, keep your doors closed.
The other prison break story started while I was on my surprise news hiatus and takes place in New Orleans. It all started on May 16th, when ten prisoners escaped through a hole in the wall of the Orleans Justice Center, which is a jail. Eight of the men have been caught, two are still on the run.
They were discovered during a morning routine, and later a message on the bathroom wall was found that read “too easy LOL”
It’s bad enough they escaped, did they also have to be a bully?
The two men who are still on the run should be considered armed and dangerous.
French Surgeon Charged
-via BBC
In France, a former surgeon who has admitted to sexually abusing 299 patients, mostly children, many of whom were unwell, vulnerable, or sedated, between 1989 and 2014, has been sentenced… to 20 years in prison.
Not twenty lifetimes.
Not twenty million lifetimes.
Twenty years.
Since he has already served seven years, he is eligible for parole as early as 2030.
299 victims.
There are so many things, so many genuinely unhelpful things, I would like to say right now.
And so, to prevent retraumatizing those for whom a story like this only serves to make things worse, here’s the whoosh.
Justice Dept Investigates CA
-via NY Times
Let’s take our anger out in a more helpful place.
On Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced that it would ramp up their investigation into a Clovis, California high school after a transgender girl qualified for three events at the upcoming state track and field championships.
A girl? Doing well in sports?
Gotta look into that!!
That can’t possibly be!
Go away. Get out of California. No one wants you here. Well, maybe our governor but I’m cooling on him. (just kidding, just kidding… I’ve never warmed up to him).
This is, what the kids like to call, federal overreach baby.
This comes a day after Trump already threatened to strip “large scale” federal funding from California if it didn’t ban transgender athletes from women’s sports.
I’ll tell you what.
Why don’t we just call it quits on both sides, financially. Call it even. No more federal help, and no more state funds. We are the 5th largest economy in the world. Our state has a larger economy than the UK. And they have fun accents!
They have MLS soccer (see, that’s why I have all those MLS soccer fans! No, that’s not why. I really think it’s because of the Ted Lasso references). Anyway, do it. I dare you.
And there’s always this air of we have to do it to protect women. Then protect women.
First of all, trans women are women. So protect them.
Also – what on earth do you think? I talked about this before but do you really think that someone would put themselves through the emotional and physical labor of transitioning to female… for a sport? Do you know about female sports in this country?
Wildly unsupported. Wildly underpaid. All while, often, being even better than the men!
Use your brain! Transgender athletes are not transitioning so that they can be amazing high school athletes! They are trying to live their truest, most authentic lives and, whilst doing that, they are also doing sports. In the case of this athlete, she was jumping really tall.
The sports that she was competing in were the long jump, triple jump, and high jump.
Find a hobby, get a life, leave trans kids alone.
Expect this one to end up in courts on courts on courts, because this is, as I mentioned, serious federal overreach. This is a California high school event. It’s not a national event.
Missouri GOP Asks for a Do-Over
-via PBS
Hey, you know what I forgot to tell you yesterday when I was really going to a deep dark place about the Missouri abortion news?
As I mentioned, last year, Missouri voters passed a measure to enshrine the right to abortion, at any stage, in the state’s constitution. Well, two weeks ago, Republican lawmakers voted to another constitutional amendment back on the ballot in November of 2026, or maybe sooner, that will ask voters if they’d like to reconsider that vote.
Hey! Are you sure you want to have bodily autonomy? Have you considered… not?
What’s up? Didn’t write it confusingly enough? Didn’t suppress the vote enough before?
So… we’ll talk more about it when it ends up on the ballot, but I just forgot to tell you before.
Trump to Revoke Student Visas
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Trump administration will “aggressively” revoke the visas of a yet-unknown number of Chinese students. The efforts will focus on people with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying what they deem to be sensitive subjects.
Last year, more than a quarter of a million Chinese students studied in America. They are the second largest group of foreign students after India.
This pairs well with, but in a bad way, the news that came out on Tuesday, in which the State Department ordered US embassies to temporarily stop scheduling new student visa appointments while the Trump administration expands social media screenings for applicants.
Who needs a First Amendment anyway?
We do! What are we doing here?
Crypto Champ
-via CBS News
On Wednesday, and know I’m only telling you this story to blow off steam… JD Vance told the Bitcoin 2025 Conference in Las Vegas: “crypto finally has a champion and an ally in the White House."
Finally!
How embarrassing.
It’s a pyramid scheme!
It’s Kohl’s cash.
You could bring a crypto into a quiznos and get the same discount as a Bed Bath and Beyond coupon because famously – any coupon works.
Finally… a champion for boiz who wear three polos at once with the collar flipped up (and please note I spelled that B-O-I-Z).
Finally, a champion for people you’d never leave a drink alone around.
But okay, you and Trump can be a champion. Let this be your legacy in your mind.
History will remember that two Popes hate you, babe.
Boi Bye
-via ABC News
In breaking news, but in a fun way… Elon Musk has confirmed that his time in the White House is not set to auto-renew! He’s out baybee!
Boi bye.
This comes a day after a CBS News interview where he said the Trump-led, and titled, budget bill, “can be big or it could be beautiful, but I don’t know if it could be both.”
But I can be neither. How about that? You ever think about that?
As a reminder, his time in the White House was always meant to be temporary. He will now return to annoying me here in Los Angeles, where all those Space X launches are too loud and while the cloud shape they make is cool to see, people slow down too much to look, and we have enough of a traffic problem.
His announcement included this little nugget: “The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
Which I only mention as a way to remind you that the Department of Government Efficiency is not, and never was, a real department within the government. It was only called that because they wanted it to make the acronym DOGE, which is a meme coin. A meme coin is a joke type of cryptocurrency. This is a real thing – a meme coin is a piece of cryptocurrency based on an internet joke that usually sells quickly, making a quick buck for the person who creates it and the first few people who buy it, but then losing a lot of money for everyone else who buys it too late.
And that is the kind of thing that JD Vance went to Las Vegas to let us know finally, finally!, had a champion.
Anyway, Elon is out.
Final Destination: Argentina
-via Deadline
And finally – here is a story my co-worker told me about and I said I would include but only if she listened, so now it’s a real test to see if she searches MLS Soccer on podcast apps and finds this highly rated show…
In Argentina, during a showing of Final Destination: Bloodlines, the theater ceiling collapsed!
Everyone’s okay!
If you don’t know the Final Destination series, first of all… where have you been? Engage with the culture once in a while! But it’s about people who escape death… and then death follows them!
One woman, in that theater, missed getting hurt by a piece of the ceiling because she was leaning on the armrest!!
Isn’t that wild??
I have to also note that when my co-worker told me about this story she was laughing, and I didn’t know that no one was injured or died while she was laughing and telling me about it for the first few minutes, so at first I was like… I’m learning something about this movie theater in Argentina and a very new piece of information about the character of this woman I work with!
Anyway, everyone’s okay.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
Longer episode than normal! I cut some stuff too! Come back tomorrow for all the news I cut!
I’m proud of composting.
Also, that theater in Argentina and that woman for leaning on the armrest! I’ll tell you something… now I really want to watch Evita (as always)
But more than composting, if you can believe it, because you also are full of, or I guess not full of… because you help vegetables… ugh, whatever… because you’re great… I’m proud of you.