Speaker 1: This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, the Gary and Shannon Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app. Have you heard about the missing
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars gift card that has created such a
Speaker 1: frucus in the Hamptons. This is a story that has
Speaker 1: grown some big legs. They say it reads like an
Speaker 1: Agatha Christie mystery. This is a twenty five dollars Amazon
Speaker 1: gift card at one of the wealthiest enclaves in the country,
Speaker 1: and it has prompted a police report, accusations of foul play, bullying,
Speaker 1: a trial that's generated about fourteen hundred pages in testimony
Speaker 1: all over a twenty five dollars Amazon gift card. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the wealthy will fight over the silliest things, and we
Speaker 1: will bring that delicious story to you coming up next.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, what else is going on? Time for
Speaker 1: what's happening? Wow? Well, this just crossed the Associated Press wire.
Speaker 1: President Trump saying twenty five percent tariffs on Mexican and
Speaker 1: Canadian imports will start tomorrow. There had been some talk
Speaker 1: about maybe there's some waffling going on. Of course, fears
Speaker 1: of a North American trade war now on the table.
Speaker 1: The Mexican president had said, all the phone lines are opening.
Speaker 1: We promised to beef up security when it comes to
Speaker 1: the spread of fetanyl across the border. What more do
Speaker 1: you want? We're here, ready to listen. Apparently there have
Speaker 1: not been any further conversations, at least conversations that have
Speaker 1: resulted in Trump saying that the tariffs are off the table.
Speaker 1: The bulk of the drugs, as we reported last week
Speaker 1: to you here, comes from Mexico Canada. I believe apply
Speaker 1: accounts for maybe less than one percent. Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: Not the volume, certainly of the drugs that they say
Speaker 1: is the reason for these tariffs that come from Mexico.
Speaker 1: So we'll stay on top of that and what that
Speaker 1: does to the markets and the futures as we move forward.
Speaker 1: Pope Francis, of course, remains in the news. The Vatican
Speaker 1: said tonight it's tonight there that Pope Francis had suffered
Speaker 1: two episodes of acute respiratory failure. He has been in
Speaker 1: the hospital for two weeks now. These two episodes of
Speaker 1: respiratory failure happened over the course of the day. They
Speaker 1: say they were caused by significant accumulation of endro endo
Speaker 1: bronchial mucus and consequent bronco spasm. So this is the
Speaker 1: same kind of troubles he was having on Friday. Remember,
Speaker 1: he had pneumonia. It was discovered in both of his lungs.
Speaker 1: He was intubated and then he had mechanical ventilation, and
Speaker 1: then the ventilation was removed and now he's back on
Speaker 1: the ventilation. So that's where we're at, in that guarded condition.
Speaker 1: He's eighty eight years old. Long history of pulmonary troubles there,
Speaker 1: So that's where we stand with that Pope. In Germany,
Speaker 1: we go. Vehicle is rammed into a crowd in Mannheim, Germany,
Speaker 1: killing at least two. This is their Christian carnival season,
Speaker 1: so you've got crowds gathered in cities across Germany, parades
Speaker 1: and the like. Witnesses say this incident did occur near
Speaker 1: one such event. The car ramming came on what Christian
Speaker 1: Germans Marcus Rose Monday. This is the height of their
Speaker 1: carnival season, which takes place before their Lent period begins
Speaker 1: ash Wednesday. Miniature tear in the skies for you. Now,
Speaker 1: five passengers injured and severe turbulence on a United flight,
Speaker 1: forcing an emergency landing in Texas. This one was a
Speaker 1: United Airlines flight. I had to make an emergency landing
Speaker 1: in Waco last night. It hit severe turbulence that injured
Speaker 1: five passengers. I always get real nervous with turbulence, and
Speaker 1: my husband always leans in and says, remember, turbulence never
Speaker 1: bring down planes. It's true, they don't. They just scare
Speaker 1: the hell out of you. On the way. SkyWest flight
Speaker 1: fifty six ninety, operating as United Express, took off from
Speaker 1: Springfield Branson in Missouri, was headed to George Bush in
Speaker 1: her Continental Airport and we don't know where the flight
Speaker 1: hit the rough air but minor injuries. Another reminder to
Speaker 1: keep that seatbelt on even when you're cruising altitude, because
Speaker 1: you never know when those turbulence might hit. Woman stung
Speaker 1: by a scorpion while getting her luggage at Boston's Logan.
Speaker 1: Holy hell, if the baggage claim at Boston's Logan wasn't
Speaker 1: a situation enough, there's scorpions involved. It happened just before
Speaker 1: seven pm. We don't know what kind of condition she's in.
