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NFL Free Agency + NCAA March Madness | Donald Trump Weekly Update + ELON/DOGE Government Cuts (The Professor's Semanalmente #20))
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💯The Professor's Semanalmente #20 ft. Omar "The Professor" Fonseca💯
TOPICS - Sports: 🏈NFL Free Agency 🏀NCAA March Madness 🏒NHL Hockey + NBA 🏀 College Basketball Rankings
Entertainment: RIP Oscar Winner Gene Hackman & Wife Betsy Arakawa
USA: Donald Trump Weekly Update; ELON/DOGE Government Cuts
World News: Russia/Ukraine Ceasefire Talks; Syrian War Continues
#entertainment #news #worldnews #politics #sports #nfl #nba #basketball #football
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Transcript
Introduction and Technical Challenges
00:00:21
Speaker
toe to toe release the flow created by this micro Lights cameras get low Action packed, back to back, in fact this monster will go, y'all better let him know. Man with the master plan and you have no need to know. You can't prepare, now get ready for the show. Sports Professor.
00:00:47
Speaker
Yo, yo, yo, what up? What up? What up, friends? You know what it is. It is Monday evening.
00:00:58
Speaker
You know who it be? It's your boy, Omar, the sport. Damn, I got so many damn professors. I don't even know which one I'm on today. Look at me, but I'm on one, and you're about to be on one with me.
00:01:11
Speaker
Omar, the professor for a second, here with the professors. Seminalmente. Yes. Yes. my weekly news, entertainment, sports headlines show where I give you all of the most important news from the week. And it looks like It looks like, y'all, we are not live on X. X has been down all day.
00:01:37
Speaker
The people been hunting Elon Musk on the Twitter. They can't find him. X ain't been fixed. We ain't live on X. Things just ain't working in on the X platform like they should.
00:01:49
Speaker
Maybe they need some Bluetooth. Shout out. ah Shameless plug for a sponsor. Anyways, we will ah we'll go ahead and not worry about that since we're not on Twitter, but we are. On Facebook, we are on YouTube. We are on all of the channels. So make sure y'all tap in with us, whether you are on Ball and Buds.
Engagement and Channel Promotion
00:02:08
Speaker
If you're not subscribed, do as the kids say.
00:02:12
Speaker
Smash that subscribe button on the U-Tizzle YouTube at Ball and Buds, B-A-L-L-A-N-D-B-U-D-S. That handy QR code up top. Scan that bad boy. That'll take you right to our link tree.
00:02:26
Speaker
You can subscribe to our YouTube, follow our Instagram and all the other great things. Listen to the audio podcast and all the likes. So my producer says we sound good. I thank you, madam. Thank you
Weekly News and Entertainment Overview
00:02:39
Speaker
so much. I appreciate it. Love you.
00:02:40
Speaker
And so we mo keep it moving. And, yes, so doing a lot of lot of big news coming on this weekend, mostly in the sporting world, a little more. A silent connection in the in the news, world news, politics, a little bit of a slower time frame, but you know we always got our Donald news donald Trump news we got to tap into.
00:03:02
Speaker
ah You know, also we're going to hit the sports NFL free agency was today. NCAA March Madness coming up. As always, we'll give you our updates on the Israel and Hamas, Gaza Strip ceasefire, as well as Ukraine, Russia ceasefire talks that have started this week. We will get into all that, including some updates on things that we have talked about on the show.
00:03:24
Speaker
I will update us on a few different stories. So let's go ahead and kick this bad boy off again. Please make sure you are subscribed to Ball and Buds and please hit that like button.
00:03:35
Speaker
It helps us out in the algorithm. It is free. It costs you nothing. So please hit that like button for me. And yeah, let's keep it moving. All right.
Daylight Saving Time: History and Myths
00:03:45
Speaker
So Today, or yesterday actually, we started Daylight Savings Time.
00:03:52
Speaker
Now why do we do Daylight Savings Time, um you may ask, when it see seems like the majority of the population doesn't care for it.
00:04:04
Speaker
ah You know, as the professor, i am here to learn you these sort of things on this program. That's why you come to this program for the knowledge that I provide you. So let me give you a little background history on what we're looking at when we're talking about daylight savings time and what it really means. So first of all, let's go ahead and get the myth out of the way. So what I used to know, what I've always known it as is back in World War one farmers needed, I don't know, something more time in the day.
00:04:36
Speaker
They needed more time for labor workers in the factories because they had so much work to do for World War I. That's how I understood it. But mostly it was supposed to be for the farmers is how I understood it.
00:04:47
Speaker
So shout out to ah Matthew G. M. Brone from Hearth and Field. I read an excellent article. Now it's an opinion article by him, but we have a little bit of the same opinion, but he actually went out and did the research. So I didn't have to do that. So shout out to Matthew gambro G. M. Brone.
00:05:03
Speaker
Matthew Giambron, or might be Giambroni if he's Italian. So I apologize if I messed that up, sir. But anyways, he agreed. He thought it was because of the farmers and all that as well. So he went and did a little more research, dug into it.
00:05:17
Speaker
little bit First of all, it was apparently recommended as by Benjamin Franklin, but more as a joke. So he was saying it in a joking manner. He didn't actually mean that they should actually do some sort of thing like that.
00:05:28
Speaker
But it had already been done in other places in the world, but it wasn't really grand scale. until it was 1916 World War one Germany. And then that's when they started to employ at a grand scale the daylight savings time. Now, remember, it's not daylight savings time, as a lot of people ah like to say. It is a It is ah daylight without an S, savings time, because we're saving the daylight. Anyways, enough with that. I just hear a lot of people say it incorrectly.
00:06:02
Speaker
So the thing was, it was thought that they were enacting this for, again, more time for labor workers to be able to produce goods and services during the crisis period that was World War one But we are so fast past So far past that time, a lot of people now are asking to the point where it's gone to Congress and other places, been put up for resolutions and things of the sorts.
00:06:35
Speaker
How can we get rid of daylight savings time? Hawaii, Arizona, my dear Puerto Rico, as you see on the hat, Guam, all the other ah United States territories down there in the Caribbean, none of them do it.
00:06:56
Speaker
Why is there still a need for this? And I have another question. If we were going to have it, why wouldn't we have it the other way around?
00:07:11
Speaker
Summer in the Northern Hemisphere, as my friend Matthew Giambrone properly points out, is the longest time in the Northern Hemisphere during the summer, the longest days during So if you're going to do daylight savings time, why wouldn't you do it during the winter when the days are shorter?
00:07:30
Speaker
Because now you're confusing me. Now I went to the gym. I was ready. And then all of a sudden, it's still daylight outside. I'm about to do my show. I don't want to do my show when it's daylight outside. and still think like I should be doing something else.
00:07:42
Speaker
Anyways, it's confusing for everybody. We need to get rid of it. There's really no need for it any longer. i think most people would agree. We either need to go to one or the other.
00:07:53
Speaker
whether you just get rid of it at all and we stay at the standard time that we are now, or I would even be okay if they just flipped it and went daylight saving time in the winter versus the summer.
00:08:06
Speaker
But what do I know? I'm just the professor. All right. That's a good introduction for us as we keep it moving here on this program. Again, thank all tuning in.
