Friday March 31, 2023: Pay For The Sitter; Astrologer Anne; Raven’s Report Card

Friday March 31, 2023: Pay For The Sitter; Astrologer Anne; Raven’s Report Card

Lots of people have to deal with having a small workspace, but not the host of a major show right?  Anna was shocked when she heard what Kelly Ripa’s work environment was like when she got her start! (:30)

Every Friday, Raven’s wife Alicia calls the show to give Raven a grade on how he did as a husband that week!  This week, the way Raven handled Alicia’s car repairs may end up giving him a failing grade! (3:36)

Having a leak in your car is a bummer, but if you park your leaky car in your friend’s driveway, that’s all I need to know about you! (7:15)

Are you up to date on this week’s biggest news stories? Anna and Raven will get you caught up on what’s trending, including the celebrity verdict everyone has been waiting for! (10:38)

March was a long month, but what does April have in store?  Astrologer Anne spoke to Anna and Raven about what the stars have planned for you next month!  (14:11)

Paying for someone’s meal on a date is common, but do you draw the line there?  Anna has a friend who was offered something else by a prospective suitor, and she’s conflicted about whether to take him up on it! (18:08)

Who’s to blame for all the problems in your life?  Anna’s younger daughter blames Anna for a ridiculous (and minor) injury that was certainly self-inflicted! (25:40)

It’s time for Mommy’s Margarita Friday!  Moms (and Dads) share all the crazy things that their kids have put them through this week that have definitely earned them a margarita! (29:37)

Doug has a collection of vintage pinball machines in their basement. 12 of them! His wife, Gina, says she’s tired of them. They could be using the space as a playroom for the kids instead of their toys all over the house. Doug says he’ll eventually fix them up and sell them, but Gina wants them gone now. Sell them for whatever they’re worth and lets move on with our lives! What do you think? (33:37)

Austin thinks he’s got what it take to beat Raven in pop culture trivia.  Can he succeed and win the $1000 jackpot? (41:59)

Nimmo’s 2-run double sends Scherzer, Mets past Marlins 5-3

Nimmo’s 2-run double sends Scherzer, Mets past Marlins 5-3

MIAMI (AP) — Brandon Nimmo broke a seventh-inning tie with a two-run double, sending Max Scherzer and the New York Mets past the Miami Marlins 5-3 on Thursday.

Scherzer (1-0) coughed up a three-run lead but threw six solid innings in a matchup with NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara as the Mets improved to 41-21 on opening day — the best record in baseball.

Garrett Cooper tied it 3-all in the sixth with a two-run homer off Scherzer. Jacob Stallings led off the inning with a single and scored on Luis Arraez’s double.

Nimmo had three RBIs from the leadoff spot after re-signing with the Mets in the offseason for $162 million over eight years. He ripped a low slider from reliever Tanner Scott (0-1) into center field to put New York ahead 5-3 in the seventh, propelling the Mets to their 41st win in the past 53 openers.

Nimmo also had a sacrifice fly that scored Daniel Vogelbach for a 1-0 lead.

Before the opener, the Mets placed Justin Verlander on the injured list with a strained upper back muscle, sidelining the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner before his first appearance with the team.

Miami fell to 12-19 on opening day as rookie manager Skip Schumaker began his Marlins tenure with a loss.
Arraez was 2 for 4 and had a leadoff single in his first Marlins at-bat after Minnesota traded him to Miami in the offseason. The addition of last year’s AL batting champion was meant to be a huge lift for Miami’s offense, which was among the worst in the majors last season.

Scherzer permitted four hits, struck out six and walked two in his first opening-day start with the Mets.

Drew Smith and newcomers Brooks Raley and David Robertson combined to strike out six over three shutout innings of one-hit relief.

Robertson, filling in as closer after Edwin Diaz suffered a season-ending injury in the World Baseball Classic, got three outs for the save.

Alcantara was lifted after giving up two walks and two singles that led to two runs in the sixth. He finished with an uncharacteristic four walks and struck out two.

