PETER SAGAL, HOST:
It's time to move on to our final game, Lightning Fill In The Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill-in-the-blank questions as he or she can, each correct answer now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the score?
BILL KURTIS: Helen and Luke each have two. Peter has a head start with four.
SAGAL: All right.
HELEN HONG: Wow.
SAGAL: That's impressive, Peter. We have flipped a coin, and Helen has elected to go first. Here you go, Helen. Fill in the blank. This week, governors in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina urged 2 million people to evacuate their homes in the face of blank.
HONG: Hurricane Matthew.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Monday, Bill Clinton came under fire for calling blank the craziest thing in the world.
HONG: Obamacare.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, Colombians voted against ratifying a peace agreement with blank.
HONG: The FARC.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Tuesday, Toronto Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin had to get stitches on his hand after he blanked.
HONG: Broke a beer bottle?
SAGAL: No, high-fived someone too hard.
HONG: Oh, man.
SAGAL: This week, it was reported that Americans had spent enough blank to buy an entire airline.
HONG: Enough money on potato chips?
SAGAL: Enough money on baggage fees. After a month of lane closures, a road crew working on a highway in Canada announced that construction was finished by changing their illuminated sign to read blank.
HONG: Finished.
SAGAL: No, it read, we done, bitches.
(LAUGHTER)
HONG: That's how I end all my relationships.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The sign...
HONG: We done, bitches.
SAGAL: The sign, that used to read expect delays, was changed by the road crew to celebrate the completion of the month-long renovation of Edmonton's Anthony Henday Drive. Unfortunately, several motorists found the updated language offensive and reported the sign to Alberta's head of transportation, who responded swiftly saying, the wording in the sign is not the kind we would use and we'll have it changed immediately. Happy now, bitches?
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Helen do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Helen got three right, 6 more points and a total of 8.
SAGAL: I believe Luke is up next. Please fill in the blank. On Wednesday, a federal contractor was arrested on suspicion of leaking classified information stolen from blank.
LUKE BURBANK: The White House?
SAGAL: No, the NSA this time. This week, the EU and 10 other nations ratified the Paris blank Accords.
BURBANK: Climate accords?
SAGAL: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Monday, the State Department suspended their bilateral Syrian cease-fire talks with blank.
BURBANK: Russia.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Guterres became the likely candidate to replace Ban Ki-moon as the blank.
BURBANK: Head of the United Nations?
SAGAL: Yeah, Secretary-General.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Police in Missouri arrested and handcuffed a 102-year-old woman named Edie Simms on Friday because she blanked.
BURBANK: Was stalking "Matlock."
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Because she asked them to. Getting arrested was on her bucket list. According to a new study released this week, the maximum human lifespan is blank.
BURBANK: A hundred and fifteen?
SAGAL: That's right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: While in Paris with her family, blank was robbed at gunpoint.
BURBANK: Kim Kardashian.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A fistfight at a Canadian McDonalds was disrupted when one of the fighters brandished blank as a weapon.
BURBANK: A raccoon.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
PETER GROSZ: That's awesome.
SAGAL: The security footage...
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: In security footage from the McDonald's, you can see a group of men near the registers pushing each other before fists start flying. But then everything comes to an abrupt halt when one of the fighters reaches into his coat and pulls out a live raccoon.
GROSZ: That he ordered from the McDonald's?
SAGAL: No, he just happened to have it. You never know when a fight's going to break out, man.
GROSZ: Where was it?
SAGAL: This is the Canadian version of concealed carry.
GROSZ: I was about to say.
HONG: Wow.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: He pulls out the raccoon. The other guy says, you call that a rodent? This is a rodent. Pulls out a mongoose. Bill, how did Luke do on our quiz?
KURTIS: He did well - 14 more points, seven right. He has a healthy total of 16.
SAGAL: All right, then how many does Peter Grosz need to win?
KURTIS: Well, six to tie and seven to win, Peter.
SAGAL: Here we go, Peter. This is for the game. This week, The Atlantic called blank, quote, "the most unqualified major party candidate in the history of the American presidency."
GROSZ: Donald Trump
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Tuesday, Reuters published an investigation that showed blank had scanned customer emails at the request of U.S. intelligence officials.
GROSZ: Wells Fargo.
SAGAL: Yahoo. Both Google and Apple announced they would not buy social networking site blank.
GROSZ: Facebook?
SAGAL: Twitter. Responding to news that...
GROSZ: Oh, this week's news. OK, keep going.
SAGAL: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Responding to news that Brexit proceedings would begin in March, Welsh conservative leader Andrew Davies said blank.
GROSZ: Let's do it in April instead.
SAGAL: No, he said, quote, "We will make breakfast a success." This week, Sports Illustrated predicted that the blanks would win the World Series.
GROSZ: Oh, no. The Cubs?
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
GROSZ: Why did they do that? They jinxed it.
SAGAL: On Wednesday, three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work with molecule-sized blanks.
GROSZ: Machines, right? Like little...
SAGAL: Yes.
GROSZ: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Thanks to a typo, a Russian-language flyer for a charity encouraged people not to do good but to blank.
GROSZ: Do bad.
SAGAL: No, but to exterminate all beavers.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The charity printed up a million pamphlets, but thanks to a small typo it says, quote, "Exterminate all beavers. Text your donation to the number 7715." It's hard when your language is such that a typo - just one typo - could make a difference like that. You miss one backwards R and good morning becomes exterminate all beavers morning.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: So, Bill, did Peter do well enough to win?
KURTIS: Not quite.
SAGAL: Oh.
KURTIS: That means he got 6 more points. He got three right, a total of 10. But that means our winner is, and you can boo this, Luke.
(BOOING, APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: In just a minute, we'll ask our panelists to predict what'll be the big story out of the presidential town hall debate? But first, let me tell you that support for NPR comes from NPR stations and Sotheby's Institute of Art, offering master's degrees, semester abroad programs in London and six-week online courses. Registration and open day information for campuses in New York, London and Los Angeles is at sothebysinstitute.com. The George Lucas Educational Foundation, creator of Edutopia, celebrating 25 years of showcasing what works in K-12 education. Learn more at edutopia.org. And Lumber Liquidators, a proud sponsor of NPR, offering more than 400 styles, including hardwood, bamboo, laminate and vinyl, with flooring specialists in hundreds of stores nationwide. More at lumberliquidators.com or 1-800-HARDWOOD.
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