Jimmy Kimmel has a lot to talk about. The late-night host returned to the air on Monday, Jan. 5, to catch up on all the news that's happened since he went on his holiday break last month. "Donald Trump did so much crazy stuff over the last two weeks, it would take a nine-part Ken Burns documentary series to cover it all, but I'm going to do my best to boil it down," he said.
Death toll rises. The situation was likely to worsen as Iran's Central Bank drastically reduced the subsidized exchange rates for dollars it offers to importers and producers.
"I hope this is the beginning of a longer trend."
Look out, world. One of President Donald Trump's longest-serving White House aides Monday gave the clearest explanation yet of an epochal shift in America's global role, as the administration charts a brazen course after decapitating Venezuela's regime.
The Wyoming Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked the implementation of two abortion bans in the deeply conservative state in a 4-1 decision.
Another view ...
NASA Opens Artemis II Public Name Submissions
orbitaltoday.com
... NASA is inviting the public to submit names that will fly inside the Orion spacecraft on Artemis II, a crewed mission expected to travel around the Moon and return to Earth.
The agency says names will be stored on an SD card carried aboard Orion. The signup window is open until Jan. 21, 2026, and participants can generate a digital boarding pass after registering.
Names Will Fly Inside Orion
The campaign is part of NASA's long-running "Send Your Name" outreach, which flies public submissions on spacecraft as a payload.
For Artemis II, the SD card will ride inside Orion with the astronaut crew.
NASA says the sign-up process uses a personal identification number to retrieve a boarding pass later, but the PIN cannot be recovered if it is lost. ...
@#6 ... Please explain where this idea about the insurrection comes from? ...
Explainer: Why the "casual invocation" of the Insurrection Act by President Trump is so unusual
www.hks.harvard.edu
... HKS Senior Lecturer Juliette Kayyem explains what the act is and why Trump is suggesting using it. ...
And I want to clear about this: the military is totally integrated in supporting communities when they need them. Whether it was Hurricane Katrina or during an Olympics, they are there.
The idea that their vast resources aren't used is a misunderstanding of how the local, state, and federal capacity is aligned.
What we saw with the National Guard in D.C. illustrated this.
An insurrection means state government can't work; that's the way it is defined in the Insurrection Act. And yet federal troops were deployed, and what did they do?
They picked up trash. It is so expensive to deploy the military in this way.
There is now a sense that this expansive definition of an insurrection could extend to the mid-term elections, where this administration can deploy the military to cities simply to intimidate voting. ...
Ink Spots & Ella Fitzgerald - Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall (1944)
www.youtube.com
Lyrics excerpt ...
...
[Chorus: Bill Kenny]
Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine
Into each heart some tears must fall
But someday the sun will shine
[Verse]
Some folks can lose the blues in their hearts
But when I think of you, another shower starts
Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine
[Chorus: Ella Fitzgerald]
Into each life some rain must fall
But too much, too much is fallin' in mine
Into each heart some tears must fall
But someday the sun will shine
[Verse]
Some folks can lose the blues in their hearts
But when I think of you, another shower starts
Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is fallin' in mine
...
Mose Allison Your Mind Is on Vacation (1976)
www.youtube.com
Lyrics excerpt ...
...
You sittin' here and yakkin' right in my face
You comin' on exactly like you own the place
You know if silence was golden
You couldn't raise a dime
Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is workin' overtime
...
Also from that show ...
Jimmy Kimmel Takes Donald Trump Cognitive Test'
www.newsweek.com
... Jimmy Kimmel has taken a "cognitive test" similar to the one President Donald Trump said he had "aced," with the talk-show host calling it "as difficult as the maze on the back of the box of Cap'n Crunch."
Trump has spoken several times about "acing" a cognitive test that he said was "not easy."
On an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday night, Kimmel said he had asked a doctor to carry out a cognitive test with him "in the interest of fairness" and "to get a sense of what he keeps babbling about." ...
On Monday, Kimmel showed a clip of Trump telling a crowd that he had taken three cognitive tests and "aced every one of them." Kimmel joked: "I'm not sure being asked to take three cognitive exams is quite the flex he thinks it is."
Kimmel then added: "In the interest of fairness, and also to get a sense of what he keeps babbling about, we got in touch with a doctor who gives this test regularly ... and I asked her to administer one to me."
The comedian was then seen being asked to complete multiple tasks, including drawing a cube, linking numbers and letters in ascending order, drawing the time on a clock face, and naming several animals. ...
If you're interested, the cognitive test starts around 12:15 into this...
Jimmy Kimmel Recaps the Crazy Stuff Trump Did Over the Holidays & Takes Cognitive Test Donny "ACED"
www.youtube.com
Drones spotted flying over Caracas, Venezuelan air defenses triggered with shots fired
www.jpost.com
... Initial reports indicate that heavy gunfire was deployed against what appear to be drones near the main government building, and that the city's main ministries were evacuated.
Drones were spotted near the airspace over the Palacio de Miraflores in Caracas, Venezuela's capital, according to Spanish-language news outlets on Monday, with additional reports of clashes in the streets and shots fired.
The Venezuelan government confirmed that the drones were spotted illegally flying over Caracas by security officials, with the police firing warning shots in an attempt to deter the situation.
Initial reports indicated that heavy gunfire was deployed against what appeared to be drones near the main government building, and that the city's main ministries were evacuated, according to the South American site Infobae.
The shootings began at around 8.00 p.m. local time (GMT-4), with videos surfacing of people running into and hiding in stores and buildings, while heavy gunfire is heard in the background. ...
This situation erupted just hours after Delcy Rodriguez, the former vice president under the government of Nicolas Maduro, was officially sworn in as Venezuela's new president on Monday. ...
Trump and top Iranian officials exchange threats over protests roiling Iran
apnews.com
... U.S. President Donald Trump and top Iranian officials exchanged dueling threats Friday as widening protests swept across parts of the Islamic Republic, further escalating tensions between the countries after America bombed Iranian nuclear sites in June. ...
Trump initially wrote on his Truth Social platform, warning Iran that if it "violently kills peaceful protesters," the United States "will come to their rescue."
"We are locked and loaded and ready to go," Trump wrote, without elaborating. ...
... travel around the Moon and return to Earth ...
OK, that prompted me to think about the computer capability of the Apollo missions.
I found this ...
Apollo Guidance Computer
en.wikipedia.org