This Is Gonna Sting

Someone had to tell the bees. And, please rise.

I don't want to add more buzz to the hive mind that drones on about the latest Queen news, as I'm not one to comb the latest swarm of stories, make a beeline for news of the crown, or wax poetic about the monarchy, and my natural inclination is to mind my own beeswax when it comes to the royal brood. But I did find myself intrigued by this story buzzing around the apiary. It turns out that when something big happens, there's a longstanding custom of sharing the news with the bees. And no, I'm not pollen your leg. Maybe it makes sense. The bees represent the last colony the Brits managed to hold on to. "The tradition holds that bees, as members of the family, should be informed of major life events in the family, especially births and deaths. Beekeepers would knock on each hive, deliver the news and possibly cover the hive with a black cloth during a mourning period. The practice is more commonly known in Britain but is also found in the United States and other parts of Europe." NYT (Gift Article): When the Queen Died, Someone Had to Tell the Bees. Thankfully, they mixed in a little honey with the bitter news.

+ Want to view the Queen's coffin? The line is currently 2.6 miles and growing.

2. Please Rise

Do you exercise at least 30 minutes a day? Good. But you might be undoing a lot of the benefits if you sit motionless while using your laptop or watching TV the rest of the day. It's called being an active couch potato. That's the bad news. But don't sit and stew about it. The good news is that just a little movement can make a big difference. (I'm twiddling my thumbs right now.) WaPo (Gift Article): How sitting all day can cause health problems — even if you exercise.

3. Graham Bell

"It was designed as a nod to anti-abortion activists who have never felt more emboldened. Yet Graham’s bill also attempted to skate past a Republican Party that’s divided over whether Congress should even be legislating on abortion after the Supreme Court struck down a nationwide right to terminate pregnancies." Lindsey Graham introduced legislation that would create a national 15-week abortion ban, and insisted that it would get a vote if the GOP takes the Senate. Does that message help him or the Dems?

+ "An expectant Louisiana woman who was carrying a skull-less fetus that would die within a short time from birth ultimately traveled about 1,400 miles to New York City to terminate her pregnancy after her local hospital denied her an abortion amid uncertainty over the procedure’s legality."

4. Intercepted Texts

Former Gov. Phil Bryant helped Brett Favre secure welfare funding for USM volleyball stadium. Newly released texts "show that Bryant, Favre, New, Davis and others worked together to channel at least $5 million of the state’s welfare funds to build a new volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, where Favre’s daughter played the sport. Favre received most of the credit for raising funds to construct the facility." (Even Favre's texts get intercepted.) How pathetic is this? Even Favre's biographer is begging people to read something elseinstead.

5. Extra, Extra

Database Behavior: "They saw him leering at some girls, singling them out with pet nicknames, encouraging them to dance for him. They saw him treating boys with contempt, and sometimes cruelty. The teacher, who was also a coach and involved with extracurricular activities, told the students that he’d weathered parents’ complaints for nearly 30 years, and there was nothing anyone could do to him." He was wrong. Some middle school boys thought their teacher was a ‘creep.’ So they tracked how he treated the girls.

+ IoWTF? "Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment. Officials have said Lewis was a runaway who was seeking to escape an abusive life with her adopted mother and was sleeping in the hallways of a Des Moines apartment building when a 28-year-old man took her in before forcibly trafficking her to other men for sex. Lewis said one of those men was Brooks and that he had raped her multiple times in the weeks before his death." Iowa teen who killed rapist sentenced, ordered to pay $150K restitution to his family. (Insane.)

+ House Calls: "It’s not that no doctor or nurse has ever recognized that a patient has been battered and stepped in with help. Some do; some don’t. But there has not been a systemic, holistic, health-focused response at U.S. health care facilities, overseen by trained and aware health professionals and social service partners." There’s a quiet movement underway to have doctors and other health care providers take the lead in spotting domestic abuse and — hopefully — intervening before it gets worse.

+ Starr Dies: "Starr was part of a team that helped Epstein reach a controversial plea agreement in 2008 that led to him receiving a 13-month sentence instead of facing more serious federal charges for sex abuse." Ken Starr, whose probe led to Clinton impeachment, dies. Starr also defended Trump in the first impeachment. From Trump: "I so appreciated his support and his thoughts that our cause against fascists and other mentally sick people in our Country is just." (I can think of no more fitting tribute.)

+ Hardee Har Har "The incident happened on Tuesday as Lindell, chief executive of My Pillow, was in line at a branch of Hardee’s in Mankato, Minnesota, his home town, following a hunting trip." My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell has phone seized by FBI at fast-food outlet.

6. Bottom of the News

A woman walked into a North Dakota bar carrying a raccoon. That's not the setup to a joke. It's a setup to official warnings that happy hour customers might want to get checked for rabies.

+ Armed PA man in rainbow wig trying to ‘restore Trump as President' arrested at Dairy Queen. (Dairy Queen refused to restore Trump to the presidency.)