Random News: April 22, 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 22, 2024, and it’s a Monday. I’m trying to get the week stated on a positive note, which isn’t always easy, but worth the effort. Let’s take a look around and see what’s happened and try and be prepared for whatever happens next.

• But first…
• Happy Earth Day. It’s celebrated on April 22 every year since 1970, making this the 54th Earth Day. The purpose of the event is raising awareness about various issues that threaten the environment and endanger the planet.
• The theme this year is "Planet vs. Plastics," which aims to increase public awareness of the detrimental effects that plastic pollution has on both human and environmental health.
• Less than 10% of plastic is recycled. Most is buried, burned, or dumped. Recycling rates for glass, aluminum, and cardboard are far higher. Cardboard and paper packaging is biodegradable.
• Plastic production continues to ramp up globally and is projected to triple by 2050 if nothing changes. Most of it is made from fossil fuels and chemicals. As the world transitions away from using fossil fuels for electricity and transportation, plastics offer a lifeboat for oil and gas companies as a market that can grow.
• I am pretty awful about single-use plastic consumption, and I’d like to make it a personal goal to back off the amount of plastic I consume.
• Maybe you should think about that too.
• President Biden will mark Earth Day by announcing a $7 billion investment in solar energy projects nationwide, focusing on disadvantaged communities, and unveiling a week-long series of what the White House say will be historic climate actions.
• The $7 billion in grants is going through the Environmental Protection Agency’s “solar for all” program, funded by last year’s $369 billion bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act, which the Biden administration says benefits more than 900,000 households.
• The money will be targeted at low-income and disadvantaged areas.
• Good stuff.
• Let’s do more news.
• Despite being the recipient of a big aid package on Saturday, yesterday Israeli leaders harshly criticized an expected decision by the U.S. to impose sanctions on a unit of ultra-Orthodox soldiers in the Israeli military.
• The decision, potentially expected today, would mark the first time the U.S. has ever imposed sanctions on a unit inside the Israeli military.
• Israeli leaders and local media identified the unit as Netzah Yehuda — an infantry battalion founded to incorporate ultra-Orthodox men into the military. Many religious men receive exemptions from what is supposed to be compulsory service.
• The sanctions, which would be imposed under the 1997 Leahy law, would prohibit the transfer of US military aid to the unit and prevent soldiers and officers participating in training either with the US military or in programs that receive US funding.
• That law stops the US from offering aid to hundreds of units around the world accused of rights violations. The state department has been investigating a number of Israeli security units, including police and military, for alleged violations.
• The reported plans were disclosed as Israeli strikes on Rafah on Saturday night killed 22 people, including 18 children.
• Israeli says its unfair and vowed to oppose it. Tough shit.
• Let’s move on for now.
• At this moment in New York City, opening statements are getting underway in Donnie Dump’s first of several criminal trials. Dumpy is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star with whom he paid to have sex.
• Very important note, because I see this shit all the time: he’s not in trouble for paying Stormy Daniels to fuck him, nor for cheating on his wife while she’d just given birth to their son Barron.
• Even if Dumpy had made the payments so his wife wouldn’t find out that he pays women for sex is not a crime. In fact, the defense that he made copayments to save his marriage would help get him off the hook.
• Those things are sleazy but not illegal per se.
• What Dump did, right before the 2016 election, was to reimburse his lawyer Michael Cohen for the $130,000 in payments to Daniels in 12 monthly installments during the first year of his presidency, and he portrayed those payments as checks for ongoing legal services.
• In doing so, he falsified business records, and may have also violated campaign finance laws. As a result, he was charged last year with 34 felony counts.
• Opening statements for the prosecution were expected to go about 40 minutes, and about 25 minutes for the defense this morning. That, as I said, is happening right now as I write this at about 7am PDT.
• The first witness expected in the trial is David Pecker, the former head of the National Enquirer's parent company. Pecker met with Dump and Cohen in 2015 to “help deal with negative stories about Trump” by purchasing them and not publishing them.
• For now, let’s move on. I’m sure there will be plenty of details available later today.
• As we happily reported over the weekend, the House of Representatives finally passed a multitude of foreign aid bills. This made Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) very upset.
• Yesterday, she said that she plans to follow through with an effort to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) if he doesn’t resign.
• Greene will be spearheading an effort by the far-right to once again vacate the Speaker’s chair, as they did with Kevin McCarthy in 2023.
• Chaos and dysfunction is their goal.
• Johnson seems to have a good outlook on all this, "I have to do my job. We did. I’ve done here what I believe to be the right thing, and that is to allow the House to work its will. And as I’ve said, you do the right thing and you let the chips fall where they may, and I’ll continue to do that.”
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, California Governor Gavin Newsom said he would introduce legislation that would help Arizonans get abortions in his state, a move that comes after the Arizona Supreme Court this month ruled that a near-total abortion ban from 1864 will take effect in the coming weeks.
