Random News: January 9, 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 9, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. I’m your personal news concierge, scrolling through all the shit that makes today’s headlines so you don’t have to. Convenient, aren’t I? Let’s take a look around and see what’s happening.

• As I write this, the once-President and now disgraced criminal Donald John Trump sits in a. courtroom where federal appeals court judges are questioning whether he is immune from prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in a chain of events that culminated in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
• It’s actually a bigger question being asked. Dump claims he is immune from any and all crimes he committed as president. 
• Judge Florence Pan immediately peppered Dump's lawyer with hypothetical situations in which, under Dump's theory, presidents could not be prosecuted. Could a president, she asked, be prosecuted for selling pardons or military secrets, or by ordering the assassination of a political opponent?
• His lawyer D. John Sauer responded that such a prosecution can only take place if the president is impeached and convicted by the Senate first.
• Whatever happens today, the losing party is likely to immediately appeal to the Supreme Court. The justices would then face a decision on whether to take up the case and issue their own ruling, potentially also on a fast-tracked basis.
• This is big stuff and will reverberate into the future of America and the world. I’ll keep you posted.
• Want some more news of the Smelly Man? Sure, why not?
• Dump said he hopes the U.S. economy crashes sometime in the next 12 months.
• That’s right. The GOP frontrunner said that if he wins the 2024 election against President Joe Biden, then he does not want his second term in the White House to be reminiscent of Herbert Hoover's presidency, so he hopes the economy will crash now so Biden is blamed rather than himself.
• What a prick.
• While we’re on the topic of that prick, we should get this out of the way.
• One of Dump's co-defendants in his Georgia election interference case is seeking to dismiss the indictment against him and disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, alleging that she engaged in a personal, romantic relationship with one of the top prosecutors she brought in to work on the case.
• Don’t laugh. This kind of thing has been used in the past to disqualify criminal prosecutions.
• We’ll keep an eye on that too. Moving on, for now.
• Out in Fort Worth, TX, where I have a number of good friends and acquaintances, at least 21 people were injured after an explosion yesterday blew up the Sandman hotel in the city’s downtown area.
• One person was in critical condition and four others were seriously injured. Fire officials believe the blast was caused by some type of gas explosion, but are still working to verify the cause.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, the Republican Party of Florida ousted its chairman, more than a month after the police in Sarasota confirmed that he was under criminal investigation for sexual assault.
• Christian Ziegler has resisted calls for him to step down, keeping the scandal in the headlines and exasperating Republicans who insisted that he could not survive the political repercussions of such a serious accusation. He’d already been stripped of his duties and his annual salary of $120,000 after Gov. Ron DeSantis, U.S. Senator Rick Scott and some county-level Republican chairs had urged him to go.
• This is the guy who allegedly raped the woman who’d had sex with his anti-LGBTQ (yet bisexual) wife. Nice guy.
• Let’s move on.
• Millions of people could lose affordable access to internet service with an FCC program, the Affordable Connectivity Program, set to run out of funds.
• I think we can all agree that in 2024, broadband interact access is a crucial utility in most homes. The program was’t providing much, maybe $30/month for many families, but it was enough to offset costs enough to receive the internet at their homes.
• Rural areas have it even worse, where fees to receive internet services are sometimes double what they are in urban and suburban places due to the higher infrastructure costs.
• FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel urged Congress to provide $6 billion dollars in funding that the Biden administration has requested in order to continue running the Affordable Connectivity Program for the rest of the year. 
• I support this.
• Some asshole crashed his car into an exterior gate of the White House complex in Washington last night. President Biden was not at the White House at the time of the crash.
• The Secret Service chief of communications, Anthony Guglielmi, said a driver was taken into custody as they investigated the cause and purpose of the driver. Law enforcement officers said the driver was a man who is believed to have mental health challenges.
• Welp, there you go.
• And now, The Weather: “You'll Be Remembered” by hockey season
• And yes, weather is perhaps the most important news of all on this winter morning. All across the country, there are polar vortices, storms, states of emergency, damaging winds, travel advisories, school closures, and more.
• Stay safe. Stay warm.
