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US House passes bill on Trump’s Gulf of America

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill to formally change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, following President Donald Trump’s executive order, though the measure is unlikely to succeed in the Senate.

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The House voted 211-206 to change the name of the body of water that borders five southeastern U.S. states and a major swath of Mexico and flows into the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.

Enshrining the name Gulf of America, if also approved by the Senate, would make it more difficult for a future president to tinker with Trump’s executive order.

Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, where it normally takes a super-majority of at least 60 votes to advance legislation.

The House bill is sponsored by firebrand Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a vocal Trump supporter.

The water has been referred to as the Gulf of Mexico for more than 400 years and is internationally recognized as such. U.S. presidents have the power, however, to declare geographic names, which applies within federal government usage.

Boy accidentally orders almost 70,000 lollipops on Amazon

(NYT) — On Sunday morning, as Holly LaFavers was preparing to go to church, a delivery worker dropped off a 25-pound box of lollipops in front of her apartment building in Lexington, Kentucky.

And another. And then another. Soon, 22 boxes of 50,600 lollipops were stacked five boxes high in two walls of Dum-Dums. That was when LaFavers heard what no parent wants to hear: Her child had unwittingly placed a massive online order.

“Mom, my suckers are here!” said her son, Liam.

“I panicked,” LaFavers, 46, said. “I was hysterical.”

LaFavers said in an interview that Liam, 8, became familiar with Amazon and other shopping sites during the pandemic, when she regularly ordered supplies. Since then, she has occasionally let him browse the site if he keeps the items in the cart.

But over the weekend, Liam had a lollipop lapse. He told his mother he wanted to organize a carnival for his friends, and mistakenly, he said, he ordered the candy instead of reserving it.

LaFavers said she discovered something was amiss after a shopping trip early Sunday, when she checked her bank balance online. “It was in the red,” she said.

The offending item was a $4,200 charge from Amazon for 30 boxes of Dum-Dums. Frantic and upset, she called Amazon, which advised her to reject the shipments. LaFavers was able to turn away eight of the boxes, totaling 18,400 lollipops, but the 22 boxes containing 50,600 lollipops had already landed.

LaFavers said she was then told by Amazon that it could not take the candy back for a refund because it was food. So she tried to send back to the virtual shopping world what it had unloaded on her in the first place.

“Hi Everyone! Liam ordered 30 cases of Dum-Dums and Amazon will not let me return them. Sale: $130 box. Still sealed,” she wrote on Facebook on Sunday.

The post attracted the attention of local news stations and national media outlets, highlighting the financial treachery of online activity.