1/11/2023: Golden Globe Awards Winners

PLUS: Biden Family Crime Syndicate Reopens; Stolen Art Recovered; and Alexander Graham Bell Speaks Again

Jan 11, 2023

Today is Wednesday, January 11, 2023.

It is the 11th day of the year.

354 days remain.

HIT LIST

ABC News reports that Idaho murder suspect BRYAN KOHBERGER threw trash out in his neighbor’s bin while staying at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania in the days before his arrest.

He was reportedly under FBI surveillance for four days before the arrest last week.

A status hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

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Police in Boulder, Colorado have recovered five artworks worth more than $400,000 after they went missing last month.

The pieces were jacked from a transport truck while the moving crew was staying at a hotel. Apparently, the only security device on the truck was a padlock that the thieves cut off.

A 31-year-old man was arrested for the heist. Officials also found 2,000 fentanyl pills and 23 grams of meth with the art; the suspect was hiding out with his haul at a hotel in Lakewood, Colorado.

Boulder’s NBC affiliate reports that authorities were tipped off when the suspect offered to sell the art to a buyer for $6,000, who reported the deal. The arrest affidavit suggests the seller didn’t know what he had – he told the seller he broke into the truck randomly, and made off with the art. He now faces a myriad of charges, including theft, vehicle trespassing, possession of burglary tools, and a handful of drug-related counts.

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A report from transportation analytics company INRIX shows that Chicago drivers spend more time in congested traffic than anywhere else in the country, The Washington Post reports.

The average Chicago commuter spent 155 hours in traffic last year, marking an increase of 50% year over year. The Great D.C. area saw an increase from 44 hours a year in 2021 to 83 in 2022.

WORTH NOTING: The time stuck in traffic is reflective of more people returning to their offices in 2022 as pandemic fear and restrictions eased.

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With an eye still on bankruptcy, Bed Bath & Beyond announced 62 more store closures this year, on top of the 56 it announced last September. This includes eight other locations it operates, six buybuy Baby stores and two Harmon stores.

The company’s stock increased more than 25% again on Tuesday, after company brass announced in an earnings call that the closings would cut $500 million in costs, including an unspecified number of corporate layoffs.

Axios reports that many of the stores on the chopping block expect to be shuttered by March.

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The Smithsonian is restoring more than 300 recordings produced by audio innovator Alexander Graham Bell. The never-before-heard clips are expected to be made accessible some time in 2023.

The recordings were recovered from experiments made at Bell’s Volta Laboratory in Washington, DC between 1881 and 1892, and are preserved on wax discs and cylinders.

The Smithsonian Institute announced in a press release on Tuesday that the archival team will make a high-resolution digital map of the wax discs and cylinders containing the data, and digitally enhance and restore the audio content.

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BY THE NUMBERS

📈 The Dow added 186 points (0.56%) on Tuesday to close at 33,704. The S&P added 27 points (0.70%) to close at 3,919 while the Nasdaq added 106 points (1.01%) to close at 10,742.

🛢 West Texas Intermediate closed at $74 on Tuesday; Brent Crude at $80.

⛽ The national average price of a gallon of gas was $3.27 on Tuesday.

₿ Bitcoin gained Tuesday, adding more than $250 and trading around $17,500.

🛩 There were more than 2,500 flights delayed within, into, or out of the United States on Tuesday and 165 such cancellations.

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CHARTS

Top 5 Fiction & Nonfiction Books Currently on the New York Times Best Sellers List:

FICTION:

“It Starts With Us,” Colleen Hoover
“Lessons In Chemistry,” Bonnie Garmus
“It Ends With Us,” Colleen Hoover
“Verity,” Colleen Hoover
“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” Taylor Jenkins Reid

NON-FICTION

“The Light We Carry,” Michelle Obama
“The January 6 Report,” the House January 6th Committee
“I’m Glad My Mom Died,” Jennette McCurdy
“The Body Keeps the Score,” Bessel van der Kolk
“The January 6th Report,” the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol

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DEATHS

Journalist BERNARD KALB has died.