• When beloved singer Sinead O’Connor died last July, a lot of assumed given her background that it was via suicide or overdose or the like. That was not the case.
• A coroner in London ruled yesterday that O’Connor, 56, died from natural causes. That’s… good, I guess? She’s missed in any case.
• From the Sports Desk… you’ll probably want to know what the oddsmakers in Vegas have to say about the predicted point spreads in the upcoming NFL Wild Card round of playoff games. Most of these games, with some notable exceptions, are expected to be pretty close.
• Browns (-2.5) over Texans.
• Chiefs (-3.5) over Dolphins.
• Bills (-10) over Steelers… yikes!
• Cowboys (-7.5) over Packers.
• Lions (-3.5) over Rams.
• Eagles (-2.5) over Buccaneers.
• And as a reminder for those who don’t follow too closely… the top-seed Ravens (AFC) and 49ers (NFC) have first round byes and will start their playoffs in the Divisional round the following week.
• Also in the NFL, coaching carnage week continues, this time with the firing of Atlanta Falons head coach Arthur Smith after three seasons. He got the boot late Sunday night after a 48-17 loss to the New Orleans Saints with a playoff berth on the line.
• Another coach has been speculated to be heading toward a job change, and shockingly it’s Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots, one of the winningest head coaches in NFL history.
• Yesterday, he spoke of analyzing the team's disappointing 4-13 season, and also stated, "I'm under contract. I'm going to do what I always do, which is every day I come in, work as hard as I can to help the team in whatever way I can."
• Belichick also said he will soon meet with Patriots ownership, as he has done at various times after seasons in past years.
• Also in sports, congrats to the Michigan Wolverines, who beat the Washington Huskies for the national title, their first since 1997.
• A lot of you seem perturbed that I don’t cover NCAA sports, but… I just don’t, and I’ll continue to not. I also don’t cover many other amateur things in life beyond sports.
• One other item from the Sports Desk, and it’s an RIP to soccer player Franz Beckenbauer, who was regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time. He died at the age of 78.
• Pelé had referred to Beckenbauer as "one of the best I ever saw play.” Beckenbauer is one of just three people to have won the World Cup as both a player and coach.
• Today in history… King Erwig of the Visigoths initiates a council in which he implements measures against the Jews in Spain (681). The Jewish population of Basel, believed by the residents to be the cause of the ongoing Black Death, is rounded up and incinerated (1349). Connecticut becomes the fifth state to ratify the United States Constitution (1788). British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger introduces an income tax of two shillings to the pound to raise funds for Great Britain's war effort in the Napoleonic Wars (1799). The Portuguese prince Pedro I of Brazil decides to stay in Brazil against the orders of the Portuguese King João VI, beginning the Brazilian independence process (1822). Mississippi becomes the second state to secede from the Union before the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861). Ernest Shackleton plants the British flag 97 nautical miles from the South Pole, the farthest anyone had ever reached at that time (1909). Battle of Bear Valley, the last battle of the American Indian Wars (1918). British Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden resigns from office following his failure to retake the Suez Canal from Egyptian sovereignty (1957). The first discoveries of extrasolar planets are announced by astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail (1992). Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the original iPhone at a Macworld keynote in San Francisco (2007). 
• January 9 is the birthday of composer John Knowles Paine (1839), activist Carrie Chapman Catt (1859), engineer Joseph Strauss (1870), art collector Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875), psychologist John B. Watson (1879), philosopher/activist Simone de Beauvoir (1908), US president Richard Nixon (1913), actor Lee Van Cleef (1925), NFL player Bart Starr (1934), actor Bob Denver (1935), singer-songwriter/activist Joan Baez (1941), guitarist/songwriter/producer Jimmy Page (1944), singer Crystal Gayle (1951), actor J. K. Simmons (1955), NBA player Muggsy Bogues (1965), singer-songwriter Dave Matthews (1967), and NFL player Chad Johnson (1978).

Well, that last thing in the world I want to do is change into sweats and go downstairs to my living room where it’s the same goddamn 40 degrees as it is outside, just so I can workout. But if I don’t, I’ll feel weird about it all fucking day, so here I go. Enjoy your day.