Latest / The Daily Sarcast / July 30th, 2026: BTS Rejects The Grammys, Where Did COVID Come From And 5 Memories That Live In My Head Rent Free

Transcript

July 30th, 2026: BTS Rejects The Grammys, Where Did COVID Come From And 5 Memories That Live In My Head Rent Free · The Daily Sarcast

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  Today's episode is sponsored by the Adulting app. Why force yourself to learn
• 0:05
  life skills when you can outsource them?
• 0:07
  Adulting teaches you how to assemble IKEA furniture, understand your health
• 0:12
  insurance, and help you pretend to know what a Roth IRA is.
• 0:16
  Premium members can receive reminders that your laundry has been sitting in the dryer for four days.
• 0:22
  Insert theme song here. This is the Daily Starcast. I give you the news and maybe a laugh.
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  I'm Lindsay Vernick, and today is July 30th, 2026. Hey guys,
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  are you enjoying those new ads?
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  I'm definitely not, but you know, someone's gotta pay the bills or maybe be
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  able to buy a pack of gum. Who knows, we'll see.
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  In real news, one of the biggest bands in the world just told the Grammys, We're good on you.
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  The Recording Academy recently introduced a new category for Asian pop music,
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  but BTS just announced they're not going to submit their music for consideration.
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  The group says the category may have been created with good intentions but separating
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  Asian artists into their own category isn't the kind of recognition they're looking for.
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  They want to compete alongside everyone else.
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  I would say that's like putting all of the Jews in one category for the Oscars,
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  but it would literally just be all the same categories anyway.
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  But this has to be a tough one for the Grammys. They just made a whole new category
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  for this band, and that was the opposite of what the band wants. They want to play with.
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  The Grammys keep adding categories every year. Right now, we're pretty close
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  to having a category called Best Song Written by a Woman with Little to No Budget.
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  So really, sometimes inclusion isn't about building a separate stage for people.
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  It's about making sure everyone's allowed on the same one.
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  Okay, this one I was thinking about saving for MVP for tomorrow,
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  but I wanted to do it today.
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  So here we go okay so there's this 82 year old woman nita and she lives in this
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  assisted living community in minnesota,
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  and one of the most popular events was this twice a week happy hour everyone
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  would come and hang out and have a glass of wine or a beer or three and then
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  like you know they would leave when all the drinks were gone,
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  but this facility didn't have a liquor license And it was suddenly illegal to
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  serve alcohol during all of these community events.
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  Like, residents could still have alcohol in their own apartments,
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  but they couldn't have a glass of wine together, like, in the common areas.
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  So drinking alone in your apartment was totally fine, but drinking with friends
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  out in, like, the dining hall, absolutely not. You know, obviously government logic at its finest.
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  So Anita thought this rule was ridiculous. I mean, she said that this wasn't
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  just about the wine. It was about having independence.
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  She argued that moving into assisted living shouldn't mean losing everyday freedom
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  or being treated like you suddenly forgot how to enjoy responsibly a glass of Pinot Grigio.
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  So instead of complaining to, like, the facility, she went to the Minnesota legislator.
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  She testified in front of the Minnesota court and told them that residents just
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  want to have a glass of wine with their friends the same way that everybody else does.
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  Her campaign gained a lot of bipartisan support and they eventually passed what's
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  now affectionately known as the grandparents happy hour bill by an overwhelming 129 to one vote,
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  the governor of minnesota tim waltz even traveled to anita's assisted living
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  facility for the bill signing and he praised the idea that growing older shouldn't
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  mean giving up life's smallest pleasures.
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  The new law officially takes place on August 1st and will allow nursing homes,
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  assisted living facilities, and boarding care homes to serve alcohol during
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  resident events without needing an excessive restaurant-style liquor license,
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  as long as they meet state safety requirements.
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  This is probably one of the very few times that everybody wins.
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  The lawmakers got bipartisan praise, the residents get their happy hour back,
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  and Anita proved that if you really want change in America, you just have to
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  be an 82-year-old grandma,
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  who refuses to let the government come between her and her chilled glass of white wine. Cheers!
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  Anthony Fauci just went back to Capitol Hill yesterday for another hearing about
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  the origins of COVID-19. Remember that one?
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  But instead of answering questions from all of the Republicans,
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  he decided to plead the fifth.
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  Fauci says he wasn't refusing to testify because he's admitting guilt.
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  He says he believes Republicans, particularly Senator Rand Paul,
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  are trying to catch him in a contradiction so they can charge him with perjury.
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  Since he's testified about the pandemic multiple times over the years,
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  even a small inconsistency under oath could create a lot of issues.
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  Taking the fifth is a constitutional right, and it's not an admission of guilt.
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  It's meant to protect people from being forced to give testimony that could
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  later be used against them.
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  But that didn't stop the hearing from turning into political Thanksgiving dinner.
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  Rand Paul just, like, kept questioning Fauci anyway, and repeatedly demanded
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  an apology and threatened to hold him in content.
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  At one point, Fauci's attorney tried to object but was just escorted out of the hearing room.
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  Meanwhile, during all of this, Trump posted, of course, and called Fauci crazy,
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  and Florida's AG announced he's opening an investigation. Okay, Florida.
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  But the real thing is that scientists still haven't reached a definitive conclusion
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  about where COVID has originated.
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  The World Health Organization says a natural animal-to-human spillover remains
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  the best-supported theory based on the available evidence, but the origin is
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  still officially considered inconclusive.
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  So after six years countless hearings and approximately 47 people saying I watched
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  one YouTube video about what happened and I think I know we're all still arguing about the same thing,
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  but I think we can all agree that what happened was tragic and horrible and
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  we never want to repeat that.
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  In Lindsay life working remotely right now is great I wake up and go to the gym at 10 o'clock.
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  I have lunch with my girlfriend at noon.
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  And then I had to work in my little basement at like one o'clock for the rest
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  of the room before cooking dinner and heading out to an open mic.
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  Five memories that will live in my head and some other people's heads run free.
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  And I probably should get into these stories at some later date in the pod.
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  Okay, so there was this one time that my mom told me she would pick me up in
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  kindergarten so I didn't have to take the bus home so I waved bye to the school
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  bus as it drove away and when my mom was late,
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  for actually a very good reason I sat with my teacher and shared an orange with her,
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  there was this other time in homeroom in high school and I was sitting in my desk,
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  and it broke and it like literally folded in on me while I was sitting on it
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  and I was so awkward I just sat on the floor for like 30 minutes while everyone
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  just laughed and I didn't know what to do.
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  When my grandmother's necklace full of my grandfather's ashes broke and spilled
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  all over the kitchen floor in front of like my entire family of 16 and my aunt
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  just assumed that it was my drugs on the floor.
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  Being a chipmunk on a,
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  And the first day I was a TV producer, I took a guy to the ice machine because
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  I was told to keep him on ice.
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  Cooking tip of the day. If you turn off the smoke detector, it won't beep when
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  you're always burning something.
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  Feedback, comments, questions, and a Jewish boy 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.