On Today’s Show
Facebook has admitted it allowed other big tech companies to read users’ private messages, but denies it did so without consent.
The response came Wednesday after an investigation found that Facebook gave companies including Netflix, Spotify and the Royal Bank of Canada the ability to read, write and delete users’ private messages. The report on Tuesday also said it permitted Microsoft’s Bing search engine to view the names of nearly all of a Facebook user’s friends without consent.
Facebook said it enabled partner companies like Spotify to access users’ private messages after a user had signed into Facebook through the partner company’s app.
Spokespeople for Spotify and Netflix told the Times they were unaware of the broad powers Facebook had granted them, while a Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) spokesperson disputed the bank had such access.
Facebook stock was down more than 2 percent on Wednesday
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There’s a 29-year-old guy named Dave Berry Junior from Brookline, Missouri. And he and three of his relatives were recently busted for DEER POACHING.
They illegally killed hundreds of deer, took their heads, and left their bodies to rot.
Dave wound up getting a year in prison. But that’s not all . . . the judge also ruled that he has to watch Disney’s “Bambi” at least once a month while he’s locked up.
He’ll be watching it for the first time on Sunday.
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ENTERTAINMENT
JULIA ROBERTS might just have the best “And that’s when I knew I was famous” story of all time. It happened when she went home to visit her family in Georgia, and they all went to the movies. She had to use the restroom, and as soon as she went into the stall and sat down, she heard someone say . . . “Hey, girl in stall number one, were you in ‘Mystic Pizza’?”
When Julia admitted that it was her, the woman slid something under the stall and asked her to sign it. She says she told the woman “Not right now,” while thinking to herself, quote, “Wait, this is different.”
The “Ross” lookalike didn’t show up for his court date. A British judge has issued an arrest warrant for the alleged shoplifter — who resembles a Friends-era David Schwimmer — after he failed to appear in court yesterday. 36-year-old Abdulah Husseni was scheduled to appear in a Blackpool, England, court to face charges of theft and fraud. His image went viral in October after police released surveillance-camera footage of him carrying a case of beer from a restaurant — because he looked so much like Schwimmer’s Friends character.
TODAY IS……………….
- “Sangria Day”, a day to put a little olé in your life with the traditional fruity wine punch named for the Spanish word ‘sangre’, which means ‘blood’.
- “Games Day”. The best-selling board game of all-time? ‘Monopoly’, with over 250 million games sold in 80 countries and in 26 languages since 1935. In fact, an estimated 500 million people around-the-world have played ‘Monopoly’ since its inception (and half of those games are still going on…) New versions for 2018: ‘Monopoly for Millennials’ and ‘Monopoly for Cheaters’…
- “Regifting Day”, held each year on the Thursday before Christmas. Many office holiday parties are held on this day, and research shows that 40 percent of office party gifts are regifted.
2005 [13] Actress Renee Zellweger annuls her marriage to singer Kenny Chesney citing fraud, after 4 months of marriage
1980 [38] 1st (and only) NFL telecast with NO announcers (as a stunt, NBC-TV uses only sounds and graphics for a meaningless NY Jets-Miami Dolphins game)
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COUNTRY MUSIC NOTE
DECEMBER 20TH, 2003 Kenny Chesney began a seven-week stay at #1 with
“There Goes My Life”
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TODAY’S GOOD NEWS
Anyone who’s worked in a restaurant knows it can be a tough environment. So a Montreal restaurant owner is determined to keep his employees happy by sending the entire team on a week-long trip to Cuba.
“They’re going to love us,” said Nicolas Delrieu, who owns Le Speakeasy restaurant. “After we go to Cuba, they’re going to say, ‘Okay, wow, our bosses are great. Let’s stay here.’”
All 25 staff members will be flown to Veradero later this winter, where they’ll spend seven days hanging out at an all-inclusive resort.
Employee Alex Forget said he was surprised by the bonus.
“My friends are actually pretty impressed. They’ve never heard of anything like this,” he said.
Flying the whole staff of a restaurant for a group holiday may seem unusual, but the practice is increasingly common in the business world.
There are more than 100,000 job vacancies in Quebec, and employers are offering perks to keep good workers on the payroll.
David Inzlicht, who runs the recruiting firm Proforce Personnel, said he’s never seen employers so desperate to please their staff.
“It’s so insane that you have people that are offering signing bonuses just to get started, and on the other side you have people offering retention bonuses not to leave,” he said.