00:08:19
Speaker
Make sure you subscribe to Ball and Buds, B-A-L-L-A-N-D-B-U-D-S. Make sure you hit that like button as well. All right, moving into sports. We had a big day in sports with NFL free agency abound.
00:08:31
Speaker
So a lot of maneuvering going on, a lot of contracts to be signed. I must say to be signed because remember during this time of NFL free agency, this is the legal tampering period, which means that they're allowed to discuss contracts with athletes, but won't officially sign on the dotted line until ah Wednesday when when it actually
Sports Highlights and Analytics Impact
00:08:59
Speaker
officially opens. So we'll see we'll see exactly who gets, but most of these are already set in stone, a word of a word agreement sort of thing.
00:09:09
Speaker
ah So NFL free agency did start today. A lot, a lot, a lot of stuff happened. A lot of players signed in different places. so Let's give you the rundown. I'm going to start actually from yesterday. When we first started out with this, it was because the Jacksonville Jaguars had actually traded wide receiver Christian Kirk to the Houston Texans, who, as we know,
00:09:36
Speaker
went ahead and, uh, or not went ahead, but tank Dell that one of their receivers, their slot receiver was injured last year. Prayers up for him. Another broken leg second time in his few short years in the league. So we pray for him and hope he gets better ASAP quickly, but that will definitely hurt your team and take away from, you know, uh, the, the team that you're trying to put out there. And he was a a really good player.
00:10:02
Speaker
So, um, NFL free agency, a lot of big people we're looking at. Let's go ahead and run through these right now. First of all, right after that, as you saw, my Raiders went ahead and tried traded for Geno Smith.
00:10:15
Speaker
The Eagles re-signed one of their Super Bowl best players, not the MVP, that was Saquon Barkley, but Zach Vaughn, who was a free agent signing last year, who went ahead and had an interception in the Super Bowl to help them win.
00:10:28
Speaker
Then it continued. Money bags being dropped. Ronnie Stanley... agrees to a contract with the Ravens. Then we have another big trade. DK Metcalf gets traded to the Steelers. The Seahawks are purging their whole roster. Are they going for a rebuild? We really don't know because wait a second.
00:10:49
Speaker
Now today they signed Sam Darnold. So up they upgraded at least, and I mean, they consider it to be an upgrade. If you look at the splits for Geno Smith, as I...
00:11:00
Speaker
Laid out all year long last year. He did not play well in outdoors, but played excellent indoors. Well, in Vegas at Allegiant Stadium, he will be indoors.
00:11:14
Speaker
He has been on the precipice of the top 10, right there in the top 15, and as an indoor quarterback is in the top 10. So I'm actually... we excited to see how he how he actually fits and plays with the Raiders. I still don't think we have much of a chance with Patrick Mahomes in the division, but I think that's also for pretty much everybody in league. Now, as the Eagles showed, that can, ah you know, that that can they can obviously be beaten, but For the most part, it's something scary that we all have to put up with.
00:11:45
Speaker
So again, a lot more people signed. Miles Garrett thing came through after Max Crosby signed with my Raiders to the biggest defensive end contract in history, $35.5 million a year. Then Miles Garrett.
00:11:59
Speaker
We thought he wanted to go to a winner. Apparently that was just a a bargaining chip. He gets a $40 million dollars contract a year to become the highest paid non quarterback.
00:12:10
Speaker
He's worth it. He's the best defensive player in the league. Um, and also shout out to max for getting that contract. He's worth it because of how hard he plays and how much he cares. Um, I, As a Raider fan, I'm happy he got it, but I don't know as a GM that I necessarily would have handed out that contract, ah not because he's not worth it, because he is, and just like Saquon Barkley was, but he didn't he ah he has him and Saquon Barkley have a little bit of that shaky injury history, which you got worry about a little bit. and While he plays all out, how long is how long is that going to be well for the contract that he signed? Because that also leads hard playing to the chance of more injury.
00:12:49
Speaker
So you got to be careful with that. Then, Bills Josh Allen. Bills brought Josh Allen back six years, 330 million. Wowzers, most ever for a player. 330 million, or most ever for guaranteed, excuse me, for a player. The 330 does not surpass Patrick Mahomes $450 million dollar contract from a few years ago, but that was over 10 year period.
00:13:11
Speaker
This is a six year contract comes out to 250 million guaranteed, which is 20 more million than what Deshaun Watson got last year when the Cleveland Browns gave him 230 million. Finally,
00:13:23
Speaker
millions finally Devontae Adams lands with the Rams on a two-year $46 million dollar deal. This now opens up Cooper Cup.
00:13:34
Speaker
Where is he going to go to? a bunch of dominoes have fallen, especially the quarterbacks now. All the quarterbacks other than Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson are off the board.
00:13:46
Speaker
Russell Wilson, it would make the most sense to me, although my sources told me today that they're hearing Aaron Rodgers to the Steelers talk. If I'm Mike Tomlin and we had a decent year with Russell Wilson, I think another year in the system with Russell Wilson would produce an even better year for the Steelers.
00:14:08
Speaker
And with another year of experience, bringing back him and George Pickens, I, if I am the Steelers, would re re-sign Russell Wilson and run it back with him instead of trying to bring in Aaron Rodgers, who we know is already dealing with the coming back from the Achilles injury. He's older.
00:14:23
Speaker
going to have to learn the system, although he should know every system in the NFL by now, but you get what I'm saying. I would actually re-sign Russell Wilson, which would leave Aaron Rodgers at that point to have two options open, either the New York Giants, which are an absolute problem,
00:14:38
Speaker
booty juice dumpster fire of a franchise and I can say that as a Raiders fan or now hear me out hear me out in Nashville
00:14:49
Speaker
the Tennessee Titans. What about Aaron Rodgers to the Titans? Let Will Levis sit up we sit a year behind Aaron Rodgers, learn from him the Titans don't have a bad team.
00:15:02
Speaker
They just need to fill some holes on the offensive, defensive line and in the secondary. But that can be done now in free agency if they were able to get an Aaron Rodgers-like quarterback, which would also, he fits really well in this city, let's just be completely honest, with his ah attitude, with his laid-back approach.
00:15:21
Speaker
with the way the city is, I think they would actually embrace him. So I am calling it right now Aaron Rodgers to the Tennessee Titans, which will allow the Tennessee Titans to not have to draft a quarterback, although they still probably should.
00:15:35
Speaker
But they can try to let Will Levis learn for a year, draft a quarterback later in the draft, and get Abdul Carter, who's the best defensive prospect in the league, even though, yes, he has a foot injury that we know about that's going to hinder possibly his draft status.
00:15:49
Speaker
I still don't think it should, as he is a generational player. So y'all, free agency has been hot and heavy. What are we looking forward to? Jamar Chase still needs to be signed.
00:16:00
Speaker
Cowboys Micah Parsons, the the original generation player before Miles Garrett, now before Abdul Carter came after Lawrence Taylor. I mean, we're going to see those contracts only go up.
00:16:12
Speaker
And hey, Bengals, hey, Jerry Jones, as we've told you many times on this show, Bengals just want to follow in the footsteps of Jerry Jones. Jerry Jones always waiting till the last minute because apparently he has money growing off of his yacht, the trees on his yacht.
