JJ's That's Trending: Middle East Tension Grows, Space Is Getting Crowded, Chopsticks In The Brain and More

Posted December 4, 2023

Here are the 5 Things You Need To Know to start the week

1. Big Pharma and bankrurptcy goes under the microscope as the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today on the legality of a wide-ranging settlement at the center of the country’s decadeslong opioid crisis. The latest in the legal saga of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma.

2. The 2023 College Football Playoff was unveiled yesterday, with No. 1 Michigan (13-0) taking on No. 4 Alabama (12-1) in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day (5 pm ET, ESPN), followed by No. 2 Washington (13-0) facing off against No. 3 Texas (12-1) in the Sugar Bowl. The selection sparked controversy, with undefeated Florida State (13-0), who beat Louisville Saturday night to win the Atlantic Coast Conference, left out at No. 5. Closer to home, KU is headed to the Guaranteed Rate Bowl against UNLV on the 26th and K-State plays in the Pop Tart Bowl on the 28th against NC State.

3. Things are escalating in the Middle East. Ballistic missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck three commercial ships Sunday in the Red Sea, while a U.S. warship shot down three drones in self-defense. The Iranian-backed Houthis claimed two of the attacks.

4. Everytime a string of Starlink satellites go overhead, social media explodes with UFO sighting video. Well, expect more of those as Amazon plans to use rival SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets to deploy the first batch of its space-based internet satellites; SpaceX operates competitor Starlink, which already provides near-global coverage.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/amazon-launch-three-falcon-9-rockets-spacex-2023-12-01/?utm_source=join1440&utm_medium=email&utm_placement=newsletter

5. And a 35-year-old man from Vietnam who suffered intense headaches for five months discovered that he had chopsticks stuck in his brain. Doctors conducted multiple CT scans, showing a pair of chopsticks had gone up his nose and into his brain.The man recalled he had been in a drunken fight five months earlier when he first noticed the symptoms. He added that he doesn’t remember much of the fight, but he did at one point get stabbed in the face with something. To make matters worse, for the last 5 months all he could smell was spicy tuna and wasabi.

AND THAT’S TRENDING.