The Mets made it 2-0 in the sixth when Lindor’s sacrifice fly drove in Nimmo. Big league batting champ

UP NEXT

The series continues Friday with New York LHP David Peterson facing LHP Jesus Luzardo.

New York Mets’ Brandon Nimmo, bottom left, collides with Miami Marlins third baseman Jean Segura, top, as he is safe at third on a single hit by Starling Marte (not shown) during the sixth inning of an opening day baseball game, Thursday, March 30, 2023, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

Splish Splash to hire for over 800 people for the summer season

Splish Splash to hire for over 800 people for the summer season

Splish Splash will be holding a job fair next week for over 800 positions for the upcoming season.
The water park needs lifeguards, cooks, parking lot attendants and more, and will pay up to $19 an hour.
Anyone interested can attend the job fair next Tuesday or Thursday at Splish Splash.

Aaron Judge homers in 1st swing as New York Yankees captain

Aaron Judge homers in 1st swing as New York Yankees captain

NEW YORK (AP) — Aaron Judge’s first swing of the season ended up just like 62 others last year: a soaring home run.

In his first game as Yankees captain, Judge’s solo drive in the first inning off Logan Webb started New York to a 5-0 opening-day win over the San Francisco Giants on Thursday.

“One of my lowest, darkest places this winter was when I thought maybe it was in jeopardy that he was coming back,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Thursday morning. “One of the darkest places I went was picturing him on that third-base line in a Giants uniform on opening day.”

Instead, Judge emerged from the first-base dugout to loud cheers from the crowd of 46,172 during pregame introductions. A short while later, he hit a 422-foot shot into the netting above Monument Park in center field, the first home run of the major league season.

“I think it went back to the Roll Call and even the introductions — hearing my name, with the Yankee roar,” Judge said. “I didn’t want to go anywhere. I was pretty vocal about that from the beginning and then you got to go through the free-agency process. But all in all this is where I wanted to be and I’m happy I’m here and it’s tough to think about being anywhere else.”

Just before opening day last year, Judge turned down the Yankees’ offer of $213.5 million over seven years through 2029, betting on himself.

“I just remember the talk: How do you think he’ll be? Do you think he’ll be able to handle it? Will it be a distraction for him?” Boone said. “I think in hindsight it’s safe to assume it was not.”

Judge hit .311 with 62 homers and 131 RBIs en route to the AL MVP award. He broke the AL home record that had stood since Roger Maris hit 61 in 1961 and tied for the major league RBIs lead.

Judge agreed to a $360 million, nine-year contract with the Yankees, spurning his hometown area Giants and the San Diego Padres. After Judge agreed to the deal, the Yankees elevated him to their first captain since Derek Jeter in 2014.

Judge took a first-pitch strike from Webb on a sunny, 39-degree day at Yankee Stadium, then hit a thigh-high cutter on the outside part of the plate for a 109 mph drive and his first opening day home run.

“It was a tone-setter for us,” winner Gerrit Cole said. “He came up and woke everybody up and showed us that he was here to play.”

Judge added a broken-bat RBI single against John Brebbia in a two-run seventh and is hitting .429 (12 for 28) on opening day with four doubles and three walks.

“It would have been nice to have him,” Webb said. “I wish I could have that pitch back.”

Judge turns 31 next month and craves adding the accomplishments expected in the lineage of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle and Jeter: World Series titles. He was playing in Yankee Stadium for the first time since Houston completed a four-game AL Championship Series sweep last October and went on to beat Philadelphia for the championship.

“There’s only room for improvement,” Judge said. “I’m trying to get 1% better every day, and hopefully I can add that up over a course of nine years and have some impactful years here with the Yankees.”

New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge reacts after hitting a solo home run during the first inning of a baseball game against the San Francisco Giants at Yankee Stadium Thursday, March 30, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Donald Trump indicted; 1st ex-president charged with crime

Donald Trump indicted; 1st ex-president charged with crime

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, his lawyers said Thursday, making him the first former U.S. president to face a criminal charge and jolting his bid to retake the White House next year.

The charges center on payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter. They mark an extraordinary development after years of investigations into Trump’s business, political and personal dealings.

