Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Mar 14, 2022

Rod Stewart was fixing potholes on a road near his home over the weekend. His Instagram account showed him shoveling gravel and complaining "no-one can be bothered to do it... My Ferrari can't go through here at all."

An Essex County Council cabinet member promised to investigate the situation. The caption on the video said: "Working for a living, filling holes is good for the soul!"

Uber now says customers will have to pay a fuel surcharge starting March 16 because of record high gasoline prices. It's not a lot --either 45 cents or 55 cents on each Uber trip or 35 cents or 45 cents on each Uber Eats order. The money goes directly to the drivers, some of whom have been asking if it was still worth getting behind the wheel.

See ya Stoneybrook --“The Baby-Sitters Club” will not be back for Season 3 on Netflix, which has cancelled the series after two seasons.

Pi Day is today --March 14-- because Pi is 3.14. People celebrate by chowing down on their favorite type of pie, whether it’s apple, pecan, strawberry rhubarb, key lime, or something in between.

The IRS says it's gonna hire 10-thousand new workers to help reduce a massive backlog this tax season. The agency sez they've got a backlog of around 20 million pieces of correspondence, which is more than 15 times as large as in a normal filing season, because the population has grown exponentially and the tax code has become increasingly complicated. But... there is no plan to extend the current April 18 filing deadline.

Bad news --Frito-Lay has cut down the number of chips in each bag of Doritos because record inflation has raised production expenses. A bag now has five fewer chips because, as they put it, "Inflation is hitting everyone... We took just a little bit out of the bag so we can give you the same price and you can keep enjoying your chips."

It's not the only company doing this --Bounty has cut three sheets from each roll of paper towels, and a box of Wheat Thins now has 28 fewer crackers.

Spring Breakers are back in South Florida to celebrate without Covid restrictions for the first time in two years. There were six people who overdosed on cocaine mixed with fentanyl --including five West Point cadets-- in Fort Lauderdale in the past couple of days. The Tampa Bay Times sez about 570-thousand students will be on break at the same time in the state of Florida.

Kellogg’s is running a Daylight Saving Time promotion where they’ll be giving away 1,000,000 waffles in the form of 100,000 10-count boxes of Eggo waffles on Monday to help tired parents everywhere “L’Eggo of the morning madness.” To get the deal you have to follow Eggo on Instagram and Facebook and keep an eye out for their waffle drop announcement tomorrow and be among the first 100,000 fans to click on a special link for a chance to score a free 10-count box of Eggos.

U.S. officials say they may have found a huge 459-foot yacht owned by Vladimir Putin worth $700 million and parked at a small Italian dry dock. The ship has a full-size gym, two helicopter decks and gold-plated fixtures in the washrooms. The ship’s captain claims Putin has never owned or set foot on the vessel. But a former crew member told The New York Times the ship belonged to Putin.

Eating more beef this year? It's way more expensive --uncooked beef roasts are up over 18 percent over the last year and beef steaks are up 17 percent. Even bacon is up around 19 percent as well.