Random News: April 19, 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 April 19, 2024, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! We’ve made it through another week, and if it’s news you’re here to seek, my name is Zak the Info Geek; scroll down a bit and take a peek.

• Against the urging of the international community, Israel launched a drone offensive against Iran early today, responding to the Iranian attack last weekend which has fueled mounting concerns over a wider war in the Middle East.
• The extent of the damage, if any, was unclear. No damage was reported at Iran's nuclear sites. Iran claims to have hit three drones over the city of Isfahan, causing a small number of explosions in an area where a military base and nuclear facilities are located.
• Much like Iran’s attack, Israel’s retaliatory strike appears to have been very limited in scope and designed to avoid turning the long-running shadow war between the two Middle East rivals into a full-blown conflagration.
• The attack was a response to Iran’s offensive the previous weekend, which itself was a response to a reported Israeli airstrike on an Iranian embassy compound in Syria that killed multiple officers, including a top commander.
• See how this shit escalates?
• As the US, UK, and other countries are recommending, hopefully calmer heads can prevail and not turn this into WWIII. That would be nice.
• In related news, New York City police arrested at least 108 people yesterday during a pro-Palestinian protest on Columbia University's campus after the university's president requested their removal.
• More than 100 people occupied the campus' South Lawn for more than 30 hours. Those who were taken into custody were issued summonses for trespassing. Two people were also charged with obstruction of governmental administration.
• And then the police presence led to another impromptu protest in support of those who were detained. Sigh. See how this shit escalates? Wait, I just said that.
• Side note: Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), was suspended from Barnard College over her involvement in the protest.
• Side note 2: I, too, protest. I’ve been a part of marches, rallies, public speeches, all of it. I support that right. What I don’t do is protest on private property, or disrupt people’s ability to lead their lives just because I’m passionate about a cause.
• That doesn’t make me a very good militant activist, because I’m not one. I’m a chill activist. A chillivist, perhaps.
• Something I am definitely NOT chill about: women’s reproductive rights.
• Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
• One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.
• I thought all of this action by Republicans was meant to help save the lives of babies?
• Fucking pieces of shit. Vote them all out. Every one of them.
• And some good news in that regard: the Nevada Supreme Court will allow an abortion measure to be on the ballot this November. If passed, the measure would enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution.
• Let’s go! Nevadans, you know what to do. VOTE!
• Moving on.
• Here’s an update from the third day of the criminal trial of Donald John Trump, accused felon.
• They now now seated 12 jurors and selected one alternate. As per our reporting yesterday, two of the originally-selected jurors cannot fill their duties.
• The first, whom we mentioned yesterday, was not sure she’d be able to act fairly and impartially toward Dump.
• The second one released was the man who’d said he found Dump “fascinating and mysterious.” Turns out that he was arrested in the 1990s for tearing down political advertisements, and his wife was a participant in a corruption inquiry—none of which the juror disclosed to the court.
• The is apparently a big win for the prosecutors; Dump’s team had really wanted him on the jury, hoping to use his previous actions as cause for a mistrial.
• So they were down to five, and then added seven more plus one alternate (they’ll need five more alternates to complete the process).
• Now that’s the jury is seated, here’s a recap that includes info on each of the seven men and five women who were sworn in (and yes, I’m repeating some of this from the other day, to be clear).
• Juror 1 (foreperson): Originally from Ireland, works in sales, has some college education, married no kids. Reads the New York Times and Daily Mail, watches some Fox News and MSNBC. 
• Juror 2: Investment banker with a Master's degree. Married, no kids. Follows Dump's Truth Social posts as well as Michael Cohen on X. Has seen quotes from Trump’s book, "The Art of the Deal."
• Juror 3: Corporate lawyer from Oregon. Gets news from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal. and Google. Younger guy, never married, no kids.
• Juror 4: Security engineer. Married, three kids, has a high school diploma, uses no social media.
• Juror 5: Young Black woman. Teaches English in a public school. Master’s degree in education. Not married, no kids. 
• Juror 6: Software engineer at a large broadcast company,, recently college grad. Not married, no kids, lives with three roommates in Chelsea. Gets her news from NYT, Google, Facebook, and TikTok. 
• Juror 7: Civil litigator, married, two kids, lives on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. From North Carolina. Reads the NYT, WSJ, New York Post, and Washington Post.
• Juror 8: Retired wealth manager. Married with two kids. Does fly fishing and yoga.
• Juror 9: Speech therapist with a Master’s degree. Not married, no kids.
• Juror 10: Works for an e-commerce company, doesn’t follow the news. Listens to podcasts on behavioral psychology. Unmarried. Spends time outdoors and with animals. 
• Juror 11: Works for a multinational apparel company, not married, no kids. Doesn’t follow the news but occasionally sees headlines. 
• Pausing a moment… she was seated on the jury despite Dump’s challenge to remove her for cause. His lawyers argued she should be dismissed because she said she does not like Trump’s “persona.”
• Snort. I mean, no one likes that. They’d never come up with 12 people who actually liked him.