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BIRTHDAYS
[35] Jonah Hill, actor (“The Wolf of Wall Street”, “21 Jump Street”) COMING UP…”The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” 2019
WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?………………..
Should This Woman Really Charge Her Family Members $21 Each For Christmas Dinner?
A woman in England posted online about her mother-in-law CHARGING for Christmas dinner this year. She wants about $21 per person from EVERYONE.
Oh . . . and it’s not because she feels like she should be paid for the cooking. She’s charging because she’s getting carry-out which is more expensive.
So . . . is that fair? Or is it ridiculous? The responses to the woman’s post are split right down the middle . . . and both sides are very passionate.
But one person DID take a fairly level-headed middle ground approach that’s worth sharing. Quote, “People who see it as charging family are horrified, people who see it as sharing costs don’t see the issue.”
The Top Ten Reasons for Regifting a Present
A poll of 2,000 people found 46% of us wish we could just pick out our own Christmas gifts, so we’d get stuff we actually want.
The survey also asked people about stuff they’ve regifted . . . returned . . . or just tossed in the trash, and WHY they did it. Here are the top ten reasons . . .
- I just didn’t like the gift.
- I couldn’t use it in time. So that applies to things like gift cards and Groupons.
- I already owned one.
- I liked the gift, but thought someone else would like it more.
- I got too many of them. Like if you end up with five boxes of chocolate.
- I regifted to save money on someone else’s gift.
- It didn’t fit. So that one’s mostly about clothing.
- I used it as an emergency gift after I forgot to get someone a present.
- I didn’t have space for it.
- I got rid of it out of SPITE, because I didn’t like the person who gave it to me.
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RANDOM REPORT
- There’s a place called Inaccessible Island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and, because of weather patterns, it’s only possible to get there one week a year.
- During World War Two, Coca-Cola made a special clear version of Coke for the Soviet Union called White Coke. All because one of their top generals loved the stuff . . . but didn’t want it to look like the American version, and wanted it to resemble vodka.
- If Facebook is still around and popular in 2130, there will be more dead people with profiles than living people. And if Facebook keeps on losing popularity like it has been, it could have more dead users than living ones in around 50 years.
- When Sudoku became popular in 2006, pencil sales went up 700%.
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THURSDAY DECEMBER 20TH
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
[35] Jonah Hill, actor (“The Wolf of Wall Street”, “21 Jump Street”) COMING UP…”The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” 2019
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- • “A Christmas Story Live!” (FOX): A live musical adaptation of the iconic film and Broadway production about an American family during the Christmas season in the 1950s.
- “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (ABC): In the Emmy and Peabody-winning animated cartoon from 1965, the gang mounts a holiday pageant as Charlie Brown bemoans Yuletide commercialism.
- The “Ross” lookalike didn’t show up for his court date. A British judge has issued an arrest warrant for the alleged shoplifter — who resembles a Friends-era David Schwimmer — after he failed to appear in court yesterday. 36-year-old Abdulah Husseni was scheduled to appear in a Blackpool, England, court to face charges of theft and fraud. His image went viral in October after police released surveillance-camera footage of him carrying a case of beer from a restaurant — because he looked so much like Schwimmer’s Friends character.
- 3% of us have already started our Christmas shopping for NEXT year, according to a new survey.
- Pat Sajak asked a “Wheel of Fortune” contestant last night about his love of corny dad jokes, and let the guy tell one. It bombed, but the guy enjoyed his moment. (What do you call Santa Claus when he lands on a bankrupt? Saint Nickel-less.
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Brantley Gilbert’s Son Has Too Many Toys, So He’s Been Secretly Donating Them
If you have kids, you know what it’s like to navigate through a minefield of toys on the bedroom floor, kitchen, living room floor . . . you name it.
BRANTLEY GILBERT’s son Barrett is only one, but he’s already on his way to junking up the whole place. He says that the house is “slap full of toys” thanks to his dad, his mom, his wife’s mom . . . and everybody else.
He’s even started secretly taking the toys to The Salvation Army. Obviously, it’s cool that everyone’s showing the kid so much love, but Brantley wonders if it’s too much.
Quote, “I always say I think he’s got too many. I remember coming up and if you don’t very many you learn how to appreciate what you got. But he’s got some toys. And he loves to play. He could play all day.”
Midland guitarist Jess Carson grew up on a Christmas tree farm, so things were different for him because there was a lot of hard work to do leading up to the holidays. Still, it was cool to know the trees were going to be the centerpiece of so many families.