00:16:27
Speaker
So if that's the case, then oh, well, I guess he can wait as long as he wants. But then he's having to restructure Dak and CD's contract a couple days ago. So, you know, it's just a bunch of bluster, just like a lot of people with a lot of money and in powerful positions like to bluster, right? Give you a little bit of hyping your head up, blowing your ego up, even though they ain't doing a damn thing. We know about that. Anyways, let's keep it moving.
00:16:49
Speaker
Allen's $55 million dollars annual average value is tied for second with Trevor Lawrence, Joe Burrow, and Jordan Love. We'll see what happens. Speaking of what the Bengals did, they didn't sign Jamar Chase on time. They didn't sign Tee Higgins on time. They didn't sign Trey Hendrickson on time.
00:17:07
Speaker
All of these things cost them about $17 million dollars in cap space per season for no reason whatsoever. Shout out to The Athletic, which provided this. They could have signed Chase for $35 million last offseason, Higgins for $23 million in 2023, and Hendrickson for $25 million in 2023. They chose not to. They chose to wait. And now they are costing themselves a whole lot more money.
00:17:33
Speaker
Moving on. NCAA March Madness is upon us. Yes, one of the best sporting times of the year. And they've already had a bunch of women's conference championship games this past week, weekend.
00:17:48
Speaker
The rest of the week will finish up tonight. We'll have the last, I believe, of the, yes, the last of the women's games. UConn Huskies will go tonight and face Creighton in the Big East title game.
00:18:01
Speaker
Other than that, let me give you the nine women's teams that have automatically qualified due to winning their conference championship in the Atlantic 10. You got, shout out, GMU, George Mason.
00:18:13
Speaker
Yeah, shout out the Patriots. That's where I grew up, about 15 minutes from my old house when I grew up as a kid. So shout out to George Mason. ACC, the Duke Blue Devils from the Big 12, the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs, my favorite mascot in the damn country.
00:18:32
Speaker
In the Big South, the High Point. High Point doing it again. Yes. Ohio Valley, Tennessee Tech in Southern or in the Southern Conference, UNC Greensboro in the Summit League, South Dakota State in the SEC.
00:18:50
Speaker
We know who it was. South Carolina led by Don Staley, your reigning champions, who actually beat Texas, a really good team this weekend. So they're obviously there as contenders. But the most important of the weekend, and let me go ahead and change my hat for you, the UCLA Lady Bruins.
00:19:13
Speaker
Yes, ladies, shout out. Woo, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, UC, LA, UC, LA, fight, fight, fight. Yes, 8 clap, baby. Let's go to Bruins.
00:19:26
Speaker
Did it. The lady Bruins beat FUSC Trojan condoms to get the Big Ten Conference Championship. Salute. Lauren Betts, the most masterful defensive game changer. she's I mean, she's just the all-around person.
00:19:43
Speaker
prototype big. You want shout out to her. Kiki Rice doing it from the DM Vizzo. Shout out. Sid Wealth, friends. Gabrielle Hacquez, little Hacquez Jr. And all the rest of them just doing the damn thing at UCLA. We love you, ladies, and we appreciate it Go win that chip.
00:20:03
Speaker
Moving on to the men's side, we already have five teams going dancing. The rest of the conference championships will happen this week in the Atlantic Sun Conference. Lipscomb, right here in in Tennessee.
00:20:17
Speaker
Shout out Lipscomb, right close by around here. Shout out to them. Big South, High Point. You saw I mentioned them with the women. The men get in as well. Wowzers, is great for that school.
00:20:28
Speaker
Ohio Valley, SIU, Edwardsville, excuse me. In the Missouri Valley Conference, Drake, not the rapper that got blown up by Kendrick Lamar, ah and the Summit League, Omaha.
00:20:41
Speaker
Now, Omaha was a unique case. They actually clinched the tournament berth before the championship game. Why, you ask, Omar?
00:20:53
Speaker
And I'm kind of upset about this, and I got a beef to pick with the NCAA, as i always want to do. You know how I do not care for the NCAA or anything they do. ah But St. Thomas, who was their opponent, is ineligible for the NCAA March Madness tournament because it's only their...
00:21:14
Speaker
Fourth year in Division I. Fourth. Yeah, i didn't say first year or second year. I get it. Transition period. They had that in other sports. Football, I believe it's down to two years now.
00:21:25
Speaker
Fine. You want to make a school have one or two years before they can qualify for playoffs and conference? Fine. Cool. Five years?
00:21:35
Speaker
Five years?
00:21:38
Speaker
That's ridiculous. You're really going to punish a school for five years because they wanted to upgrade and get into a bigger division because they got better. They should have more incentives to want to move up.
00:21:51
Speaker
That's piss poor NCAA. Y'all know how I feel about y'all. Y'all need to fix that. Y'all need to change that rule. Bring that down to two years at the most. the hell y'all thinking moving on sloan sports athletic conference at mit the massachusetts institute of technology led by bill simmons uh also a celtics fan shout out my brother bill gotta get with you soon and talk some seize ball helped revolutionize the sports league a lot of analytics a lot of nerds like me as we call ourselves um
00:22:24
Speaker
They are out there. Nerdapalooza is what they call it. The sports analytics movement has a lot of value in making athletes better, making individuals better, maybe even making teams better in terms of winning.
00:22:39
Speaker
But the issue may have a cost because of the fact that it we're seeing ratings decline. We're seeing a lot of people watching less of these leagues over the past year.
00:22:52
Speaker
And that may be because of these things that have been enacted through analytics. What are some examples? the MLB. We know they made ah bunch of changes, but one thing that is not talked about as much as the pitching clock or the ghost runners or other things are the analytics on hitters and how they should have a lot more power in their swings. as They want to go for a launch angle, trying to trying to hit home runs instead of getting hits or taking walks
00:23:26
Speaker
And at that point, having more strikeouts in the process in the NBA, they talked about it shooting the three it's worth than one more point than the two.
00:23:37
Speaker
It's about the same difficulty. Now you got my team, the best team in the league. God love them. Knows I do, but damn it, man, they shoot too many damn threes and it loses us game sometimes.
00:23:50
Speaker
And it's hurt the league because the ratings have gone down. Also, Look at the NFL, the NFL. Now teams don't, and this might be for the better, this may be contradictory to what I just said, but a lot more teams go for it on fourth down now than they did in the past. Now, again, that may be more exciting for us, but it just goes to show the change that has occurred in sports over the last 10, 20 years as analytics and numbers and data have come more into the game.
00:24:21
Speaker
So we'll look forward to keep seeing what they have going on there. Moving on Nikolai Jokic NBA best player in the NBA fighting it out with possibly, you know, the only other person really right now in the MVP race SGA from the Oklahoma city thunder, but Jokic becomes the first player in NBA history to top 30 points and 20 rebounds.
00:24:47
Speaker
Um, and 20 assists in a single game. Let me repeat that. Nikolai Jokic is the first NBA player in history to top 30 points, 20 rebounds, and 20 assists in a game, a triple-double with all at least 20 in each category is mind-blowing.