Speaker 1: She's forty, but oh my goodness, the venom from some
Speaker 1: species of scorpions can cause severe illness, affecting the heart,
Speaker 1: the nervous system, and other organs. However, most scorpion stings
Speaker 1: are not serious. They just caused pain and redness. Hope
Speaker 1: she got one of the latter scorpions to sting her.
Speaker 1: We've got rain. It rained for about forty five seconds
Speaker 1: last night where I live. My husband's like, here comes
Speaker 1: the rain, like it's gonna last forty five seconds. It's
Speaker 1: a quick hitting storm. They're calling it. Several inches of
Speaker 1: snow the San Bernardino Mountains got. There is another storm
Speaker 1: that is set to arrive mid week, so running springs.
Speaker 1: They've already got the snowplows out there up there, I
Speaker 1: should say. And they've got a winter Weather Advisory in
Speaker 1: effect for areas of San Bernardino in Riverside County until
Speaker 1: four pm. Bay area also getting a shillacking as well.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, we've got a person in a well.
Speaker 1: It's not a baby, so your memories of Baby Jessica
Speaker 1: are intact. But firefighters are trying to rescue a gas
Speaker 1: company worker fell into a well in Hesperia. This is
Speaker 1: a thirty to forty foot deep well fell when soil
Speaker 1: covering the old well collapsed. This was on Orange Street.
Speaker 1: We don't know what's going on. We don't know how
Speaker 1: the rescue is going. We're too consumed with eyes on
Speaker 1: Jackie and Shadow. We are, as a people in southern
Speaker 1: California more concerned about Jackie in Shadow and the holes
Speaker 1: in their eggs than the man trapped in the well
Speaker 1: in Hysperia. I'm not judging us. I'm just saying it's notable.
Speaker 1: There was a street in bel Air where you could
Speaker 1: come across Hundi's just one hundred dollars bills everywhere, littered
Speaker 1: across the street. Not just that, but designer handbags, burkins
Speaker 1: just littered everywhere. You can thank one of those residential
Speaker 1: burglaries for this loot that was just dumped along Milldale Drive.
Speaker 1: Break in happened about one am. Officers responded they did
Speaker 1: not find anybody, but they did find the all of
Speaker 1: the loot and just the cash. Who keeps cash just
Speaker 1: in their like people do that. They just keep cash,
Speaker 1: not in a safe or anything. Maybe it was an
Speaker 1: inside job, maybe somebody knew where the cash was hidden
Speaker 1: or something like that. And then finally, Hulu has released
Speaker 1: a statement about why they screwed up yesterday technical difficulties.
Speaker 1: I guess they cut off the ending or something like that.
Speaker 1: But people were very much up in arms over this.
Speaker 1: They say. The first issue left an undisclosed number of
Speaker 1: subscribers unable to access the live stream shortly after the
Speaker 1: show began. People eventually able to gain access to it.
Speaker 1: And then the second issue happened when the Hulu live
Speaker 1: stream suddenly ended for some viewers before Best Actress and
Speaker 1: Best Picture awards were announced. Apparently people lost their minds.
Speaker 1: It was like the Heidi game, but different. There was
Speaker 1: a story that resurfaced, and we'll get to it in
Speaker 1: just a second. That really shows how good the rich
Speaker 1: have it, how wonderful the wealthy have it when you
Speaker 1: look at what they concern themselves with. The Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal had this great article about a gift card that
Speaker 1: is rocking the Hampton's and all of the chaos it
Speaker 1: is caused. And the fact that so many people are
Speaker 1: so invested in a twenty five dollars gift card when
Speaker 1: they are made of money is fascinating. Speaking of money, though,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to update you on this. President Trump says,
Speaker 1: those twenty five percent tariffs on imports from Mexico and
Speaker 1: Canada will start tomorrow. It was kind of in limbo.
Speaker 1: Would there be negotiations, Would Mexico and Canada and Trump
Speaker 1: get on the phone, Would some sort of deal be
Speaker 1: made to where we could punt this down the road
Speaker 1: or just get rid of it entirely. Trump announced the
Speaker 1: tariffs at the White House today. You said they are
Speaker 1: to force our neighbors Canada and Mexico to step up
Speaker 1: their fight against fentanyl trafficking into the US. He provided
Speaker 1: a one month delay in February as both countries promised concessions,
Speaker 1: but he said today that there was no room left
Speaker 1: for Mexico or for Canada to avoid the steep new tariffs.
