On Today’s Show
➢ Will Smith teamed up with Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Will Smith, to surprise a young fan on his Snapchat Series “Will From Home”. The story was about 8-year-old Aaron Moreno, who bought plants and sold them for profit to help his family out amid tough times they were facing — including sending his sister to Mexico because his family couldn’t afford to keep her in the US. In the episode, the two Smiths surprised the young boy with a PlayStation 5, Dodgers tickets, an invitation to batting practice and a $10,000 donation from a community network among other generous gifts. Later, Smith shared that Aaron was able to sell enough plants to allow his family to buy a car, get a new apartment and bring his sister back from Mexico.
➢ An off-duty emergency worker in Thailand came to the rescue of a baby elephant that was struck by a motorcycle, performing CPR on the animal until it revived.
Rescue worker Mana Srivate said he was off-duty when he came across the scene of the crash at the side of a road. Emergency medical responders were treating the motorcycle driver, who sustained only minor injuries, and he attended to the baby elephant struck by the vehicle.
He said he made a guess about the location of the animal’s heart based on human physiology and an online video, and he started chest compressions. The rescue worker said he nearly started crying when the elephant started moving again. He said the animal was able to stand after about 10 minutes and eventually was reunited with its herd.
➢ An Arkansas fire department said crews responded to a resident’s home to rescue an elderly horse that became stranded on the cover of a swimming pool. The firefighters moved the horse to the shallow end of the pool so it could safely be returned to solid ground. The horse was safely rescued. “He’s safe and warming up now,” the department said of the horse.
➢ Sometimes moms can be harsh. Adem Waterman, of London recently shared a screenshot of a text exchange he had with his mom on Twitter. Over text, his mom asks, “Shall I put to just Adem or do you have a boyfriend yet?” He replies back, “No boyfriend. You can just put my name on it,” and she replies, “Okay will do. Do you think it’s your personality or your looks?” Adem writes back, “Come on mum. It’s Christmas!” and she simply says, “Well your brothers and sisters have partners. X.” His tweet of the conversation has over 65,000 likes and 4,000 shares.
➢ 87-year-old LARRY KING was hospitalized over a week ago with COVID-19. There’s no word on his condition, but he’s in isolation and unable to receive visitors. Larry survived a stroke and underwent heart surgery in 2019, then last year he lost a son to a heart attack and a daughter to lung cancer, just weeks apart.
LOUIS GOSSETT JR. ended up in a Georgia hospital last week with coronavirus . . . but he LEFT after a few days, against doctors’ orders, because he got freaked out about all the people dying around him in the COVID wing. Lou is 84.
TODAY IS……………….
- “Spaghetti Day”, celebrating the Italian pasta dish that seemingly everyone loves. Marco Polo brought the recipe for pasta back to Europe with him after his famous trip to China in the 13th century.
- “World Braille Day”, observed on the anniversary of the 1809 birth of Louis Braille in France. In 1829, he published “Method of Writing Words, Music & Plain Song by Means of Dots, for Use by the Blind”. Today, the ‘Braille method’ is used in virtually every language as the standard form of reading and writing by those with vision-loss.
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COUNTRY MUSIC NOTE
1983 Alabama were at #1 on the US Country music album chart with Mountain Music, released in 1982, it is the award-winning third studio album by the country music group.
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FINAL JEOPARDY
The final new “Jeopardy!” episodes hosted by Alex Trebek will air next week, with highlights that promise to be memorable.
The first of the five episodes will air Monday and start with Trebek’s “powerful message about the season of giving,” producer Sony Pictures Television said in a release Wednesday.
The final episode, on Friday, will conclude with a tribute to the longtime and beloved host. He died of pancreatic cancer on Nov. 8 at age 80.
Trebek, who had been candid about his condition, worked up until 10 days before he died, soldiering on despite debilitating treatments and the disease’s toll.
It was unexpected that the episodes taped in late October would be his final ones, Sony said. Trebek had been fighting the disease for nearly two years.