He passed away Sunday at his Maryland home, following complications from a fall, his brother told The Washington Post.

Throughout his career, Kalb reported for NBC, CBS, CNN, and The New York Times.

He was 100.

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Tennis legend DICK SAVITT has died.

He passed away Friday at his home in Manhattan, his son told The Washington Post.

Savitt won Wimbledon in 1951 and was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in 1976.

He was 95.

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LYNETTE HARDAWAY, one half of the conservative commentary duo “Diamond and Silk,” has died.

She passed away on Monday at her home in North Carolina, according to the duo’s social media pages. No further details were shared.

Hardaway, along with her sister ROCHELLE “Silk” RICHARDSON, rose to prominence during the 2016 presidential election, when they embraced candidate DONALD TRUMP.

She was 51.

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BREAKUPS

MACKENZIE SCOTT, 52, -- former Mrs. Bezos -- has finalized her divorce from her second husband, educator DAN JEWETT, 47.

Scott filed to end the marriage last September, a little more than a year after they tied the knot.

Still no word on what caused the split.

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THE SWAMP

Early Monday evening, news first broke that President JOE BIDEN’s lawyers found classified documents at his private office at the Penn Biden Center, a project funded in part by the University of Pennsylvania. The initial reaction media lacked all of the outrage and vitriol those same people leveled at former President DONALD TRUMP when similar confidential documents were found at his private office at Mar-a-Lago.

As the dust starts to settle on this initial news break, these are some important facts to consider to provide important context to the story that no one at MSNBC or CNN seems to care to give:

When asked about these confidential documents at a press conference with leaders from Mexico and Canada yesterday, Biden explicitly said that his lawyers did not tell him what the documents contained. This is odd – does he not have attorney/client privilege? Would he not, as Commander-in-Chief, want to know what kind of confidential information was improperly stored? And if his lawyers are seeking to give him plausible deniability, what is Biden being protected from plausibly denying to know?
The PennBiden center opened February 8, 2018, a year after Biden left office as Vice President. Where were these documents between when he left the vice presidency and when the office opened?
Biden says he was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where between 2017 and 2019 he earned nearly $1 million in compensation, though he never taught a class. During this same time, the University of Pennsylvania received an unprecedented deluge of financial contributions amounting to nearly $100 million from a variety of groups both formally and indirectly linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
In 2017, HUNTER BIDEN and his business partners put together a plan that would sell liquified natural gas produced in Louisiana to Chinese energy companies. For their efforts – and without even delivering on the specifics of the plan – Hunter and his cronies received $5 million from Chinese investors. An email about this deal is where the notorious “10 held by H for the big guy” comes from – suggesting that Joe Biden would pocket part of the proceeds from this deal.
But half a million dollars seems a cheap price for selling out your country’s energy sector, and even malicious foreign governments don’t shovel money at their assets for nothing. Among the emails found on Hunter’s laptops, Hunter describes the Penn Biden Center as akin to the Clinton Global Initiative – but without a constant need to fundraise. Hunter obviously had some pulse on how and where the office – and by proxy his corrupt family – would profit. Did the documents found at this office have anything to do with the millions of dollars paid by the Chinese government to the University of Pennsylvania?
Around the same time as Biden opened his office, news broke that longtime Democrat Senator DIANNE FEINSTEIN’s personal driver of 20 years was a spy for the Chinese government, proof that agents of the Chinese government are active on the ground at the seat of this nation’s power – and could feasibly get their hands on unprotected classified data.

WORTH ASKING: Can all of this possibly be a coincidence? So much money-exchanging, favor-trading, back-scratching, indirect giving, all linked to the Chinese Communist Party and revolving around the Biden Family Crime Syndicate – is all just random? And the boobs for years blubbering about “our Democracy” being in peril can’t expend the energy to ask these questions?

