2/15/2024: Midair Maggots 🐛

PLUS: Tay & Travis’ Valentine’s Day; Two-Faced Betty; and “The Handmaid’s Tale” Returns

Today is Thursday, February 15, 2024.

It is the 46th day of the year.

320 days remain.

Photo by Robert Gunnarsson on Unsplash

WHAT’S ON TAP

An arrest has been made in the theft of a Jackie Robinsin statue. Details in HIT LIST.

A country girl and Latin heartthrob are making some new music. Find out more in SHOWBIZ.

The new “Deadpool” trailer set a viewership record. Details in CASTING CALL.

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HIT LIST

A flight of passengers traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit were unaware that an infestation of maggots had also hitched a ride. 

Two hours into the eight hour flight, passengers started to notice the disgusting bugs were falling from an overhead bin onto those sitting below. 

“The lady right behind us told the flight attendants the maggots were falling on her head,” one passenger wrote on a Delta Reddit page. 

According to The Independent, the maggots stowed away on some rotting fish that a passenger had in his carry-on luggage. Upon landing, that guy was detained and his suitcase was burned. [via The Independent]

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Even the cartel is jumping on the TRAVIS KELCE-TAYLOR SWIFT bandwagon. 

DEA agents in NYC recently seized little white paper baggies filled with fentanyl, meth and cocaine with Kelce’s name and a grainy photo of him printed on them. 

While it is unknown which cartel has been pushing the Kelce contraband, DEA officials note that the Sinaloa Cartel, being the largest presence in the city, is the likely culprit. [via Daily Mail]

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Wichita Police have arrested the guy who stole a Jackie Robinson statue from McAdams Park last month. 

According to the department, 45-year-old Ricky Alderete was charged with stealing the statue, which was cut off at the ankles and found days later in a trash can. 

Authorities believe Alderete stole the statue to sell it for scrap metal. 

A GoFundMe account raising money for a replacement has raised more than $190,000. [via BBC]

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DEATHS

WILLIAM “Bill” POST, the man credited with inventing Pop-Tarts, has died. 

He passed away on February 10. No further details have been shared. 

Post was 96. 

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BY THE NUMBERS

📈 The DOW gained 151 points (0.40%) to close at 38,424 on Wednesday. The S&P climbed 47 points (0.96%) to close at 5,000 and the NASDAQ increased 203 points (1.30%) to close at 15,859.

🛢 WEST TEXAS INTERMEDIATE closed at $76; BRENT CRUDE at $81.

⛽ The national average price of a GALLON OF GAS was $3.25 on Wednesday.

₿ BITCOIN gained on Wednesday, up 0.12%, to trade over $51,802. 

🛩 There were more than 2,004 FLIGHTS delayed within, into, or out of the United States on Wednesday and more than 57 such cancellations.

💰Friday night’s MEGA MILLIONS drawing will be for a $457 million jackpot or a $216.8 million cash payout. 

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SHOWBIZ NEWS

TAYLOR SWIFT and TRAVIS KELCE did not spend their first Valentine’s Day together. 

He spent his day at the Chiefs’ Super Bowl parade in Missouri, while she touched down in Australia for her “Eras Tour.” 

Swift is set to perform in Melbourne this weekend, and Sydney the following weekend. No word on whether or not Kelce will head down under to see her. [via Page Six]

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MIRANDA LAMBERT and ENRIQUE IGLESIAS are working on some new music. 

The country singer and Latin pop star are set to release a duet, titled “Space in My Heart,” on February 22. 

The pair shared a clip of the song on their respective Instagram pages this week. [via People]

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CASTING CALL

A new book by screenwriter Stan Zimmerman, titled “The Girls: From Golden to Gilmore,” details the contentious relationship between “Golden Girls” stars BETTY WHITE and BEA ARTHUR. 

“During our time on set, I never felt tension between the two,” Zimmerman writes, but notes that others, such as producer Marsha Posner Williams, were more privy to the drama. 

Zimmerman writes how Williams once stated on a podcast that “Bea thought Betty was two-faced.” 

The book also covers Zimmerman’s time on another female-centered show, “Gilmore Girls.” [via NY Post]

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GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO says he almost walked away from basketball after his father’s death in 2017. 

Speaking out about the situation in a new documentary, titled “Giannis: The Marvelous Journey,” the Milwaukee Bucks superstar shared how the death affected their family. 

“I said, ‘I don’t want to play no more,’” before having a change of heart and realizing, “We’re all going to die one day, so go conquer the world;” and that he did!

“Giannis: The Marvelous Journey” premieres on Prime Video on February 19. [via People]

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The trailer for Marvel’s threequel “Deadpool & Wolverine” was viewed more than 365 million times in its first 24 hours, making it the most viewed movie trailer in history. 

