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Speaker 1: You're listening to The Hammer and Nigel Show.

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Speaker 2: Getting closer and closer to a brand new year, which

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Speaker 2: means this is the time of the season we take

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Speaker 2: a look back.

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Speaker 1: It's the Hammer and Nigel Show.

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Speaker 3: I'm Jason Hammer, Big Nige's out, Guy Reelford's filling in

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Speaker 3: and join us in studio from the WIBC newsroom.

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Speaker 1: The Lovely John at Cruse. How are you?

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Speaker 4: I'm good, how are you?

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Speaker 3: They're not booing, they're saying crews. So today, tomorrow and Wednesday,

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Speaker 3: you're doing a little three piece exclusive on our program

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Speaker 3: looking back at the biggest.

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Speaker 1: Stories of the year.

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Speaker 3: Now tomorrow we'll focus nationally. We'll do some pop culture

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Speaker 3: entertainment stuff on Wednesday. But today it's the five biggest

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Speaker 3: stories to happen here in Indiana.

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Speaker 4: Yes, and I said this during commercial break.

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Speaker 5: I couldn't believe it that our five local stories are

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Speaker 5: national stories.

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Speaker 4: True crazy to.

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Speaker 1: Me, made headlines all over the country, so I'm not.

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Speaker 5: I didn't order this in any specific order, however, just

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Speaker 5: more chronological order as the year progressed. So the first

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Speaker 5: thing I do want to mention is obviously the passing

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Speaker 5: of Jim Ersay. He passed away at the age of

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Speaker 5: sixty five. Back on May twenty first.

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Speaker 3: I remember that I was at the ac DC concert

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Speaker 3: in Nashville with one of my sons and were in

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Speaker 3: between bands. The opening act had just finished and kind

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Speaker 3: of scrolling on our phones, and my phone started blowing up.

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Speaker 3: Ersay died, ersa died. I thought it was a hoax,

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Speaker 3: like some sort of AI thing, but no, it was.

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Speaker 1: It was legit.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a really big deal.

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Speaker 5: And then I actually went to the Colts game. It

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Speaker 5: was back on September seventh, when they honored him as

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Speaker 5: well into the Ring of Honor, And so I thought

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Speaker 5: that halftime was just absolutely amazing and just the energy

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Speaker 5: that you felt in there and for how the city

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Speaker 5: just absolutely loved and adored him.

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Speaker 3: And there had been some rumors about the health of

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Speaker 3: Jim long before he officially passed, but it looked like,

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Speaker 3: at least in terms of the public perception, you know,

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Speaker 3: things were going to be okay.

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Speaker 1: Maybe the worst was behind him.

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Speaker 3: You know, there was that interview he did or he

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Speaker 3: talked about how he almost died at his house one

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Speaker 3: night and paramedics had to arrive. But then when we

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Speaker 3: found out that Jim Mersey did indeed pass away, it

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Speaker 3: was still sad. Like a lot of people thought, well,

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Speaker 3: it's not surprising he did some hard living.

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Speaker 1: But for what he's done to the community, the.

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Speaker 3: Charities and all that kind of stuff, say what you

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Speaker 3: want about Jim, but he cared about Indianapolis.

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Speaker 1: See.

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Speaker 6: And that's why I was really excited about the coverage,

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Speaker 6: or at least maybe relieved is a better word than excited,

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Speaker 6: because with the struggles that he did have in his

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Speaker 6: personal life and with his health and even yes, with addiction,

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Speaker 6: the coverage that I thought immediately after he passed was

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Speaker 6: really focused where it should be, which is we're on

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Speaker 6: his contributions to the community. What he really meant, not

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Speaker 6: just to the cults, but to this whole city and

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Speaker 6: to a lot of excellent causes that he supported. I

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Speaker 6: really liked the way that ended up getting portrayed, including

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Speaker 6: at the national level.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I agree too. It was some good, good

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Speaker 4: things that were put out.

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Speaker 3: Now, if we're doing chronological order here, I just again,

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Speaker 3: I remember where I was when I heard about Jim Ursay.

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Speaker 3: Also taking place that night was a very high profile

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Speaker 3: Indiana Pacers game against the New York Knicks, and that

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Speaker 3: happened to be. I think the same night where Haliburton

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Speaker 3: hit the three that bounce us up, bounces up and

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Speaker 3: finally goes down he gives the choke signal. I assume

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Speaker 3: the Pacers run is probably number two on the sea.

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Speaker 4: Yes, it is on this list. It is number two.

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Speaker 5: And I was actually at the watch party when we

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Speaker 5: were doing Game seven and I was at Gainbridge, and gosh,

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Speaker 5: when he just fell to the ground like you could

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Speaker 5: it was the silence was deafening and the faces of

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Speaker 5: everybody just watching it all on their screens and we

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Speaker 5: just stood there like, oh my gosh.

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Speaker 3: Because the Pacers came out smoking. Haliburton came out smoking,

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Speaker 3: on fire. They were going to win that game.

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Speaker 6: That was going to be our game, no question.

