06/27/23
Good morning! It’s Tuesday, June 27th.
National Bingo Day!
Bingo like the game. Not Bingo like the dog. That’s not really anything. That’s just like… a song that existed for some reason but I don’t really know why? Anyway, the game.
And now, the news.
Russian Coup(ish)
-via NY Times
Let’s start with the Russian Coup that almost, and kind of, was because, on Monday, Russia’s President Putin made his first public comments since the weekend’s Wagner Group uprising.
Per Putin so, you know… he says the uprising failed because all of Russia stayed united, even though the Wagner Group’s goals were for Russians to fight each other.
I mean… who knows. I’m not there. I’m not a Russian expert and frankly, the whole thing just feels like there’s a lot of information we don’t have. And obviously we take everything Putin says with a salt lick.
But let’s talk about what we do know – while Putin is out of hiding and trying to keep control of the narrative, Ukraine’s President Zelensky was visiting front-line positions and projecting unity with troops as the country’s counteroffensive continues to make small gains with a 50-mile recovery along the southern front line.
And while yes, technically, that is a small gain, any gain that Ukraine makes at all should not be seen as small or insignificant. They are the underdogs here and yet continue to make progress to take their country back.
We stay supportive.
U.S. Heatwave
-via NY Times & The Guardian
It’s a heatwave baybee.
The nearly record-breaking heatwave rolling through the South is expected to continue through the 4th of July, with parts of Texas hitting higher temperatures than Death Valley, a part of California that is so hot that it’s literally named Death Valley.
While Texas is bearing the brunt of the heat, it will shift east to spread the “ugh” into Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Temperatures have reached 119º in the Big Bend area where a man and his stepson died this past weekend after the stepson got sick during a hike and his stepdad was killed in a car accident while trying to get help. Just an absolute tragedy.
120º is the record for the area, set in 1936 and 1994.
In Del Rio, they could hit their 10th day in a row of daily-high temperatures.
Heat like that isn’t just hot, it’s oppressive and bring the threat of power outages. On Monday afternoon, more than 250,000 customers (which, again, means homes not number of people) were without power (i.e. air conditioning) in Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky and Georgia.
Starbucks Pride Strike
-via AP News
A well-timed strike closed over 21 Starbucks this past weekend, including the company’s Seattle flagship store.
It is expected to continue this week, and will disrupt more than 150 stores.
The strike is in protest of stores that banned LGBTQ+ Pride displays after backlash, similar to what happened at Target, by what can only, reasonably, be described as domestic terrorists. Which, if you think that’s an exaggeration, here is the definition from the FBI of domestic terrorism: “Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.”
People going into stores and ripping down signage is violent and criminal. It also requires the act to appear to be intended to intimidate a civilian population.
So…
Colorado Springs Shooter Gets Life in Prison
-via AP News
And in, yeah there’s a very clear connection between knocking over a Pride display in Target and what happened here and that’s why I take no pleasure, but also no pause, in calling those people Domestic Terrorist, news…
The Colorado Springs shooter, who killed five people in an LGBTQ+ nightclub last year was sentenced to life in prison on Monday.
In all, he pled guilty to five counts of murder and 46 counts of attempted murder. He also pleaded no contest to two hate crimes.
Prosecutors to Seek Death Penalty for Kohberger
-via CNN
Prosecutors in Idaho will seek the death penalty for Bryan Kohberger, the man accused of killing four University of Idaho students last November.
He has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary.
And that’s it. That’s the news.
I know I said I was going to cover the Supreme Court today, but we’re still waiting on a few rulings so I’m thinking we might have a special little episode coming on Thursday. Fun! A whole episode about the Supreme Court! (come on, don’t be like that. We’ll make it fun.)
I’m proud of… Bingo callers. Think about how hard of a job that is! You’re out here like, it’s just letters and numbers. Yeah, it is. But they have to make the combination of 5 letters and 75 numbers fun. That seems hard!
But more than that… because you are B-5 (which is a alphanumeric way of saying “berry great”)… I’m proud of you.