Random News: May 24, 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 24, 2024, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! Today is the 145th day of 2024. I have nothing to add here, so let’s jump into the news.

• Today the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to immediately halt its military assault on Rafah, the city in southern Gaza where more than 1 million people had sought refuge in dire conditions.
• The top United Nations court cited an "immediate risk" to Palestinians, noting that more than 800,000 people had been forced to flee Rafah since Israeli forces began ground operations in an area that had once been declared a safe zone.
• There’s no way in hell that Israel will comply with the order, which the ICJ has no power to enforce, but the landmark ruling will pile pressure on the increasingly isolated U.S. ally.
• Moving on.
• Steve Kramer, the political consultant who admitted that he was behind a robocall impersonating Joe Biden's voice, has been indicted in New Hampshire and fined $6 million by the Federal Communications Commission.
• In separate announcements yesterday, New Hampshire's attorney general charged Kramer with 26 counts, while the FCC fined him $6 million for "scam calls he set up to defraud voters" in violation of a federal Caller ID law.
• The charges include 13 felony counts of voter suppression and 13 misdemeanor counts of impersonation of a candidate, based on 13 New Hampshire voters who received the calls.
• The FCC also fined a telecom company allegedly involved in the call an additional $2 million.
• Good. Maybe the next piece of shit who tries this will think twice.
• Let’s move on.
• Last year, a 9-year-old girl and her family were on a flight out of Texas, and a flight attendant taped his phone to the toilet seat to record her in the bathroom. The family sued the airline after the FBI told them that videos of the girl were found on the flight attendant’s phone.
• What was American Airlines’ defense? They said in a court document that it would dispute the family’s claim by showing that any injuries the 9-year-old girl suffered were caused by the girl’s “own fault and negligence, were proximately caused by (her) use of the compromised lavatory, which she knew or should have known contained a visible and illuminated recording device.”
• So it was the girl’s fault. Right.
• Yesterday, American backed off that position, saying that outside lawyers working for the company “made an error in this filing.”
• “We do not believe this child is at fault, and we take the allegations involving a former team member very seriously,” the spokesperson said.
• I genuinely hope a jury awards this child ten times what they would have had American not tried to blame her for her own assault.
• There’s a long-standing legal tactic of refocusing blame on the victims of crimes, especially those involving sexual assault. It’s one reason why lawyers are often lumped in among the world’s most scummy people.
• Let’s move on before I get angrier about that.
• The first of several Americans recently charged with possession of ammunition in Turks and Caicos is being sentenced this morning.
• Bryan Hagerich pleaded guilty. In the Turks and Caicos, possession of firearms or ammunition carries a minimum 12-year sentence, though the law allows judges to impose a reduced sentence under “exceptional circumstances,” the local governor said.
• Hagerich is one of five Americans arrested in recent months in the country. Each is accused of bringing various amounts of ammunition to the 40-island chain in the Atlantic Ocean, southeast of the Bahamas.
• I’ve talked about this before but I’ll say it again: first, why do you people have loose ammo rolling around in your fucking bags? And second, why would you go to a different country and not have any concept of their laws?
• I love America but sometimes Americans are fucking insanely ignorant and thoughtless.
• Moving on.
• Morgan Spurlock, a documentary filmmaker who captured his own psychological and physical symptoms from eating McDonald’s every day for a month in the Oscar-nominated 2004 feature “Super Size Me,” died yesterday in upstate New York due to complications of cancer. He was 53.
• That’s terribly sad. Frankly, I think I’d die within 30 days of eating McDonald’s daily. By the end of the experiment for the film, Spurlock had gained 25 pounds and suffered from depression and liver dysfunction.
• Sigh. I’m suffering from momentary depression at the thought of eating McDonald’s for a month straight. Let’s move on.
• Many of you have kids who are graduating various levels of scholastic institutions this week. At Harvard College, Harvard University’s undergraduate college, hundreds staged a walkout to decry its disqualification of 13 students involved in earlier protests.
