Random News: March 16, 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 March 16, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Here’s whatever things be…

• Moscow is working to retrieve the wreckage of an American drone that crashed into the Black Sea after a Russian fighter jet collided with it.
• Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the drone likely broke up in the crash and its debris was under thousands of feet of water in the Black Sea.
• ”That's U.S. property," Milley said during a press conference yesterday at the Pentagon. "... There's probably not a lot to recover, frankly.
• The U.S. took mitigating measures to prevent the loss of any sensitive intelligence, Milley said. "We are quite confident that whatever was of value is no longer of value.”
• Alrighty then.
• Yesterday, Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui was arrested in New York for orchestrating what the Department of Justice called a more than $1 billion fraud conspiracy.
• He’s an associate of former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon, because of course he is.
• The SEC filed a related civil complaint against Guo and his co-defendant in the criminal case. Bannon, while working with America’s Laughingstock Rudy Giuliani, had “arranged for Guo and his followers to spread salacious videos and pictures from” a laptop owned by Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.
• Ha! Get his ass.
• Speaking of China, the Biden administration is demanding that Chinese-owned TikTok be sold, or the popular video app could face a ban in the U.S..
• It is the first time the Biden administration has explicitly threatened to ban TikTok. It’s also a topic where Biden and Trump seem aligned; Trump attempted to put TikTok out of business, but the actions were halted by federal courts.
• In other news…
• Yesterday’s arguments in a Texas court suggested US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is seriously considering undoing the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, a medication abortion drug.
• If it goes his way, Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, will be responsible for removing access to safe abortions for millions of women across the entire country.
• Speaking of the Orange Menace, the porn actor at the center of the Manhattan district attorney’s criminal investigation of Donald John Trump spoke to prosecutors yesterday at their request as the probe enters its final stages.
• As you may recall, Stormy Daniels, received $130,000 in so-called hush money at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign after alleging an affair with Trump.
• Ha ha!
• MyPillow CEO, former crackhead, and continual Trump fellator Mike Lindell is broke. He had to take about a $10 million loan due to his legal costs of defending the lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems, and will likely declare bankruptcy at some point to avoid paying his eventual settlement.
• So sad, too bad.
• The Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s nomination of former LA mayor Eric Garcetti to be ambassador to India.
• Not everyone is a Garcetti fan. The final vote was 52 to 42. Seven Republicans voted in favor of the nomination (Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Susan Collins (R-MN), Steve Daines (R-MT), Todd Young (R-IN), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA). Three Democrats voted in opposition: Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Mark Kelly (D-AZ).
• Weird.
• RIP to singer-songwriter Bobby Caldwell, who passed away at age 71. Don’t know who he is? Sure you do. YouTube “What You Won't Do for Love”, an extremely smooth-ass tune from 1978. 
• Seven Virginia sheriff’s deputies have been charged with murder in the death of a man who had been arrested and was physically restrained while being admitted to a hospital this month.
• ”He died of asphyxia due to being smothered to death, thanks to having at least seven people, including the defendant, on top of him and holding him down.” - Dinwiddie County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ann Cabell Baskervill.
• The accused murders: Randy Joseph Boyer, 57; Dwayne Alan Bramble, 37; Jermaine Lavar Branch, 45; Bradley Thomas Disse, 43; Tabitha Renee Levere, 50; Brandon Edwards Rodgers, 48; and Kaiyell Dajour Sanders, 30.
• And now, The Weather: “Don't Fade Away” by Beach Fossils
• For the first time in 31 years, the Labrador Retriever has been unseated as the most popular dog breed in the US. In its place sits the cute and compact French Bulldog.
• I do like me a Frenchie. I like labs too. I basically like dogs. If you’re a dog, I like you.
• Students at Wellesley College, a Massachusetts private liberal arts college for women, voted on Tuesday in favor of allowing transgender men and non-binary individuals who were assigned male at birth to enroll.
• However, the school has no plans to actually change its admissions policies. Some of their alumnae include Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Diane Sawyer, Cokie Roberts, Nora Ephron, and many other leaders in the world of politics, business, and more.
• From the Sports Desk… nah. I guess people are doing NCAA brackets, I guess Ja Morant is suspended for eight games for being an idiot, I guess Aaron Rodgers says he wants to plays for the Jets.
• Nothing specific worth getting into.
• Today in history… Samoset, a Mohegan, visits the settlers of Plymouth Colony and greets them in English, "Welcome, Englishmen! My name is Samoset.” (1621). The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate the United States Military Academy at West Point (1802). Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, MA (1926). Ninety percent of Würzburg, Germany is destroyed in only 20 minutes by British bombers, resulting in at least 4,000 deaths (1945). Launch of Gemini 8 with astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott performing the first docking of two spacecraft in orbit (1966). Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States (1988). Mississippi formally ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, becoming the last state to approve the abolition of slavery (1995). The Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 2,997.10, the single largest point drop in history and the second-largest percentage drop ever at 12.93%, an even greater crash than Black Monday (2020).
• March 16 is the birthday of astronomer Caroline Herschel (1750), US president James Madison (1751), physicist Georg Ohm (1789), comedian Henny Youngman (1906), mass murderer Josef Mengele (1911), US first lady Pat Nixon (1912), politician Charles Goodell (1926), actor Jerry Lewis (1926), opera singer Christa Ludwig (1928), film director Bernardo Bertolucci (1941), TV host Chuck Woolery (1941), singer-songwriter Jerry Jeff Walker (1942), actor Erik Estrada (1949), singer-songwriter Ray Benson (1951), singer-songwriter/guitarist Nancy Wilson (1954), NFL player Ozzie Newsome (1956), rapper Flavor Flav (1959), singer-songwriter Patty Griffin (1964), NBA player Blake Griffin (1989), musician Wolfgang Van Halen (1991), NBA player Joel Embiid (1994), and MLB player Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (1999).

Welp, time to dive into another day of work hell. Why am I so busy? Got my industry’s big trade show coming up, and as a guy who writes press releases, creates show displays and graphics, and puts together marketing plans for new product launches, this is my Olympics, so to speak.