The Seattle Seahawks emerged victorious in Super Bowl LX with a dominant 29-13 victory over the New England Patriots, but the real winner of the night may have been Bad Bunny.
Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger tells DW the 2026 Munich Security Conference comes when "obviously, trust has been damaged" by President Trump. But he also says US calls for a more "self-reliant" Europe are fair and overdue.
Medical device makers have been rushing to add AI to their products. While proponents say the new technology will revolutionize medicine, regulators are receiving a rising number of claims of patient injuries.
It could now take months to repair a broken sewer pipe that pumped millions of gallons of wastewater into the Potomac River about 8 miles from the White House. read more
Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday. read more
How many people watched Turning Point USA halftime show?
www.cincinnati.com
... The "All-American Halftime Show" drew as many as 6.1 million concurrent viewers on Turning Point USA's YouTube Channel, The Athletic reported. The countershow ended later than Bad Bunny's performance, but USA TODAY reported it drew around 5 million viewers on YouTube during the head-to-head window. The performance was also broadcast on Christian network TBN. The Enquirer reached out to TBN for viewership totals on the channel. ...
Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show sparks global streaming surge, Apple Music data shows
www.yahoo.com
... Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime performance translated into an immediate surge in global listening, with new data from Apple Music showing sharp gains across streaming charts, playlists and music discovery platforms in the hours following the show.
Apple Music, a Super Bowl halftime show sponsor, said Monday that Bad Bunny's show playlist became the most-played set list on the music streaming platform shortly after the performance. The Puerto Rican superstar went on to dominate the Apple Music Daily Top 100 Global chart, landing 23 songs in the Top 100, including nine in the Top 25 and five in the Top 10. His track "DtMF" rose to No. 1.
Several of the charting songs marked notable returns. Six of the 23 tracks re-entered the daily Top 100 Global for the first time since at least February 2025. His collaboration on the song "I Like It" with Cardi B and J Balvin re-entered the chart for the first time since January 2020.
Apple Music data also showed widespread international momentum. On Monday, Bad Bunny's album "Deb Tirar Ms Fotos," appeared on album charts in 155 countries, reaching the Top 10 in 128 countries and hitting No. 1 in 46, including Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Germany, France and Spain.
In the United States, Apple Music reported that the top cities for Bad Bunny listening over a six-day span were Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Dallas. ...
@#7 ... an interview with the CBS station in Los Angeles. ...
Former Beauty Queen: Contestants Were Forced To Greet Trump Even When Not Fully Dressed (October 2016)
www.cbsnews.com
... As Miss Arizona, Tasha Dixon, then 18, competed in the Miss USA pageant, which was owned by Donald Trump for 19 years, along with the Miss Universe and Miss Teen USA pageants.
"Our first introduction to him was when we were at the dress rehearsal and half naked changing into our bikinis," Dixon recalled. "He just came strolling right in. There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing or anything. Some girls were topless. Other girls were naked."
She said she and her fellow contestants were put in an awkward position when "the owner come waltzing in when we were naked or half naked in a very physically vulnerable position and then to have the pressure of the people that worked for him telling us to go fawn all over him, go walk up to him, talk to him, get his attention."
Dixon's account is seemingly supported by the Republican presidential nominee himself in a 2005 broadcast on the "The Howard Stern Show." That audio recording was re-released last weekend.
Here is a sample of what was said on the show on April 11, 2005:
Trump: "I'll go backstage before a show and everyone's getting dressed and ready and everything else. And you know, no men are anywhere. And I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant. And therefore, I'm inspecting it. You know I'm inspecting it. I want to make sure everything is good."
Stern: "You're like a doctor."
Trump: "Is everyone OK? You know they're standing there with no clothes. Is everybody OK? And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that."
Dixon has strong opinions about what she thought was Trump's motivations. ...
@#6 ... In 2016, BuzzFeed News reported that five former contestants from the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant"including then-Miss Vermont Teen USA Mariah Billado"claimed Trump entered the dressing room while they were in various stages of undress. Some of the contestants were reportedly as young as 15 at the time. According to Billado, Trump said, "Don't worry, ladies, I've seen it all before." ...
More on that ...