• Juror 12: Physical therapist with a doctorate degree. Reads/watches the New York Times, USA Today, and CNN. 
• Alternate 1: Analyst for an asset management company, grew up in England. Reads the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
• That looks to me like a batch of very typical people who live in Manhattan. I can’t say from any of that whether they’d be biased for or against Dumples.
• The only other thing to report for now… prosecutors asked for Trump to be held in contempt over a series of social media posts this week, and the judge barred reporters from identifying jurors’ employers after expressing privacy concerns.
• Please note that I have respected the judge’s orders here.
• A couple of the dismissed potential jurors had some comical statements to the media afterwards. One was a woman who was dismissed yesterday because she couldn’t be impartial, and stated, “You know, he looked less orange. Definitely. Like, more yellowish.”
• Good to know.
• Another woman, this one dismissed from the larger pool due to work conflicts, said it was jarring when she realized she’d been chosen as a potential juror for Dumpy’s hush money trial.
• When the jury pool walked in the room and saw Dumpy himself, “Everybody was shocked. Everybody was frozen,” she said. “And you get the sense that it’s like, ‘Oh, this is just another guy.’ And also he sees me talking about him, which is bizarre.”
• I’ll bet.
• They’ll finish picking alternate jurors today. Opening statements will begin as early as Monday, and the case is expected last no more than eight weeks.
• Moving on for now.
• On Monday, the Supreme Court will weigh arguments in the most significant case involving the homeless in decades.
• We already mentioned the case, Grants Pass vs. Johnson, earlier this week. It involves whether laws that punish homeless people with civil citations for camping on public property are outside the bounds of the Constitution.
• On any given night there are over a quarter million unsheltered people in the U.S., per estimates by the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2023. Homelessness rose 12% from 2022 to 2023, its highest level since tracking began in 2007.
• The Court’s ruling will either make it easier for cities to punish people for sleeping outside while failing to provide them shelter or housing, or it will push cities to fund actual solutions to homelessness.
• Here’s hoping.
• While that trial was progressing in a rather normal way yesterday, El Dumpo got some very bad, not good, rather sad news in another of his criminal trials via U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who ruled that lawsuits filed against Donald Trump over his actions tied to the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol were allowed to advance despite Dump’s request to pause litigation amid his related criminal case in Washington, D.C.
• Ha ha!
• Some terrific news for the environment came yesterday in the form of a new Interior Department rule that puts conservation, recreation and renewable energy development on equal footing with oil and gas drilling, hardrock mining, and livestock grazing on public lands across the country.
• It’s a huge shift in the management of roughly 245 million acres of public property — about one-tenth of the nation’s land mass. But expect legal challenges from fossil fuel industry groups and Republican officials.
• In addition to leases to oil and gas companies, mining firms, and ranchers, the Bureau of Land Management for the first time will auction off restoration and mitigation leases to entities with plans to restore or conserve public lands.
• Awesome.
• Did you buy a Cybertruck from Elon Musk? Give it back.
• Tesla is recalling every single one of the 3,878 Cybertrucks that it has shipped to date due to a problem where the accelerator pedal can get stuck, putting drivers at risk of a crash.
• Also, apparently if you put your Cybertruck through a car wash, it turns into a shiny brick, per reports.
• I’ve still never seen one in person, though I’ve been told there are several around my area. I’ll try not to barf when it eventually happens.
• In other news…
• The TikTok ban is happening.
• If the popular video-sharing app does not divest from China-based ByteDance within one year, it will be banned nationwide. 
• The bill to ban TikTok already passed the House in a bipartisan 352-65 vote in March. It had stalled in the Senate, but now the House is packaging a slightly revised TikTok ban with billions in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, all but guaranteeing the ban will become law.
• The House plans to pass the combined foreign aid and TikTok package Saturday night and send it to the Senate, setting up a possible vote as early as next week.
• Moving on.
• An Arizona Republican done fucked up.
• Now Republicans in the state will have to rely on a write-in campaign to hold a state House seat after Rep. Austin Smith (R-Surprise) ended his campaign after it came out that signatures on his nominating petitions were forged.
• By himself. D’oh!
• Keep in mind: Arizona’s GOP House has a tiny one-vote majority, and it can't afford to concede any safe districts.
• Smith’s former district is overwhelmingly Republican, but I love that they’re having to scramble.
• In somewhat similar news…
• Yet another GOP House member is getting the fuck out of that hellhole.
• Rep. Jake LaTurner's (R-KS) is “retiring” from the House at age 36 after just three years in office. House Republicans say they expect more retirement announcements in the coming weeks.
• LaTurner makes nearly 20 House Republicans who have left or are planning to leave Congress without immediate plans to run for another office. Another five are seeking higher office.
• Moving on.
• In today’s Asshole Files, meet Sean Patrick Palmer, 49, of Perkins, OK. He was arrested this week for throwing a pipe bomb that damaged The Satanic Temple headquarters in Salem, MA.