Veteran “Jeopardy!” champion Ken Jennings will take over as guest host starting on Jan. 11. A permanent host has yet to be announced.
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GOOD NEWS
Here’s something to make you smile. Teens of Chippewa Township, Pennsylvania, have been installing dozens of inflatable snowmen that stand 18-feet tall throughout the town.
As of Friday (December 18th) there were nearly 40 Frosty the Snowman inflatables installed in Highland Meadows, a single family home development in Monaca, Pennsylvania.
The massive decorations were placed in various front yards since Thanksgiving.
The identity of the teens is unclear, but they reportedly wear Buddy the Elf and reindeer costumes and play Christmas music from a van while they install their decorations.
Recent social media posts show the community has attracted lines of cars at night, checking out all the giant snowmen.
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BIRTHDAYS
[64] Patty Loveless, country singer
[55] Deana Carter, country singer
[32] Michelle Mylett, actress (‘Katie’ on “Letterkenny” since 2016)
THINGS SCIENCE MAY ACHIEVE IN 2021:
➢ Finding an actual habitable planet: Thanks to improved observation techniques, scientists are getting closer. NASA has identified nearly 1,000 promising planets. That could point us in the direction of extraterrestrial life, and could prove useful in the far future, when humans may want to settle on planets outside our solar system.
➢ Flying cars: By the end of 2021, there is a chance that they will be routinely zipping through the skies. With new technology, including lighter batteries and more durable, less expensive materials, many entrepreneurs are focused on the air taxi market. (Up next: air-Ubers!)
➢ A.I. will become even I’er: A.I. can help augment our own problem-solving abilities, and it can take on tasks, freeing up human minds to tackle other problems, like information security, collapsing biodiversity, and climate change.
➢ Feeding the planet will receive a boost: Continued work with genetically-modified organisms could be essential. While climate change continues to change things like rainfall and soil composition, developing hardier crops could prove to be a vital issue.
➢ Making us more serious about public health: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of public health and epidemiology, or the study of how disease spreads within a community. Computer modeling could help predict the next big epidemic, and not only help us gain a better understanding of disease, but also how to prevent deadly outbreaks before they happen.
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SMARTPHONE FITNESS APPS AND WEARABLE ACTIVITY TRACKERS BOOST PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
People walk almost an extra mile each day if they have an activity tracker on their smartphone or watch, a study has found.
Overall, people walked an average of 1,850 more steps if they had an app — a significant increase in daily workouts. Most people take somewhere around 2,000 steps to walk a mile.
Authors of the study said doctors might consider prescribing such apps and trackers for patients looking to get fitter.
Health experts typically recommend that people aim to take 10,000 steps a day, and that mark is used as a default goal on most step counting apps.
A study last year, though, found that the optimal number may be much lower, depending on your age. The research found that women whose step counters reached 4,400 each day had a 41% lower rate of death than women who took 1,700 fewer steps each day.
The average number of steps taken by adults is between 4,000 and 5,000 per day.
MONDAY JANUARY 4TH
- ROAD TO BE CLOSED: Charing Cross Road (CK #10) – Communities of Raleigh, Harwich
BETWEEN: Eighth Line (CK #14) and Middle Line (CK #8).
REASON: Sanitary sewer installation across the roadway.
DETOUR ROUTE: Eighth Line (CK #14) – Bloomfield Road (CK #27) – Middle Line (CK #8)
DATE & TIME: Monday, January 4, 2021 at 7:00 AM to Tuesday, January 5, 2021 at 5:00 PM.
- If you haven’t paid attention to the NFL this season, you’ve missed something close to a MIRACLE: The Cleveland Brownsare GOOD.
The Browns beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in Pittsburgh yesterday, to finish the season 11-5, and to secure their first playoff berth since 2002. At 18 years, that’s the NFL’s longest playoff drought. That year, they lost in the first round to the Steelers. This year, they’ll also have to take on the Steelers in Round 1. The game is set for next Sunday at 8:15 P.M. Eastern.
