Random News: May 6, 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 6, 2024, and it’s a Monday. I had a night packed full of insanely bizarre dreams, so I’m trying to shake that off and get immersed back in reality. I guess one way to do that is to look at the news. Let’s do just that.

• Things were starting look more optimistic in regard to the Israel-Hamas War, but everything went sideways yesterday.
• During their talks in Cairo, Israel rejected key demands of the Hamas militant group. The outlook for any kind of ceasefire dimmed as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to resist international pressure to halt the war.
• After Hamas attacked Israel’s main crossing point for delivering badly needed humanitarian aid, killing three soldiers, Israel warned of a powerful operation in the very near future in Rafah and other places across all of Gaza.
• Israeli media reported that CIA chief William Burns, a main mediator in the talks, would meet with Netanyahu today.
• Shrug.
• In related news, Israel's cabinet has voted to shut down the offices of the Al Jazeera news network operating in the country with immediate effect.
• Shutting down recognized and respected media is never a good sign.
• Netanyahu stated that his government had decided "unanimously" to close Al Jazeera in Israel, and accused the Doha-headquartered network of being an "incitement channel" against Israel. Shlomo Karai, Israel's minister of communications, stated that Al Jazeera will be closed immediately, and its equipment will be confiscated. 
• Yesterday afternoon, Israeli police raided the Qatari broadcaster's office in Jerusalem.
• Not good.
• Back in the USA, as has been the case at other colleges and universities, this morning Columbia canceled its large commencement ceremony that had been scheduled for May 15.
• It will be replaced with smaller-scale, school-based celebrations, which I suppose is better than nothing.
• On May 15, those smaller graduation ceremonies will be held for the journalism school, college of physicians and surgeons, Barnard College, and the school of arts. Other school-based ceremonies will take place throughout next week.
• Sigh.
• Let’s move on.
• A piece of political advice: never give up on an area as being too “red” to encourage liberal causes… and voters.
• Case in point: Florida. Once a quintessential swing state, Florida has shifted right in the last eight years, with the politics of extreme assholes like Donnie Dump and Ron DeSantis defining it. 
• But Florida’s new law banning abortion access six weeks after a pregnancy may be the big turning point. The Biden reelection team feels like Florida is winnable.
• Abortion rights advocates in the state are gearing up to promote a November ballot measure known as Amendment 4 that would enshrine abortion rights in Florida’s constitution up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, something that has been done in other red-leaning states. 
• And while measure will be driving voters to the polls, it’s also likely that they’ll be looking to elect leaders whose values regarding women’s reproductive freedoms align with their own… aka, Democrats.
• In other news…
• Donnie Dump’s criminal hush money/election interference trial resumed this morning, and one of the first orders of business had Judge Juan M. Merchan again holding Dumpy in contempt of court, doling out another $1,000 fine for violating the gag order.
• Merchan also sternly warned Dumples the Clown of the possibility of jail for future violations. “As much as I don’t want to impose a jail sanction,” the judge added, “I want you to understand that I will have to if necessary and appropriate.”
• This is the start of the third week of testimony in the criminal trial.
• There’s a New York state election law that will have a prominent role in Dump’s criminal trial over allegedly falsifying documents related to a hush money payment during the 2016 election campaign.
• The law — Section 17-152 of the state’s election code — makes it a misdemeanor for two or more people to “conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means.”
• While Don the Con is not being charged under that statute, it is a key factor in his case.
• The reason his charges for falsifying business records are felonies instead of misdemeanors is that he committed them to commit or conceal another crime. The underlying crime that motivated Trump’s alleged misconduct, prosecutors said in court, was a conspiracy to defraud voters in his presidential campaign.
• I doubt you need a reminder about why Dump is on trial, but here it is anyway: he faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up $130,000 paid to porn star Stormy Daniels to hide the fact — from voters and from his wife, whom he was cheating on — that he’d had sex with Daniels.
• If convicted, Trump could face up to four years in prison.
• Let’s move on with a happy story.
• Two high school seniors from New Orleans — Calcea Johnson and Ne'Kiya Jackson — have proved a mathematical puzzle that was thought to be impossible for 2,000 years. 
• Any of you who went to high school know the Pythagorean Theorem's equation: A² + B² = C², which explains that by knowing the length of two sides of a right triangle, it's possible to figure out the length of the third side.
• When those teen girls set out to create a new Pythagorean Theorem proof, they didn't know that for thousands of years, one using trigonometry was thought to be impossible.
• To document Calcea and Ne'Kiya's work, math teachers at their high school submitted their proofs to an American Mathematical Society conference.
• Ne’Kiya got a full ride scholarship in the pharmacy department at Xavier University while Calcea, the class valedictorian, is studying environmental engineering at Louisiana State University. Neither one is pursuing a career in math.
• I don’t blame them.
• And now, The Weather: “41” by Retail Drugs
• Yesterday was a single-day snowfall record for the season in the Sierra Nevada mountains here in California. Yes, in May.
• The 26.4 inches of snowfall on Sunday beat the second snowiest day of the season — March 3rd — by 2.6 inches.
• Weird.
• Rest in peace to actor Bernard Hill, who many of us knew best as Théoden, King of Rohan, in both "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” He died yesterday at 79.
• Hill was lauded for many of his roles, including that of Captain Edward Smith in “Titanic” and Luther Plunkitt, warden of San Quentin Prison in the Clint Eastwood film “True Crime.”
• Let’s do a chart. This is the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart for May 1968. I was not yet alive, but holy shit, people sure loved Simon & Garfunkel.
• 1. The Graduate (Soundtrack). 2. Blooming Hits (Paul Mauriat And His Orchestra). 3. Aretha: Lady Soul (Aretha Franklin). 4. Bookends (Simon & Garfunkel). 5. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (Soundtrack). 6. Parsley, Sage, Rosemary And Thyme (Simon & Garfunkel). 7. To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With (Bill Cosby). 8. The Dock Of The Bay (Otis Redding). 9. Disraeli Gears (Cream). 10. Are You Experienced? (Jimi Hendrix). 11. Vincebus Eruptum (Blue Cheer). 12. Bonnie And Clyde (Soundtrack). 13. Valley Of The Dolls (Dionne Warwick). 14. Look Around (Sergio Mendes). 15. Who Will Answer? And Other Songs Of Our Time (Ed Ames). 16. Diana Ross And The Supremes Greatest Hits (Diana Ross & The Supremes). 17.I Can't Stand Myself (When You Touch Me) (James Brown). 18. Goin' Out Of My Head (The Lettermen). 19. Magical Mystery Tour (Soundtrack) (The Beatles). 20. Music From "A Fistful Of Dollars" & "For A Few Dollars More" & "The Good, The Bed And The Ugly” (Hugo Montenegro, His Orchestra And Chorus).

