In this "European Reacts' with André from Portugal, it's one of the early one with the enthusiastic Sara joining him, as she explains that she's not comfortable speaking English.  (I also don't think they're married yet.)  She actually speaks it fine, but since this is only from about three months ago, it's interesting to see later how comfortable she gets in front of the camera in such a short time.  In this video, they deal with 11 very common things for many Americans that don't exist outside the country.  A lot of fun of these videos is that from André's great love of America, he began the series before he and Sara were married, and before she joined him camera, and he's done a great deal of research into the country to help feed that love.  So, he often knows a little bit about the subject they'll be covering.  And it's just fun to see his joyful expectation knowing how his spirited wife will react.  And he even says as much here.  Also fun is listening to them try to figure out why such items are popular - like spray cheese.  Oddly, the video they're watching gets one thing incredibly wrong - why it's called "Black Friday."  Happy, the Comments section corrects this.  (And André and Sara periodically say in videos that they read most of the comments.)
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I had another article ready to go for today, but then late in the day I saw this video and had to post it instead.

The other night, at the NHL playoff game for the Buffalo Sabres, the microphone cut out during the singing of the Canadian National Anthem.

This is what happened next.

I just love that.  And how it builds.  No further comment is needed.  It speaks loudly (in this case, very loudly) for itself.

I sang along.  We learned the song in grade school, during music class.  And no, I didn't grow up in Canada before moving to Glencoe, Illinois.  "O Canada" wasn't the Canadian National Anthem yet, just a very nice song honoring the country, along the lines of "America the Beautiful" or "God Bless America."  At that point, Canada's National Anthem was still "God Save the Queen."  So, a few of the words I learned were slightly different than today.  (I learned it with "in all thy sons command," which is now "in all of us command."  And also "O Canada, glorious and free", which was changed to "God keep our land, glorious and free."  So, I sometimes have to check myself when singing along.)

The video went viral through both the U.S. and Canada.  This is a news story from Buffalo that sent a reporter across the border to get Canadians' reaction.

And this is a morning show in Canada on CTV, as they discuss the video and how they responded to it.

If you didn’t see Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver the other night, the Main Story was on Trump cutting the USAID department.  It's actually an old story, since USAID got dismantled under Elon Musk and "DOGE", but most of the coverage of that at the time was largely shorthand for what USAID did.  This show here takes a very deep dive, and also now has the perspective to make clear the tragic results of the Trump cuts.  It's an excellent report, galling but filled with sarcastic humor.

We have another of the fun "European Reacts" videos by André from Portugal, along with the charming and adorably enthusiastic now-wife Sara.  (As opposed to in his early videos, his girlfriend.)  This time, it's their reaction at seven basic, everyday objects that are outdoor in American, which everyone takes for granted (like yellow school buses and fire hydrants) aren't commonly seen the Europe.  What's amusing is how when Sara recognizes the object, it's often because she saw it in a movie.
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When I saw the news yesterday morning about British law officials arresting former Prince Andrew, my immediate thought (and I’m sure that of many others) was not about England.  It was how horrified the Trump administration will likely be by this story, since it will focus massive attention on how the British not only are dropping top officials from the government from their involvement with Jeffrey Epstein – and may even bring down the Prime Minister who has no connection at all to Epstein, but appointed people who did – but just arrested a member of the royal family, in fact the brother of the King of England, the first time that has happened since 1649.
 
It will also shine the brightest possible klieg light on the fact, as well, that a former U.S. President has agreed to testify under oath about Epstein, will his wife (who has never met Epstein and has no connection to him) – yet neither the current president, who is mentioned over a million times in the Epstein files, and about whom Epstein himself said was his best friend, nor the president’s wife who knew Epstein personally are testifying.
 
And indeed, the story of the arrest of the brother of the King of England did indeed overwhelm the news yesterday, drawing attention of this all to Trump and his wife and all those members in Trump’s cabinet and Trump’s longtime adviser Steve Bannon who had ties to Epstein, some of them very close ties.
 
It must have been a hellish day of horror for Trump. 
 
And made more hellish by Trump’s response to the arrest being that it was “A very sad thing.”  It’s a shame there were no follow-up questions like, “Really?? Why???  For whom?”
 
By the way, while it might seem like his answer might be “For his family” (though, being Trump, he might also say “For Andrew,” throwing his sympathy towards a presumed sexual predator of minors, much like he said he wished sexual predator Ghislaine Maxwell well after her conviction), I think more likely what Trump would mean – though would never say -- is “For me,” knowing the hell all this attention will rain down on him.
 
The thing though, what Trump probably doesn’t realize is that Andrew’s arrest was, in at least one way – and a huge way it is – actually a great thing for him.  That’s because it kept a major story off the TV.  The story did get a little coverage in print media, and a bit online, but Andrew’s arrest overwhelmed TV, and I didn’t see this other story even mentioned.  (In fairness, it may have been, but I just didn’t see it.)  And even if it did get mentioned, it didn’t get the major headline coverage it should have.
 
And what was that big story that got lost and buried?
 
The former president of South Korea was convicted of his part in inciting an insurrection and sentenced to life in prison.
 
No, really.
 
Here’s the headline from the New York Times​

​Here’s the opening of the article that explains it all very well --

There's a lot more.  You can read the details here.

In some ways, this might be an even more horrifying story for Trump.  Not just the incredible overlap with his own incitement of the January 6 insurrection, and the sentence being life in prison (!!) – but that a military dictator 30 years earlier in South Korea had been sentenced…on the same charge…to death.
 
And while, on the one hand, former president Yoon was given a more lenient sentence than death because of his age – and Yoon being 65 is younger than Trump months away from being 80 – the other issue for leniency was that Yoon had not used lethal force.  Given that Trump asked during his first term about shooting protestors at a Washington, D.C., protest – and that his agents just killed two innocent citizens in Minneapolis – Trump might not have skated by on the leniency gambit, were he in South Korea.
 
Though he may have gotten a pass for having dementia, which is degenerative.
 
Of course, in the end, whether Trump would have been more horrified by a story about the former president of South Korea being convicted and sentenced to life in prison for inciting an insurrection – or in a state of greater horror by the brother of the King of England being arrested for his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, I can’t answer that.  I’ve long said that trying to understand Trump’s mind is a fool’s errand.
 
What I do know is that Trump is lucky that the story of the former president of South Korea being convicted and sentenced to life in prison for inciting an insurrection happened at the same time as the brother of the King of England being arrested for his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. 
 
And it’s a shame that the TV news media couldn’t figure out a way to cover the story as the major news it is.  Or perhaps cover it at all.

One other thing stands out: it seems that other countries take sex trafficking of minors and insurrection to overthrow the government more seriously than the current U.S. administration -- and MAGOPs who support and enable him.  Go figure.