Speaker 1: Don't really know what he wants in this. I suppose
Speaker 1: the answer is somewhere in the weeds of It's not
Speaker 1: just about the fentanyl, is it. The US stock markets,
Speaker 1: by the way, moved sharply lower after the comments were
Speaker 1: made public within the houries that he would also add
Speaker 1: on another ten percent tariff on goods from China on
Speaker 1: top of the initial ten percent he put in place
Speaker 1: last month. So you better believe we will have all
Speaker 1: of the impact of this coming up tomorrow when those
Speaker 1: tariffs do kick in, and their effect on Wall Street
Speaker 1: and what it means moving forward, and where we can
Speaker 1: feel the pain if any as this continues. So back
Speaker 1: to the Hampton's here, the Hampton's by Way, beautiful area.
Speaker 1: I'm more of a West Coast, best coast person. I
Speaker 1: went to Cape Cod once was not impressed. Beautiful for
Speaker 1: that kind of coastal environment, I guess. But I'm a
Speaker 1: Southern California beach person. I feel that way Northern California
Speaker 1: versus Southern California too. Southern California coast, best coast. But
Speaker 1: I may be saying this town wrong because I've never
Speaker 1: been there, and everyone will correct me. I'm sure. Is
Speaker 1: it Ammagansetts Amagansett? I don't know, but Amagansett. That's the
Speaker 1: way I'll say it for now until I'm corrected. Is
Speaker 1: a hamlet, It's like a postcard community. It's in the
Speaker 1: larger town of East Hampton. And call it a last
Speaker 1: glorious stretch of beach beast, that's funny, a last glorious
Speaker 1: stretch of beach before Long Island. Peter's out at Montauk.
Speaker 1: This is a place where Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica
Speaker 1: Parker have home homes as home to realtors and contractors
Speaker 1: and gas station owners evenly, who have been there for generations.
Speaker 1: You've got the blue collar, you've got the new money
Speaker 1: moving kind of a thing. One resident describes this as
Speaker 1: a divide between the nine one sevens and the six
Speaker 1: three ones. The nine one sevens are the Manhattan mobile
Speaker 1: phone people, the people like Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick,
Speaker 1: probably the people who moved from the city because it's
Speaker 1: beautiful nine one sevens. And the locals, which are the
Speaker 1: six three ones, the people like the gas station owners
Speaker 1: who have been there for generations. So there is a
Speaker 1: little bit of a divide between the locals and the transplants,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine. The Amagan sit School Amaganseit School
Speaker 1: is the largest employer of the town and this school
Speaker 1: runs from pre kindergarten through sixth grade. The school has
Speaker 1: about one hundred and ten students but a budget of
Speaker 1: about eleven million dollars. And it turns out, we've learned
Speaker 1: through this investigation over a twenty five dollars gift card,
Speaker 1: the school has thirty eight surveillance cameras pre K through
Speaker 1: sixth grade thirty eight surveillance cameras. You're telling me there
Speaker 1: are people with nothing to do there. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. So here is the issue. It goes
Speaker 1: back to a Friday in December of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, December fifteenth, twenty twenty three, eight thirty seven am,
Speaker 1: when Principal Maria Dore emerges from the mail room at
Speaker 1: this local elementary school. Maria emerges from the mailroom and
Speaker 1: in her hot little hands, she has a red envelope. Now,
Speaker 1: whether this red envelope and its contents were rightfully Maria's
Speaker 1: is a question that has convulsed this small town ever since.
Speaker 1: The steaks are very low. It is a twenty five
Speaker 1: dollars gift card. When you're talking about multimillionaires that populate
Speaker 1: this place, a red envelope that went missing, or by
Speaker 1: some accounts, was stolen from that mail room. The envelope
Speaker 1: contained a twenty five dollars Amazon gift card. This was
Speaker 1: you know, it's December fifteenth. Parents are giving teachers, administrators things.
Speaker 1: It's a Christmas season expression of gratitude, simple as that.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't so simple. This little gift card has
Speaker 1: prompted a police report, accusations of foul play, bullying, and
Speaker 1: a disciplinary trial that has accounted for more than fourteen
Speaker 1: hundred pages in testimony. They've called more than a dozen
Speaker 1: witnesses over a twenty five dollars gift card. The reporters
Speaker 1: who have followed this thing, God bless them, say the
Speaker 1: passages from this testimony read like an Agatha Christine mystery,
Speaker 1: except there is no gun at play. There's no dagger.
Speaker 1: It's just the stupid gift card. The arbiter who's overseeing
Speaker 1: this hearing process US has already charged twenty five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to do just that, nearly a thousand times of
Speaker 1: value of this missing Amazon gift card. And those fees,
Speaker 1: by the way, are just inching up and up and up.
