Latest / The Daily Sarcast / April 20th, 2026: Bear Insurance Fraud, Lego Linguine And Hot Chips

Transcript

April 20th, 2026: Bear Insurance Fraud, Lego Linguine And Hot Chips · The Daily Sarcast

• 0:00
  Today's episode is brought to you by people on dating apps who are actually
• 0:04
  very different than who they seem to be online.
• 0:07
  The good news for Trump is that things appear to be moving forward to build
• 0:10
  what his press secretary inexplicably calls the Trump-feel arch, Jimmy Kimmel.
• 0:16
  Insert theme song here. This is the Daily Starcast. I give you the news and
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  maybe a laugh. I'm Lindsay Wernick and today is April 20th, 2026.
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  Ha ha, it's 420, you know what that means. And if you don't,
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  you better get with the program.
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  In real news, Pope Leo would like everyone to know he did not sign up to be
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  a reoccurring guest star in American politics.
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  After headlines claimed comments from his Africa trip were aimed at President
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  Trump, the Pope clarified that people were doing what people do best,
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  hearing one sentence and turning it into a whole Netflix series.
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  The Pope said the media created an inaccurate narrative and said he had zero
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  interest in debating Trump.
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  I mean, if you're the Pope, there are probably better uses of your time than
• 1:00
  fighting with the joke of a man.
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  The drama started after Trump criticized him on social media earlier last week,
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  and the Pope responded by saying he had no fear and would keep preaching peace.
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  And then later, the Pope condemned people who use religion for military,
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  political, and economic gain, and everyone immediately screamed, this is about Trump.
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  And now the Pope says that speech was actually written about two weeks ago before
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  Trump had said anything about him and was actually about broader conflict and violence.
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  In other words, not every sentence on this earth is about him. Shocker.
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  J.D. Vance thanked the Pope for clarifying things while the Pope continued trying
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  to focus on Catholics in Africa.
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  It's a tough week when even the Pope has to say, please stop putting words in my mouth.
• 1:46
  There was a horrific mass shooting in Louisiana that has left eight children
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  dead in what the police are calling a domestic violence incident that escalated
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  into a very full-scale tragedy.
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  Officers were called around 6 a.m.
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  On Sunday morning for what started as a reported domestic disturbance.
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  By the time they arrived, the situation had spread across multiple homes across the neighborhood.
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  In total, there were 10 people shot, eight children ranging in ages from 1 to 14 were killed.
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  Two adults survived, though police have not released full details on their conditions.
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  Apparently, the shooter was related to some of the people, and after it,
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  he, like, stole a car and led police on this crazy chase, and then he was shot and killed by officers.
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  The police have not confirmed a motive yet, but they are treating this as a
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  domestic violent case that escalated inside a family and turned into a mass casualty event.
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  Yeah, I know that one was really rough to hear, but I felt that it was either
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  this or I ran and maybe take a break from talking about Iran for one episode.
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  The news is great, right?
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  And meanwhile, over in California, three people have been sentenced to jail
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  after what might be one of the most bizarre insurance fraud schemes investigators have ever seen.
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  It was a fake bear attack on luxury cars carried out by a guy in a bear costume.
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  Okay, so this group filed insurance claims back in 2024, saying that a bear
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  broke into and damaged high-end cars, including a Rolls-Royce.
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  And to prove this, they even submitted video footage of the supposed bear climbing
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  inside the car and, like, looking around.
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  There's just one problem, though. There was never a bear. It was a human in a bear suit.
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  A wildlife biologist watched the footage and confirmed what most people watching
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  probably already assumed.
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  This was very much a person doing their best impression of a confused bear trying to break into a car.
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  Because obviously wild bears are always trying to steal things from cars.
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  The cops got a search warrant for the people with the claims and they found
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  the actual bear costume.
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  All three of the defendants pleaded no contest to felony insurance fraud and
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  were sentenced to jail time, along with restitution payments totaling tens of thousands of dollars.
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  They were really doing too much with that video, though. Like,
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  if they said that the bear did it, how would they have video footage anyway?
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  Like, why wouldn't they just say that the bear did it? Why would they have to buy a whole costume?
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  Just go to the insurance company and be like, hey, a bear stole things from
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  my car, but obviously I don't have video footage.
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  It reminds me of when I used to water down my parents vodka in
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  high school when I would steal vodka from them but then
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  I would put it back in the freezer not realizing that water freezes and then
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  I would be like oh that sucks that your bottle of vodka froze and you must have
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  bought it with water in it and then I come to them with video footage of them
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  making the vodka putting water in it like that's just too much right.
• 4:52
  In Lindsay life. So I made a new friend. Her name's Zoe. She's awesome.
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  She's from Australia. Hi, Zoe.
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  And I was out with her and some people the other day having some drinks.
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  And she turns to the waitress and says, can we order some hot chips?
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  And the waitress was like, we have chips, but like, I don't know how hot they are.
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  And Zoe was like, well, why can't we just have them hot? Like,
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  that's what I would want, hot chips.
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  And she was like, well, we have nachos. And she's like, no, no, no, just hot chips.
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  And the waitress was so confused. And she was like, yeah, they're just not hot here.
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  And then my sister finally goes, I think she's talking about French fries.
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  And she was. She meant French fries.
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  Thing of this week this week is the pasta Lego heist.
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  So this past week in California, cops arrested a man for what can only be described
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  as a master class and thinking absolutely no steps ahead.
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  So this 28 year old guy was arrested for buying expensive Lego sets,
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  opening them up, removing the Lego pieces, and then replacing like the packages
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  with uncooked pasta before returning them for refunds.
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  So imagine being the employee who opens up a return $500 Star Wars Lego set
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  expecting, I don't know, like little dark feeders and everything,
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  and instead, you're greeted by bags of elbow macaroni.
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  Police say this allegedly went on across multiple stores and could have totaled
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  around $34,000 in refunds.
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  I mean, that's a lot of pasta.
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  Stores eventually caught on after noticing a pattern of high-end Lego sets being
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  returned with linguine instead of Legos.
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  And look, Lego theft is already a thing because apparently, tiny plastic things are now a luxury asset.
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  But this is the first time we've officially entered the era of carbohydrate counterfeiting.
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  Police have warned that if you are thinking about doing this,
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  your plans will be cooked al dente.
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  Cooking tip of the day. Sometimes the best dinners come from just whatever things are in your fridge.
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  Feedback, comments, questions, and nice Jewish by looking for a date,
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  email me at lindsay at thedailystarcast.com. Thanks so much for listening.
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  Talk to you guys tomorrow.