ALSO WORTH ASKING: These documents were first discovered and reported to the National Archives just a few days before Midterms. Biden’s approval was buoyed by Democrat overperformance, and in recent weeks he’s seemed stronger than ever to avoid a primary challenger from his own party for the Democratic nomination in 2024. Is the timing of the leak of this scandal coming from within Biden’s own ranks, among people who question his mental fitness for the hardest job in the world?

“BuT WHaT AbOUt TrUmP”: Former Vice Presidents don’t have the same level of active security around them as former presidents. By law, they only get coverage for up to six months after leaving office. What would be harder to get hands on: documents at former President Trump’s private offices in Florida within a members-only club protected 24/7 by Secret Service agents? Or some college-funded think tank where a former veep leaves classified documents, just miles from the Chinese Embassy? Moreover, presidents and former vice presidents do not have the same authority over what is and isn’t classified.

MEANWHILE: The new Republican House majority has lined up a few stunt bills that have no chance of going anywhere, including measures to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and eliminate federal income taxes. The Fair Tax Act would instead put a national sales tax in place.

Of course, with Democrats controlling the Senate and President JOE BIDEN in the White House, these have no chance of passing.

WORTH ASKING: Where was this when Republicans had a supermajority in Congress during former President DONALD TRUMP’s first two years in office?

WORTH NOTING: Amid partisan deadlock in the legislature, Republicans must prioritize investigations of the Biden Family Crime Syndicate; the rest is a distraction and a waste of time.

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The state budget proposed by California Governor GAVIN NEWSOM would end the year with a $22.5 BILLION deficit, despite an $11 billion decrease in spending.

Last year, California had a $100 billion surplus thanks to the smorgasbord of federal covid relief funds pumped into the state.

WORTH NOTING: California has the biggest gross domestic product of any state, at $3.6 trillion as of the third quarter last year. It also has the highest average income tax rate, a little above 13%. The state is a case study in taxing the rich to fund endless social programs.

WORTH ASKING: Why is it still in such a deep deficit if this kind of economy is effective? And why are cities like San Francisco constantly struggling with a homelessness epidemic?

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LOTTERY

No winner for Monday night’s Powerball drawing. Tonight’s drawing will be for a $360 million jackpot or a $188.7 million cash payout.

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SHOWBIZ NEWS

The Golden Globe Awards returned last night after taking a year off from being televised and streamed.

Comedian and actor JERROD CARHMICHAL hosted the festivities live from The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.

And the winners are…

Film

Drama

Picture - “The Fabelmans”
Actress - Cate Blanchett, “Tar”
Actor - Austin Butler, “Elvis”

Musical or Comedy

Picture - “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Actor - Colin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Actress - Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Overall

Animated Picture - “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”
Non-English Language Picture - “Argentina, 1985”
Supporting Actor - Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Supporting Actress - Angela Bassett, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
Director - Steven Spielberg, “The Fabelmans”
Screenplay - “The Banshees of Inisherin”
Original Score - Justin Hurwitz, “Babylon”
Original Song - “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”

Drama

Series - “House of the Dragon”
Actress - Zendaya, “Euphoria”
Actor - Kevin Costner, “Yellowstone”

Musical Comedy

Series - “Abbott Elementary”
Actress - Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”
Actor - Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”

Overall

Supporting Actress - Julia Garner, “Ozark”
Supporting Actor - Tyler James Williams, “Abbott Elementary”

Limited Series, Anthology Series or TV Movie

Best - “The White Lotus”
Actress - Amanda Seyfried, “The Dropout”
Actor - Evan Peters, “Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”
Supporting Actress - Jennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”
Supporting Actor - Paul Walter Hauser, “Black Bird”

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GWYNETH PALTROW reminisced about the good ol’ days – aka the 1990s – during a recent appearance on “The Late Late Show with James Corden.”

“It was great, I mean, talk about doing cocaine and not getting caught!” Paltrow said of the decade when there were no camera phones and social media.

