Random News: May 23, 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 May 23, 2024, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I had a rare night of not-great sleep, which means I only got about six hours instead of my usual seven or eight. I know some of you have actual insomnia and I don’t know how you survive. Anyway, I’m glad to have this coffee, and let’s check out what’s happening in this world.

• The U.N. World Food Program said yesterday that it has handed out in Gaza in recent days a “limited number” of high-energy biscuits that arrived from a U.S.-built pier, the first aid from the new humanitarian sea route to get into the hands of Palestinians in grave need.
• A total of 41 trucks loaded with aid from the more than $320 million pier have reached humanitarian organizations in Gaza.
• American officials hope the pier at maximum capacity can bring the equivalent of 150 truckloads of aid to Gaza each day.
• While the’s better than nothing, it’s just a fraction of the 600 truckloads of food, emergency nutritional treatments, and other supplies that USAID says are needed each day to bring people in Gaza back from the start of famine and address the humanitarian crisis brought on by the seven-month-old Israel-Hamas war.
• Here’s hoping for this insane war to end and for these people to stop dying of starvation.
• Moving on.
• This morning, the Supreme Court upheld a Republican-drawn congressional district in South Carolina, reversing a lower court that had declared its boundaries an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. 
• In a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines, the justices signed off on a design that bolsters the GOP tilt of Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-SC) district.
• The high court’s ultra right-wing majority rejected arguments that the design impermissibly shifted some 30,000 Black Charleston-area voters to a different district.
• Because of course they did.
• In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan, joined by fellow justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the conservative majority is “reworking the law” to “impede racial-gerrymandering cases.” 
• Accurate. Moving on to some better news.
• Yesterday the Senate confirmed President Biden's 200th judicial nominee, surpassing the number of appointments to the federal judiciary made by his two most recent predecessors at this point in their presidencies.
• With the most recent confirmations, President Biden has placed 42 judges on the U.S. courts of appeals, 155 judges on the U.S. district courts, and two on the Court of International Trade. 
• And of course, he also named Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court in 2022, a history-making nomination as she became the first Black woman to serve on the nation's highest court.
• All of these judicial appointments are for a lifetime, and Joe’s positive impact on the country will reverberate far into the future.
• There are still more than 40 current open seats on the federal judiciary, and another 28 future vacancies. Biden has two dozen nominees pending. The country has more than 860 authorized judgeships. 
• Let’s move on to a criminal case against Dumpy that you hopefully haven’t forgotten about: the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
• During a marathon day of proceedings yesterday, a morning hearing in front of Judge Aileen Cannon devolved into a shouting match amongst the attorneys, and the afternoon series of arguments prompted the judge to wonder if the legal nuances of the case may be too difficult for jurors to understand.
• Jesus fucking Christ.
• As is often the case any any criminal proceeding, the defense is trying to get the charges dismissed on various grounds. 
• Cannon seemed skeptical of those arguments, while also expressing concern about a jury’s ability to understand legal nuances in the case at a future trial. What the fuck?
• Okay, moving on.
• Yesterday, family members of Uvalde school shooting victims announced a $2 million settlement with the Texas city over the deadly 2022 rampage.
• $2 million for 17 dead kids? Seems pretty insanely low to me.
• The group also said they're filing lawsuits against dozens of Texas Department of Public Safety officers and Uvalde's school district.
• If you need a reminder, cowardly law enforcement officers killed the gunman in a classroom after waiting more than an hour to confront him, which was heavily criticized in the wake of the shooting.
• They stated that, "Pursuing further legal action against the City could have plunged Uvalde into bankruptcy, something that none of the families were interested in as they look for the community to heal.”
• Shrug. Obviously, even if it was $2 million per kid, it could never be enough. Easy access to guns and nearly impossible access to mental health care adds up to this happening over and over again.
• Statistically, your child is more likely to be killed via gun violence than any other cause.
• Moving on.
• Surprising literally no one, Nikki Haley said yesterday that she will be voting for Donald Trump in the general election.
• No one cares about what a former politician says or does, nor should they. Goodbye, Nikki. Your time is over.
• In news that I personally don’t find surprising at all…
• Millions of people in the U.S. report using marijuana daily or nearly every day, according to an analysis of national survey data, and those people now outnumber those who say they are daily or nearly-daily drinkers of alcohol.
• Alcohol is still more widely used, but 2022 was the first time this intensive level of marijuana use overtook daily and near-daily drinking.
• I consider this good news. I would much rather deal with people who are high than those who are drunk in just about every imaginable circumstance.
• And now, The Weather: “Green” by L'Rain
• Tornadoes swept through Iowa, killing at least four and injuring dozens more. Another tornado ripped through Texas, causing devastation. Please be safe out there, people.
• Rest in peace to Charlie Colin, bassist and founding member of the band Train, best known for their early-2000s hit “Drops of Jupiter.” He was 58.
• He died after slipping and falling in the shower while house-sitting for a friend. Side note: if you’re going to die in an accident at home, the bathroom is the most likely room where that will happen.
• Be careful in there, friends.
• From the Sports Desk… the chippy 5-seed Dallas Mavericks took a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinals last night, beating the 3-seed Minnesota Timberwolves 108-105.
• Game 2 of the ECF with Boston and Indiana is tonight.
• Today in history… South Carolina ratifies the United States Constitution as the eighth American state (1788). Accordion patent granted to Cyrill Demian in Vienna, Austrian Empire (1829). A merchant of Shiraz announces that he is a Prophet and founds a religious movement that would be considered to be a forerunner of the Baháʼí Faith (1844). The Canadian Parliament establishes the North-West Mounted Police, the forerunner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (1873). The New York Public Library is dedicated (1911). American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, LA (1934). The first version of the Java programming language is released (1995). Anthony Albanese of the Australian Labor Party is sworn in as the 31st Prime Minister of Australia after winning the 2022 Australian federal election, ending 9 years of conservative rule (2022).
• May 23 is the birthday of botanist Carl Linnaeus (1707), religious leader `Abdu’l-Bahá (1844), activist Isabella Ford (1855), actor Douglas Fairbanks (1883), actor Scatman Crothers (1910), bandleader Artie Shaw (1910), singer/acress Rosemary Clooney (1928), actress Joan Collins (1933), engineer Robert Moog (1934), composer Michel Colombier (1939), chess player Anatoly Karpov (1951), boxer Marvin Hagler (1954), journalist Mitch Albom (1958), actor/TV host Drew Carey (1958), musician Jewel (1974), and NFL player Aaron Donald (1991).

That’s enough for now. I’m going to go workout as I do each morning at this time, which hopefully will give me some more energy to act as if I was a human. Enjoy your day.