2/19/2024: Out of Luck
PLUS: Apple Slapped; Dressing Room Drama; and Usher Spills Halftime Show Details
Today is Monday, February 19, 2024.
It is the 50th day of the year.
316 days remain.
PROGRAMMING NOTE
For February 19 & 20, the daily newsletter content will be scaled back slightly as half of our two-man team takes a couple of days off. We will be back at full force with Wednesday’s issue.
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WHAT’S ON TAP
Someone’s luck ran out all too soon in HIT LIST.
JIMMY KIMMEL faces a fraud lawsuit (that he asked for!). Details in SHOWBIZ.
Production on an Apple TV+ favorite ramps back up. Details in CASTING CALL.
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HIT LIST
APPLE is bracing for an historic, $539 MILLION fine from the European Union over antitrust concerns.
The Financial Times first reported the penalty, which is set to be formally announced some time next month, though the leak might advance that timetable. The fine apparently stems from a 2019 complaint filed by SPOTIFY, which alleges Apple prevents companies from promoting cheaper alternatives to its own music streaming services. [via Engadget]
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A Florida shopper has run out of luck, leaving unclaimed a $36 MILLION lottery prize for a ticket purchased last August.
The 180-day claim window for the prize closed last week, with no one claiming the ticket purchased at a Publix grocery store in Jacksonville.
The majority of the unclaimed winnings will support the state’s school scholarship and local district support trust fund. The remaining 20% goes back into the prize pool. [via People]
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North Korea is opening its borders – sort of.
The Hermit Kingdom took its isolation to new levels during the pandemic, virtually locking out all international travel. Now, its borders are reopening but only to Russian tourists. North Korea shares a sliver of its northern border with Russia.
Still, restrictions abounded: the group of 100 visitors who arrived earlier this month were escorted at all times and prevented from interacting with everyday locals. North Korea has become a significant supplier for Russia in its war efforts against Ukraine. [via WSJ]
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DEATHS
ALEXEI NAVALNY has died.
The Russian activist openly challenged VLADIMIR PUTIN in recent elections and survived an attempted assassination by poison in August 2020. Still, he returned to Russia the following year, where he was swiftly imprisoned. The Russian government reports that Navalny fell ill and died quickly after taking a walk late last week, but there’s plenty of speculation that Navalny was killed.
He was 47.
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WEEKEND BOX OFFICE
Today is President’s Day and weekend box office numbers are not yet fully reported. We’ll have the full rundown from the long weekend in tomorrow’s edition.
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BY THE NUMBERS
📈The DOW lost 145 points (0.37%) to close at 38,627 on Friday. The S&P lost 24 points (0.48%) to close at 5,005 and the NASDAQ lost 130 points (0.82%) to close at 15,775.
🛢 WEST TEXAS INTERMEDIATE closed at $79 on Friday; BRENT CRUDE at $83.
⛽ The national average price of a GALLON OF GAS was $3.27 on Sunday.
₿ BITCOIN continued to climb over the weekend, trading over $51,800.
🛩 There were more than 2,640 FLIGHTS delayed within, into, or out of the United States on Sunday and more than 60 such cancellations.
💰No winner for Friday night’s MEGA MILLIONS. Tuesday’s drawing will be for a $493 MILLION jackpot or a $231 MILLION cash payout. No winner for Saturday’s POWERBALL. Monday’s drawing will be for a $330 MILLION jackpot or a $155 MILLION cash payout.
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SHOWBIZ NEWS
Disgraced US Representative GEORGE SANTOS has slapped late night talk show host JIMMY KIMMEL with a lawsuit alleging fraud, copyright infringement, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment, after Kimmel duped Santos into making bizarre videos on Cameo.
Cameo’s platform lets users buy custom video greetings from varying degrees of famous folks, who will say just about anything you tell them to within certain parameters. For a schtick on his show, Kimmel’s producers made fake accounts and purchased a variety of videos from Santos at $500 a pop, like congratulating a guy for winning a ground beef eating contest and a guy who wants his wife to call him a different name.
Ironically, Kimmel quipped that he hoped to get sued by Santos during the on-air bit. Santos is seeking $750,000 in damages.
FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH: Santos might have a case. Kimmel’s producers selected the “personal use” option, which does not include copyright release for broadcast. [via New York Post]
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TRAVIS KELCE donated $100,000 to an online fundraising campaign for two kids who sustained gunshot wounds at last week’s Super Bowl parade for the Kansas City Chiefs. Kelce made the donations through his Eighty-Seven & Running charity.
Chiefs quarterback PATRICK MAHOMES also visited the victims in the hospital last week.
MEANWHILE: TAYLOR SWIFT donated $100,000 to the family of the woman who was killed during the shooting. [via NBC News]
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KELLY ROWLAND walked off her duties as a fill-in guest host on the “Today” show last week because her dressing room was too small.
"Kelly walked out because she and her team didn't like her dressing room," one insider says. Rowland couldn’t be relocated to a larger one because JENNIFER LOPEZ and her crew were already using it in promotion of her new album.