00:25:05
Speaker
LeBron James will miss eight games at least one to two weeks with a groin injury suffered yesterday against my Celtics. The 21-year-old All-Star is going to miss the March 19th matchup against the Nuggets and possibly about longer, the Warriors April 3rd and the Mavericks April 9th. We definitely want to see him for that Mavericks game because that's a really big one on the Luka revenge game store status. So we'll see what happens there.
00:25:32
Speaker
In the WNBA, Angel Reese on her podcast, um ah which I believe is... unapologetically Angel is what it's called.
00:25:44
Speaker
Anyways, she had Dijonai Carrington, a Dallas Wingsgar, and player representative on her podcast, and they said that sitting out is a possibility. So we know that the WNBA already got the new rights deal, $2.2 billion dollars over 11 years for their media rights.
00:26:02
Speaker
We know that since Angel Reefs, Kaitlyn Clark, and others have come into the league, s Sabrina Inescu, others have come into the league. They've brought a lot more eyes and hypes from the college game to the WNBA and a lot more eyes, a lot more fans, a lot more money are going into the game deservedly. So for all women's sports, to be honest, but the WNBA are now seeking bigger salaries or they say they might lock out. They might strike the minimum salary in 2024 below year.
00:26:38
Speaker
The maximum salary around $250. First of all, I have an automatic problem with the maximum salaries. That's ridiculous. If you're limiting your top players to a quarter million a year, when all these other people are making as much money as we just talked about in the NFL with all these players making $55 million a year, I realize the WNBA still needs to up their value a little more in terms of a league to be able to demand more. You got to actually have the chip to be able to bargain for it. But 250 for their best. Come on now.
00:27:06
Speaker
That's sad. And I actually think 65,000 is a little sad. Maybe you should have 100,000 minimum for those ladies that play in that league. So we'll see what happens there. We'll see if they actually strike or not. I'm sure they'll probably come to an agreement because again, they have been bringing a lot of more eyes. They have been ah expanding the game more and more as it's gone on.
00:27:28
Speaker
Shout out everybody tuned in. Really appreciate it. Oh, Shout out, Ben Lee Sung, my pops. Love you. Thank you for tuning in. ah So here you go. I see on here, shout out Zach Harper.
00:27:41
Speaker
ah He provided these report cards from the trade deadline of the NBA. But what I really wanted to feature here, which I thought was so astute, and I'm going to move this to a bigger screen and put me on a smaller screen.
00:27:56
Speaker
ah But I wanted to show you that if you look at this right here, but Let me at least get myself in in the picture. If you look at this right here, y'all know on this program, I always talk about offensive and defensive efficiency ratings and how in the NBA, if you are top 10 in any of those, you are most likely a great championship contender. And as I talked about last week, I went into these numbers and I thought about it after and I was like, I should probably get a graphic to show. So again, shout out Zach Harper. Really appreciate that there The Athletic.
00:28:26
Speaker
um ah But anyways, they ah they give they show you that here's Cleveland, And Boston in the East are both top 10 offensive and defensive efficiency rating. And then when you look at the West, you have OKC.
00:28:41
Speaker
And as well, you also have no one else. Hmm. Wow. What's going on there, you ask?
00:28:52
Speaker
I've talked about how good the West is. Well, that's also the issue. The West is so good, it dilutes itself because they beat up on each other so much that OKC is the only team with a top 10 defensive and efficient and offensive efficiency rating and even better top five in both, which makes them an ultimate championship contender.
00:29:14
Speaker
Right now, I have Boston versus OKC in my championship finals, but my NBA championship, but I would like to see us play Denver.
00:29:26
Speaker
I think it would be a better series, but I wouldn't mind seeing OKC either. All right, moving on to the entertainment world.
00:29:39
Speaker
Very ah sad story. We we first ah brought this story up to you. Last week, Oscar winner Gene Hackman, 95 years old, his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, 64 years old, found deceased in their New Mexico home.
00:30:04
Speaker
May they rest in power. New details emerged over the weekend.
Gene Hackman and Personal Stories
00:30:09
Speaker
Turns out Arakawa actually died of Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, which is a rare respiratory illness with flu-like symptoms contracted through exposure to um rodent waste. so But it doesn't only have to be like rodent waste specifically, like mice and stuff It could just also be if an infected rodent or mice was in like a house and they were breathing and defecating and doing all that, it could just be the fumes from it as well that can infect a human.
00:30:47
Speaker
So in California, they really warn their residents about this because in the mountains, there's a lot of desert mice that can cause these sort of issues. So So what they are thinking happened is that she last went out to the store on February 11th and then came home.
00:31:04
Speaker
Next thing they know, the final pacemaker activity for Gene Hackman was on February 17th. Obviously, no indications of foul play at this point in time.
00:31:18
Speaker
And so... They are thinking that what happened was somehow, whether at the store, whether maybe there was a mouse in the walls or something, she contracted this virus, was having problems with respiratory issues, ended up maybe having a, I don't want to go into speculation or anything, but they found her on the ground and the floor in the bathroom.
00:31:44
Speaker
So, I mean, if she was having a respiratory illness, when you have respiratory illnesses, you're probably coughing a lot, other things like that. So they found him. in the front ah near the door, near the door of the home.
00:31:59
Speaker
But they also say that Alzheimer's disease, as well as heart disease, contributed to his death. So at 95 years old, he probably already had a lot of these issues, but he also had Alzheimer's disease, which we hope, right. Anybody with a heart hopes as we pray for them and their family that he didn't suffer during this time, that maybe because he had Alzheimer's, maybe, and hopefully he didn't even know that his wife had passed.
00:32:31
Speaker
Um, you know, maybe that he's just forgot and just was walking around until, You know, his heart disease took him out and, you know, there was no one there to help him as she was the caretaker.
00:32:43
Speaker
ah What you pray for and and and, I mean, obviously you hope doesn't happen is the opposite in that case. Um, and I don't even want to go into that because it, it, it hit me, it hit me earlier that that could be a thing that happened. And I was just like, I don't even want to think about that. So actually, i don't even know why I put that out there. So I'm going just back off of that and just say rest in power to them. Uh, obviously prayers up to their families, but so very, very,
00:33:10
Speaker
rare situation that people need to know about, especially those of you that live in California, please stay safe out there as that is something that is rare, but is definitely still, um, you know, something you got to watch out for.
00:33:23
Speaker
all right, moving on as it is hard to do, uh, from that, but we, again, we do, wish them a rest in power, uh, moving on to some quick hitters for the entertainment industry in Brazil.
Carnival and Cultural Trivia
00:33:40
Speaker
Carnival Rio de Janeiro's Carnival Festival for Brazil for them to so celebrate their heritage at all had started last week. And I did not know this, but I found this to be interesting.
00:33:53
Speaker
They actually have contests for the floats, ah the best floats, the best dance teams and things like that. I didn't really know that. I thought it was just a huge party. But obviously, there was all always something more involved that I just didn't know about.
00:34:07
Speaker
um Moving on, Flaming Hot Cheetos. There was a Flaming Hot Cheeto shaped like the Pokemon character Charizard that sold at an auction for, get this, $87,840.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yes, you heard correctly. said that dollars yes you heard me correctly i said that a Flaming Hot Cheeto that happened to be in the shape of a dinosaur from a kid's video game from back in the day, or still a kid's video game now, sold for $87,850. This comes weeks after a banana...
