PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Now it's time for 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 scores?
BILL KURTIS: Luke and Jessi each have three. Helen has two.
SAGAL: All right, Helen, you're in third place. You're up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Wednesday, moments after he was convicted on federal fraud charges, prosecutors in New York filed state fraud charges against former Trump campaign chairman blank.
HELEN HONG: Paul Manafort.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Monday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said she opposes blanking President Trump.
HONG: Impeaching.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, the Senate voted to end U.S. support for a Saudi-led military campaign in blank.
HONG: Syria.
SAGAL: No, Yemen. A man in Michigan is facing charges after attempting to free his car from the snow by blanking.
HONG: Getting his corgi to dig it out.
SAGAL: No, shooting the snow with his gun. On Wednesday...
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said the U.S. could return to the blank as early as next year.
HONG: The moon.
SAGAL: Right. Citing concerns about salmonella, Butterball recalled 78,000 pounds of blank on Thursday.
HONG: Chicken - turkey.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: I'm going to give it to you just because your parents would be unhappy. This week, a panicked woman in Cleveland who called 911...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...To report a man screaming and waving his arms in the middle of the street was told the man was just blanking.
HONG: In Florida.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: No. She was told the man was just celebrating the trade of Odell Beckham to the Cleveland Browns. So the woman had just gotten home. She's driving with her kids, right? She's about to let her kids out of the car, and there's this lunatic screaming and yelling in the middle of the street. So she gets the kids back in the car, and she locks the car and she calls 911, and they send cops. This is what the cops found. This is an actual recording of the guy that the woman saw.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Screaming) We got Odell. We got Odell. We got - we got - we got Odell. [Expletive] we got Odell. We - we - we got Odell. We [expletive] oh s***. Oh s***.
SAGAL: So the cops talked to the guy.
LUKE BURBANK: It's been a while since something good happened to Cleveland.
SAGAL: I know. They explained to the woman what was going on. They sort it all out. And then they manage to calm down the general manager of the Browns and get him home safely.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Helen do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Helen did four right, eight more points, a total of 10, puts her in the lead.
SAGAL: All right.
(CHEERING)
SAGAL: We flipped a coin, and Luke has elected to go next. So here we go, Luke. Fill in the blank. On Monday, President Trump proposed a $4.7 trillion budget which included $8.6 billion for blank.
BURBANK: The wall.
SAGAL: Yes, indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Tuesday, New York's attorney general subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for records on loans granted to blank.
BURBANK: The Trump Organization.
SAGAL: Yeah, pretty much.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The World Health Organization said it was aiming to halt the blank outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo within six months.
BURBANK: Ebola.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Police in South Carolina say they're looking for a man who went into a Taco Bell and blanked.
(LAUGHTER)
BURBANK: Ate there?
SAGAL: No. He went behind the counter to make his own Mexican pizza because he said the one they made for him did not have enough meat on it. On Wednesday, social media giant blank suffered the most severe outage in its history.
BURBANK: Facebook.
SAGAL: And Instagram.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: This week, a heartwarming photo of a 4-year-old sleeping with his pet...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...Went viral because his pet was a blank.
BURBANK: Taco Bell Mexican pizza.
SAGAL: No. This beautiful picture of a boy sleeping soundly in bed cuddling up with his pet went viral because the pet was a goldfish.
AUDIENCE: Aw.
HONG: Oh, no.
SAGAL: The boy took his beloved goldfish out of the bowl and cuddled with it as he went to sleep.
HONG: Oh, no.
JESSI KLEIN: That's awful.
SAGAL: His parents discovered what happened too late, so they just took a picture, which is easily the world's cutest crime scene photo.
BURBANK: That kid is definitely getting into Harvard...
SAGAL: Pretty much.
BURBANK: ...For $5 million.
SAGAL: It's pretty tough on the family. They were robbed of the three beautiful days they would have spent with the fish before they had to flush it down the toilet anyway. Bill, how did Luke do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Luke got four right, eight more points, total of 11, which puts him in the lead with one.
SAGAL: All right. How many, then...
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: How many, then, does Jessi need to win?
KURTIS: Four to tie, five to win.
SAGAL: All right. Here we go. This is for the game, Jessi.
KLEIN: OK.
SAGAL: On Wednesday, U.K. lawmakers rejected a move to support a second referendum on blank.
KLEIN: Brexit.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Tuesday, the U.S. announced it was withdrawing its entire diplomatic staff from blank.
KLEIN: A place.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: It is a place. It's called Venezuela. This week, the House voted to release blank's reports to the public.
KLEIN: Mueller.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Four robbers were held at gunpoint until police arrived after they attempted to rob a blank.
KLEIN: Mexican pizza place.
SAGAL: No, they attempted to rob a gun store. According....
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: ...To a new study, blank use was linked to a rise in mental health problems in teens.
KLEIN: Social media.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Thursday, "Empire" actor blank pleaded not guilty to faking an assault in Chicago.
KLEIN: Jussie.
SAGAL: Yeah, Jussie Smollett.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
KLEIN: Smollett.
SAGAL: A golfer in Canada got a hole-in-one after his shot...
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
SAGAL: ...Landed on the green and then blank.
KLEIN: And then rolled into that hole.
SAGAL: No. Then an eagle picked it up and dropped it in the hole.
KLEIN: Even better.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: After driving his ball onto the green, the golfer assumed he's only going to make par before an eagle swooped onto the course, picked up the ball and dropped it right into the hole.
KLEIN: Fancy bird.
SAGAL: Indeed.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And that's right, golfers. He got an eagle.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, did Jessi do well enough to win?
KURTIS: Well, she got four right, eight more points, total of 11, ties her with Luke, so we have a double winner this week.
SAGAL: Oh, my gosh.
(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.