Today is Thursday, May 8, 2025.
It is the 128th day of the year.
237 days remain.
WHAT’S ON TAP
NOTABLE & NOTEWORTHY: No consensus on the first Papal Enclave ballot.
More info on JENNIFER ANISTON’s gate-crasher and SMOKEY ROBINSON responds to assault allegations in SHOWBIZ.
A new Golden Globes category is announced. Details in CASTING CALL.
A brief look inside PRINCE WILLIAM’s family in ROYALS.
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TARIFF TALK
Chinese regulators have rolled out new policies designed to juice their fledgling economy, hit hard by American tariffs. The nation’s central bank has announced rate cuts to bolster domestic spending. The move comes ahead of a planned meeting on Saturday in Geneva between American and Chinese trade representatives.
On Wednesday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said these weekend meetings were a request of the Trump administration, not China. When asked about who-asked-whom on Wednesday, PRESIDENT TRUMP said China should “check their notes.”
MEANWHILE: Perhaps in a sign of things to come, India and the United Kingdom agreed to a new trade deal this week. The agreement drops India’s tariffs on 90% of imported British goods, with plans to establish full free trade within a decade.
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The first attempt to elect a new pope fell an unknown number of votes short at the Vatican on Wednesday, after ceremonial black smoke blew out of the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel around 9:00 pm local time.
Over the next two days, the College of Cardinals is expected to perform four rounds of voting, two each in the morning and evening.
With the participants bound to secrecy and sequestered from technology and media, the world will have no inkling of the direction votes are taking until after white smoke pours from the chimney. The first rounds of voting results are expected around 4:00 am Thursday Central time. [via Morning Martini]
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SHMOLLEGE: The Wall Street Journal reports that an increasing number of recruiters for companies needing skilled labor have been visiting high school shop classes to beef up their labor force.
At one Catholic high school in Philly, companies hiring for jobs like drivers, mechanics, and factory laborers regularly visit, promising good pay and benefits for students who pursue such careers. Another strategy includes working with schools to empower students to earn credits for working part-time on the side.
One manufacturing boss says the future of trades will require both technological know-how as well as capable hands, in order to both program processes and run the machines that create products. [via WSJ]
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A joint study from NASA and Toho University in Japan suggests Earth has about a billion years of oxygen left.
At that point, they posit, the sun’s temperature will increase so dramatically that temperatures on Earth break apart all carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere. In turn, plants will become unable to turn CO2 into oxygen, until all life dies out and the whole globe turns into a dry rock. [via Union Rayo]
FUN FACT: By that point, the continents (other than Antarctica) as we know them are expected to have once again collided, inching toward the North Pole, to form another supercontinent called Amasia.
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An 8-year-old lollipop lover from Kentucky ordered 70,000 Dum Dums via his mom’s Amazon account.
Holly LaFavers tells NBC News that the boy placed the order on her phone, which she didn’t realize until a charge for $4,200 showed up.
When asked why he ordered so many suckers, her son explained that he wanted to have a carnival for his friends and use them as prizes.
LaFavers said she did her best to cancel the order, but 30 boxes of Dum Dums still showed up on her porch. Taking to Facebook to ask her friends for help, many stepped up and purchased the lollipops from her.
She was eventually given a full refund from Amazon too. [via NBC]
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