Random News: November 28, 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 November 28, 2023, and it’s a Tuesday. This already feels like a long week and it’s only fucking Tuesday. Uggggh. I’m probably fighting off some seasonal depression, but I’ve become pretty adept at fighting off various things, so even when I’m not doing great at one moment, I’m always pretty sure there will be something better around the corner. Let’s do some news.

• Former President Jimmy Carter is expected to attend today’s memorial service for his late wife, Rosalynn Carter, in Atlanta.
• Also expected: all the living First Ladies. Jill Biden will be joined by former first ladies Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, Michelle Obama, and Melania Trump in attending the service. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and second gentleman Doug Emhoff are also expected to be present, as is former President Bill Clinton.
• You know you lived a good life when you get that kind of respect.
• Moving on.
• The temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip continued today after being extended for two additional days to allow for the release of more hostages by the militant group and more Palestinian prisoners to be freed by Israel.
• Around 170 people remain captive in Gaza, according to Israel, but not all are held by Hamas. U.S. officials have said they're continuing to work for further extensions in the truce, and that they'll keep pushing the negotiations until everybody is released. 
• A Hamas official said it would release not just women and children, as it has done daily since Friday, but also male hostages and abducted Israeli soldiers. That sounds promising, assuming a terrorist group can be trusted.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is accusing Israel of being in violation of international law with their strikes on Gaza.
• While Bernie has declared repeatedly that Israel has the right to defend itself in response to Hamas' October 7 attack that claimed more than 1,300 lives (something I agree with), he's also been critical of their "indiscriminate bombing” (which I also agree with).
• Israel’s strikes have caused more than 13,000 deaths to date, per Hamas.
• Moving on.
• Today, the Texas Supreme Court will consider this question: Are the state's abortion laws harming women when they face pregnancy complications?
• The case, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, has grown to include 22 plaintiffs, including 20 patients and two physicians. They are suing Texas, arguing that the medical exceptions in the state's abortion bans are too narrow to protect patients with complicated pregnancies.
• At today’s hearing in Austin, the nine Texas Supreme Court justices will consider whether to apply a temporary injunction that a lower court judge ruled should be in place. That injunction would give doctors greater discretion to perform abortions when a doctor determines that a woman's health is threatened or that a fetus has a condition that could be fatal.
• Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is fiercely defending the state's current abortion laws and arguing that the case should be dismissed, so those women should die rather than being allowed to have reproductive health care.
• For God’s sake, please vote for candidates who support women. Thank you.
• Let’s do some Dumpy news.
• Yesterday, Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a request from El Dumpo’s legal team for permission to subpoena members of the House Jan. 6 select committee and others for evidence in his upcoming trial.
• Attorneys for Orange Man allege there are missing records from the now-disbanded committee that they would like for pretrial preparation. But members of the committee say there is no missing material.
• Dumpy has pleaded not guilty to four felony charges accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. 
• Perhaps the bigger headline this morning in relation to the 2024 election is that the powerful political network led by conservative billionaire Charles Koch has endorsed Nikki Haley for president.
• Americans for Prosperity Action, the network’s flagship political group, announced the group’s first endorsement in a presidential race. They will be doing all they can to to stop Dumples from being the Republican nominee.
• So that’s not only a huge blow to Dump, but also to Ron DeSantis, who was obviously hoping for that huge endorsement and influx of cash. Haley will now have access to the network’s influential donors and organizational heft.
• Interesting.
• Let’s do some good news on the international front.
• 41 construction workers who’ve been trapped in a collapsed mountain tunnel for over two weeks are going to be saved after rescuers drilled their way through debris to reach them.
• The workers are to be pulled out through a passageway made of welded pipes which rescuers pushed through dirt and rocks. About a dozen men had worked overnight to manually dig through rocks and debris, taking turns to drill using hand-held drilling tools and clearing out the muck in the final stretch of the rescue operation.
• That’s good. No one wants to die in a fucking hole in the ground.
• Moving on.
• Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, is open to testifying publicly before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee on December 13. He was subpoenaed by House Republicans in early November and summoned to appear for a closed-door transcribed interview.
• “We have seen you use closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public. We therefore propose opening the door,” wrote his lawyer to Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY).
• Pretty smart move. If they don’t let him testify openly, it seems like they’re hiding something. I think Hunter Biden seems like a sleazeball, but it doesn’t matter; he’s not an elected official and I don’t give a shit what he does or doesn’t do.
• Moving on.
• If you need something to look forward to, the vote to expel Rep. George Santos (R-NY) from Congress could happen as early as today. Republicans are eager to end the embarrassment of his presence in the House.