The indictment injects a local district attorney’s office into the heart of a national presidential race and ushers in criminal proceedings in a city that the ex-president for decades called home. Arriving at a time of deep political divisions, the charges are likely to reinforce rather than reshape dueling perspectives of those who see accountability as long overdue and those who, like Trump, feel the Republican is being targeted for political purposes by a Democratic prosecutor.

Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly assailed the investigation, called the indictment “political persecution” and predicted it would damage Democrats in 2024. In a statement confirming the charges, defense lawyers Susan Necheles and Joseph Tacopina said Trump “did not commit any crime. We will vigorously fight this political prosecution in court.”

The case centers on well-chronicled allegations from a period in 2016 when Trump’s celebrity past collided with his political ambitions. Prosecutors scrutinized money paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, whom he feared would go public with claims that they had extramarital sexual encounters with him.

Trump was expected to surrender to authorities next week, though the details were still being worked out, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss a matter that remained under seal.

The timing of the indictment appeared to come as a surprise to Trump campaign officials following news reports that criminal charges was likely weeks away. The former president was at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, on Thursday and had filmed an interview with a conservative commentator earlier in the day.

For a man whose presidency was defined by one obliterated norm after another, the indictment presents yet another never-before-seen spectacle. It will require a former president, and current hopeful, to simultaneously fight for his freedom and his political future while also fending off potentially more perilous legal threats, including investigations into attempts by him and his allies to undo the 2020 election as well into as the hoarding of hundreds of classified documents.

In fact, New York until recently had been seen as an unlikely contender to be the first place to prosecute Trump, who continues to face long-running investigations in Atlanta and Washington that could also result in charges. Unlike those inquiries, the Manhattan case concerns conduct by Trump that occurred before he became president and is unrelated to much-publicized efforts to overturn a presidential election.

As he seeks to reassert control of the Republican Party and stave off a slew of one-time allies who are seeking or are likely to oppose him for the presidential nomination, the indictment sets the stage for an unprecedented scene — a former president having his fingerprints and mug shot taken, and then facing arraignment and possibly a criminal trial. For security reasons, his booking is expected to be carefully choreographed to avoid crowds inside or outside the courthouse.

In bringing the charges, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, is embracing an unusual case that had been investigated by two previous sets of prosecutors, both of which declined to take the politically explosive step of seeking Trump’s indictment.

In the weeks leading up to the indictment, Trump, who is seeks to reassert control of the Republican Party and . railed about the investigation on social media and urged supporters to protest on his behalf, prompting tighter security around the Manhattan criminal courthouse.

The fate of the hush-money investigation seemed uncertain until word got out in early March that Bragg had invited Trump to testify before a grand jury, a signal that prosecutors were close to bringing charges.

Trump’s attorneys declined the invitation, but a lawyer closely allied with the former president briefly testified in an effort to undercut the credibility of Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.

Late in the 2016 presidential campaign, Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to keep her silent about what she says was a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier after they met at a celebrity golf tournament.

Cohen was then reimbursed by Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, which also rewarded the lawyer with bonuses and extra payments logged internally as legal expenses. Over several months, Cohen said, the company paid him $420,000.

Earlier in 2016, Cohen had also arranged for the publisher of the supermarket tabloid the National Enquirer to pay Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 to squelch her story of a Trump affair in a journalistically dubious practice known as “catch-and-kill.”

The payments to the women were intended to buy secrecy, but they backfired almost immediately as details of the arrangements leaked to the news media.

Federal prosecutors in New York ultimately charged Cohen in 2018 with violating federal campaign finance laws, arguing that the payments amounted to impermissible help to Trump’s presidential campaign. Cohen pleaded guilty to those charges and unrelated tax evasion counts and served time in federal prison.

Trump was implicated in court filings as having knowledge of the arrangements, but U.S. prosecutors at the time balked at bringing charges against him. The Justice Department has a longtime policy that it is likely unconstitutional to prosecute a sitting president in federal court.

Bragg’s predecessor as district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr., then took up the investigation in 2019. While that probe initially focused on the hush money payments, Vance’s prosecutors moved on to other matters, including an examination of Trump’s business dealings and tax strategies.