The 50-year-old actress has always been open with her thoughts on drugs, once saying that she believes psychedelics are the future for treating mental health disorders.

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BAD BUNNY, BLACKPINK, FRANK OCEAN and CALVIN HARRIS are heading to Indio, California for Coachella.

Joining them are GORILLAZ, ROSALIA, BJORK, and many, many more!

The music and arts festival is set for April 14-16 and April 21-23.

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GWEN STEFANI appears to be confused about her heritage.

Speaking to Allure Magazine this week, the singer claimed to be Japanese, despite having ZERO ethnic ties to the country. She was born to an Italian-American father and Irish-American mother in California.

Later in the interview Stefani stated that she is “a little bit of an Orange County girl, a little bit of a Japanese girl, a little bit of an English girl.”

According to the magazine, Stefani’s rep reached out claiming the journalist “misunderstood” what she was trying to say. But when asked for an on-the-record clarification, Stefani’s team declined to comment.

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BEN AFFLECK was spotted filming something at a Dunkin’ Donuts in his native Boston on Tuesday morning.

Dressed as an employee and greeting customers at the drive thru -- including his wife JENNIFER LOPEZ -- Affleck appeared to be shooting some sort of ad. Perhaps for the upcoming Super Bowl?

Fans of the actor know what a Dunkin’ aficionado he is, as he is more often than not spotted out and about with the eatery’s products in hand.

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BEYONCE reportedly asked BRITNEY SPEARS to appear in her new music video, but now it seems that won’t happen.

Insiders told Page Six that it is unknown why the collaboration fell through, while adding that Bey was really hoping to reunite with Spears.

The two previously appeared together in a Pepsi ad, along with PINK, where they did a “Gladiator”-style cover of “We Will Rock You.”

Had it worked out, the collaboration would have been Spears’ second since the removal of her 13-year conservatorship. Last August, she paired up with ELTON JOHN for an upbeat remake of his hit “Tiny Dancer,” called “Hold Me Closer.”

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CASTING CALL

Reality star KATHRYN DENNS has reportedly been fired from “Southern Charm.”

A source told the US Sun that her contract was not renewed for Season 9 due to several missed appearances and her behavior toward staff.

Fans of Dennis, who has been on the show since the beginning, commented on the news writing, “There really is no show without her.”

“I won’t be watching if Kathryn is gone,” another added.

MEANWHILE: Bravo has not yet announced who will be part of the cast for the upcoming season.

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GUNTHER VI, the world’s richest dog, is getting his own reality TV show.

The four-part investigative documentary series explores how the German Shepard has amassed his riches and how his human handlers have helped him spend the cash.

“Gunther’s Millions” will premiere on Netflix on February 1.

FOR THE RECORD: His wealth comes from the late German Countess Karlotta Leibenstein, who died in 1992 and willed her entire $80 million fortune to her dog, Gunther III, Gunther VI’s grandfather.

Check out the trailer:

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Sunday’s game between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers averaged over 23.4 million viewers for NBC, making it the most-watched “SNF” season finale in six years.

For comparison, the Ravens-Steelers game the week prior averaged about 17.8 million total viewers. Weeks prior to that, viewership was down to around 15 million per game.

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In honor of its 25th anniversary, “Titanic” is heading back to the big screen.

The film, which has a 3 hour and 15 minute run time, will be screened in 3D 4K HDR. There is also a brand-new trailer and poster for the occasion.

It hits theaters February 10.

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THE DAILY KARDASHOPUS

Remember when KIM KARDASHIAN got flour bombed at her perfume launch in 2019?

Turns out she was in on it the whole time.

Kim’s former media strategist Sheeraz Hasan revealed in a new documentary “The Kardashians: A Billion Dollar Industry” that the stunt was preplanned in an effort to promote her new scent.

After the incident, which was documented in “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” Kim claimed to be “so shocked” by what had happened, and assumed an anti-fur organization was behind it.

