Paul McCartney - Days We Left Behind

Pam's New Career as a Relationship Advisor

 

Don't Be April Fooled: Jonathan the Tortoise is Still Alive

Reports of the death of the world’s oldest living land animal — a nearly 200-year-old tortoise — were greatly exaggerated.  Jonathan (believed to be 193) is still kicking — albeit slowly — on the island of St. Helena.

“It was a hoax,” Anne Dillon, head of communications on the island, said.  “I don’t have all those details, I can just assure you that he is very much alive.”

News of the tortoise’s demise spread rapidly on social media on April Fool’s Day.  A social media  account, falsely claiming to be that of Joe Hollins, a veterinarian who had worked with the reptile on the island west of Africa in the south Atlantic Ocean, said he was heartbroken to announce the death of the “gentle giant” that “outlived empires, wars, and generations of humans.”  The post quickly accumulated over a million views, mostly an outpouring of condolences.  But Hollins later said on Facebook that he didn't have an X account and something more sinister was afoot.  “This  is a hoax — The hoaxer is asking for crypto donations. It’s a con,” Hollins wrote.

Guinness World Records lists Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise, as the oldest living land animal and oldest tortoise ever. He was believed to be about 50 years old when he was brought to St. Helena in 1882.  Dillon said the tortoise was still roaming the grounds of the governor’s residence, which was the place Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to following his defeat by the British at Waterloo in 1815.   Bonaparte died there in 1821, about a decade before Jonathan is believed to have taken the first steps in what would become a very long life.

Trump Unwittingly Reveals Plans for Secret Military Bunker

Convicted felon Donald Trump has complained that a “stupid” lawsuit forced him to reveal plans to build a top-secret military base underneath his White House ballroom.  The 79-year-old president was defending his $400 million vanity project while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, after a New York Times article over the weekend exposed the shoddy nature of its construction and design.

While holding comically large placards detailing how the completed ballroom might look, Trump also gave updates on what is being built beneath the area where the White House East Wing once stood.

“The military is building a big complex under the ballroom, which has come out recently because of a stupid lawsuit that was filed,” he said.

“The ballroom essentially becomes a shed [shield] for what’s being built under the military, including from drones, and including from any other thing,” Trump added. “The glass, or the windows, you see the big windows, the glass is extremely thick. It’s high-grade bulletproof glass, so all of the windows are bulletproof.”

The lawsuit Trump referenced was filed in December 2025 by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is asking a federal judge to halt construction of the ballroom until it undergoes multiple independent reviews, passes environmental assessments, and receives approval from Congress.

The vanity project is being built as tens of millions of Americans suffer through a cost-of-living crisis exacerbated by Trump’s war on Iran.

On Sunday, the Times reported that multiple experts also condemned the proposed design of the mammoth building, noting that it includes a staircase that doesn’t lead anywhere, columns that will block the view of its windows, and the 90,000-square-foot ballroom that is “unnecessarily” large.

 

Keystone Kash Using FBI resources to Go After Trump's Enemies

Keystone Kash Patel (still stumbling and bumbling at the FBI)  is pressing to release a decade-old investigative file involving Rep. Eric Swalwell and a Chinese intelligence operative, recently dispatching agents in the bureau’s San Francisco office to quickly redact the files before they are released publicly despite no evidence of wrongdoing by Swalwell.  

The potential release is part of the Trump administration’s aggressive push to smear Swalwell, a vocal critic of convicted felon Donald Trump and a leading Democratic candidate for California governor. It is highly unusual for the FBI to release case files tied to a probe that did not result in criminal charges.

As FBI director, Patel has focused on trying to bring a criminal case against the outspoken Democrat, reassigning multiple agents in San Francisco to work on the matter, the current and former officials said. FBI leaders have even discussed sending agents to China to talk to the suspected intelligence operative, believing she could have damaging information about Swalwell.