00:34:47
Speaker
this comes weeks after a banana sold a banana taped to a background, sold for, I don't remember how much, I think it was like, it was anywhere between one to 3 million, which is just ridiculous, might've been more, I don't remember exactly, but it was quite, quite ludicrous, and then the guy went on to eat it, I mean, that's how much money he had, what a waste, could've given that to charity, couldn't give that to so many people that needed it, and instead he wasted it like that, man, people, i swear, man, I don't know how,
00:35:18
Speaker
The universe lets the richest people be the biggest assholes, but they should be the nicest people that are helping others. I'm not saying every rich person is obviously a lot of nice people out there, but for the majority of them, all they care about is themselves and they don't care about other people. And they're the ones with the most money, which means they should be the ones that care the most.
00:35:34
Speaker
And they just don't. And it's really weird that the universe would even let that happen. Anyways, um, nightlight candy, get this Mondelez, the owners of Sour Patch Kids and Mondelez,
00:35:45
Speaker
Swedish fish will start adding turmeric to their candies to make them fluorescent under the black lights. So now when your kids eat Sour Patch Kids or Swedish fish, I do like a good Sour Patch Kid, it will glow in the dark.
00:36:02
Speaker
So they got that from Glow in the Dark DJs, apparently. And finally, one last bit of news in the entertainment world. The kidnapped Paddington the Bear statue has been found. Thank you, thank you, thank you. oo And the captors have been arrested in the United Kingdom.
00:36:22
Speaker
I say now, and this is not my joke, so I must copyright this to the newsletter that I read this off of, but the perpetrators will be marmalade and feathered. Damn it.
00:36:33
Speaker
You cannot kidnap a Paddington the Bear statue and get away with it. You will be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest of the convictions. I bring this up because I love Paddington the Bear and because I have a really fun fact that I learned about Paddington the Bear a few years ago when I started this pot my podcast.
00:36:51
Speaker
And I started these live shows with ah with Clubber D because he would always make a Paddington the Bear joke on his episodes. So I went out and I got the actual Paddington the Bear song from the original cartoon.
00:37:02
Speaker
And I started playing the sound clip on the episodes. Coming to find out, do y'all know where Paddington the Bear is from? Someone let me know in the comments if you know where pat Paddington the Bear is from.
00:37:14
Speaker
And while you're doing that, hit that like button if you're watching. It's free. It helps us out in the algorithm. You know I really appreciate it. As well, there's a handy QR code up there up top. If you scan that bad boy, you'll be able to get to our subscribe to our YouTube and all our other social media platforms. Does anyone know where Paddington the Bear is from?
00:37:33
Speaker
All right, I will tell you anyways. Most people will assume that he's from the United Kingdom, right? Because that's where the show originates from. That's where you see him from. It's always raining in London where he where he lives.
00:37:46
Speaker
But, ah! No, no, no, no. Paddington is not from the UK. And if it wasn't for me being worried about copyrights, because I don't know what is copyright and what's not, but you don't want to infringe.
00:38:00
Speaker
Obviously, I'm not trying to get in trouble. I wanted to go get the Paddington original song, but I decided against it because, again, I don't know if that's copyright or not. And I don't think you can get in trouble for a little verse.
00:38:10
Speaker
So I'm to sing it. Paddington, Paddington, Paddington Bear. He came from Peru to be with me and you. P-A-D-D-I-N-G-T-O-N Paddington Bear. Yeah.
00:38:26
Speaker
So it's not the full song. Hopefully I don't get in trouble for that. ah But it is hilarious and I'm just trying to promote them. So I hope they like that. Paddington is originally from Peru. That's what you come to learn, these fun facts on the professor's seminal mente.
00:38:42
Speaker
The Peruvian Paddington. That should be my nickname. That's a very good nickname. That's an excellent nickname, actually. I should find somebody named Patty or Paddington. It is halftime of the Celtics game.
00:38:55
Speaker
What's the updates, Pop? Hit me with a score update, please. I see it's only a few... ah
00:39:01
Speaker
See, we only got a few minutes till halftime gets back out, so I'm going try to ah get through the U.S. and world news here fairly quickly. It's not a lot that we need to go through. Again, mostly the sports news that had it pop in this week. So let's go ahead and move on to the United States news of the week. And you know we got to get into our Donald Trump news.
00:39:24
Speaker
news, our weekly Donald Trump updates as we are want to do on this program. But first, before we do get into that, the house where Donald Trump lives, the White House on Sunday, yesterday afternoon, a secret the Secret Service shot an armed man in a confrontation near the White House. So what happened?
00:39:50
Speaker
First of all, great Great tip-offs and indications done here by law enforcement as the U.S. Secret Service said that they actually received information about a suicidal individual traveling from D.C.
00:40:08
Speaker
to Indiana. I mean, to D.C. from Indiana. And they actually received that bolo um from the North Manchester, Indiana Police Department, which sent it to the D.C. Metropolitan Police.
00:40:22
Speaker
They were unaware, look out, the armed man was obviously had mental health issues and was trying to attempt suicide. ah You ask how you know that? Well, once the Secret Service came to him, asked him to drop his weapon, when he had his weapon pointed at himself, he ignored commands, turned around and pointed the gun at the Secret Service.
00:40:42
Speaker
Well, that's a quick way to get your ass shot. and he surely did get shot. ah But again, salute to the law enforcement for being such collaborative there. I know I don't usually give them their props on this program, but they did a great job here in making sure to protect the White House and the president and all other inhabitants um that may be there.
00:41:05
Speaker
That being said, a lot of people are upset at what is going on in the new White House administration, especially a lot of federal government workers. I i i keep saying this, about 75% the people i know um are are from that area and have someone in their family and even probably themselves, a lot of my friends, a lot of my family, government workers that are worried if their jobs are going to be there.
00:41:29
Speaker
After all these layoffs and cuts are happening.
Government Policies and Economic Impact
00:41:32
Speaker
And again, while I continue to say I agree with Doge cutting government waste and efficiency, I do not agree with the chainsaw approach. I believe we need a scalpel approach, a more targeted niche approach in order to protect the jobs of veterans, protect the jobs of the most important workers. protect the jobs of the nuclear engineers who have been fired and otherwise that had to be brought back, right?
00:41:54
Speaker
If we cut with more of a scalpel, if Elon isn't just going in and chopping everything to pieces like it's a damn horror movie, well, then maybe we a lot of veterans wouldn't be losing their jobs. We'd have a lot more peace. There'd be a lot less worry instead of trying to scare people with stupid five-page, five bullet points that they need to send you about their damn job like they're two years old.
00:42:17
Speaker
Granted, anybody should be able to do it. Yes, I understand the other side of it, but it's also stupid to just say, oh, you need to do this just to prove like you're working. Look, man, as I, as I know, I worked for the government for 10 years.
00:42:30
Speaker
It is not the government workers themselves who are the fraud, waste and abuse. It is contracts. It is supplies. it is resources. It's, uh,
00:42:43
Speaker
A lot of other things that I was about to mention that I can't mention, ah but things left in other countries, things left in other places, whatever it is, there's a lot more waste than just the workers themselves. And a lot of people who are innocent are losing their jobs to this.