Speaker 1: It's insane. According to Nika Nezgoda. Nika is an artist
Speaker 1: who splits her time with her husband and three kids
Speaker 1: between New York City and Amagansett. She says, who is
Speaker 1: it that says the fighting is so vicious because the
Speaker 1: stakes are so small? That was a political scientist by
Speaker 1: the Bye Wallace sayer. But yes, that's exactly right. She
Speaker 1: hit the nail on the head. The fighting has been vicious.
Speaker 1: Her husband, Hank, was on the school board at one point.
Speaker 1: He says, well, you know the town's nickname dramagon Set,
Speaker 1: dramagon Set as opposed to ammagon Set. He says that
Speaker 1: it's not entirely a trivial matter. He said them more
Speaker 1: a details that come to light the more it seems
Speaker 1: there was something the farious happening at the school. Again,
Speaker 1: this is a pre k through sixth grade school, So
Speaker 1: this happened during the pre holiday rush when everything is
Speaker 1: just crazy in schools. You know this from going to
Speaker 1: school of having kids maybe working in it. Everything's kind
Speaker 1: of hectic in the weeks leading up to the holidays
Speaker 1: and the weeks after. It's all a blur. So a
Speaker 1: parent presents Cassie Butts with two cards on that December fifteenth.
Speaker 1: Cassie Butts is the receptionist at the school. You know
Speaker 1: about receptionists, they know where all the bodies are buried.
Speaker 1: So Cassie gets these two cards. One is for herself
Speaker 1: and one is for a therapist that works at the school,
Speaker 1: Chrissy Chrissy McElroy. So l's just call him. Cassie and
Speaker 1: Chrissy supposed to be the two recipients, Cassie the receptionist,
Speaker 1: Chrissy the therapist. Cassie testified yes. Cassie testified that she
Speaker 1: slipped Chrissy's read card into her mailbox that morning, but
Speaker 1: hours later, when Chrissy went to go retrieve it, apparently
Speaker 1: Cassie said, oh, so missus, so and so left you
Speaker 1: what it appears to be a gift card I put
Speaker 1: in your mailbox, and Chris goes, oh, thanks, whatever, she
Speaker 1: goes to retrieve it, there's nothing there. What became of that, well,
Speaker 1: what became of that is that the Principle was placed
Speaker 1: on administrative leave, put through this ensuing disciplinary hearing. And
Speaker 1: these are usually private for a number of reasons. Number
Speaker 1: one probably because it's embarrassing for this stuff to see
Speaker 1: the light of day. But Principle Principal Maria demanded a
Speaker 1: public hearing. So we have all the dirty details of
Speaker 1: what happened with gift card gate and Maria's involvement with this.
Speaker 1: We have all the details. The whole world has them,
Speaker 1: and they're worth some time. No of why we should
Speaker 1: spend no time on things like this and just how
Speaker 1: political school districts are. I mean, we don't need any
Speaker 1: more reminders, but this is case in point. We'll get
Speaker 1: into the gift card gate when we come back. Ammagansett
Speaker 1: in East Hampston, this is the biggest employer of Amaganset
Speaker 1: happens to be a pre K through six elementary school.
Speaker 1: There was a parent who gave the receptionist a couple
Speaker 1: gift cards around the holidays. One was to go to
Speaker 1: the receptionist, another to the school therapist. Instead, the principal
Speaker 1: ended up with this gift card, and everybody cried thievery.
Speaker 1: They said, this principal stole this gift card. It's a
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars gift card to Amazon that they're all
Speaker 1: up in arms about. And of course it's bigger than
Speaker 1: just the gift card. It's bigger than just the small
Speaker 1: circle of the principle, the therapist and the receptionist, because
Speaker 1: of course it is These disciplinary hearings that were called
Speaker 1: on the principle, as I mentioned, are usually private, but
Speaker 1: she demanded this all be in public so that everyone
Speaker 1: can see how ridiculous this is. Stephen Godstand, good Stand,
Speaker 1: excuse me, Stephen Goodstand is a lawyer representing the school district,
Speaker 1: and he says, it's straightforward this case. There is timestamped
Speaker 1: footage from a camera outside the mailroom that shows Cassie,
Speaker 1: the receptionist, entering with a red envelope at eight twenty
Speaker 1: four am, then leaving empty handed seven minutes later. Then
Speaker 1: the principal pops in at about thirteen minutes later. She
Speaker 1: leaves with a pile of papers, including a red envelope.
