Random News: June 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.

---

Good morning. It’s June 4, 2023, and it’s a Sunday. I’m in a robe, the sky is gray, let’s see what news is around today…

• Today’s Pride factoid is about the Stonewall Riots, the origin point of Pride. What was that all about?
• The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid on June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City.
• While police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969. Tensions between NYPD and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening and again several nights later. 
• Within weeks, Village residents organized into activist groups demanding the right to live openly regarding their sexual orientation, and without fear of being arrested.
• A year after the uprising, to mark the anniversary on June 28, 1970, the first gay pride marches took place in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Within a few years, gay rights organizations were founded across the US and the world. Today, LGBT Pride events are held annually worldwide in June in honor of the Stonewall riots.
• In June 1999, US President Bill Clinton declared "the anniversary of Stonewall every June in America as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month”. President Barack Obama expanded the officially recognized Pride Month in 2011 to include the whole of the LGBT community.
• Cool. Let’s do some news…
• I often cover news regarding gun violence on Sundays. It’s a good day to do, since Americans tend to shoot each other a lot on Fridays and Saturdays.
• This weekend happens to also be Wear Orange Weekend. It’s a national campaign that takes place every June as part of a wider effort to honor survivors of gun violence.
• Why orange? It started about ten years ago, when friends of a woman who was shot and killed in Chicago wore orange to honor her. It also happens to be the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others. 
• Personal but relevant side note: I bought a pair of custom Nike AF1’s in an orange colorway last June for this reason.
• This was one of the lighter gun violence weekends of 2023 thus far, which is nice. 20 shot and four killed in Chicago. Two shot yesterday morning in San Francisco. A woman and her daughter in New Hampshire. One dead, four inured in Escambia County, FL. Three dead, one injured in northeast Albuquerque. One dead in southeast Baltimore. Three shot in Cincinnati. One guy in Seattle. One on the I-95 in Philly. One shot and one dead in Cleveland. Same with Oakland. And some guy opened fire in a Queens, NY restaurant and shot a worker in the ass.
• So overall, not a bad weekend at all in the United States of Gunerica.
• Moving on…
• Yesterday, President Joe Biden signed the debt ceiling bill, bringing closure to months of negotiations that pushed the U.S. to the brink of default.
• H.R. 3746, the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023,” was signed two days before Monday’s default deadline, on which the U.S. would run out of cash to pay its bills.
• Pushing a bipartisan message that definitely places him in contrast to most of the other potential candidates in the 2024 presidential race, Biden thanked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “for their partnership.”
• Glad that shit is done… for now.
• In other news about executives signing stuff, on Friday, Texas became the most populous state to ban gender-affirming care for minors, as Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed a bill outlawing puberty blockers and hormone therapy for under-18s.
• I don’t think it was an accident that Abbott chose the start of Pride month to enact the draconian and cruel measure. As had been said by many, the cruelty is the point.
• As one mother of a Texan trans child stated, “This is not going to change who people are. It’s going to force folks to find other methods to access care, for some people going to the gray market (for medications).”
• In other news…
• I haven’t yet covered the horrific train accident in eastern India that killed 275 people and injured hundreds more. Why not? Because what can I possibly say about it that will prevent further tragedies?
• It’s being said that the cause was an error in the electronic signaling system that led a train to wrongly change tracks and crash into a freight train.
• India is now the world’s most populous country, having recently surpassed China with 1.42 billion people. Their railroad network, much of which was built during the British colonial era, is in desperate need of modernization.
• Moving on…
• If you live in Florida, you’re about to start paying a lot of money for Gov. Ron DeSantis’s culture war lawsuits.
• Did you think DeSantis is paying for that shit himself? No. The Florida taxpayers are footing those bills. As DeSantis fights the resulting lawsuits with what critics have described as a blank check from the state’s supermajority Republican legislature, the mounting legal costs have come heavily at the expense of Florida’s taxpayers.
• The governor’s legal costs, which the Miami Herald reported last December to cost at least $16.7m, have been soaring. The Disney fight alone is costing the governor and his handpicked board nearly $1,300 per hour in legal fees.
• And if you’re a Florida resident, you’re paying for all of that.
• Speaking of Florida residents, the Orange Menace is apparently trying to coin a new term via a social post he made on Friday. I rarely copy/paste the excrement that passes for communication from that guy, but this is too funny to pass up.