Watch it here:

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WE’LL NEVER BE ROYALS

France’s former First Lady CARLA BRUNI posted a photoshopped version of PRINCE HARRY and MEGHAN MARKLE’s engagement picture on social media, with YOKO ONO’s face on Meg’s body.

She captioned the post, “All You Need is Love” -- referencing THE BEATLES’ hit.

The shade being thrown here by Bruni is that she is comparing Meg and Harry’s relationship to Yoko’s relationship with JOHN LENNON, which has been long speculated to be the reason The Beatles broke up.

Burn.

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In his memoir, “Spare,” PRINCE HARRY details how his dad, KING CHARLES, would manage his “constant neck and back pain” by doing nearly-naked headstands.

Harry writes that there was always a fear of opening the wrong door and seeing his dad hanging upside down in his skivvies.

It is unclear if the King still uses the technique.

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DAY OF THE YEAR

International Party at Work Day

National Take the Stairs Day

National Arkansas Day

National Girl Hug Boy Day

Secret Pal Day

National Milk Day

National Hot Toddy Day

National Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friends Day

Heritage Treasures Day

World Sketchnote Day

National Learn Your Name in Morse Code Day

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ON THIS DATE

1863 - Union General John McClernand and Admiral David Porter capture Arkansas Post, a Confederate stronghold on the Arkansas River.

The victory secured central Arkansas for the Union and lifted Northern morale just three weeks after the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia. Arkansas Post was a massive fort 25 miles from the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers.

It was designed to ensure Confederate control of the White and Arkansas rivers, and to keep pressure off Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last major Rebel city on the Mississippi River.

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1908 - Outdoorsman president Teddy Roosevelt declares the Grand Canyon a national monument.

The declaration sought to preserve the giant valley. Roosevelt said it was so wondrous, it could not possibly be improved.

In 1919, Congress outlawed private development around the Grand Canyon.

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1937 - Striking workers at a General Motors plant clash with police when the cops tried to cut off supplies from supporters outside the factory.

The strike was organized by United Auto Workers, who were seeking better working conditions.

Eventually the violence got so bad, the governor contemplated sending in the National Guard. but he also wanted to maintain good standing in the eyes of unionists, so he called them off.

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1989 - Ronald Reagan gives his final address to the nation as President of the United States.

In it, he spoke of America rediscovering a commitment to freedom and being a respected leader around the world.

Most of all, he lauded the end of communism in the Soviet Union.

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1996 - Space Shuttle STS 72 (Endeavor 10) launches from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Its mission was to capture and return to Earth a Japanese microgravity research spacecraft known as Space Flyer Unit.

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2007 - JK Rowling finishes the 7th and last “Harry Potter” book — “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” — in room 552 of the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh.

The room is now called the JK Rowling suite.

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2020 - Diego, the giant 100-year-old tortoise, retires to the Galapagos Islands after his high libido is credited with saving his species.

He was transferred from the San Diego Zoo to the islands in the 1970s once he was identified as one of only 15 known Hood Island giant tortoises. Between then and 2020, he fathered more than 900 offspring. Today, there are more than 2,000 of his species.

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2021 - Ireland becomes the country with the world’s highest COVID-19 infection rate after a surge results in a seven-day rolling average of 1,394 cases per million.

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BIRTHDAYS

Shareef O’Neil - basketball player & Shaq’s son - 23

Cody Simpson - pop singer - 26

Leroy Sane - soccer player - 27

Bones - rapper - 29

Lindsay Arnold - dancer, “Dancing With the Stars” - 29

Jedidiah Goodacre - actor, “Descendants” films - 34

Jamie Vardy - soccer player - 36

Emile Heskey - soccer player - 45

Mary J. Blige - R&B singer - 52

Kyle Richards - reality star, “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” - 54

Yolanda Hadid - reality star, “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” - 59

Born On This Date

Naomi Judd - country singer - 1946 (d. 2022)

Alexander Hamilton - first Secretary of the Treasury & Washington’s aide - 1755 (d. 1804)

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