The rest of the playoff picture has already been set. In the AFC, the Miami Dolphins missed the cut, despite going 10-6. While in the NFC, the Chicago Bears got in despite an 8-8 record . . . and the Washington Football Team made it despite a LOSING 7-9 record . . . which was good enough to win the NFC East. Finally, in the aftermath of Tom Brady’s split from the New England Patriots, Brady came out the winner. He and the Tampa Bay Bucs are in the playoffs after going 11-5. The Patriots went 7-9 and missed the cut.
- • “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (CBS/Global): Stacey Abrams, RuPaul, Maren Morris
- ” The Late Late Show with James Corden” (CBS/CTV): Rosario Dawson, Ingrid Andress
- Here’s comedian Jim Gaffigan talking about getting a robe for Christmas.
DARIUS RUCKER SAYS HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH HAS ‘NO SHOT’ AT GETTING INTO ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME
The annual list of Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees is announced in January, and it’s anyone’s guess who will make the coveted short list, but according to Darius Rucker, you’ll never hear Hootie & The Blowfish’s name called. In fact, he says he and his longtime rock band have “no shot.”
[“Never gonna happen (laughs). It’s never gonna happen. When CNN does a show on the music of the 90s and don’t even mention Hootie & The Blowfish, for us to think that we were gonna get into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is pretty crazy, don’t ya think? We got no shot. We don’t have the kind of respect you need to get in there. Do I think we deserve to be in there? Absolutely. We changed music. We saved music. We changed radio, but, you know, that’s not enough for them. If we got in I’d be really happy but I’m not holding my breath.”]
Darius recently become an investor with Music City Baseball, a group trying to bring Major League Baseball to Nashville. He also joined the group as an Advisory board member.
Brad Paisley Is Helping a Musician Affected by the Nashville Bombing
BRAD PAISLEY is helping a country singer named Buck McCoy, who was in his apartment when the bomb exploded in Nashville on Christmas Day. Buck made it out safely but most of his stuff was destroyed.
That included his car, his clothes, and his musical equipment. When Brad heard about it he hooked him up with a brand new guitar so he could get back to playing and making a living.
He also offered the guy unlimited groceries from his nonprofit The Store, which provides free food for those in need.
One more thing about Buck. His cat Molly was lost after the explosion and he had no idea where she was. But they were reunited six days later when he saw her in one of the animal cages that authorities were taking away from the scene.
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Gabby Barrett and Charlie Puth Have the Year’s Best-Selling Country Song
In a year that has everyone social-distancing . . . collaborations dominated the Top 10 list of the best-selling country songs. According to Taste of Country four of the five top-selling songs were collaborations. Here’s the list:
- “I Hope”, Gabby Barrettand Charlie Puth
- “Nobody But You”, Blake Sheltonduet with Gwen Stefani
- “One Margarita”, Luke Bryan
- “The Bones”, Maren Morriswith Hozier (Tie)
- “10,000 Hours”, Dan + Shayand Justin Bieber(Tie)
- “One Man Band”, Old Dominion
- “Hard To Forget”, Sam Hunt
- “Got What I Got”, Jason Aldean
- “Tennessee Whiskey”, Chris Stapleton
- “Chasin’ You”, Morgan Wallen
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KANE BROWN SHARES LESSONS LEARNED IN 2020
As we ring in a new year, Kane Brown looks back on a pandemic year and says he’s learned a few things. Kane tells us more: [“I’d say in 2020 I’ve learned that anything can happen out of nowhere. Like, we were on tour for 2 weeks and then Covid hit and we haven’t toured in over a year. So, I’ll never say that I’m ready to take a break ever again. I’ve missed it, I can’t wait to get back out there and, Most looking forward to in 2021… Hopefully getting to tour, take my family out and to get Kingsley out on the road. She’s been a quarantine baby. So, I want her to get out and to see the world a little bit, meet to new people, yeah, just be out of the house.”]
FAST FACTS
Kane and wife Katelyn have a one year old daughter, Kingsley.