00:42:57
Speaker
And the fact is that even though there was a mandate, as they like to call it, the GOP, the conservative side likes to call it for Donald Trump, they like to call it a mandate that he was given to change the country.
00:43:10
Speaker
That's fine if that's what he's trying to do, as long as it's helping the country. But there was no mandate whatsoever to alienate our allies, demolish our departments, and embolden our enemies.
00:43:24
Speaker
There just wasn't. And at every turn so far, those three things have been done by this administration. And I was in support of a lot of things, and I still am, of lot of ah some of the things that this administration started to do.
00:43:39
Speaker
But then when you start to do those things like tariffs and then pause two days after you announce them every single time, three times in a row, it makes you look again like the boy who cried wolf.
00:43:51
Speaker
And it doesn't it makes people who, like me, who actually support tariffs against China and North Korea and our enemies, it actually makes me look and go, well, hey, I supported you and now you're just ah you know pausing everything.
00:44:04
Speaker
Now, granted, the pauses were against Mexico and Canada, who we should not be tariffing at all, considering they're our neighbors and we should be treating them ah you know much nicer than that. But if you did want to even tariff them,
00:44:16
Speaker
Fine, but just know that it's going to start a trade war because they are just going to tear back like they have. And now we have to not escalate, which again is fine if we're doing that with our enemies, but not cool when we're doing it with our allies, people that we actually need to protect us. Remember, they are still on our northern and southern border, which means if we alienate them, if we make them upset, they could surely let any kinds of terrorists they wanted into our country.
00:44:44
Speaker
More critical thinking, y'all. We talked about this last week. More critical thinking is needed by everyone. All of you watching this program, the government, everyone needs to think more critically about the things that we do. Tariffs against our enemies, awesome.
00:45:00
Speaker
Tariffs against our friends, probably not so cool. And it's also not cool when you just say you're doing it and then you pause them two days later. Again, it just does not make you look like you're keeping up on your word. And unfortunately for President Donald Trump, a lot of the time, the majority of the time, he is at the word of the day, as we talked about earlier, bluster, a lot of bravado.
00:45:23
Speaker
ah Speaking of banter, brawls and bravado coming soon, myself, Clubber D. comedian Bajor Malavey, another special guest will be coming on hopefully this Thursday, 8 p.m. Eastern, but watch out for that. We're going to talk about a lot of the pop culture issues going on, but I need to find one more person. I still have one person on the fence I'm trying to convince, so we'll see how that goes, but be on the lookout for that. But anyways, a lot of bravado, and while that's great to portray as a strong man, which he is, it also doesn't help if in the end nothing is actually done.
00:45:56
Speaker
So we'll see where this goes. We'll see if this actually works or if it craters the economy like some economists are actually talking about, as well as you know the mass immigration, which
00:46:07
Speaker
You know how partisan I am here. i am a centrist. I do not like either of the parties. I think they both suck. um I think all politicians are liars, cheaters, and scums. Woo! Shout out my boy Francis Long. Prayers up. um But...
00:46:26
Speaker
So you know I keep things partisan on this program. you know The issue here is that
00:46:37
Speaker
when you take into these numbers that they like to compare, especially during the transitions from presidents to presidents, right? There's a lot of talk going on now. The left is saying, oh, you know, president Donald Trump said a day, day one prices are going to go down, which anybody logically in their right mind knows that that's not even possible.
00:46:54
Speaker
But, His whole base believed it and voted for him based off of that. The other side, the left is decrying him for not being able to do it, even though, again, logically, no one can do that. It's not even possible. So it shouldn't have been believed in the first place.
00:47:08
Speaker
But those are just some of the examples of things that he talks about that are not able to be done and then just make him look like he's just talking to talk. And a lot of times he does just like to talk just to hear himself talk.
00:47:20
Speaker
um And he's a reality star. He's a businessman. He is now the president. But I mean, so you can't take that away from him. That's what he's good at. Right. I can't say that I don't like hearing him talk because he makes me laugh. He always says some crazy shit that I i end up laughing at.
00:47:34
Speaker
So more power to him for keeping me entertained, at least. But a lot of times you're going to alienate a lot of our allies. And so this comes down even further as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick informed Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc that Trump believes many of the U.S.-Canadian agreements could be abandoned very easily.
00:47:55
Speaker
And Lutnick says that Trump is actually interested in abandoning a lot of these, including withdrawing the ah Canada from the Five Eyes Intelligence Sharing Group.
00:48:09
Speaker
Now, I can't get any further into that, but just that The unclassified information on that is that the United States and four of their allies contribute to sharing ah intelligence information around the world.
00:48:26
Speaker
He's looking to dismantle that and possibly even dismantle the Great Lakes Water Agreements and reexamine the 1908 military or sorry, not not the 1908 government.
00:48:39
Speaker
um redrawing of the Canadian and U.S. border that cuts through Canada and parts of Minnesota, and also reexamining military cooperation between the northern um North American Aerospace Defense Command.
00:48:55
Speaker
I can truly say, again, as a person who has worked in the government, as a person who has worked with a lot of Canadian allies,
00:49:05
Speaker
ah allies in the government, they do a tremendous job and support us hands down, wholeheartedly. And to do something like disband them from the intelligence agency or take any other of these axes, just making it worse for us.
00:49:24
Speaker
ah Shout out, Pops. Amen. Thank you. Yes, the spending spree at the end of the year, they always do it. And then they always, boy, who cried wolf, oh, the government is going to shut down. The government is going to shut down. They make everybody worry.
00:49:34
Speaker
And then all of a sudden they push it back. as they did. And then they pushed it back another 90 days all because Donald Trump just wanted to get credit for it. He didn't want Biden to get credit, which, by the way, going back to the numbers I mentioned earlier, I forgot about them. But now that I mentioned this deportation last month, ah Donald Trump deported 11 and a half thousand people.
00:49:54
Speaker
Joe Biden in his last month deported 12 and a half. So about a thousand more for all those saying that Trump is deporting that many people. He's really not. Um, now there's not a lot of people crossli crossing the border, which is a really good thing down to its lowest levels.
00:50:08
Speaker
But if you were hoping that he was, which some, some of you were not me, but if you were hoping that he was going to mass deport immigrants, uh, he has not done so, so far. And they've not, not gotten close to the numbers. They said they were going to do the thousand a day or whatever. They haven't even gotten close to that.
00:50:25
Speaker
All right, but hopefully they got all the criminals out. That's all I care about. Get all the criminals out. All the other ah innocent, hardworking immigrants are fine to stay here with me. All because if your organization is efficient using their budget, they fear they will get cut next year if they don't spend it. That's true. Yep.
00:50:39
Speaker
End of year using your all allocated funds and budgets. A lot of organizations will spend frivolously. What a great word for a Puerto Rican on a live TV show. Frivolously will they spend.
00:50:50
Speaker
And yeah, it's it's not good. That end of the year budget, If anything's left over, organizations should get more credit for that. Maybe they should be allowed a bigger budget next year with the with the proportion of that going back to the government to fight the debt or some kind of situation like that.
00:51:04
Speaker
You know, I'm solutions oriented here. So I gave you a solution there. Maybe they could do that. yeah ah Chaos, that is correct. I was actually watching, I believe was Fox News the other day, and they were hyping how he loves to and thrives off of chaos. so And they talked about the cabinet meeting the other day where he had Elon Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio yelling at each other.
