Morning! While you were sleeping (or staying up to binge-watch Friends for the tenth time, or pulling an all-nighter in the library), a few things went down that you’ll probably want to know about. So grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and get scrolling.
Rumor Has It
Travelers and music festival lovers couldn’t help but be swept away by the breathtaking photos touted by the ill-fated Fyre Festival promotional videos.
Now, the island that Fyre Festival organizers used to advertise their luxury music festival and lure festival-goers is up for sale.
The private island, called Saddleback Cay, can be yours for $11.8 million.
Saddleback Cay, one of a series of hundreds in the Bahamas’ Exumas island chain, has seven beaches, a main house and several small cottages, Good Morning America reports.
“Located in the northern most section of the Exuma Cays, the island has easy access by boat or by air from New Providence,” the island’s listing says.
Normans’ Cay is only a short distance away and “has an operational airstrip, providing ease of access to Saddle Back Cay,” according to the listing, and it is “conveniently located to some of the best bone fishing and deep water fishing spots in all of the Bahamas.”
The notorious island, which Fyre Festival organizers originally wanted as the location for their music festival, was where the promotional hype video was shot. The team spared no expense to attract festival enthusiasts to buy tickets to the event, bringing in multiple yachts, a private plane and dozens of A-list celebrities, including Emily Ratajkowski, Alessandra Ambrosio and Bella Hadid, to Saddleback Cay for the promotional shoot, Business Insider reports.
The goal was to make Fyre Festival seem like an exclusive party that festival-goers wouldn’t want to miss.
News You Can Eat
Earlier this year, McDonald’s blessed us with its Worldwide Favorites menu, a selection of food items from McDonald’s locations around the world. However, McDonald’s is reportedly already thinking of bringing in a whole new batch of international menu items to the U.S. next summer.
This August, McDonald’s will launch a Worldwide Favorites 2.0 test run at select in the Connecticut area, with the possibility of adding them to menus nationwide next year, according to Food & Wine Magazine.
Test items in this next rotation of Worldwide Favorites include the Savory Ranch Burger from Mexico, the Grand Premium Chicken Sandwich from France, the McChicken McMuffin from Japan and the Carmel Brownie McFlurry from Canada.
Honestly, they all sound delicious.
McDonald’s is testing Worldwide Favorites 2.0 in August, as it wraps up its summer of international menu offerings ? https://t.co/1BePRn3tRe pic.twitter.com/6GUfTymRs1
— Kate Taylor (@Kate_H_Taylor) July 24, 2019
While a promotional photo of the new items have been floating around the internet, McDonald’s has not yet commented on the new Worldwide Favorites selections or provided any descriptions or details.
McDonald’s rolled out a menu of international items across the United States for the first time this June, Business Insider reports. Options on this first Worldwide Favorites menu included Spain’s Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger, Canada’s tomato-mozzarella chicken sandwich, Australia’s cheesy bacon fries and the Netherlands’ Stroopwafel McFlurry.
The fast food chain had previously tested the Grand McExtreme Bacon Burger and the Stroopwafel McFlurry at locations in South Florida in 2018. So, here’s to hoping that they will follow the same plan this time and roll out the new international items next summer!
Then This Happened
The editorial board for the The Baltimore Sun snapped back at President Donald Trump on Saturday after the president bashed Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and called Baltimore a “filthy” and “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”
In a scathing column, the editors pointed out to the president that he has just as much responsibility for Baltimore’s faults as Cummings, and that, in fact, Trump had more power to effect change in the city and urged him to do so, The Hill reports.
This editorial is your must-read piece for the night:
“Fox News rang the bell, the president salivated and his thumbs moved across his cell phone into action.”https://t.co/T8hGvmHh3K #baltimore— Sarah Pulliam Bailey (@spulliam) July 28, 2019
“We would above all remind Mr. Trump that the 7th District, Baltimore included, is part of the United States that he is supposedly governing,” the Sun’s editors wrote in the op-ed.
“The White House has far more power to effect change in this city, for good or ill, than any single member of Congress including Mr. Cummings. If there are problems here, rodents included, they are as much his responsibility as anyone’s, perhaps more because he holds the most powerful office in the land,” they added.
The editorial board went on to launch a full scale attack against Trump in their piece, likening him to the “vermin” he accused the city of being infested with.
“We would tell the most dishonest man to ever occupy the Oval Office, the mocker of war heroes, the gleeful grabber of women’s private parts, the serial bankrupter of businesses, the useful idiot of Vladimir Putin and the guy who insisted there are ‘good people’ among murderous neo-Nazis that he’s still not fooling most Americans into believing he’s even slightly competent in his current post,” the editors wrote.
“Or that he possesses a scintilla of integrity,” they added. “Better to have some vermin living in your neighborhood than to be one.”
Trump lashed out at Cummings, a vociferous critic of the president, on Twitter Saturday in response to the lawmaker’s remarks about the inhumane conditions at the migrant detention centers at the border, HuffPost reports.
Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2019
….As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2019
In his tweets, the president called Cummings a “brutal bully” and said that Baltimore was “FAR WORSE and more dangerous” than the migrant camps.
Several public figures came out to defend the city after Trump’s comments, including CNN anchor Victor Blackwell, who reminded the president that Baltimore residents are citizens of this country, too.
“People get up and go to work there. They care for their families there,” Blackwell said. “They love their children who pledge allegiance to the flag just like people who live in districts of congressmen who support you, sir.”
In a statement on Twitter, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she rejected Trump’s attacks on Cummings and praised the congressman’s leadership in Baltimore.
“@RepCummings is a champion in the Congress and the country for civil rights and economic justice, a beloved leader in Baltimore, and deeply valued colleague,” Pelosi wrote. “We all reject racist attacks against him and support his steadfast leadership.”
Happy Thoughts
Amanda Seyfried blessed us with a “Mean Girls”-inspired cover of Taylor Swift’s “Mean” and it is so fetch.