• From the Sports Desk… the results of some game 7 playoff action in a couple of sports over the weekend.
• In the NBA, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Orlando Magic 106-94 yesterday to advance to the semifinals.
• The NBA semifinals matchups feature the 1-seed Celtics versus the 4-seed Cavaliers, the 2-seed Knicks versus the 6-seed Pacers, the 1-seed Thunder versus the 5-seed Mavericks, and the 3-seed Timberwolves versus the 2-seed Nuggets.
• In the NHL, Saturday saw the Boston Bruins get a nail-biting 2-1 overtime win against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and yesterday the Dallas Stars won their first round series 2-1 over the Vegas Golden Knights.
• The next round of the NHL playoffs will have the 1-seed Panthers versus the 2-seed Bruins, the 1-seed Rangers versus the 2-seed Hurricanes, the 1-seed Stars versus the 3-seed Avalanche, and the 1-seed Canucks versus the 2-seed Oilers. 
• One more note from the Sports Desk, and it’s just admiration for Shohei Ohtani, who currently leads MLB in batting average (.364), home runs (10), and hits (52). And that’s with him recovering from Tommy John surgery and dealing with the stress of the betting scandal of his translator.
• He will absolutely be regarded as one of the best baseball players in history.
• Today in history… The Siege of Cuzco commences, in which Incan forces attempt to retake the city of Cuzco from the Spanish (1536). A faction of the British Army removes Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth and reinstalls the Rump Parliament (1659). Louis XIV of France moves his court to the Palace of Versailles (1682). Arkansas secedes from the Union (1861). Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota surrenders to United States troops in Nebraska (1877). The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris (1889). George V becomes King of Great Britain, Ireland, and many overseas territories, on the death of his father, Edward VII (1910). Babe Ruth, then a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, hits his first major league home run (1915). Thirty-six people are killed when the German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, NJ (1937). John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (1940). Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes (1954). Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and French President François Mitterrand officiate at the opening of the Channel Tunnel (1994). Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. unveils the first iMac (1998). In just 36 minutes, the Dow-Jones average plunged nearly 1,000 points in what is known as the 2010 Flash Crash (2010). The coronation of Charles III and Camilla as King and Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms is held in Westminster Abbey, London (2023).
• May 6 is the birthday of politician Maximilien Robespierre (1758), neurologist/psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856), explorer Robert Peary (1856), activist/politician Motilal Nehru (1861), actor Rudolph Valentino (1895), actor/director Orson Welles (1915), physicist/astronomer Robert H. Dicke (1916), MLB player Willie Mays (1931), singer-songwriter Bob Seger (1945), UK prime minister Tony Blair (1953), actress Roma Downey (1960), actor George Clooney (1961), singer-songwriter/guitarist Chris Shiflett (1971), NHL player Martin Brodeur (1972), NBA player Chris Paul (1985), rapper Meek Mill (1987), and MLB player José Altuve (1990).

Time to get my real day started. Hopefully it’s a good one. Making it a good day is, at least in part, up to me, and you. Enjoy your day.