Donald Trump had a habit of walking into the dressing rooms of teen beauty queens
www.vice.com
... As owner of the Miss Teen USA pageant franchise, Donald Trump felt entitled to walk into the dressing rooms of aspiring young beauty queens.
Four women who competed in the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant told BuzzFeed that Trump would often show up in their dressing room unannounced while the contestants, some as young as 15, were changing.
"I remember putting on my dress really quick because I was like, Oh my god, there's a man in here'," Mariah Billado, former Miss Vermont Teen USA, told BuzzFeed reporters. She remembers Trump's response " that he said something along the lines of "Don't worry, ladies, I've seen it all before."
Tasha Dixon, the former Miss Teen Arizona, competed in the 2001 Teen USA pageant. She was 18 at the time and remembers how Trump would "come strolling right in" when girls were "half-naked, changing into [their] bikinis... some girls were topless. Other girls were naked," according to an interview with the CBS station in Los Angeles.
"There was no second to put a robe on or any sort of clothing," Dixon said. She said that was most of the girls' first introduction to Trump. She said that Trump's behavior put her and the other pageant contestants in a "very physically vulnerable position," and that his entrance was usually accompanied by "the pressure of the people that worked for him telling us to go fawn all over him, go walk up to him, talk to him, get his attention."
Trump apparently considered access to the women's changing rooms one of the perks of owning the beauty pageant franchises MissUniverse and Miss Teen USA, which he bought in 1996. ...
Tangentially related (OK, maybe not even that much, but here it is) ...
Canadian snowbirds still avoid Florida, state's tourist hotspots
www.upi.com
... In November, the number of Canadian-resident return trips from the United States was down 23.6% year-over-year, Statistics Canada reported Jan. 23. ...
The third-quarter total of 507,000 Canadian visitors was the lowest for any single quarter since the COVID-19-affected fourth quarter of 2021, when the state logged just 275,000 Canadians visitors.
After Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis initially dismissed reports of the sharp dropoff in Canadian visitors, state tourism officials now say they are planning to reach out to their North American neighbors in hopes of attracting more visitors.
Visit Florida President and CEO Bryan Griffin told members of the agency's executive committee Jan. 26 he is setting up a meeting with Canadian officials to "see what we can do" to boost the flow of tourists, the News Service of Florida reported last week.
His task may be a big one, however, as the numbers continue their negative trends and seem likely to stay depressed, or perhaps even worsen, as the year progresses, according to a noted Canadian travel expert. ...
"You really see how much of a gap there still is when you look back to two years ago," he said, dubbing the phenomenon a "Trump slump" in which international tourism fell by 5.4% in the United States last year even while jumping by 4% around the rest of the world. ...
@#20 ... Job growth is at record levels? ...
White House sets lower job growth expectations
www.reuters.com
... Hassett said in an interview with CNBC. "So I think that you should expect slightly smaller job numbers that are consistent with high GDP growth right now ... We shouldn't panic if you see a sequence of numbers that are lower than you're used to, because, again, population growth is going down and productivity growth is skyrocketing. It's an unusual set of circumstances." ...
Related?
Analysis: How the EU's trade bazooka' could hit the US tech sector
www.computerworld.com
... The European Union's anti-coercion instrument was designed to deter economic pressure on its member states. If used in a trade dispute with the US, it could have significant consequences for US tech firms -- and the European organizations that rely on them. ...
The K-shaped economy in 2026: Inequality, technology and the next growth divide (January 2026)
www.usbank.com
... A term first popularized during the COVID-19 pandemic, a K-shaped economy, describes an uneven economy where some segments of the population thrive while others struggle.
The current environment amplifies long-standing inequality, with the greatest gains tilted toward higher-income households, as the share of Americans in the middle class shrinks. ...
What is a K-shaped economy?
A K-shaped economy describes an economic recovery where different groups or industries experience vastly different outcomes -- some thrive and grow, while others struggle or decline.
This term was intended to highlight the widening economic inequality during periods of recovery or downturn.
It fits the saying, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." ...
@#8 ... Gotta hand it to the guy, he's got some brass balls. ...
I do not disagree.
That aside, Congress passed a law with only one dissenting vote about this.
Yet the Trump administration still seems to be avoiding following that law.
imo, this is looking more and more like a cover-up by the Trump administration.
Which begs the question ... what might the Trump administration be so focused upon covering up?