Random News: January 18, 2024

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 January 18, 2024, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. Plenty of stuff going on in this world of ours, so let’s see what seems important and/or interesting.

• I’m glad I’m not in the Middle East. I’m sure there are lovely aspects about that area of the world, and I’d love to see it for myself at some point.
• But not now, or for a good while. Pakistan’s air force launched retaliatory airstrikes early today in Iran against alleged militant hideouts, killing at least nine people and further raising tensions between the neighbors.
• Today’s attack followed one by Iran inside Pakistan on Tuesday. Both appeared to target Baluch militant groups with similar separatist goals on either side of the Iran-Pakistan border. The countries accuse each other of providing safe haven to the groups in their respective territories.
• The Middle East remains unsettled by Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran also staged airstrikes late Monday in Iraq and Syria over an Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing that killed over 90 people in early January.
• Sigh. Like I tell you, while we all face challenges, any day you wake up and there aren’t bombs dropping and missile flying at you and your family, it’s a pretty good day.
• Moving on.
• President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to make their first joint campaign appearance of 2024 next week as they look to lay out how abortion rights are at stake in November’s election.
• They will speak at an event in northern Virginia on Tuesday, the same day as the New Hampshire primaries. The event comes one day after the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which enshrined the federal constitutional right to an abortion for decades before the right-wing, Trump-controlled Supreme Court overturned it in 2022.
• Donald Trump has taken credit for the removal of reproductive rights of women across the country and says he is proud of having done so.
• Harris specifically has become the administration’s foremost voice on reproductive rights. The vice president is set to kick off a reproductive rights tour in Wisconsin on Monday. She is expected to highlight the true stories of American women affected by the Supreme Court’s decision.
• Some more news from the fight for women’s reproductive rights.
• A coalition of Missouri abortion-rights organizations plan to officially launch an effort today to put a constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot to legalize abortion up until the point of fetal viability. 
• Missouri has one of the most restrictive laws in the country, banning all abortions except in the case of medical emergencies. A political action committee called Missourians for Constitutional Freedom announced today it would begin to gather signatures to put an initiative petition on the statewide ballot rolling back that ban.
• It’s going to be tremendously difficult to achieve that goal in Missouri, but I send them all of my support in their efforts.
• The next goals of the Republican Party include making contraception (i.e., condoms, birth control pills, etc.) illegal, and then to make same-sex marriage illegal again.
• Don’t sit back and let this happen. Fight. Rally. Vote. Encourage others to join the fight.
• Let’s move on.
• Donnie Dump was threatened with expulsion from his Manhattan civil trial yesterday after he repeatedly ignored a warning to keep quiet while writer E. Jean Carroll testified that he shattered her reputation after she accused him of rape.
• Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told Dump that his right to be present at the trial will be revoked if he remains disruptive. After an initial warning, Carroll’s lawyer said Dumpy could still be heard making remarks to his lawyers, including “it is a witch hunt” and “it really is a con job.”
• “Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial. I understand you’re probably eager for me to do that,” said Kaplan to Big Stinky.
• Because the first jury found that Trump raped Carroll in the 1990s and then defamed her in 2022, the new trial concerns only how much more — if anything — he’ll be ordered to pay her for other remarks he made in 2019 while he was president.
• Carroll is seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and millions more in punitive damages.
• As long as we’re talking about Dumpty Dump, some recent photos show him with some kind of… large, red lesions on his hand.
• People are speculating as to the cause of these grotesque spots, which could be caused by anything from an injury to frostbite to many other culprits. Many people are saying it’s syphilis. I’m not a doctor, so I offer no opinion.
• Let’s talk about Texas.
• The state is refusing to comply with a cease-and-desist letter from the Biden administration over actions by the state that have impeded U.S. Border Patrol agents from accessing part of the border with Mexico.
• In a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton rejected the Biden administration’s request for the state to cease and desist its takeover of Shelby Park, an epicenter of southwest border illegal immigration in Eagle Pass.
• I mean, we don’t want to have the US military fight Texas’s National Guard over this. Other states that decided to go up against the USA haven’t done very well in past situations.
• Can we find some good new in regard to Texas? Yes we can.
• A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that a Texas law banning “sexually explicit” books from public schools likely violates the Constitution, partially upholding a preliminary injunction issued by a lower court.
• The three-judge appeals panel issued a unanimous ruling that the plaintiffs would likely succeed on their claims that Texas’s law violates their First Amendment right to free speech.
• The law, passed in 2023, is one of several passed in GOP-controlled states that restrict schools from carrying certain books that proponents of the laws argue contain inappropriate content, whether related to race, sex, or LGBTQ issues.
• Good. Fuck those backwards-ass cow fuckers.
• Let’s move on.
