Looking Ahead

Aug. 18

Former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor will cut short his term in office when he resigns from the House of Representatives after a 13-year run in Congress. Cantor had previously said he would finish his term after a surprise primary defeat to upstart Dave Brat. Virginia will hold a special election to fill Cantor’s seat for the remaining two months of this Congress.

Aug. 21

Beginning today, the cable network FXX will begin the longest-ever television marathon when it airs 25 seasons of The Simpsons episodes in sequence. With 552 episodes, the marathon will last until midnight on Sept. 1. FXX acquired the syndication rights to The Simpsons in November for $750 million.

Aug. 25

NBC will air this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards for the best television programming, but don’t expect a big night for NBC or any other traditional broadcast network. Continuing a recent trend, mainstream broadcast networks fared poorly in the Emmy nomination process with ABC, CBS, and NBC netting just nine of the 35 nominations for television programs.

Aug. 27

The world’s most famous food fight commences today in the Spanish town of Bunol. The Tomatina festival features thousands of contestants pelting one another with tomatoes for one hour until city fire trucks quell the food fight with a water cannon. Since 2013, Bunol has limited participation to 20,000 after crowd control became an issue in 2012.

Aug. 29

A force of 20,000 leftist trade unionists from Spain plan to invade the British fortress of Gibraltar today and claim it for the people of Andalusia, Spain. Great Britain acquired the strategic peninsula separating the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in 1713 at the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht. The Andalusian Workers Union is known in the region for a series of supermarket raids in 2012.