Random News: June 9, 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 June 9, 2024, and it’s a Sunday. once again, things are nice and quiet here for the moment. I’ve got my bathrobe on, got my cup of fresh hot coffee… so far, so good. Let’s see if my mellow mood can hold up after I start looking through the news.

• We’ll start on the international front where today, the first major exit polls coming out of the European Union parliamentary elections suggest that sadly, the hard right is rising in popularity around the world.
• The exit poll in Germany indicated that the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, rose to 16.5%, while the governing coalition led by Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost, falling to 14%.
• It comes on the heels of major gains for the far right in the Netherlands, where the party of Geert Wilders is in a neck-and-neck race with a Socialist-Green alliance.
• Even though polling will continue in Italy until late in the evening tonight and many of the 27 member states have not yet released any projections, the indications confirmed what earlier surveys and analysts had predicted: the EU’s massive exercise in democracy is expected to shift the bloc to the right and redirect its future.
• What the far right wants is similar all over the world. They prefer isolationist policies. They are against all manner of immigration, with tinges of open racism and ethnocentrism. They choose authoritarianism over democracy.
• All the hallmarks of fascism.
• Anyway, the world that we’ve enjoyed since the end of WWII in 1945 is quite likely to change drastically in coming times, almost certainly for the worse.
• And the saddest thing of all is that people had the chance to not go that direction or were either too apathetic or easily controlled to fix it before ti started.
• Ah well. Moving on.
• Yesterday, the first aid from an American-built pier arrived in Gaza since storm damage required repairs to the project.
• The pier, constructed by the U.S. military, was operational for only about a week before it was blown apart in high winds and heavy seas on May 25. A damaged section was reconnected to the beach in Gaza on Friday after being repaired at an Israeli port.
• About 1.1 million pounds of humanitarian aid was delivered to Gaza via the pier yesterday. Important note: no U.S. military personnel went ashore in Gaza.
• As you’re aware, food and other emergency supplies are desperately needed by Palestinians trapped by the eight-month-old Israel-Hamas war.
• And in related breaking news…
• Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz has resigned from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, delivering a huge blow to the prime minister who has been celebrating the rare rescue of hostages held in Gaza.
• The decision by Gantz – considered Netanyahu’s main political challenger – fulfils an ultimatum he gave the prime minister last month calling on him to lay out a new plan for the war against Hamas by June 8.
• Moving on.
• Celebrating Pride, today’s Gay of the Day is someone you probably don’t know unless you’re active in the political social media realm. Her name is Charlotte Clymer, and she’s a writer and LGBTQ activist.
• Born in 1986, Charlotte grew up in central Texas. I once laughed at something Charlotte responded to on social media when talking about a football game. Some man bro dude was telling her that she shouldn’t talk about something she didn’t understand.
• She nicely explained that she’d played varsity linebacker at her Texas high school.
• Charlotte also got mansplained about various combat topics, and she politely referred to her experience after joining the U.S. Army in 2005, enrolling in the United States Military Academy, and then being assigned to the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment.
• After her military service, she enrolled at Georgetown University and finished her bachelor's degree, and then came out as transgender in 2017, when she began working as press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group and political lobbying organization in the United States.
• Her political and social commentary has been quoted by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and numerous other outlets. She’s been published in USA Today, The Washington Post, NBC News, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, GQ, The Independent, and other publications.
• She’s also been a guest commentator on MSNBC, CNN, BBC, CBS Sunday Morning, and various public radio programs.
• Clymer continues as an outspoken activist on issues including LGBTQ rights, feminism, and veterans' affairs. I’m proud to consider her a sorta-friend in the social media sense.
• Let’s move on.
• Today is Sunday Gunday, where we take a quick peek at just some of the incidents of gun violence in the USA over the past couple of days.