• “WE ARE MAGADONIANS, WE ARE VERY SMART, WE STICK TOGETHER AS ONE, WE FOLLOW TRUTH SOCIAL, WE PUT ‘AMERICA FIRST,’ AND WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’”
• Wait, what? Magadonians?
• “Magadonians sounds like a group of people that no longer exist, like Babylonians. Also, it is simply a fact of human experience that people who are very smart don’t go around saying they are very smart.” - my Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA).
• Jesus. Moving on…
• Sixteen Venezuelan and Colombian migrants who had already been processed by U.S. immigration officials and given court dates for their asylum cases were instead put on a private jet in Texas and were flown to California, then dropped off outside a church in Sacramento, CA.
• When they were abandoned outside the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, they only had a backpack's worth of belongings each
• The migrants were approached by someone who offered to help the migrants get jobs and get them to their final destination.
• Again… the cruelty is the point.
• CA Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Attorney General Rob Bonta met with the group of migrants yesterday. Whoever did this picked the wrong state to fuck with. 
• Bonta said his agency was "investigating the circumstances by which these individuals were brought to California," and was "evaluating the potential criminal or civil action against those who transported or arranged for the transport of these vulnerable immigrants."
• Newsom is now working with the California Department of Justice to find out who paid for the group's travel and "whether the individuals orchestrating this trip misled anyone with false promises or have violated any criminal laws, including kidnapping."
• Get their cruel fucking asses.
• And now, The Weather: “Purple Phase” by Arlo Parks
• In breaking news that seems to be making a lot of people happy, “Meet the Press” host and moderator Chuck Todd announced this morning that he will step down this year after nine years hosting the public affairs talk show. Kristen Welker, NBC News’ co-chief White House correspondent, will succeed him.
• As I’ve mentioned often… I don’t watch TV at all, so this news down’t impact me much except for Seeing the constant stream of complaints about that guy on Twitter and other social nets.
• RIP to Cynthia Weil. As part of a songwriting team with her husband Barry Mann and on her own, Weil was one of the most successful songwriters in American pop music history.
• Some of the tunes she wrote or co-wrote include “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “On Broadway,” “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” “Walking in the Rain,” “You’re My Soul and Inspiration,” “Uptown,” “He’s So Shy,” “Kicks,” “Here You Come Again,” “Through the Fire,” “Somewhere Out There” and many other hits. Weil was 82.
• From the Sports Desk… game 1 of the NHL Stanley Cup finals was last night. The Florida Panthers kept it close through most of the game, but then the Vegas Golden Knights opened it up and ended up winning 5-2.
• In the NBA, game 2 of the Finals is today at 8PM EDT. The Denver Nuggets have a 1-0 lead in the series against the Miami Heat. I love an underdog, but these Nuggets seem too good for anyone to beat.
• In other sports news, the really good tennis player and really bad vaccine taker Novak Djokovic inched closer to a record-breaking 23rd Grand Slam title by crushing Juan Pablo Varillas 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 on Sunday to reach the French Open quarterfinals.
• Djokovic is currently tied with Rafael Nadal with 22 major titles.
• Today in history… King Charles VI granted a monopoly for the ripening of Roquefort cheese to the people of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon as they had been doing for centuries (1411). The Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their hot air balloon (1783). Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain (1792). Following Louisiana's admittance as a U.S. state, the Louisiana Territory is renamed the Missouri Territory (1812). Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run (1896). Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage (1912). The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification (1919). The British Armed Forces completes evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in France (1940). Japanese Admiral Chūichi Nagumo orders a strike on Midway Island by much of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1942). The Governor of California Jerry Brown signs the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law, the first law in the United States giving farmworkers collective bargaining rights (1975). JVC introduces its VHS videotape at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago (1977). The Tiananmen Square protests are suppressed in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, with between 241 and 10,000 dead (1989). Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing (1998).
• June 4 is the birthday of UK king George III (1738), actor Dennis Weaver (1924), sex therapist Ruth Westheimer (1928), actor John Drew Barrymore (1932), actor Bruce Dern (1936), singer-songwriter/actress Michelle Phillips (1944), NBA player Xavier McDaniel (1963), actor Horatio Sanz (1969), politician Mike Lee (1971), actor Noah Wyle (1971), comedian Russell Brand (1975), actress/activist Angelina Jolie (1975), UK princess Lilibet (2021).

That seems like enough news for now. Also, I need to get out of this robe and into the shower. Come hell or high water, I’m going to do some housekeeping projects today that I’ve been putting off basically forever. No, really, I am. Enjoy your day.