Random News: February 15, 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 February 15, 2024, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. My time to give you some news is severely limited this morning; I’m having to head back to my dentist for an 8am appointment because despite being on antibiotics for a week, the infection around my recent dental work isn’t going away. Lucky me, huh?

• Let’s start with some breaking news.
• Just a few minutes ago, Judge Juan Merchan denied former President Donnie Dump's request to dismiss criminal charges related to the hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
• He also said Dump’s trial would proceed as scheduled on March 25, delivering a blow to El Dumpo’s efforts to delay what would be the first criminal trial of any former president in U.S. history.
• Ha ha, sucker. FA, FO.
• A grand jury voted to indict Dump on March 30, 2023, charging him with 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. Dump has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.
• Moving on…
• This sounds like something that’s rather important.
• House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Turner (R-OH) has made information concerning a “serious national security threat” available to all members of Congress to review, the committee said yesterday.
• Turner and the White House remained vague on what the threat entailed, but sources familiar with deliberations on Capitol Hill said the intelligence has to do with Russia wanting to put a nuclear weapon into space. This would not be to drop a nuclear weapon onto Earth but rather to possibly use against satellites.
• House Speaker Mike Johnson said yesterday afternoon that there was no cause for alarm.
• I don’t believe him about… well, anything, but Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House committee, also said the intelligence is not “a cause for panic.”
• Here’s hoping.
• In other Dumpy News…
• Special counsel Jack Smith urged the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday to let former President and current accused felon Donald John Trump’s 2020 election interference case proceed to trial without further delay.
• Prosecutors were responding to a Trump team request from earlier in the week asking for a continued pause in the case as the court considers whether to take up the question of whether the former president is immune from prosecution for official acts in the White House.
• I can make this really easy. First, he’s not immune, and second, no one is above the law. Try his sorry ass.
• In other news, X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, is potentially violating U.S. sanctions by accepting payments for subscription accounts from terrorist organizations and other groups barred from doing business in the country.
• X, formerly known as Twitter, has taken payments from accounts that include Hezbollah leaders, Houthi groups, and state-run media outlets in Iran and Russia. The subscriptions, which cost $8 a month, offer users a blue check mark — once limited to verified users like celebrities — and better promotion by X’s algorithm, among other perks.
• Is anyone actually surprised by this? The world’s wealthiest and most powerful people all act under the assumption that laws only apply to little people.
• Moving on.
• I typically cover incidents of gun violence in our Sunday column, but I skipped that this past weekend while enjoying the Super Bowl.
• Ironic, then, that this mid-week incident was related to that football game.
• One person was killed and more than 20 others were injured after a mass shooting yesterday that erupted at the conclusion of a Super Bowl victory celebration for the Kansas City Chiefs.
• Multiple victims are in critical or serious condition, and 10 or more of those shot were children.
• This mass shooting happened six years to the day after 14 students and three staff members were killed in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL on Valentine’s Day 2018. 
• Yesterday also saw four students get shot at Benjamin E. Mays High School high school in Atlanta, GA.
• Maybe it’s the guns.
• Moving on.
• Lara Dump, the wife of L’il Eric Dump and the newly nominated co-chair of the Republican National Committee, said that every single penny from the RNC will go to Dump himself.
• How’d you like to be some other GOP candidate and hear that going into the election season?
• Dump nominated his daughter-in-law to an RNC leadership post earlier this week. Dumpy also tapped Michael Whatley, the chairman of the state GOP in North Carolina, to be national chair.
• And now, The Weather: “Obituary” by Chris Emond
• In case you were keeping track (I sure wasn’t)… this Random News blog has reached a total word count of 857,506 words since I started it in May 2022.
• Let’s say it’s been 639 days that I’ve been posting this thing. That means my daily average is about 1,342 words. Considering I wrap it up before 8am every weekday, that’s some decent productivity while I’m still on my first cup of coffee.
• Side note for clarity and transparency: this is not journalism. I don’t interview people or check sources. I just amalgamate info via various news sources, and then editorialize in between.
• I try and only turn to very neutral news sources, like AP and Reuters, to confirm information. I often hear about news all over the place, from social media like Threads, to specialized sources like The Hill and Politico, to mainstream but slanted sources like Fox and WaPo.
• But I never run stories here that I can’t absolutely confirm as being accurate. If I can’t, I don’t include them.
• Also, I don’t do sensational news here unless I feel that relaying it to people is a public service from which they can personally benefit. That’s why you almost never read anything about murder-for-hire plots, horrible car crashes, and other things that make clickbait headlines.
• I don’t give a flying fuck who reads this. There’s no agenda here. I don’t make any money from it. If you enjoy it, I’m happy you do. If not, it doesn’t matter at all, to me or anyone.
• From the Sports Desk… something fascinating didn’t happen before today’s NBA trade deadline.
• Over a secretive 24-hour window that included owner-to-owner conversations, the Golden State Warriors made an unsuccessful bid to convince the Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James to consider a trade to pair him with longtime rival Steph Curry.
• The Dubs were eager to present a package deal to L.A., but neither the Lakers nor James were willing to explore a potential blockbuster. Even at 39 years old, James is still playing at an All-NBA level, and the Warriors’ dynasty-level play is fading fast so they could have used the help.
• Glad we still have LeBron on the Lakers. I think he’ll retire here.
• Today in history… The city of St. Louis is established in Spanish Louisiana — now in Missouri, USA (1764). Confederates commanded by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd attack General Ulysses S. Grant's Union forces besieging Fort Donelson in Tennessee and the Confederates surrender the following day (1862). US President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States (1879). The battleship USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor in Cuba, killing about 274 of the ship's roughly 354 crew and giving the United States an excuse to declare war on Spain (1898). In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate US President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but instead shoots Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak (1933). ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (1946). Canada and the United States agree to construct the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska (1954). A new red-and-white maple leaf design is adopted as the flag of Canada, replacing the old Canadian Red Ensign banner (1965). Sound recordings are granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time (1972). Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced in Milwaukee to 15 terms of life in prison (1992). Protests against the Iraq war take place in over 600 cities worldwide in the largest peace demonstration in history (2003). A meteor explodes over Russia, injuring 1,500 people as a shock wave blows out windows and rocks buildings (2013).
• February 15 is the birthday of Italian ruler Piero the Unfortunate (1472), astronomer/physicist Galileo Galilei (1564), French king Louis XV (1710), businessman Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812), suffragist/activist Susan B. Anthony (1820), politician Elihu Root (1845), politician James Forrestal (1892), actor Cesar Romero (1907), politician Endicott Peabody (1920), actor Harvey Korman (1927), astronaut Roger B. Chaffee (1935), NFL player Ken Anderson (1949), singer-songwriter Melissa Manchester (1951), animator Matt Groening (1954), actor Chris Farley (1964), actress Alex Borstein (1971), my sister Danielle (1972), NHL great Jaromír Jágr (1972), singer-songwriter Brandon Boyd (1976), singer-songwriter Conor Oberst (1980), and rapper Megan Thee Stallion (1995).

That’s not nearly all the news today, but there will be other days and other news to talk about. In case you’re wondering; what I’m hopeful about in regard to today’s dental visit is that I simply need a stronger antibiotic than amoxicillin, and that will end up clearing up these shitty, painful ongoing issues in my mouth. Perhaps my biggest personality flaw is that I sort of want everything to be perfect all the time. It’s not realistic, but it does push me to at least try and make things better. The current situation is not at all acceptable… I don’t want constant pain and feeling run down. I want to be able to eat normally, be productive with work, and enjoy life as I usually do. So wish me luck, and I’ll let you know how things go. Enjoy your day.