• Three people dead and two others injured in a shooting in Sioux Falls, SD. A mother and 4-year-old daughter killed in a shooting on the turnpike in Hollywood, FL. Two juveniles dead in shooting at apartment complex on the north side of Jacksonville, FL. One dead, five injured at a shooting at a pool party in Compton, CA. One dead, four wounded in a shooting near a college in Los Angeles County, CA. One dead, two wounded in a shooting on the east side of Detroit, MI. One dead in a shooting outside a Waffle House in Austin, TX. One dead in a shooting on the North Side of Chicago, IL. One dead in a shooting in Hatboro, PA. One dead in a shooting near a job site in Pinch, WV. One dead in a shooting at a gas station in NW Oklahoma City, OK. An 18-year-old woman shot and killed in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago, IL. One woman killed in a domestic-related shooting at a graduation party in Snellville, GA. One shot dead in the Lake Berryessa area of Napa County, CA. One dead in a shooting in Osceola County, FL. 10 people shot — some as young as 14 years old — at a party on the rooftop of an apartment building in downtown Madison, WI. Four people injured in a shooting outside a business in Uptown Charlotte, NC. Two teens and a 12-year-old boy wounded in a pair of shootings in the Douglas area of Chicago, IL. Three people injured in a drive-by shooting in Hartford, CT. Two men in critical condition after a shooting in midtown Memphis, TN. A 7-year-old in critical condition after being hit in his home during a drive-by shooting in Fayetteville, NC. One shot and in critical condition in Omaha, NE. A woman shot and seriously injured in the Bethel Grove area of Memphis, TN. One shot in the Jamaica Plain area of Boston, MA. One shot on the UMN campus in Minneapolis, MN. One shot near Portillo’s in downtown Chicago, IL. One shot in Whittier, CA. One shot in Tampa, FL. One shot at a Burger King in Goldsboro, NC. A juvenile shot in South Seattle, WA. One shot near an AutoZone in Nashville, TN. Another man shot in the parking lot of a restaurant in South Nashville, TN. One shot multiple times outside the Performance Hall in Yakima, WA.
• Seriously, there are dozens more but I can’t do this all day.
• I’ll remind you that one political party is unified in wanting to enact common sense gun control measures while the other does everything they can to keep as many guns available on the streets as possible.
• Vote accordingly.
• Let’s move on.
• Today, President Biden visited an American cemetery in France, paying his respects to fallen soldiers.
• Biden’s stop at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery — a site Trump skipped during a 2018 trip after calling those buried there “suckers” and “losers” — capped a five-day trip to France.
• As he left the cemetery, Biden said he felt pride and reverence for what the soldiers there accomplished.
• Moving on to a weird one.
• A freighter in Lake Superior hit something underwater yesterday and started taking on water.
• The Coast Guard Great Lakes district received reports at 6:53AM that a 689-foot-long ship called the Michipicoten had collided with an unknown object about 35 miles southwest of Isle Royale, part of the state of Michigan.
• They still don’t know what the ship hit. They did manage to evacuate the vessel for safety and the ship is on its way to a port for inspection and repairs.
• Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area.
• And now, The Weather: “I recall you and I spat over the guardrails” by Vilde
• From the Sports Desk… Carlos Alcaraz came back to defeat Alexander Zverev 6-3, 2-6, 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 today, winning the French Open for his third Grand Slam title.
• Alcaraz is a 21-year-old from Spain who grew up watching countryman Rafael Nadal win trophy after trophy at Roland Garros -- a record 14 in all -- and now has eclipsed Nadal to become the youngest man to collect major championships on three surfaces.
• The kid is an outstanding tennis player.
• In other Sports Desk news, the Panther shut out the Oilers 3-0 yesterday in game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. Game 2 is tomorrow night.
• Today in history… Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia (53). Nero dies by suicide after quoting Vergil's ‘Aeneid' (68). James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia (1732). Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail (1856). Bulgaria's military takes over the government in a coup (1923). Joseph N. Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy, saying, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” (1954). U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1968). Secretariat wins the U.S. Triple Crown (1973). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opens its priesthood to "all worthy men", ending a 148-year-old policy of excluding black men (1978).
• June 9 is the birthday of Russian emperor Peter the Great (1672), engineer/businessman Samuel Slater (1768), physician/politician Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836), songwriter/composer Cole Porter (1891), guitarist/songwriter Les Paul (1915), film director George Axelrod (1922), businessman/philanthropist Herman Sarkowsky (1925), comedian Jackie Mason (1931), basketball coach/broadcaster Dick Vitale (1939), keyboard player Jon Lord (1941), businessman Charles Saatchi (1943), bass player Trevor Bolder (1950), composer James Newton Howard (1951), actor Michael J. Fox (1961), screenwriter/producer Aaron Sorkin (1961), actor Johnny Depp (1963), NFL player Tedy Bruschi (1973), soccer player Heather Mitts (1978), NBA player Udonis Haslem (1980), actress Natalie Portman (1981), and actress Mae Whitman (1988).

That’s all I’ve got. Time to have breakfast and shower and do various things. Enjoy your day.