Singer RITA ORA, who was scheduled as a guest to promote her upcoming slot as a judge on “The Masked Singer” swung into action and ended up co-hosting the hour instead. [via Entertainment Weekly]
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OLIVIA RODRIGO is getting a signature cookie from bakery chain CRUMBL.
When her tour gets underway in September, her custom “GUTS” cookie – named for her album and tour – will go on sale, but only at bakery locations in the market of the venue she’s playing. Crumbl’s menu famously changes weekly, anyway.
The custom cookie will include “layers of triple-berry jam and vanilla buttercream sandwiched between two purple cookies, rolled in star-shaped sprinkles and a star cutout on top.” [via @OliviaRodrigo]
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CASTING CALL
Even though JUSTIN BIEBER didn’t appear on stage with USHER during last weekend’s Super Bowl halftime show, the “Confessions” singer did try to set something up.
Usher tells The Breakfast Club that they had a “conversation” about Biebs joining the entertainment, but that “he’s just wanting to tell a different story right now.” Usher said they left the door open to work on a project together in the future. “No love lost or anything like that,” he said. [via People]
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Production on APPLE TV+ series “Foundation” will resume in early March, after execs had to trim the ambitious sci-fi series’ budget.
Cast and crew had already gathered in Europe earlier this month to begin shooting, but were sent back home indefinitely. Fortunately, the brass figured things out sooner than later and filming is set to resume in the Czech Republic on March 6.
Season 3 production was originally halted last year after filming the first few episodes amid writers and actors strikes. Now, even though production is back on the calendar, showrunner DAVID S. GOYER will not direct any episodes in this season and execs are finding directors to attach to the remaining shoots. [via Deadline]
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DAY OF THE YEAR
Presidents’ Day
National Hickey Day
International Tug of War Day
National Family Day
National Chocolate Mint Day
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ON THIS DATE
1807 - Aaron Burr is arrested for treason.
Burr was pushed out of favor with Thomas Jefferson after serving as Vice President for four years. After leaving the federal government, he murdered Alexander Hamilton in a duel, ending Burr's political career. He headed to the South, where it was alleged he plotted with the Spanish to seize territory in the American Southwest and govern over a new country.
In September that year, Burr was acquitted of treason because he never executed his plot. The US Constitution qualifies treason as an "overt act" that Burr did not commit.
Burr fled to Europe for several years, then returned to New York.
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1847 - A rescue party makes contact with a group from the Donner Party.
The pioneers left Missouri to head westward the previous May. An early snowstorm trapped them in the Rocky Mountains, where they camped for the winter beginning in October.
In total, 23 people left with the rescue party. Many needed support and help for the trek out of there, suffering from gangrene, frostbite, and severe malnutrition.
The remainder would be collected on March 1st.
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1878 - Thomas Edison is awarded a patent for the phonograph.
The device both recorded and played back sound. It culminated years of tinkering with sound devices by Edison.
Alexander Graham Bell would improve and modify similar technology, by cutting grooves into a wax cylinder -- that's where the term "cutting a record" comes from.
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1981 - Less than a month after taking office, the Reagan Administration calls out the communist regime in El Salvador.
It was a sharp and aggressive turn from the languid foreign policy under President Carter.
The El Salvadoran government was fighting against far-left terrorists, which the State Department believed was supported by the Soviet Union.
Support to the anti-communist government would top $5 billion in the 1980s.
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2010 - Tiger Woods publicly apologizes for his sensationalized affairs that had been haunting him since the previous November.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2009, he crashed his car into a fire hydrant after a spat with his wife. Rumors swirled about why he was leaving at that hour, and what caused the collision.
In the ensuing weeks, at least a dozen women came forward alleging affairs with the golfer.
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2019 - Four-time MLB All-Star Manny Machado agrees to the biggest free-agent contract in American sports history -- at the time.
The third baseman signed a 10-year-deal, worth $300 million with the San Diego Padres.
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BIRTHDAYS
Millie Bobby Brown - actress, “Stranger Things” - 20
David Mazouz - actor, “Gotham” - 23
Victoria Justice - actress, “Zoey 101” & “Victorious” - 31
Mauro Icardi - soccer player - 31
Camille Kostek - model - 32
Haylie Duff - actress, “7th Heaven” & “Material Girls” - 39
Arielle Kebbel - actress, “John Tucker Must Die” & “Vampires Suck” - 39
Eric Lange - actor, “Lost” - 51
Jeff Kinney - author, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series - 53
Seal - rock singer - 61
Joey Diaz - comedian - 61
Prince Andrew - royal - 64
Roger Goodell - NFL Commissioner - 65
Jeff Daniels - actor, “Dumb & Dumber” - 69
Smokey Robinson - R&B singer - 84
Born On This Date
Lee Martin - actor, “Paint Your Wagon” - 1924 (d. 1987)
Nicolaus Copernicus - astronomer who theorized planets revolve around the sun - 1473 (d. 1543)
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