Random News: February 9, 2023

DISCLAIMER: Zak's Random News is very random and doesn't cover many things, and not everything may be accurate, because I'm just some guy. Go find a real news source.

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Good morning. It’s February 9, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I’m already having a busy-ass day, so let’s roll without delay…

• They’re still pulling people out of the rubble in Turkey and Syria two days after the worst seismic event of the century thus far. The casualty count is over 17,000 dead and many times more injured and/or displaced from housing.
• It’s going to continue getting worse, I hate to say. The first 72 hours after the event are the critical time where there’s still a chance of rescue.
• Like most Californians, there’s always a little area in the back of my mind that something as bad or worse will at some point happen here.
• Granted, it’s almost certain that our building codes are more stringent and the overall horror of a seriously large quake here would be less impactful than what we’re seeing in Turkey now. But a big enough quake in the wrong place doesn’t care about building codes.
• Moving on.
• Burt Bacharach, inarguably one of the finest songwriters in the past century, has died aged 94.
• A few of his many hit songs include “I Say a Little Prayer”, “What’s New Pussycat?”, “The Look of Love”, "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”, “Walk on By” and many others.
• In all, he scored 73 Top 40 hits in the US and 52 in the UK. Rest in peace to this amazing guy.
• Send some good mojo to Senator John Fetterman (D-PA). He was hospitalized yesterday after feeling lightheaded while on a Senate retreat. Initial tests did not show evidence of a new stroke, but they kept him overnight for observation.
• Doctors and advocates are urging people to pre-order and stockpile abortion pills while they still can in the face of a looming court decision that could wipe out access to the drugs nationwide.
• Trump-appointed District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, TX, could either strike down the FDA’s decades-old decision to approve mifepristone — the first of two pills used to end a pregnancy — or roll back more recent agency decisions making the pills available via telemedicine, mail delivery and pharmacy pickup.
• And now, The Weather: “Black Hills” by EVNTYD
• During the State of the Union speech, President Biden called for a universal price cap on insulin for all diabetes patients at $35/month, as it now is for people on Medicare.
• The Republican-led House will not allow this to pass. The average price of insulin in the U.S. in 2018 was 10 times higher than the average price in other wealthy nations.
• One more note from this week’s SotU address comes from the father of a 20-year-old woman who died of a fentanyl overdose.
• President Biden was telling Doug Griffin’s daughter’s story during his speech when Marjorie Taylor Greene began heckling him. 
• Mr. Griffin, a Republican, said the outburst highlighted the “constant battle” to get Republicans and Democrats to work together to tackle the opioid crisis – as he urged lawmakers to stop treating it as a partisan issue.
• What kind of a horrible person heckles the pointless death of a young woman?
• From the Sports Desk… another huge trade rocked the NBA yesterday, with the Nets trading All-NBA forward Kevin Durant to the Suns for a package that includes dynamic forward Mikal Bridges, Cam Johnson, Jae Crowder and four unprotected future first-round picks.
• In other NBA trade deadline news, my Los Angeles Lakers have agreed to trade Russell Westbrook to the Utah Jazz and reacquire point guard D'Angelo Russell from the Minnesota Timberwolves in a three-team, eight-player trade.
• In non-NBA news… I think I’m sticking with my bet for the Eagles to win the Super Bowl, until I change my mind for the 742nd time.
• Today in history… The British Parliament declares Massachusetts in rebellion (1775). Rhode Island becomes the fourth US state to ratify the Articles of Confederation (1778). After no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes in the US presidential election of 1824, the United States House of Representatives elects John Quincy Adams as sixth President of the United States in a contingent election (1825). Jefferson Davis is elected the Provisional President of the Confederate States of America by the Provisional Confederate Congress at Montgomery, AL (1861). Verdi's last opera, ‘Falstaff’, premieres at La Scala, Milan (1893). William G. Morgan creates a game called Mintonette, which soon comes to be referred to as volleyball (1895). A group of meteors is visible across much of the eastern seaboard of the Americas, leading astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth (1913). Year-round Daylight saving time, aka War Time, is reinstated in the United States as a wartime measure to help conserve energy resources (1942). HMS Venturer sinks U-864 off the coast of Fedje, Norway, in a rare instance of submarine-to-submarine combat (1945). US Senator Joseph McCarthy accuses the United States Department of State of being filled with Communists (1950). The Beatles make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a record-setting audience of 73 million viewers across the United States (1964). Satchel Paige becomes the first Negro league player to be voted into the USA's Baseball Hall of Fame (1971). 
• February 9 is the birthday of US president William Henry Harrison (1773), politician Samuel J. Tilden (1814), pathologist Howard Taylor Ricketts (1871), poet Amy Lowell (1874), actor Ronald Colman (1891), actress Carmen Miranda (1909), biochemist Jacques Monod (1910), singer-songwriter Ernest Tubb (1914), illustrator Frank Frazetta (1928), singer-songwriter Carole King (1942), actor Joe Pesci (1943), novelist Alice Walker (1944), actress Mia Farrow (1945), actress Judith Light (1949), MLB player Mookie Wilson (1956), journalist/writer/TV producer David Simon (1960), MLB player Vladimir Guerrero (1975), actor Tom Hiddleston (1981), and actor Michael B. Jordan (1987).

I’m going to try and have a sort of normal day today. Still dealing with various aspects of my mother’s passing on Tuesday, as would be expected. It will all work out. Everything does. Enjoy your day.