• The more important question is whether a Democrat could flip Santos’s Long Island, NY seat to blue after he’s ousted.
• Moving on.
• Hey, remember COVID?
• Nearly 1 in 10 new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. are from the BA.2.86 variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Monday, which is triple what the agency estimated the highly mutated variant's prevalence was two weeks ago. 
• BA.2.86's prevalence is largest in the Northeast: 13.1% of cases in the New York and New Jersey region are blamed on the strain.
• Before this point, officials have said the vast majority of new COVID-19 cases have been blamed on the XBB variant and a crowd of XBB's closely related descendants. Those include the HV.1 and EG.5 variants that are currently predominant nationwide.
• Please continue to stay up to date with vaccinations and boosters, and if you’re really smart, continue to practice social distancing and other preventative measures.
• And now, The Weather: “When The Rope Post 2 Break” by Kevin Abstract
• "Authentic" was selected as the 2023 word of the year by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, landing among the most-looked-up words in the dictionary's 500,000 entries.
• Why? Probably in response to things like Chat GPT and AI, and the incredible lies of people like George Santos, and the proliferation of social media bots.
• An additional 13 words stood out in 2023's look-up data: coronation, dystopian, EGOT, implode, doppelganger, covenant, kibbutz, elemental, X, indict, deepfake, deadname, and rizz.
• Want to know more about those words? Look them up like everyone else did.
• Let’s do a chart. It’s the end of November 1992, and I’m wrapping up my final semester of college. My then-fiancee/future ex-wife and I are living with my dad in his apartment in Long Beach because I’m taking 24 fucking units at CSUDH and have almost no time or way to have income. We’d move into a shitty apartment in Torrance a few months later in 1993 after I’d started a real job. Anyway, here’s the Billboard Modern Rock chart of that moment.
• 1. These Are Days (10,000 Maniacs). 2. Love (The Sundays). 3. Somebody to Shove (Soul Asylum). 4. Drive (R.E.M.). 5. Trout (Neneh Cherry). 6. Nearly Lost You (Screaming Trees). 7. Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses (U2). 8. Not Sleeping Around (Ned’s Atomic Dustbin). 9. Taste It (INXS). 10. Uh Huh Oh Yeh (Paul Weller). 11. Steam (Peter Gabriel). 12. Digging In The Dirt (Peter Gabriel). 13.  Lifetime Piling Up (Talking Heads). 14. Dizz Knee Land (Dada). 15. Behind The Sun (Red Hot Chili Peppers). 16. Happiness in Slavery (Nine Inch Nails). 17. Iron Lion Zion (Bob Marley). 18. Mrs. Robinson (Lemonheads). 19. Spiritual High (Moodswings). 20. Get Out Of Control (Daniel Ash).
• From the Sports Desk… on Monday Night Football the Chicago Bears (4-8) upset the Minnesota Vikings (6-6). Neither of those teams will be in the Super Bowl in February, I promise.
• Today in history… In Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway pay a £40 bond — equivalent to £12,500 in 2022 — for their marriage license. Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, premieres at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig (1811). Irish nationalist Arthur Griffith founds Sinn Féin as a political party with the main aim of establishing a dual monarchy in Ireland (1905). The Grand Ole Opry begins broadcasting in Nashville, Tennessee, as the ‘WSM Barn Dance’ (1925). First successful flight of SM-65 Atlas; the first operational intercontinental ballistic missile (1958). NASA launches the Mariner 4 probe toward Mars (1964). The first pulsar is discovered by two astronomers Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish (1967). British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher resigns as Prime Minister and is succeeded by John Major (1990). Over seven hundred civilians are massacred by the Ethiopian National Defense Force and Eritrean Army in Aksum, Ethiopia (2020).
• November 28 is the birthday of poet/painter William Blake (1757), philosopher Friedrich Engels (1820), Venezuela president Ramón José Velásquez (1916), songwriter/producer Berry Gordy, Jr. (1929), singer-songwriter/composer/pianist Randy Newman (1943), keyboardist/bandleader Paul Shaffer (1949), actor Ed Harris (1950), actress S. Epatha Merkerson (1952), drummer/songwriter Matt Cameron (1962), comedian/TV host Jon Stewart (1962), singer-songwriter/guitarist Sigurd Wongraven (1975), rapper Chamillionaire (1979), NBA player Andrew Bogut (1984), actress Karen Gillan (1987), and NFL player Jarvis Landry (1992).

Alrighty. I’m going to get my shit together, workout, and stop being in self-pity mode, which is never helpful. Instead, I’ll be in denial mode, which is also not helpful. Enjoy your day.