Today is Wednesday, May 14, 2025.
It is the 134th day of the year.
231 days remain.
WHAT’S ON TAP
NOTABLE & NOTEWORTHY: ELON MUSK’s most boring company notches a major milestone.
The MENENDEZ BROTHERS’ resentencing hearing begins and BEYONCE sets a new record. More in SHOWBIZ
JANET JACKSON to be honored with the ICON Award and a “Wicked” musical heads to NBC. Details in CASTING CALL.
MEGHAN SUSSEX’s company teases new products. Details in ROYALS.
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Promising numbers continue to roll in showing a resilient economy, despite ongoing inflationary pressures and weeks of looming tariff threats.
Annual inflation measured 2.3% year over year in April, according to the Department of Labor – a four-year low and a tenth of a point below economist expectations – bolstered by an easing in gas prices. [via WSJ]
MEANWHILE: Tariff revenue spiked to over $16 BILLION in April, more than double the number from a year before.
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Among ELON MUSK’s lesser-known business endeavors is THE BORING COMPANY. Its mission is to build tunnels in crowded cities to alleviate traffic congestion. (It has a basic system already in place in Las Vegas).
On Tuesday, the company announced (on X, of course) that it has innovated a new technology it calls ZPIT, or Zero-People-in-Tunnel, to automate the process of building tunnels. The system uses a giant boring machine to create the tunnel and simultaneously builds the structural ring that contains it.
Along with a video showing off the process, the company explains, “In the same way that full and rapid reusability is the holy grail for rockets, ZPIT continuous mining is the holy grail for Boring Machines. This is the safest, fastest, and least expensive architecture to build tunnels.”
WORTH REMEMBERING: Musk has long touted rapid reusability at SPACEX for its dominance of private space exploration technology.
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More Americans than ever are experimenting with magic mushrooms.
A study in science journal Annals of Internal Medicine shows “lifetime use” — meaning having ever tried the drug — rose from 10% to 12.1% in 2023.
For young adults between 18 and 29 years old, recent use (any time in the last year) ticked up 44% between 2019 and 2023. For Americans 30-plus, recent use soared 188%.
Overall, in 2023, just over 2% of adults reported trying ‘shrooms at any point. [via PsyPost]
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A 1999 platinum Rolex Daytona is hitting the auction block.
Sotheby’s Geneva is in possession of the legendary timepiece, which features a mother-of-pearl face, set with 10 diamonds. The watch is one of four that were privately commissioned for the same family, each with a different face dial; something almost unheard of for Rolex.
Being the last one to be sold, it is expected to sell for up to $1.7 million. The others sold for around $3 million.
FOR THE RECORD: Rolex didn’t officially start using platinum on Daytona models until 2013, making this find even more rare. [via NBC]
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UPDATE: A Kansas City Chiefs fan who developed a niche social media following has been sentenced to 32 years in prison for a bank robbery.
Xaviar Babudar was better known as ChiefsAholic online, where he’d promote his favorite NFL team and show up to games in a wolf costume. But in December 2022, he robbed a bank in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and was swiftly arrested. For a few months he wore an ankle monitor, but ripped it off and went on the lam, though he was again swiftly apprehended.
Authorities figured out he was the suspect in multiple robberies in a variety of states. Last September, he was sentenced to 17 and a half years in prison for those.
NOW: He’s been sentenced for the Tulsa stickup. The judge is letting the 32-year state sentence run concurrently to his federal sentence. [via Fox 23]
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