Random News: May 4, 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 May 4, 2023, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Let’s see what there is to see…

• Most of you know there were more mass shootings yesterday. You should probably just assume there were until told otherwise.
• Yesterday’s notable shooting event was in Atlanta, where US Coast Guard vet Deion Patterson, 24, opened fire at Midtown Atlanta’s Northside Hospital.
• Patterson was attending an appointment with his mother. He pulled out a handgun and opened fire in the waiting room, shooting five women. 38-year-old CDC worker Amy St. Pierre was killed while the four other victims – aged 25 to 71 – are fighting for their lives in hospital.
• Patterson’s mother said her son had “some mental instability going on” from medication he received from the Veterans Affairs health system that he began taking on Friday.
• Yikes.
• Patterson was, surprisingly, apprehended alive in Cobb County. He was booked in the Fulton County jail and has been charged with murder and four counts of aggravated assault.
• Moving on…
• Donald Trump’s rape and defamation civil trial is going very badly for him.
• His legal team will not put on a defense case. His lawyer Joe Tacopina confirmed outside the presence of the jury that his legal team will not call a previously proposed expert witness due to logistical reasons related to health concerns for the witness.
• More witness testimony is expected today. Judge Lewis Kaplan said he plans to instruct and charge the jury to begin deliberating next Tuesday morning.
• Alrighty then.
• There’s more news coming out about SCOTUS justice Clarence Thomas and the ethical investigation about his relationship with billionaire Harlan Crow.
• In 2008, Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school. Thomas had taken legal custody of Martin when he was 6 years old and had recently told an interviewer he was “raising him as a son.”
• Tuition at the boarding school ran more than $6,000 a month. But Thomas did not cover the bill. A bank statement for the school from July 2009, buried in unrelated court filings, shows the source of Martin’s tuition payment for that month. It was paid by Crow.
• Per former administrators at that school, the payments extended beyond that month. Crow paid Martin’s tuition the entire time he was a student there, which was about a year.
• Thomas did not report the tuition payments from Crow on his annual financial disclosures, which may total over $150,000. This is fucked up. This is really, really bad.
• In other news…
• Russia is claiming that the US was behind an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin in a Ukrainian attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed Thursday that Washington had masterminded the incident. The U.S. swiftly rejected the accusation, saying it had nothing to do with it, as did Ukraine.
• White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby dismissed Peskov’s claim. “I can assure you there was no involvement by the United States. Whatever it was didn’t involve us. We had nothing to do with this, so Peskov is just lying there, pure and simple.”
• Shrug.
• Let’s do a nice story.
• A guy in Hesperia, CA who’d recently been homeless became a hero yesterday when he saw a baby carriage rolling down a hill right toward busy Bear Valley Road, where cars were rushing by at 50mph.
• Ronald Nessman, who’d just wrapped up a job interview at a nearby Applebee’s, sprinted to it and saved the baby boy with inches to spare.
• "If you want something different, you're going to do something different, and today, I want something different out of life," he said.
• Good job, bro. I hope you find work.
• In more news about the biggest, most important thing facing the USA today according to Republicans — transgender people using a bathroom of choice — Florida Republicans passed legislation yesterday that would make it a misdemeanor trespassing offense for someone to use bathrooms that don’t align with their sex at birth.
• I’m sure that in your daily life, deciding what bathrooms people use is the #1 issue every single day, right?
• Right?
• Meanwhile in Iowa, the state’s legislature has passed a Republican-led bill that would roll back child labor protections. The bill would allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work two additional hours per day when school is in session, allow them to work until 9pm during most of the year and until 11pm from June 1 to Labor Day.
• And in Kentucky, two 10-year-old children were found working at a Louisville McDonald’s restaurant — sometimes until 2am. The investigation also found three franchisees that own more than 60 McDonald’s locations in Kentucky, Indiana, Maryland and Ohio, “employed 305 children to work more than the legally permitted hours and perform tasks prohibited by law for young workers.”
• They should have opened stores in Iowa, apparently, where they don’t give two shits about the well being of children.
• And in Texas, the state legislature is advancing a bill that would allow the secretary of state to redo elections in Harris County, where a number of Democratic candidates posted strong midterm election results and which has been dogged by GOP claims of election mismanagement.
• Fucking pieces of shit.
• And now, The Weather: “Crushxd” by Crumb
• From the Sports Desk… the Celtics crushed the Sixers 121-87 in game 2 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. The series is tied 1-1. Tonight is Game 2 of the Warriors/Lakers series, currently led 1-0 by Los Angeles.
• Go Lakers!
• Today in history… Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III (1776). The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, IN (1871). The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal (1904). Student demonstrations take place in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, protesting the Treaty of Versailles, which transferred Chinese territory to Japan (1919). The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is incorporated (1927). In Atlanta, mobster Al Capone begins serving an eleven-year prison sentence for tax evasion (1932). Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ (1953). The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held (1959). The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others (1970). 
• May 4 is the birthday of abolitionist Horace Mann (1796), first lady Julia Gardiner Tyler (1820), actress Audrey Hepburn (1929), bassist Ron Carter (1937), guitarist/songwriter Dick Dale (1937), journalist George Will (1941), singer-songwriter Randy Travis (1959), actress Ana Gasteyer (1967), actor Will Arnett (1970), sportscaster Erin Andrews (1978), singer Lance Bass (1979), and golfer Rory McIlroy (1989).

Okay well… I have things to do. More news coverage tomorrow, I suppose. Enjoy your day.