Speaker 1: Later that day, Cassie, the receptionist, encounters Maria, the principle,
Speaker 1: and tells her about the missing gift card, because remember,
Speaker 1: the therapist says, Oh, I never got that red gift
Speaker 1: card that you said was in my box. So the
Speaker 1: receptionist says to the principle, what's up. There's this missing card.
Speaker 1: I put it in the and Cassie testifies that the
Speaker 1: principal told her to keep quiet. Oh, just keep quiet
Speaker 1: about that. You don't want it to become a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's not a big deal. It's just a gift card.
Speaker 1: And the lawyer representing the school district says, it's obvious
Speaker 1: that the principle was hoping this would die down because
Speaker 1: she knew that her sticky fingers would have been caught.
Speaker 1: Monday did come, but the mystery of the missing envelope
Speaker 1: only grew. He argued. By Tuesday, the interim superintendent was
Speaker 1: pulling video feeds in interviewing teachers because everyone had their
Speaker 1: hands in this. The assistant interim superintendent said, I did
Speaker 1: the investigation. There is no other explanation as to where
Speaker 1: that gift card went or was there now if you
Speaker 1: ask the principal, she says she found that red envelope
Speaker 1: in her mailbox that morning, opened it the next day
Speaker 1: and found a gift card from a local gas station,
Speaker 1: and a family had given her a simil a similar
Speaker 1: card a few months ago. She assumed it was from them,
Speaker 1: and she says that when Cassie mentioned the missing gift
Speaker 1: card from the therapist's mailbox, the reason she said, don't
Speaker 1: tell anyone was because she assumed the card would soon
Speaker 1: turn up. Let's not make a federal case out of it. Cassie,
Speaker 1: the principal, testified, it's a school, things go missing all
Speaker 1: the time. Apparently, she discovered that Cassie was spreading rumors
Speaker 1: and confronted her by producing the shell card that she
Speaker 1: found the red envelope from the gas station the shell
Speaker 1: card in a recycling bin at home and presented it
Speaker 1: to that interim superintendent that tasked himself with doing the investigation.
Speaker 1: But he says that envelope wasn't signed, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: good enough for him. It wasn't a good enough piece
Speaker 1: of evidence, so he pressured her to resign. It turns
Speaker 1: out this was all about the fact that the principle
Speaker 1: in this case wanted to run for superintendent, and that's
Speaker 1: where it all came from. They wanted to get rid
Speaker 1: of this woman because of somebody else running for superintendent,
Speaker 1: a guy by the name of Mike Rogers, a gym teacher,
Speaker 1: a volunteer firefighter twenty five years at that school, widely
Speaker 1: known around town as coach co president of the local
Speaker 1: ten teachers union. And you don't have to say that
Speaker 1: this is a place close to New Jersey to know
Speaker 1: that the teachers' union or any union holds great weight.
Speaker 1: It turns out that as superintendent you get free use
Speaker 1: of a house adjacent to the school. You can imagine
Speaker 1: how valuable that would be in the Hamptons when you
Speaker 1: think about the cost of housing. It seems that everybody
Speaker 1: wanted the coach, Mike Rogers to be the superintendent. So
Speaker 1: they decided to torpedo maria Doors candidacy, and that's what
Speaker 1: it comes down to. They wanted to paint her as
Speaker 1: a crook and a thief as she tried to climb
Speaker 1: the letter to be superintendent of this tiny school district
Speaker 1: in the Hamptons. One parent said, a lot does ride
Speaker 1: on this BS twenty five dollars gift card. It's definitely
Speaker 1: going to throw a huge wrench in s no matter
Speaker 1: which way it goes to which I say, guess which
Speaker 1: camp that parent is in? Is the in then nine
Speaker 1: one seven camp? Or is he in the local six
Speaker 1: three ones? It's always fun when rich people fight, But
Speaker 1: it seems like it seems like Maria may have been
Speaker 1: in the rich people camp and coach was in the
Speaker 1: six six' three one, camp and the locals tried to
Speaker 1: take back their their position of. Power so maybe it
Speaker 1: was maybe it was all for, good but never heard
Speaker 1: such a fight over. It twenty five dollars gift card From.
Speaker 1: Amazon those are ones that you kind of forget about sometimes,
Speaker 1: too like when your uncle gives you the twenty five
Speaker 1: dollars gift card To amazon At christmas and then you
Speaker 1: find it in your purse LIKE i just. Did that's.
Speaker 1: Fun it's a fun little. Find you've been listening to
Speaker 1: The gary And Shannon. Show you can always hear us
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Speaker 1: pm Every monday Through, friday and anytime on demand on
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