The Chinese woman at issue is Christine Fang, who reportedly helped with fundraising for Swalwell’s 2014 reelection campaign and even helped place an intern in his congressional office. When federal agents conveyed their concerns about Fang to Swalwell around 2015, he reportedly cut off ties with her and said he helped investigators.  Swalwell was not accused of any wrongdoing when the FBI investigated his relationship with Fang a decade ago. In 2023, the Republican-led House Ethics Committee closed a two-year investigation into the congressman, deciding to “take no further action.” 

Despite that, FBI leaders have recently suggested that the government could try to arrange for Fang to get a U.S. visa in exchange for speaking with FBI agents, according to the three people with knowledge of Patel’s efforts. It would be highly unorthodox to grant a visa to a person suspected of being an intelligence agent for a foreign superpower.   In addition, bringing a known Chinese spy back into the U.S. represents a major security risk.

The push to publicly release the investigative files strongly suggests that the FBI has struggled to so far to build a criminal case against Swalwell. Even if there is no incriminating evidence in the files, an extensive case file could contain revealing and personal details about Swalwell and his campaign operations.

The lengths that Patel’s circle is going to in the bid to pursue a political foe of the president have raised alarms within the bureau, where some officials fear that releasing the files (even with redactions) could compromise law enforcement sources and investigatory methods, making it harder for the FBI to gain trust with potential witnesses.

They also said they feared the repercussions of sending agents to the territory of an adversarial nation to dig up information on a sitting congressman. Such an interview, legal experts said, would be impossible without Chinese interference, and Fang would be considered an unreliable witness.

 

Jailbirdie!

Woods' Martin County mugshot

Tiger Woods was photographed for the first time after he left jail following his arrest for driving under the influence (DUI).  The 50-year-old pro golfer was involved in a rollover crash near Jupiter Island, Fla., around 1 p.m. local time last Friday.

After the incident, Woods was charged with DUI with property damage and refusal to submit to a lawful test.  The athlete bonded out and was released from custody that same day, and new photographs taken after his release show Woods looking upset as he sat in the passenger seat of a car, exiting the premises of the Martin County jail. 

 

The March 27 crash took place between Woods' Land Rover and a pressure-cleaning truck that was pulling a small trailer, Martin County Sheriff John M. Budensiek said at a press conference that same day.

According to authorities, Woods was alone in his vehicle at the time of the crash. Budensiek said police are “not sure” whether he was wearing a seat belt. 

“Mr. Woods did not appear to be injured at all, and the other individual was not injured,” Budensiek said during the press conference, adding that the athlete was “lethargic on scene because of what he was intoxicated on.”

The police chief also confirmed that Woods “did exhibit signs of impairment," but added that authorities "were not suspicious of alcohol being involved in this case, and that proved to be true at the jail," where he blew "triple zeroes" on the breathalyzer test. (Woods refused to take a urinalysis test at the jail, Budensiek said.) 

The March 27 incident marked another car accident involving Woods. He previously sustained serious injuries in a 2021 crash in Los Angeles that required surgery, and he was also involved in a separate incident in 2009, also near his Florida home.  

Spanish Woman Dies by Euthanasia after Legal Battle with Neglectful Father

The death by euthanasia of a 25-year-old Spanish woman after a protracted legal battle with her father has triggered debate about the role of the state in caring for her and why it took so long to implement her wish to end her life.   Spain is one of a handful of European countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, that have passed laws allowing euthanasia to be carried out by physicians. The Catalan regional government had granted Noelia Castillo's request for assisted dying in 2024.

The case has received enormous attention in Spain, with Castillo's father and Christian Lawyers (Abogados Cristianos) attempting to block her death until the last moment. After an 18-month legal battle, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled this week in Noelia Castillo's favor. 

In October 2022, Castillo had thrown herself from the fifth floor of a building. It was then that she became paraplegic and requested euthanasia, a petition that was approved in July 2024 after the Catalan regional government agency determined that she was in an “irreversible” clinical condition causing her “severe dependency, chronic pain, and debilitating suffering.”  The government determined that she had met the requirements set by law and she passed on Thursday evening at a Barcelona hospital.  

It is ironic that Castillo was blocked by the very father who had neglected her during her youth and was the source of much of her anguish.