• An Ohio toddler was sent to the hospital with burns and was struggling to breathe after police raided what may have been the wrong address and used flash-bang devices.
• Courtney Price says audio from her Ring camera captures police acknowledging they had the wrong address. Police in Elyria, OH have offered a conflicting account of what happened on January 10, saying that they had executed a search warrant at the correct address and that the child did not “sustain any apparent, visible injuries.”
• Except the one-year-old child is hospitalized and on a ventilator. Elyria Mayor Kevin A. Brubaker called the incident "serious and disturbing.”
• It’s just infuriating. Events like these further lower the public trust of law enforcement agencies across the country, and for good reason.
• Let’s talk about football. No, not pro football. Youth football.
• California Governor Gavin Newsom this week vetoed a ban against youth tackle football just as it threatened to become a national GOP talking point about government overreach in an election year. The proposed ban aimed to protect young athletes from lifelong brain injuries.
• “I am deeply concerned about the health and safety of our young athletes, but an outright ban is not the answer,” Newsom said. “My administration will work with the Legislature and the bill’s author to strengthen safety in youth football — while ensuring parents have the freedom to decide which sports are most appropriate for their children.”
• I’m a football fan, but I definitely didn’t want my son playing the sport. I personally know people who had injuries in youth football that affected the rest of their lives.
• Regardless, I would support the concept that it’s an individual family’s decision for children to participate (or not) in this violent and dangerous sport that I enjoy as a spectator.
• Moving on.
• I want to once again mention the horrifying crime of financial sextortion against teenagers.
• The way it works is that minors are coerced into sharing compromised images of themselves by criminals who are often working together overseas. The coercion can take place on gaming and video-streaming platforms, or instant messaging apps.
• Children, some as young as 9 years old, are told to send money, or the photos will be posted online. From October 2021 through March 2023, the FBI tracked roughly 12,600 sextortion victims — all of them minors. During that time frame, at least 20 children who were victims of sextortion have died by suicide.
• Please let your kids know two things: first, never to share naked pictures of themselves regardless of who they think they’re talking to, and second, that it’s not their fault if it does happen, and that you support them.
• And never, ever give in to blackmail.
• And now, The Weather: “You Are” by Dolly
• Got a chart for you. We’re going back to this week in January 1967. I was… negative 2-1/2 years old. But I like plenty of music from this specific era. In fact, most of the world was going through a big cultural shift at the time, and you usually get cool music during times of strife.
• 1. I'm A Believer (The Monkees). 2. Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron (The Royal Guardsmen). 3. Tell It Like It Is (Aaron Neville). 4. Winchester Cathedral (The New Vaudeville Band). 5. Sugar Town (Nancy Sinatra). 6. That's Life (Frank Sinatra). 7. Good Thing (Paul Revere & The Raiders Featuring Mark Lindsay). 8. Words Of Love (The Mamas & The Papas). 9. Standing In The Shadows Of Love (Four Tops). 10. Mellow Yellow (Donovan). 11. Coming Home Soldier (Bobby Vinton). 12. Single Girl (Sandy Posey). 13. (I Know) I'm Losing You (The Temptations). 14. Devil With A Blue Dress On & Good Golly Miss Molly (Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels). 15. Tell It To The Rain (The 4 Seasons Featuring the "Sound of Frankie Valli”). 16. Talk Talk (The Music Machine). 17. Good Vibrations (The Beach Boys). 18. Cry (Ronnie Dove). 19. A Place In The Sun (Stevie Wonder). 20. Georgy Girl (The Seekers).
• From the Sports Desk… um, nothing really.
• Oh, here’s a thing.
• For those watching the Super Bowl for the non-football aspects, you can now be aware that country music star Reba McEntire will sing the national anthem, Post Malone will perform "America the Beautiful,” and Andra Day will perform "Lift Every Voice and Sing" as part of the pregame performances.
• There you go.
• Today in history… King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the House of Lancaster and the House of York (1486). James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands” (1778). The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay (1788). An X-ray generating machine is exhibited for the first time by H. L. Smith (1896). Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship (1911). The Paris Peace Conference opens in Versailles, France after WWI (1919). The first uprising of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto (1943). Willie O'Ree, the first Black Canadian National Hockey League player, makes his NHL debut with the Boston Bruins (1958). Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler", is convicted of numerous crimes and is sentenced to life imprisonment (1967). Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires' disease (1977). Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry is arrested for drug possession in an FBI sting (1990). The Airbus A380, the world's largest commercial jet, is unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse, France (2005). 
• January 18 is this birthday of architect John Nash (1752), lawyer/politician Daniel Webster (1782), Australia prime minister Edmund Barton (1849), assistant to Alexander Graham Bell Thomas A. Watson (1854), author A. A. Milne (1882), aviation pioneer Thomas Sopwith (1888), actor/comedian Oliver Hardy (1892), actor Cary Grant (1904), engineer/businessman Ray Dolby (1933), pianist Hargus "Pig" Robbins (1938), singer-songwriter Bobby Goldsboro (1941), singer David Ruffin (1941), actor Kevin Costner (1955), NHL player Mark Messier (1961), politician Martin O’Malley (1963), wrestler/actor Dave Bautista (1969), astronomer Amy Barger (1971), singer-songwriter Jonathan Davis (1971), NFL player Julius Peppers (1980), and NFL player Tee Higgins (1999).

I’m out of time. Got to go. Enjoy your day.