• Arizona’s GOP-controlled legislature chose last week to not repeal the Civil War-era law.
• The best way to give women the right to control their own reproductive choices is to remove politicians who want to force them to give birth — even in cases of rape, incest, and when the mother’s life is in danger — and replace them with candidates who support women’s rights.
• Let’s move on.
• A follow-up on something we mentioned previously: today, the Supreme Court will consider whether banning homeless people from sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
• The case comes from the rural Oregon town of Grants Pass, which started fining people $295 for sleeping outside to manage homeless encampments that sprung up in the city’s public parks as the cost of housing escalated.
• Grants Pass v. Johnson is considered the most significant case to come before the high court in decades on homelessness, which has reached record levels in the United States.
• In other news…
• Late on Friday, a third temporary channel in the Port of Baltimore was opened, allowing more vessels and goods to flow into the crucial shipping center following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month.
• The passageway was opened by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) as it continues to clear away the wreckage of the Dali, the container ship that collided with the bridge, as well as the twisting metal and chunks of concrete from the bridge itself.
• USACE, along with the Coast Guard and other responding crews, have been able to remove around 120 containers from the wreck of the Dali, and hope to finally move the ship after taking away 140. 3,000 tons of bridge steel has also been removed from the port.
• Good job, people.
• And now, The Weather: “Theodor Marmalade” by Apifera
• A heads-up to the astronomy world: tomorrow night, a pink moon will rise.
• No, it doesn’t actually look pink. The name of April’s full moon comes from the color of the earliest widespread flowers of spring, notably the creeping phlox native to the eastern US.
• And of course, it’s also the name of perhaps the most well-known song by singer-songwriter Nick Drake. The moon will appear mostly full from tonight through Thursday.
• Let’s do a chart. It’s the top of the Billboard 200 albums from this date in 1992. What am I doing at that time? I’m getting toward the end of my college life and figuring out what’s next. I’m living in Long Beach with my dad and then-fiancee, which is not at all ideal but beats being homeless.
• 1. Wayne's World (Soundtrack). 2. Ropin' The Wind (Garth Brooks). 3. Nevermind (Nirvana). 4. As Ugly As They Wanna Be (Ugly Kid Joe). 5. No Fences (Garth Brooks). 6. Metallica (Metallica). 7. Achtung Baby (U2). 8. Funky Divas (En Vogue). 9. Classic Queen (Queen). 10. Time, Love And Tenderness (Michael Bolton). 11. Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Red Hot Chili Peppers). 12. Dangerous (Michael Jackson). 13. Cooleyhighharmony (Boyz II Men). 14. We Can't Dance (Genesis). 15. Unforgettable: With Love (Natalie Cole). 16. Luck Of The Draw (Bonnie Raitt). 17. C.M.B. (Color Me Badd). 18. The Comfort Zone (Vanessa Williams). 19. Lean Into It (Mr. Big), 20. Emotions (Mariah Carey).
• From the Sports Desk… while NBA and NHL playoffs are in full swing, and baseball season is fully underway, my focus will turn later this week to the NFL draft, which starts Thursday evening.
• It’s always fun to watch, mostly to see how the experts are often wrong in their predictions in terms of what teams need and who they take.
• Today in history… Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés establishes a settlement at Veracruz, Mexico (1519). The U.S. Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 that permitted the inscription ‘In God We Trust’ be placed on all coins minted as United States currency (1864). The first National League baseball game is played at the Jefferson Street Grounds in Philadelphia (1876). President William McKinley calls for 125,000 volunteers to join the National Guard and fight in Cuba, while Congress more than doubles regular Army forces to 65,000 (1898). The first Earth Day is celebrated (1970). Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic (1977). The Paris Agreement is signed, an agreement to help fight global warming (2016).
• April 22 is the birthday of philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724), feminist/suffragist Emily Davies (1830), revolutionary Vladimir Lenin (1870), novelist Vladimir Nabokov (1899), physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904), painter Richard Diebenkorn (1922), bassist/composer Charles Mingus (1922), TV producer Aaron Spelling (1923), actress Charlotte Rae (1926), actress Estelle Harris (1928), singer-songwriter/guitarist Glen Campbell (1936), actor Jack Nicholson (1937), pianist/composer Jack Nitzsche (1937), fashion designer Issey Miyake (1938), actor/director John Waters (1946), singer-songwriter/guitarist Peter Frampton (1950), actor Ryan Stiles (1959),  NFL player Jeff Hostetler (1961), actress Amber Heard (1986), NFL player Marshawn Lynch (1986), and rapper Machine Gun Kelly (1990).

I spent a good portion of the weekend working on a new song, and while it was an enjoyable process, I hit the almost inevitable point of creative work where I’ve decided I don’t really like the song I made. It happens. Enjoy your day.