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Speaker 3: It was absolutely Pacers were not scared, they were ready,

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Speaker 3: and the basketball gods just kicked us right in the crotch.

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Speaker 1: John in steel toe boot right to Big Gym and

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Speaker 1: the Twins.

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Speaker 4: John, Oh, it was the worst. I was so sad.

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Speaker 3: So we're doing the top five biggest stories in Indiana

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Speaker 3: in twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: What else is on your list?

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Speaker 4: All right? Number three?

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Speaker 5: I got Mark Sanchez on October three when he was

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Speaker 5: arrested for that awful incident.

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Speaker 1: I was a day after my birthday.

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Speaker 3: It could have been downtown the same time as Mark

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Speaker 3: Sanchez Shenanigans were taking place, wow.

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Speaker 1: And Sanchez was still celebrating.

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Speaker 4: Yes, he he went hard that night.

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Speaker 1: Apparently we have an update on Mark Sanchez today.

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Speaker 4: Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 5: So now Fox Corporation is trying to move the civil

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Speaker 5: lawsuit to federal court instead of handling it in the state.

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Speaker 5: And so what I've gathered from, you know, seeing what's

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Speaker 5: coming out of the news outlets and everything else today

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Speaker 5: is because of the whole reasoning on they don't they

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Speaker 5: feel as though they might have some sort of bias

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Speaker 5: in the state of Indiana when it comes to the

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Speaker 5: civil lawsuit.

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Speaker 4: That was one of the reasons.

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Speaker 5: And then they I guess in they're thinking for a

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Speaker 5: federal lawsuit, everything might go a little bit quicker instead

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Speaker 5: of the criminal lawsuits or the trial that's going to

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Speaker 5: be taking place, and I believe it's in March, I'm

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Speaker 5: not mistaken. And then possibly the payout might be differently.

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Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of variables. You can probably

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Speaker 5: speak into that a little bit more.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, if you're defending a big time lawsuit in county

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Speaker 6: court state court, but it's filed obviously through the county system.

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Speaker 6: You'd much rather be in federal court for a variety

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Speaker 6: of reasons. First of all, your Drew pool comes out

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Speaker 6: comes in throughout the entire district, not just Marion County

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Speaker 6: or Hamilton County or wherever you might be filed. The

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Speaker 6: protections tend to be much higher in terms of discovery

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Speaker 6: and any number of different pre trial issues you're going

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Speaker 6: to leading up to that. So typically in a big

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Speaker 6: time lawsuit, you always want to be in federal court

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Speaker 6: if you possibly can be. Got a couple of minutes

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Speaker 6: left here, what's number four?

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Speaker 5: Number four is the White Town shooting that took place

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Speaker 5: in November, so we know that that went huge national

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Speaker 5: International is.

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Speaker 3: Where the individual thought he'd heard a noise, thought he'd

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Speaker 3: heard somebody breaking in, fired shots, ended up being a

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Speaker 3: cleaning lady who was lost. Might not have spoke English.

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Speaker 3: Now the elephant in the room is guy. We know

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Speaker 3: this is your clients. We know you can't really talk

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Speaker 3: about this situation, but sure it's no secret you've mentioned

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Speaker 3: to us that is your client.

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Speaker 1: Here. Is there any updates on a timeline here.

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Speaker 6: Well, no, we've got a court appearance in February and

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Speaker 6: right now a March trial date. I can say that,

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Speaker 6: but it's unlikely that March trial date will hold as

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Speaker 6: a first setting. There's a lot to do in that case.

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Speaker 6: But one thing that you know, as in any case,

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Speaker 6: people just need to keep an open until they hear

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Speaker 6: all the evidence.

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Speaker 5: Right. And number five, number five redistricting decade.

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Speaker 4: Redistricting.

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Speaker 5: That was like the topic for the entire second half

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Speaker 5: of the year. I feel like, well, probably started way

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Speaker 5: before then, but man.

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Speaker 3: What's property tax ended? And we ended up getting the

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Speaker 3: shaft on that. We had to wait for the news storyline,

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Speaker 3: which was going to be the changing of the congressional math. Gosh,

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Speaker 3: because I have a hard time saying redistricting, so I

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Speaker 3: always say the changing of the math.

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Speaker 4: Great.

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Speaker 5: The amount of times I had to re record myself

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Speaker 5: doing a news story because of that word is absolutely insane.

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Speaker 5: And I tell you from the news perspective in the

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Speaker 5: newsroom side, every time there was an update and every

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Speaker 5: time we got an email, we were all just like,

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Speaker 5: oh my gosh, what now, what do we have to

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Speaker 5: change now? What's coming in now? It was just constantly

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Speaker 5: it was always something something different coming down the pipeline

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Speaker 5: where we have to continue to update everybody on.

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Speaker 3: So well, Johnette, you'll join us again tomorrow and we'll

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Speaker 3: look at the top five national stories.

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Speaker 4: Here we go, Top five National Johnette.

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Speaker 3: Cruise from the WIBC news Room. Make sure you follow

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Speaker 3: her on all of the social media channels.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you,