May 5, 2023 News and Notes

• The World Health Organization has officially thrown in the towel on COVID-19.  We've lost.
• At least one report appears to indicate erratic behavior and looking "heavily pregnant" may have contributed to whatever killed Tori Bowie at 32.
• Just three days now left in the Fantasy Faire for the Relay For Life of Second Life.
• The reported End Of Day 15 total for the event has just crossed the $68,000 threshold.   About $8,000 in the last 24 hours.
• Square-Enix' Final Fantasy XVI, scheduled for release on the PS5 in June, has been banned in Saudi Arabia.  Sex scenes, drug use, hate crimes, prostitution...  One report appears to liken this to Game of Thrones!
• In what may make it tricky for the university, the SEC, and the NCAA, it appears no Alabama players were involved in the betting scandal around fired baseball coach Brad Bohannon.
• Alabama, in it's first game without Bohannon, defeated Vanderbilt.
• An interesting report on Friday's iHeartRadio podcast Countdown With Keith Olbermann attempts to debunk the long-standing belief that Roger Bannister had the first four-minute mile in 1954.
• In fact, Olbermann charges that African athletes had broken the four-minute mile as early as 1770!!!
• Yesterday, May the 4th Be With All Of You, and Carrie Fisher received a long-overdue posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• A golf round on Wednesday was being held up on the seventh hole due to slow play.  When they would not allow the groups behind to play through, a mass brawl erupted.  At least three knockdowns were recorded, and at least seven men were involved.
• The Oakland A's are now 6-26 after being swept at home by the Seattle Mariners.
• Attendance Thursday:  Claimed 13,025.
• Wednesday:  2,685.
• Tuesday:  2.583.
• Tampa Bay is 26-6 after sweeping Pittsburgh.
• The Yankees are two games above .500 at 17-15.  Not only are they in last place in the AL East, they are 9 games behind the Rays.
• They would be one game behind Minnesota in the AL Central.
• And two behind Texas in the AL West.
• A transphobic Tweet by Dee Snider, of all people, has gotten him and his song "We're Not Gonna Take It" disinvited from San Francisco Pride next month.  They were all but going to have him show up and do the song, then he had to open his trap in support of Paul Stanley's transphobia.
• A fourth horse, Skinner, has been scratched from tomorrow's Kentucky Derby -- and they are out of alternates, so the field now begins to shrink.  19 are currently slated to run, and two more possible scratches are still on the table, including the early betting favorite, as reported yesterday.
• Howard Stern believes it's racist that the NBA players do not know who he is when he sits courtside.  Really, Howard???  What, do babies now have to be notified of The King of All Media when they are born?