Vance ultimately charged the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer with tax fraud related to fringe benefits paid to some of the company’s top executives.

The hush money matter became known around the D.A.’s office as the “zombie case,” with prosecutors revisiting it periodically but never opting to bring charges.

Bragg saw it differently. After the Trump Organization was convicted on the tax fraud charges in December, he brought fresh eyes to the well-worn case, hiring longtime white-collar prosecutor Matthew Colangelo to oversee the probe and convening a new grand jury.

Cohen became a key witness, meeting with prosecutors nearly two-dozen times, turning over emails, recordings and other evidence and testifying before the grand jury.

Trump has long decried the Manhattan investigation as “the greatest witch hunt in history.” He has also lashed out at Bragg, calling the prosecutor, who is Black, racist against white people.

The criminal charges in New York are the latest salvo in a profound schism between Trump and his hometown — a reckoning for a one-time favorite son who grew rich and famous building skyscrapers, hobnobbing with celebrities and gracing the pages of the city’s gossip press.

Trump, who famously riffed in 2016 that he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and “wouldn’t lose voters,” now faces a threat to his liberty or at least his reputation in a borough where more than 75% of voters — many of them potential jurors — went against him in the last election.

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Paying For A Babysitter!?

Paying For A Babysitter!?

Anna’s friend was asked a question on a dating app, and she can’t believe it’s even a thing! What do you think about it?

Happy Birthday Queen Celine!

Happy Birthday Queen Celine!

Happy 55th Birthday to the Queen that is Celine Dion! She is hands down the best vocalist I have seen live! She has given us so many hits over the years from radio songs like “Because You Loved Me,” to the song you can’t help but sing from “Titanic,” “My Heart Will Go On,” to the Oscar winning “Beauty and the Beast.”

(Image: AP Newsroom)

What To Know About Using References For Jobs

What To Know About Using References For Jobs

Are your references allowed to speak badly about you to a potential employer? Vice President of HR at Connoisseur Media, Jane Manley, answers everything you need to know about “references”.

Thursday March 30, 2023: Highway Hijinks; Dine In the Bathroom; Personal References

Thursday March 30, 2023: Highway Hijinks; Dine In the Bathroom; Personal References

It’s tough to be called a bad kisser, but most people don’t get called that by the national media!  One major celebrity has been photographed kissing someone, and everyone is criticizing their technique! (:30)

Anna has three crazy news stories but Raven can only pick one!  Today his options are; A man uses a tracking device to locate his luggage, a squatter caught in a full moon, and a Carvana catastrophe! (2:49)

Lots of people water down their shampoo to get a couple extra washes, but if you water down your expensive perfume, that’s all I need to know about you! (6:44)

Is it ever ok to eat in the bathroom?  One of the most famous women in the world is under fire for her bathroom eating habits! (9:55)

What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever seen on the highway?  A viral video is going around of a crazy car accident and the craziest part is that the driver is completely fine! (13:54)

Are you up to date on this week’s biggest news stories?  Anna and Raven will get you caught up on what’s trending, including the appropriate number of hot dogs to eat at a ball game! (29:17)

How much thought do you put into your references on a job application?  Anna and Raven spoke to HR expert Jane Manley about what to know about this often over-looked detail! (32:23)

Patrick and Diana found their 15-year-old son smoking in their backyard with his friend. Diana says they need to call the parents of the other child to tell them what happened. Patrick says that they don’t even know the parents, it’s just going to make them look bad since it happened on their watch, on their property. What would you do? (36:23)

Jerry has got a shot at $900! Can he beat Raven in pop culture trivia and claim the prize? (44:22)

LIPA approves new time-of-day plan

LIPA approves new time-of-day plan


LIPA approved its time-of-day plan Wednesday, giving customers the option to switch from a flat rate to one that fluctuates depending on the time of day.

The Peak hours, would be weekdays from 3-7pm and would be the highest rate. All other hours would be considered off-peak.
LIPA says it will not start the program until next year and that customers do not have to enroll in it.