• There’s security video footage of Palmer igniting and throwing a pipe bomb over a fence and onto the covered porch of The Satanic Temple building. The explosive partially detonated and caused minor fire damage to the exterior of the building.
• Fuck you. Throwing bombs at a place of worship is never, ever okay.
• And now, The Weather: “Turtleneck Weather” by JW Francis
• A big RIP to singer-songwriter and terrific influential guitarist Dickey Betts, who died yesterday at age 80.
• If you’ve ever heard music categorized as “Southern Rock,” Dickey is the man who set the standard for it. Betts was a cofounder of the Allman Brothers Band in 1969.
• Dickey was also a fine singer. While many of the band’s big hits were sing by Gregg Allman, Dickey sometimes took the vocals on tunes he’d written, which include two of my favorites by the band: “Blue Sky” and “Ramblin' Man.”
• Let’s do a chart. This time, it’s the very bottom of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for this date in April 1969.
• I recognize many of the artists but only a few of the songs. But hey, having a song anywhere on the charts is better than 99.999% of musicians ever get to experience.
• 81. Cissy Strut (The Meters). 82. Tracks Of My Tears (Aretha Franklin). 83. Morning Girl (The Neon Philharmonic), 84. Back In The U.S.S.R. (Chubby Checker). 85. Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine) (The Vogues). 86. Goodbye (Mary Hopkin). 87.(We've Got) Honey Love (Martha Reeves & The Vandellas). 88. Any Day Now (Percy Sledge). 89. I've Been Hurt (Bill Deal & The Rhondels). 90. A Million To One (Brian Hyland). 91. Breakfast In Bed (Dusty Springfield). 92. California Girl (And The Tennessee Square) (Tompall & The Glaser Brothers). 93. There Never Was A Time (Jeannie C. Riley). 94. Singing My Song (Tammy Wynette). 95. Rhythm Of The Rain (Gary Lewis And The Playboys). 96. Sorry Suzanne (The Hollies). 97. It's A Groovy World! (The Unifics). 98. I Can't Do Enough (The Dells). 99. I'm A Drifter (Bobby Goldsboro). 100. July You're A Woman (Pat Boone).
• If you’re curious, the #1 song at that moment was Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures) (The 5th Dimension).
• From the Sports Desk… NHL playoff teams are ready to face off.
• Atlantic Division: 1-seed Florida Panthers vs. Wild Card 1 Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-seed Boston Bruins vs. 3-seed Toronto Maple Leafs.
• Metropolitan Division: 1-seed New York Rangers vs. Wild Card 2 Washington Capitals, 2-seed Carolina Hurricanes vs. 3-seed New York Islanders.
• Central Division: 1-seed Dallas Stars vs. Wild Card 2 Vegas Golden Knights, 2-seed Winnipeg Jets vs. 3-seed Colorado Avalanche.
• Pacific Division: 1-seed Vancouver Canucks vs. Wild Card 1 Nashville Predators, 2-seed Edmonton Oilers vs. 3-seed Los Angeles Kings.
• Playoff games begin tomorrow.
• Today in history… Captain James Cook, still holding the rank of lieutenant, sights the eastern coast of what is now Australia (1770). The American Revolutionary War begins with an American victory in Concord during the battles of Lexington and Concord (1775). John Adams secures Dutch recognition of the United States as an independent government (1782). A pro-Secession mob in Baltimore attacks United States Army troops marching through the city (1861). Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for her play ‘Sex’ (1927). Actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier of Monaco (1956). Students in South Korea hold a nationwide pro-democracy protest against president Syngman Rhee, eventually forcing him to resign (1960). Charles Manson is sentenced to death — later commuted to life imprisonment —  for conspiracy in the Tate–LaBianca murders (1971). Two hundred ATF and FBI agents lay siege to the compound of the white supremacist survivalist group The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord in Arkansas; they surrender two days later (1985). ‘The Simpsons’ first appear as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show, first starting with "Good Night” (1987). The 51-day FBI siege of the Branch Davidian building in Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out (1993). The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, OK is bombed, killing 168 people including 19 children under the age of six (1995). Fidel Castro resigns as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba after holding the title since July 1961 (2011). Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is killed in a shootout with police (2013).
• April 19 is the birthday of musician Christoph Bach (1613), politician Roger Sherman (1721), labor organizer Sarah Bagley (1806), writer/editor Mary Louise Booth (1831), actress Constance Talmadge (1898), law enforcement agent Eliot Ness (1903), chemist Glenn T. Seaborg (1912), actress Jayne Mansfield (1933), actor Dudley Moore (1935), keyboardist Alan Price (1942), keyboardist Bernie Worrell (1944), actor Tim Curry (1946), record executive Suge Knight (1965), actress Ashley Judd (1968), actor James Franco (1978), actress Kate Hudson (1979), NFL player Troy Polamalu (1981), comedian Ali Wong (1982), WNBA player Candace Parker (1986), and tennis player Maria Sharapova (1987).

My goodness, that’s too much stuff. I’m going to go do things now. Enjoy your day.