• The school’s interim President Alan M. Garber spoke at commencement and was prepared for the action.
• ”As our ceremony proceeds, some among us may choose to take the liberty of expressing themselves to draw attention to events unfolding in the wider world," he said. "It is their right to do so."
• Fair enough.
• Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas issued a strong rebuke of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, saying the court overreached its authority in the landmark decision that banned separating schoolchildren by race.
• Yes, I’m serious. The Black SCOTUS judge attacked one of the most important racial equality decisions in our country’s history. It was part of his concurring opinion that allowed South Carolina to keep using a congressional map that openly discriminates against Black voters.
• It likely won’t be long before Black students won’t be allowed to go to white schools, and Black people won’t be allowed to drink from white water fountains… and forget about interracial marriages. Those will be long gone soon enough.
• Anyone can see the direction in which this country is moving. And you all have the opportunity to do something about it right now.
• Will you do anything?
• At least I can still be proud of my state. Arizona doctors can temporarily come to California to perform abortions for their patients under a new law signed yesterday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
• California’s law is meant to give Arizonans an option to receive legal abortions from their doctor over the next several months. The move was a reaction to a recent Arizona Supreme Court decision to reinstate a law trio 1864 that bans nearly all abortions in Arizona, without exceptions for rape or incest.
• The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 allowed states to set their own abortion laws. More than 20 states have since enforced abortion bans of varying degrees.
• In Arizona, it is still unclear exactly when — or if — the Civil War-era ban will be instituted. But the Democrats who control California’s Legislature didn’t want to take chances.
• “California stands ready to protect reproductive freedom,” Newsom said. Fuck yes we do.
• And now, The Weather: “Genie” by Crumb
• Brought to you by Ancestry dot com, here are the top four names of people who shared DNA to create me.
• Tempy Storm Dupree, Pleasant Meadows, Tree Shor, and (my favorite) Dangereuse de l'Isle Bouchard.
• Fun fact: my name is not Zak Claxton. But my actual name — the one on my birth certificate — is not the name of any of my biological ancestors.
• Fascinating.
• From the Sports Desk… the Celtics beat the Pacers 126-110 in the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals, giving Boston a 2-0 lead.
• Game 2 of the WCF between Dallas and Minnesota is tonight.
• Today in history… Jamestown, the first permanent English colony in North America, is founded (1607). Peter Minuit buys Manhattan (1626). South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador (1813). Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought” from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, MD, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C. (1844). The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction (1883). The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio, with the Cincinnati Reds beating the Philadelphia Phillies 2–1 at Crosley Field (1935). Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight (1940). The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland (1956). United Press International is formed through a merger of the United Press and the International News Service (1958). Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, MS, for "disturbing the peace" after disembarking from their bus (1961). Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating Ethiopian Jews to Israel (1991). Four men are convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993; each one is sentenced to 240 years in prison (1994). Under pressure over her handling of Brexit, British Prime Minister Theresa May announces her resignation as Leader of the Conservative Party (2019). A mass shooting occurs at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, United States, resulting in the deaths of 21 people, including 19 children (2022).
• May 24 is the birthday of Roman general Germanicus (15 BC), physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686), UK queen Victoria (1819), SCOTUS Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870), candy maker H. B. Reese (1879), actress Lilli Palmer (1914), politician Jane Byrne (1933), actor Tommy Chong (1938), singer-songwriter Bob Dylan (1941), actor Gary Burghoff (1943), singer-songwriter Patti LaBelle (1944), actress Priscilla Presley (1945), drummer Albert Bouchard (1947), guitarist Waddy Wachtel (1947), singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash (1955), singer-songwriter Larry Blackmon (1956), actress Kristin Scott Thomas (1960), boxer Héctor Camacho (1962), NBA player Joe Dumars (1963), actor John C. Reilly (1965), MLB player Bartolo Colón (1973), and NBA player Tracy McGrady (1979).

That seems like enough for now. Time to go workout. Enjoy your day.