🐤 The snake edition

👮‍♂️ Mar-a-Lago gets some new visitors. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, affectionately known as the FBI, gave former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Florida club a visit on Monday. While there, FBI agents decided to take a few things that may be used for evidence in a federal case or two against Trump. Many refer to this type of occurrence as a raid.

⚡ Olivia Newton-John passes away. Olivia Newton-John, the leading actress in "Grease" in 1978 and the voice behind the 1981 hit, "Physical" has passed away after a battle with Cancer. Over her five-decade career, she sold more than 100 million records.

⚖️ Gabby Petito's family files a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit. The family of Gabby Petito announced on Monday they were filing a wrong death lawsuit against the police in Moab, Utah, accusing the department of failing to properly investigate her domestic violence case and protect her. Gabby was said to have been murdered by 'manual strangulation' her fiance Brian Laundrie was named a person of interest. He was found dead in October 2021 after a self-inflicted gunshot wound, saving taxpayers money on a trial.

☢️ Shelling a nuclear plant is a bad idea. Russian and Ukrainian military officials trade blame for the shelling of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear complex. The area is a part of a strong Ukrainian counter-offensive. United Nations chief Antonio Guterres demanded nuclear inspectors be given access to investigate before Chernobyl 2022 occurs.

Holy snake!

On Friday, Florida kicked off (reads notes to ensure my green tea seeped in water and not tequila) The Florida Python Challenge, an annual (what) statewide competition (the) that will bring hundreds of snake-hunting professionals and novices (snake?) to South Florida to hunt...snakes.

There is a good explanation for this.

The Burmese Python is Florida's most concerning invasive species and the 10-day hunt will help bring about balance to Florida (so would yoga). The competition has cash prizes and lasts until August 14th (beginning on August 5th).

Since 2017, 10,000 (about that movie) pythons have been removed from Florida by professional contractors. So, they've allowed novices to hunt as well to provide shields...I mean to help the professionals along with their tasks.

Of course, there's a fee. Novices must pay a $25 registration (as if Florida citizens needed to pay to help the state when this is going on) and take an online course to tell the difference between a Burmese Python and native snakes of Florida.

I didn't make this up, there are even professional hunters giving their input about the entire process.

Seriously, when is this going to be a movie?

Ever since Allen Iverson's famous 'practice' speech, players in the National Basketball Association (NBA) have used ego and their stardom to bully front offices into making decisions to their liking.

From Lebron James pretending to not know of the plight of Uygur Muslims in China to players seemingly demanding trades whenever they don't win a title.

The latest example was Kevin Durant (the snake himself) demanding a trade after saying he doesn't believe in the Hall of Fame (as a player) Head Coach Steve Nash and General Manager Sean Marks as the correct individuals to lead the Nets in the right direction. Durant and the oft bizarre Kyrie Irving threw shade at Nash after his hiring, but owner Joe Tsai had none of it.

More drama is about to follow.

Joe Tsai made the following tweet, basically saying, 'Nah, players play and the office makes personnel decisions.'

What else is an owner supposed to do? Allow players who don't spend days in and out going over office decisions to make all the decisions?

No, they really shouldn't. The Nets were a strong team last year; perhaps Durant should have some sporting merit and go get it done on the court.

Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson did.

What in the iPhone was Epson thinking?!

Evidently, Epson has taken the phrase 'planned obsolescence' literally. According to Mark Haven, a writer, and lecturer at the University of New Haven in Connecticut, his Epson printer stopped working due to programming when none of the key components were left inoperable.

You can check out Mark's tweet for the entire story.

The pads inside the printer that collect and contain access ink are supposed to last longer than key parts of the printer, except they didn't and at a certain point, the printer was programmed to self-brick itself.

According to reports, this issue could affect the following models over the past five years Epson L130, L220, L310, L360, and L365.

While individuals don't want ink anywhere, it would be nice (and just a bit ethical) for a company to inform the consumer of a product limitation. This is something that Epson could have avoided with a simple notice, there's no telling how many consumers decided to scrap the models and buy new ones because of a notification that basically says, "I'm useless now; please buy another model at full price."