NowTime Newsletter: July 24th, 2026
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Vol. I: Issue 031 July 24th, 2026
Breaking news out of Calypso Island, where Duke Gotcha and his family are officially off the clock and enjoying a well-earned vacation.
That means no deep investigations, no courthouse steps, no surprise press conferences, and absolutely no chasing suspicious characters down back alleys this week.
I’ll be back next week with the latest stories, updates, and developments from across the Gurth. Until then, stay sharp, stay safe, and maybe take a little time off yourself, because Duke’s Gotcha covered!
Hiya friends!
Okay, so the strangest thing happened to me this week. I accidentally cooked something good. I know, I was just as shocked as you are.
The Mumph gave me a whole list of things Hambone likes for treats, and you were not kidding, it read like a little kid’s candy wishlist. But I thought, alright, maybe this is finally my moment. I had a handful of those ingredients around the house, so I whipped something up with the goal of letting Hambone be the official taste tester.
Well, that plan fell apart fast. I left the treats out to cool and went for a jog around the neighborhood, and when I got back, Finley had stopped by to say goodbye before heading off to Calypso Island. While he was waiting for me, he ate half a dozen of them. Half a dozen! Before I could even explain, he was asking me for the recipe and telling me this might be his new favorite cookie. That is when I had to break it to him that they were supposed to be dog treats. He just laughed and told me to try one and tell him it was not the best cookie I had ever had. So I did, very reluctantly, and… he was right. They were actually good. Which, for me, is honestly a pretty historic little moment.
But onto the weather. This week we’re heading over to Oniontown, and let’s just say they are getting all the rain Scrapple Hill has been wishing for.
It is looking hot, humid, and pretty unsettled for a good chunk of the week, with scattered showers and storms drifting in and out and plenty of sticky summer air hanging around. There is a tiny little break in the humidity here and there, but overall this one feels muggy, stormy, and very mid-summer.
So keep the umbrella handy, don’t let the sunshine fool you, and maybe plan around those pop-up storms if you’ve got anything going on in Oniontown.
The Mumph here, and first off, big thanks to Zepha Ray for the plate of cookies on my desk. Or dog treats. Honestly, I am still not totally sure, but I know this, they were amazing.
It was not easy, folks, but I did manage to hold back and save a few for Hambone. And Zepha, I am serious here, you might want to enter those things into Tastyville’s Taste of the Future cooking competition. That is not just me being nice. That is The Mumph giving a scouting report.
And I’ll tell you who else was cooking this week, the Powder Point Woollies.
Powder Point and Frostfield stayed quiet through the first two innings, but in the third, the Woollies cracked the whole thing open. Pinch Hitwell steps in and launches a grand slam, four runs on one swing, and suddenly Powder Point has the game by the collar. They added one in the fourth and one more in the sixth, building a 6 to 0 lead before Frostfield finally found its bats late.
Give the Batters credit, they did not roll over. Frostfield put up two in the seventh and two more in the eighth, turning a runaway into something with a pulse. But Powder Point had done enough early, and Levain and the defense kept the ninth clean to finish it off.
Final score, Powder Point Woollies 6, Frostfield Batters 4. Winner, Powder Point. MVP, Pinch Hitwell, and yes, when you come off the bench and hit a grand slam, that is how you get your name in bold.
My two cents, one swing can change a game, and Hitwell’s third-inning blast gave Powder Point all the room they needed.
Hello out there…
It is good to see Duke taking a well-earned vacation, especially after the three-part story he spent months building, chasing, and polishing long after most sensible people would have gone home for the night. He would never say this himself, and he would probably object to me saying it here, but NowTime News would not run nearly as smoothly without the constant work of Mr. Gotcha. Frankly, I do not think this operation would be where it is today without his guidance.
Back in 2014, when Duke was first hired, NowTime News was still just a local Whiskview station. He came in at the entry level, working as an MMJ, one of those newsroom catch-all positions where you are expected to fill the gaps, chase the scraps, and make something watchable out of a slow news day. But people noticed him. Even in those smaller segments, there was something there. A voice. A point of view. A way of pulling viewers in and making them care.
Before long, the station gave him his own program, The Gotcha Journal.
That show changed things.
It was not long after that Duke brought me onto Team Gotcha and started showing me what real investigative reporting looked like, not the glamorous version, but the actual work. The patience. The note-taking. The persistence. The refusal to stop at the first official answer just because it arrived in a neat sentence. The popularity of The Gotcha Journal quickly outgrew the limits of local Whiskview reporting, and it became the driving force behind the board’s decision to launch a full cable news channel of its own. They built a twenty-four-hour cycle around that momentum, with Duke’s show at the center of it.
Eventually, that show evolved into Team Gotcha Tonight, the daily fixture many of you know now, and one I still pop into every few weeks.
Over time, Duke became more than a host. He became the person the network turns to when it needs a read on where things are going, what matters, and what people actually want to see. That is not something you fake, and it is not something you stumble into. It comes from years of showing up, paying attention, and doing the work.
So yes, I am glad he is finally taking a break. It may be the first real one he has had in five years.
While Duke is presumably somewhere on Calypso Island getting sand in his shoes and sunlight on his face, I will be right here doing what I do best, keeping my notebook open and digging into whatever comes next.
And that’s The Scoop.
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