00:51:27
Speaker
um And he was just going back and forth loving it. I don't know what that means. It looks like an angry French toast ah that my producer has sent to me. Thank you for producing the show. I appreciate the sound. It looks like it ah looks like a very angry piece of French toast.
00:51:42
Speaker
ah That's great. going leave that up there. That looks really cool, actually. um Moving on, Doge did remove 800 national awards. national
00:51:54
Speaker
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association Workers. There we go. The NOAA, which oversees the National Weather Service, 8,000 employees were removed last week.
00:52:06
Speaker
Some of them were're ah were given a one of those... severances that he's been offering, the the voluntary resignment. 500 people took the voluntary resignment for the rest of the year pay that they've been offering.
00:52:20
Speaker
um But the problem is that they want to commercialize the NWS. ah Formerly the aforementioned Commercial Secretary Lutnik has said that they are looking to actually commercialize the weather service. Project 2025, the policy blueprint that Donald Trump said he knew nothing about, but has followed about 75% of, um ah but which was produced by his own heritage, fountain not his, but a heritage foundation that he has been received campaign donations from before.
00:52:54
Speaker
called for the breakup of the NOAA, accusing it of fostering climate alarmism. Now, I want to point out a couple things here as we talk about climate alarmism.
00:53:06
Speaker
The first one I was going to name at the, i was going to talk about at the end of the episode in the world news, but it fits so perfectly right now. I'm going to put it in here right now. So let me give you a couple of notes about this. So they want to get rid of the NOAA or not. the They want to shrink down the NOAA.
00:53:22
Speaker
They want to get rid of the national weather service. They want to privatize weather forecasting, like AccuWeather, others like that. But, Come to find out that a lot of private companies collect their weather data from the National Weather Service, including AccuWeather, who says that they have a role and that even sometimes they've predicted hurricanes, tornadoes before the AccuWeather could do it. And in and in in that aspect, informed AccuWeather themselves that there was an emergency they needed to talk about on air.
00:54:00
Speaker
Also, weather scientists say that NOAA's work on modeling for catastrophic events like hurricanes have made things more accurate in terms of forecasting. Also, critics of fully private forecasting are worried about not having free government forecasts for other poorer countries that we distribute weather information to, which is a great point because it could lead to information gaps in vulnerable areas around the world where you got think about it. There's not just foreign citizens, but also expats.
00:54:29
Speaker
expats, excuse me, and other Americans that live overseas that we also need to worry about. Among the doubters, Trump's nominee to lead the NOAA, Neil Jacobs, who says that companies might not want to take on the legal liability of being the sole disaster alerter while limiting the NWS to a weather tracking function.
00:54:50
Speaker
I got to put my plug in before I die. Is meant to what's happening here. Plugging, uh, while limiting the and NWS meant to save taxpayer dollars, get this y'all.
00:55:01
Speaker
The NWS operations only cost $4 per each American per year. Are you telling me that it's not worth $4 per American per year to keep up the national weather service? So we know when hurricanes, tornadoes and the like are coming.
00:55:20
Speaker
I think it is logically. Again, we need to think critically about this. And the stakes are high. Natural disasters cost the United States $183 billion last year alone.
Climate Change Awareness and Global Affairs
00:55:34
Speaker
And get this. Remember when I said I had something from the world news? According to data from the NCEI, Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent due to climate change. And for all those people that want to come on here and say climate change doesn't exist as some of you have before, don't come to me with that BS.
00:55:55
Speaker
Climate change does exist. Again, i am not a fanatic. I ain't out of here to change tell you to change your ways, to recycle, whatever. I don't care. Keep living your life however you want. It's not going to bother us in our lifetime.
00:56:06
Speaker
But Generations to come, it could very well affect. And the issue is that when we don't have the and NWS, the NOAA, we are not able to better forecast and avoid the most worst of the national, the worst of natural disasters.
00:56:24
Speaker
Then looking back to what I just said about the world news, come to find out that our human efforts in terms of combating kind climate change are actually helping to heal the ozone layer.
00:56:37
Speaker
Shout out going back to MIT. We talked about them earlier with the Sports Sloan Analytics Conference at Massachusetts, the um scientists at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
00:56:48
Speaker
Supported by NASA Have confirmed that the big Hole in the ozone over Antarctica Is actually shrinking So the stuff we're doing In order to combat climate change Is actually working They've looked at the 15 years records And
00:57:06
Speaker
And they are saying that they are 95% certain the Earth's shield is growing back and healing back thanks to the worldwide reductions in emissions of chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs, which are substances that damage the ozone layer.
00:57:24
Speaker
They are also saying at some point at this rate, the ozone layer outside of Antarctica could completely close at some time, at some point within some of our lifetimes. Again, probably not my lifetime, probably not yours if you're listening to it, but probably some of the kids out there that were just born in the past five, 10 years, maybe they would be helped by, you know,
00:57:48
Speaker
National Weather Service, the NOAA. How about the post office? How about Amtrak? Because that's what Elon is aiming for next. Elon says he wants to prioritize Amtrak and the post office.
00:58:02
Speaker
We already know that they talked about With Louis DeJoy, the postmaster from the first Trump administration, he basically demolished and dismantled the post office to where there were so bad lag times on delivering packages. A lot of people just stopped mailing things or went to um FedEx, you know, all the other ones. So it actually hurt the U.S. post office a lot.
00:58:27
Speaker
Yep, definitely not finding and deporting illegal immigrants is not as hard. They're good hiders too, let's just say that. And he lives in a fantasy of misinformation world. Yep, and Zelensky said that, lives in a disinformation. does, he does. I mean, we all know that.
00:58:40
Speaker
he's in his own He's in his own world, and that's okay. That's okay. I mean, he was voted in. we you know the The people of this of this country have to stick with him for the next four years and hope that he does the best. But in terms of information that he provides and in terms of the information that he's being provided, lot of times they're not always on the up and up.
00:58:59
Speaker
no Not like he's ever always been on the up and up anyway, so we know that. Moving on, Health Department offers 80,000 federal workers a $25,000 buyout. As well, House Republicans, as mentioned earlier, unveiled a six-month short-term spending bill ahead of the March 14th deadline be here on Friday to avoid the partial government shutdown that I talked about earlier. Vote is expected tomorrow.
00:59:22
Speaker
The bill would head to the Senate for approval after that. All right. Moving on into world news. I appreciate y'all as always being tuned in. Make sure you subscribe to Ball and Buds.
00:59:35
Speaker
B-A-L-L-A-N-D-B-U-D-S. There's a handy QR code up at the top. You can find our link tree to subscribe as well. Please make sure if you're watching, hit that like button.
00:59:47
Speaker
It is free and it helps us in the algorithm. I really appreciate your support. I am Omar, the Professor Fonseca, and you are watching the Professor Seminole Mente as we get you out of here. In our last segment of the day, world news, we move into Ukraine, Russia, as we've kept you updated on this program, Russian forces retake much of the Russian border province of Kursk.
01:00:11
Speaker
So you'll remember this because I talked about this back in August when Ukraine actually did a surprise offensive and captured a lot of this part of the Russian province up in the Northern hemisphere.
