PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Now it's time 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 is now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores?
BILL KURTIS: Mo has three, and Helen and Alonzo each have five.
SAGAL: Oh, my gosh.
HELEN HONG: What?
SAGAL: How did that happen? So Helen and Alonzo have five and Mo only has three, which is a little embarrassing but...
MO ROCCA: I know. It is terrible.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Mo, that means that you are up first, so here we go. The confirmation hearings for William Barr, Trump's nominee for blank, concluded on Wednesday.
ROCCA: Attorney general.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
ROCCA: Many men objected and threatened to ban razor company Gillette after the company released an ad encouraging men to blank.
ROCCA: To not be toxically masculine.
SAGAL: That's good enough, not be jerks.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: During testimony in the trial of El Chapo, a witness claimed that the former president of blank took a hundred-million-dollar bribe from the drug kingpin.
ROCCA: Mexico.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Wednesday, ISIS took credit for a suicide bombing at a restaurant in blank.
ROCCA: In Syria.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
KURTIS: This week, an Australian politician running for Parliament announced his plan to ban unsolicited political text messages using blank.
ROCCA: Oh, a text message.
SAGAL: Yes. Unsolicited political text message.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Following calls for federal investigation, AT&T announced it would no longer be selling users' blank data.
ROCCA: Oh, user data.
SAGAL: What specific kind of data?
ROCCA: User data that was found on phones and in subscriptions...
(LAUGHTER)
ROCCA: ...And as part of their familiarity with the people who oftentimes use AT&T.
ALONZO BODDEN: Can I concede to Mo that he just won?
SAGAL: Just...
ROCCA: AT&T...
SAGAL: What kind of data?
ROCCA: They are not going to sell data that you would use on your phone. They would not sell the data...
SAGAL: What?
ROCCA: The informational data.
SAGAL: They will not sell your location.
ROCCA: Location data, where you are.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: According to new research, increasing daily movement may help elderly people stave off blank.
ROCCA: Oh, death.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No. In this case, dementia. No.
ROCCA: Death of the mind.
SAGAL: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: A man in Kentucky trying to knock over...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...A family's 10-foot-tall snowman with his car failed because the snowman was blank.
ROCCA: It was - actually, it was a real person.
SAGAL: No...
ROCCA: The snowman was an ice house.
SAGAL: No. It was a snowman built around a giant tree trunk...
ROCCA: A giant tree trunk.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: The man - you have to say it before I do, Mo, technically. The man saw the giant snowman in the front yard of the Lutz home and couldn't resist. He revved up his car and plowed right into a 5-foot tree stump. It's unclear if the driver was injured, but the snowman survived, at least till he meets his new true nemesis, the sun. Bill, how did Mo do on our quiz?
KURTIS: He got five right, 10 more points. His 13 is now in the lead, proving there's no Mo-bituary (ph) tonight.
HONG: Nice.
(APPLAUSE)
ROCCA: Love it. Thank you for the product placement.
HONG: Nice, Bill.
ROCCA: Mobituaries.com
SAGAL: We flipped a coin. Helen has decided to go right now. So here we go, Helen. Fill in the blank. On Thursday, former Trump lawyer blank revealed that the president paid him to rig polling data.
HONG: Michael Cohen.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Tuesday, a federal judge blocked President Trump's proposed citizenship questions on the 2020 blank.
HONG: Census.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, it was reported that the Pentagon would begin scrutinizing new recruits who have blanks.
HONG: Green cards?
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused blank of arbitrarily sentencing a Canadian citizen to death.
HONG: Syria?
SAGAL: No, China. This week, people warned that Silicon Valley's housing market was getting out of hand when a landlord revealed he had rented a $1,500-a-month apartment to blank.
HONG: Two cats.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: According to a new study, blank is melting six times faster than it was in 1970.
HONG: Antarctica.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Wednesday, video-sharing giant blank announced a ban on dangerous or harmful pranks.
HONG: YouTube.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A woman in Texas was banned for life...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...From her local Walmart when employees caught her blanking.
HONG: Oh, drinking wine out of a Pringles can.
SAGAL: Yes.
HONG: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
ROCCA: (Laughter).
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: And I will give it to you...
HONG: Yes.
SAGAL: ...Even though you missed the best detail. She was doing that while riding around the store in one of those motorized carts.
HONG: She is hashtag #goals.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: She is living her best life.
HONG: She sure is.
SAGAL: We love this woman. Employees said the woman came into the Wichita Falls Walmart in the morning, grabbed a motorized cart and fulfilled a dream that none of us realized we had until now.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: After a few hours, the police arrived. And even though they banned the woman from the store, Pringles drunk cart Walmart racing is now being considered for the 2022 Olympics.
HONG: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Helen do on our quiz? I think she did pretty well.
KURTIS: Very well - seven right, 14 more points, total of 19 and the lead.
(APPLAUSE)
ROCCA: That is very good. That is excellent.
HONG: Thank you.
SAGAL: Well done. And how many, then, does Alonzo need to win?
KURTIS: Well, seven to tie but eight to win.
SAGAL: That is a tall order.
BODDEN: Let's see what we got.
SAGAL: Here we go, Alonzo. This is for the game. Fill in the blank. After a year of saying there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, Rudolph Giuliani, this week, said blank.
BODDEN: There was collusion.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: Well, he said Trump didn't collude.
SAGAL: He had said that he never said there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. We'll give it to you. Ring a bell.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Officials at the Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana has warned the public that its nuclear arsenal is under a constant attack by blank.
BODDEN: OK. Let me try to mull this one out.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: So it's an air base, and they have nuclear - the nuclear weapons are eaten by the nuclear weapon-eating - the...
SAGAL: Squirrels.
(LAUGHTER)
BODDEN: Squirrels.
SAGAL: The trick is never stop for a breath.
BODDEN: That's it. Yeah. I blew it.
SAGAL: Squirrels.
BODDEN: But I tried.
SAGAL: Following his comments about victims of the Larry Nassar scandal, the interim president of blank resigned on Wednesday.
BODDEN: Oh, Michigan State.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: According to a new study, Americans should limit their red meat consumption to one blank a week.
BODDEN: One 27-pound tub of...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No, one hamberder (ph). After repeated thefts, the Washington State Department of Transportation...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...Was forced to swap out a 69-mile marker sign with a blank.
BODDEN: Seventy-mile marker.
SAGAL: No, they're replacing the 69-mile marker sign with a 68.9-mile sign. For some reason, the sign from mile marker 69 on the 195 in Washington state has been stolen several times over the past few years, forcing Transportation Department officials to replace it with a sign reading 68.9 instead. When asked why they thought the 69-mile sign was getting stolen so often, a state official said we're not entirely sure. I guess people think it's nice.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, did Alonzo do well enough to win?
KURTIS: With three points?
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: No, he didn't. And Helen's our winner this week with 19 points...
SAGAL: Congratulations, Helen. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.