Included in that is the 123 million viewers that watched the trailer’s debut during the Super Bowl. 

Starring RYAN REYNOLDS and HUGH JACKMAN, the superhero flick is set to hit theaters in July. [via THR]

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Season 6 of “The Handmaid’s Tale” will premiere in 2025. 

ELISABETH MOSS, who stars in the Hulu series, recently shared that production on the sixth -- and final season -- will begin this summer. 

There have been no new episodes since November 2022. [via ET]

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DAY OF THE YEAR

Singles Awareness Day

Annoy Squidward Day

World Hippo Day

National Gumdrop Day

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ON THIS DATE

1898 - The USS Maine explodes while docked in a harbor in Havana, Cuba. 260 are killed and more than 100 are injured.

The cause of the blast remains a mystery.

The Maine was one of the first American battleships. It weighed more than 6,000 tons and cost -- at the time -- more than $2 million. 

It had been in port to monitor the uprising against the Spanish, which had broken out in Havana the month before.

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1903 - The first Teddy Bears are sold.

Morris Michtom was a toy store owner, who had petitioned President Roosevelt to use his name to promote stuffed bear toys.

The president agreed, and soon other toymakers copied the idea.

A childhood staple was born.

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1933 - Franklin Roosevelt survives an assassination attempt in Miami. The assassin missed him and hit Anton Cermak, the mayor of Chicago. 

The mayor would die a few weeks later.

On the day the mayor died, the assassin was indicted and arraigned for murder and pleaded guilty. He would be executed by electric chair on March 20 -- less than two weeks after the mayor's death.

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1943 - J. Howard Miller creates the wartime propaganda poster “We Can Do It!” featuring “Rosie the Riveter.” 

It would be hung on the walls of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company’s plants in the Midwest. 

The spirit of patriotism was meant to encourage women to work in the defense industries in WWII. 

The poster currently sits at The National Museum of American History in Washington DC. 

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1950 - The Soviet Union and China agree to a mutual defense and assistance treaty.

On paper, the agreement created an alliance between the two largest communist powers in the world.

It was not a strong alliance, though. American intelligence quickly reported breakdowns in communications and agreements between the communists' militaries and intelligence-gathering services. 

In public, the Chinese lamented the Soviets' abandonment of Marxism-Leninism, and decried any doctrine of peaceful coexistence. In 1962, Mao Zedong even publicly said he saw the USSR as an ally of the US.

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Also 1950 - Disney's "Cinderella" premieres across the country.

It took six years to produce and animate.

It followed in the footsteps of “Snow White,” “Dumbo,” “Bambi,” and “Pinocchio.”

Many of the animation sequences that include dancing and singing in those subsequent movies follow the exact same character movements as in “Snow White.”

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1965 - Canada adopts its current flag, a red Maple leaf on a white background, flanked by two vertical bars of red.

Since the country began as a British colony in the early 1600s, it had incorporated an element of the Union Jack into its flags. The move away from British influence began in 1925. 

Adoption of the new flag coincided with Canada’s 100th anniversary of autonomy from Britain. 

Ironically, they chose red and white as colors, because King George the Fifth declared those the official colors in 1921.

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1978 - Escaped mass murderer Ted Bundy is recaptured in Pensacola, Florida. 

He had escaped from a Colorado jail where he was being held for the murder of a Michigan nurse. 

While on the run, Bundy would murder sorority sisters Margaret Bowman and Lisa Levy at Florida State University. 

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1992 - A Milwaukee jury finds Jeffrey Dahmer was sane when he killed and mutilated 15 men and boys. 

The decision meant Dahmer, who had already pleaded guilty to the murders, would receive a mandatory life sentence for each count. 

He would be beaten to death in prison in 1994.

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2011 - President Barack Obama awards writer and activist Maya Angelou the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

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2020 - Beijing orders people returning to the city after the Lunar New Year holiday to self-quarantine for 14 days to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 

Little did anyone know, the worst was yet to come. 

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BIRTHDAYS

Zachary Gordon - actor, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” - 26

Megan Thee Stallion - rapper - 29

Callum Turner - actor, “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” - 34

Amber Riley - actress, “Glee” - 38

Ross Duffer - TV producer - 40

Matt Duffer - TV producer - 40

Alex Borstein - actress, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” - 53

Birdman - rapper - 55

Lynn Whitfield - actress, “The Cheetah Girls” - 71

Jane Seymour - actress, “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” - 73

Born On This Date

Chris Farley - comedian & actor - 1964 (d. 1997)

Miep Gies - Dutch woman who helped hide Anne Frank & her family - 1909 (d. 2010)

Susan B. Anthony - activist - 1820 (d. 1906)

Galileo Galilei - inventor, Father of Science - 1564 (d. 1642)

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