01:00:23
Speaker
Well, Now that Ukraine has been cut off now, I don't think it's in direct relation to the cutoff of help that Donald Trump did for Ukraine last week. I don't I mean, I'm pretty sure they would still have the same amount of weaponry and thus force. But obviously, Russia caught them off guard to take back a lot of that province.
01:00:43
Speaker
And the problem with that is, is that was going to be a huge bargaining chip. in order for peace talks. And now that they no longer have that, peace talks are to start this week. And Ukraine now, again, has less of a bargaining power than they did before.
01:00:57
Speaker
So again, European leaders are going to meet with US diplomats this week, and they're going to meet with both the Ukrainian side and the Russian side with Vladimir Putin. And so then they're hoping to get a ceasefire deal here soon. So we'll see if that happens. Also,
01:01:13
Speaker
This week, U.S. diplomats are in line to meet with the Hamas. What did you say, Omar? Did I hear you correctly?
01:01:23
Speaker
Yes, you heard me correctly. U.S. diplomats are to meet with the terrorist group Hamas in order to try to broker a ceasefire deal on the Gaza Strip with Israel.
01:01:36
Speaker
As you will remember, we updated you last week. The ceasefire's first 42-day phase ended last Saturday. 33 Israelis, 2,000 Palestinians were exchanged.
01:01:50
Speaker
And so we will see how this goes forward. Right now, there is a holdup until the U.S. s meets with Hamas on those talks. um Moving back real quick to Ukraine, Russia, ah Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has mentioned that the minerals deal that they were expecting to sign last week.
01:02:13
Speaker
obviously is now on hold due to the kerfuffle or the Oval Office obstruction, as I have named it, that happened last week when there was the huge blow up between President Donald Trump, Vice President J.D.
International Relations and Diplomatic Tensions
01:02:27
Speaker
Vance and ukraine Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.
01:02:31
Speaker
So we'll see what's going to happen, but that deal is on hold. ah The deal, if given security guarantees, which is why the whole blow up happened and why I don't understand why we don't at least give them that if they were trying to I was about to use a very bad word that I would probably get canceled for as we are trying to extort them for 50% of their minerals. As I've talked about on this program is way too much.
01:02:54
Speaker
25% is, is a logical ah demand for us for repayment of what we gave them for the war, which they do need to repay some of it, but to ask for 50% that would to completely destroy everything.
01:03:05
Speaker
the country as a whole and their economy. And that's just not right. But we do need to get something because we're completely dependent on China for our minerals. um As China controls roughly 75% of the global supply of minerals, and we need to stop depending on them. So we do need this mineral deal in the United States as well. But we have to give them security guarantees or it makes no sense for them to sign that deal.
01:03:27
Speaker
So we'll keep you updated there. In Syria, So moving on, we talked about the Israeli Hamas war there in the Gaza Strip. Well, now we are having even another war in Syria. You'll remember a couple years a couple years ago, last year in particular, I did a story where we talked about the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who escaped Syrian rebels and fled to Moscow, where he still remains under the protection of Russian President Vladimir or Putin.
01:04:00
Speaker
Well, there were a thousand, the death toll in violent clashes in Syria rose to more than a thousand over the weekend. What is happening? Fighting began Thursday along the country's western coast between state security forces and Assad loyalists.
01:04:16
Speaker
with the majority of victims appearing to be civilians targeted in revenge killings by the government, which is horrible because the they were the same government that said they were going to stop doing that when they took the country over.
01:04:29
Speaker
And then they went out and killed a bunch of Assad's former people. Maybe that'll be the end of it. But again, as I mentioned, when I first talked about this story, you can't take any terrorist group at their word because they're usually going to be lying to you.
01:04:42
Speaker
um The group obviously as only makes up 10% of the population. A lot have left since the new ah regime took over from Assad. And again, the new leadership pledged not to have retaliated retaliatory violence, but the watchdog, independent watchdogs, estimate 700 Alawite citizens or Assad followers have been killed since he fled to Moscow. So we'll see what happens there. As always, we will keep you updated on this program.
01:05:10
Speaker
And other cool news. or other Wow. That wasn't cool news that we just got from Omar. Jeez Louise. My apologies. That was a Freudian slip. Did not mean that in cool news before we get out of here, because you know, I like to be as positive as possible and give y'all positive notes to end on here. Let me give you a couple of positive stories in the world for you to end on. First of all, um,
01:05:36
Speaker
Security researchers have uncovered backdoor in a Chinese-made ESP32 microchip. So shout out to security researchers for uncovering this.
01:05:48
Speaker
This Chinese-made microchip is in 1 billion devices worldwide. And contains previously undocumented commands that can be used to cyber for cyber attacks.
01:05:59
Speaker
So shout out to those researchers, security researchers, for stopping many potential cyber attacks all over the world. That is great news. And then finally, DNA sequencing.
01:06:10
Speaker
can provide quicker recovery from illness. So doctors in the United Kingdom have successfully trialed a system that reads a bacterial infections genetic code and identifies the best antibiotic to provide for that infection within 48 hours, according to The Guardian.
01:06:28
Speaker
That is awesome. Nowadays, hospital labs can take up to seven days to figure out bacterial infections. Some can take up to weeks. This new DNA sequencing will allow them to figure out the best antibiotic within 48 hours.
01:06:43
Speaker
That is awesome. And that's why we love science and and the progress of medical technology and things in this world. And for doctors to start pro prescribing more broad spectrum antibiotics that will lose, um,
01:06:58
Speaker
that will be able to cure diseases. But we also need to realize that as that happens, these bacterias, these viruses, they become resistant to these sort of things. So even if we're making antibiotics, which may be winning now, the bacteria, the illness usually fights back and finds a way around it, as you saw with COVID and the many shots and all that. so we're going to keep having to come up with more treatment in the future to continue beating.
01:07:24
Speaker
these potential super bugs that could infect our whole world and could take out a lot of our, you know, human population around the world. So anyways, we'll keep you updated on all of those stories and all the rest of the story as we always do here on the professors.
01:07:44
Speaker
Seminar.
01:07:50
Speaker
Yes. Yes, indeed. Thank you for tuning in. I appreciate that. I am Omar, the Professor Fonseca. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube. Smash that subscribe button.
01:08:03
Speaker
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01:08:17
Speaker
really helps us out. We're up to 155 subscribers now. So we're really kind of boosting up getting a bunch of subscribers on these live streams, the past few episodes. So hopefully that continues with your support. Please share this like this.
01:08:30
Speaker
So all your friends will see it as well. And until next time, um thank you, my producer. Great job. I appreciate that. Thank you for doing a great job as my ah producer.
01:08:41
Speaker
um And no, not ever. And on that note, make sure again that you subscribe to Ball and Buds, B-A-L-L-A-N-D. B-U-D-S. Go out there. Blessings.
01:08:54
Speaker
Be kind to each other. Take care of each other. um You know, do do what's right for your help fellow human being and, you know, spread love the Omar way.
01:09:05
Speaker
Holla. 5,000. Peace with the
01:09:10
Speaker
Millions.
01:09:33
Speaker
to toe release the flow Created by this
01:09:44
Speaker
Man with the master plan and you have no need to know. You can't prepare, now get ready for the show. Sports Professor. Oh.