To start this minute I want to acknowledge some of my mutant friends whom have never sat in a premium location. Thank you Jon Oliver for allowing them to represent the riff raff in life. Sticking to the world of sports, I also want to shout out how the Santini family has once again made a name for themselves in the realm of ice hockey. On April 9th Steven Santini A.K.A (Radar) made his NHL debut with the New Jersey Devils where they defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs with a score of 5 to 1. The hard hitting defenseman was a forced to be reckoned with in his first NHL appearance. As his cousin Richie Santini stated "Steven is nasty."
Straying from personal affairs, Senator Bernie Sanders won the most recent political bout by winning the Democratic Caucus in Wyoming. With 55.7% of the vote to Clinton's 44.3%; each candidate was able to grab seven delegates each. The total delegate count as of April 11th is Clinton with 1,287 pledged and 469 Super-delegates. Sanders sits at 1,037 pledged delegates and only 31 superdelegates. Sanders has stated how he hopes the superdelegates reconsider their decisions when one candidate seems to be winning some of these contests by the margins that we have seen. For the Republican party Ted Cruz was able to win Wisconsin and Colorado which he considers a turning point in his presidential campaign. Donald Trump is still the front runner in the Republican race with 743 delegates, with Cruz sitting at 545. Kasich is still optimistic with his 143 delegates hoping this will go to a contested convention come July. All eyes are now on New York to conduct its primary on April 19th. Republicans are battling over the states 95 delegates while the Democrats are fighting over 291 delegates. This surely is a yuge state for all of the candidates.
In a very unfortunate accident that occurred in India, an unauthorized firework show at religious festival went awry leaving at least 110 dead and over 380 injured. Most of the 110 deaths were a result of the building housing the fireworks collapsing on those inside. The cause of the explosions was a spark that ignited a separate batch of fireworks stored in the temple complex. One resident stated that one of the explosions was able to send chunks of concrete as far as half a mile. Just to give a little perspective on the force of the blasts. While the temple has held these firework displays in the past, this year authorities in the Kollam district denied the use of fireworks with the fear of the displays being too intense in an effort to compete for the best display. This disastrous event will hopefully heed the will of future pyrotechnicians looking to take part in unofficial firework shows.
In more positive news, for the first time in more than a century the wild tiger population from has risen. A 2010 estimate put 3,200 tiger in the wild with most recent estimates counting over 3,800. Over half of the world's tigers reside in India with around 2,225 inhabiting in the country. The rise in numbers according to some may be attributed to better survey techniques rather than a true increase in tiger population. While many of the countries that tigers call home have seen an increase in numbers, Southeast Asian countries struggle preserving the big cats numbers. Based on data from 2014, the global tiger count reads:
Bangladesh, 106; Bhutan, 103; Cambodia, 0; China, more than 7; India, 2,226; Indonesia, 371; Laos, 2; Malaysia, 250; Myanmar, no data available; Nepal, 198; Russia, 433; Thailand, 189; Vietnam, fewer than 5.
Hopefully this trend continues and our world tiger population grows closer to the estimated 100,000 tigers from 1900.
This weekend saw the debut of the Euphoria music festival in Austin, Texas. Many of the big names were there to represent their craft. In one of the videos I stumbled across Lorin Ashton known better by the moniker of Bassnectar debuted his newest track from the soon to be released album, rumored to be titled "Unlimited". Hopefully the link is still working by the time you click it.
And with that the minute is up.