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.
Good morning. It’s December 10, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. I’m in my somewhat typical mode of waking up grumpy, overly focused on all the shit I have to do between the start of this day and the end of it. But that tends to fade once I get rolling on productive work, so I’ll assume for now that I’ll be less annoyed as the day goes on. Tons of news today.
- I guess we’ll start here.
- A man in Pennsylvania is being questioned in connection to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City. 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was spotted at a McDonald's in Altoona by someone who'd seen photos of the person of interest in the case.
- Local authorities arrested him on an illegal gun charge.
- Shrug. Obviously there will be more to that story if Mangione wants to divulge some motive… which I would advise him not to do as his attorney.
- Note: I am not a lawyer. Always keep that in mind.
- In other justice news…
- Yesterday, Daniel Penny was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely on a New York City subway car in 2023.
- Penny is a 26-year-old Marine veteran. He pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.
- On Friday, the judge dismissed the manslaughter charge after jurors said they could not come to a unanimous decision. The jury could only consider the negligent homicide charge if Penny was cleared of manslaughter.
- Of note: Penny is white. The man he killed, Neely, was Black.
- Penny faced a maximum possible sentence of 15 years in prison on the manslaughter charge, or four years on the negligent homicide charge.
- Police and witnesses said Neely, 30, boarded an F train on May 1, 2023 and began shouting, throwing things, and making threats. Penny, a passenger on the train, approached Neely from behind and tried to restrain him.
- Video shows Penny holding Neely in a chokehold on the floor of the train for several minutes until Neely stopped moving. Neely, who was unarmed, was pronounced dead at the scene.
- Let’s move on.
- A judge has paused an ongoing lawsuit against Linda McMahon, Dumpy’s pick to lead the Education Department, that accuses her and the company she once led, World Wrestling Entertainment, of failing to act on allegations of sex abuse of children who helped ringside at wrestling events in the 1980s.
- Always the finest people with Don the Con, eh?
- The move from Judge James Bredar in Maryland’s federal district court will keep the proceeding against McMahon and the company at bay until a ruling from the Maryland Supreme Court, which heard arguments in September.
- The lawsuit is about what McMahon knew when she was head of the professional wrestling company and a ringside announcer allegedly preyed on underage boys aged 13-15.
- This is who Dump wants to be in charge of your kid’s school.
- Moving on.
- Yesterday, the bid by The Onion satirical news outlet to buy Alex Jones’ conspiracy theory platform Infowars returned to a Texas courtroom.
- U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez heard arguments on whether a bankruptcy auction was properly run as Jones alleges collusion and fraud. The hearing is expected to continue today.
- As you’re aware, Jones was ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion in defamation lawsuits in Connecticut and Texas filed by relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut.
- Most of the proceeds from the sale of Infowars, as well as many of Jones’ personal assets, will go to the Sandy Hook families to help satisfy judgments issued by juries and judges in state courts in Connecticut and Texas. Some proceeds will go to Jones’ other creditors.
- While The Onion was outbid by First United American Companies — which runs a website in Jones’ name that sells nutritional supplements — The Onion’s bid also included a pledge by many of the Sandy Hook families to forgo some or all of the auction proceeds due to them to give other creditors a total of $100,000 more than they would receive under other bids.
- The trustee, Christopher Murray, chose The Onion, saying its proposal was better for creditors because they would receive more money.
- We’ll keep an eye on that.
- Moving one with some disaster news.
- The Franklin Fire near Malibu in Southern California is spreading quickly, prompting mandatory evacuations and threatening homes and businesses, including the city’s iconic Malibu Pier.
- Nearby Pepperdine University canceled classes today, with students sheltering in place on the school’s Malibu campus and watching the flames in the distance.
- The inferno is so intense that it’s altering the weather around it and worsening already extreme conditions. High winds and low humidity are worsening conditions near the fire.
- About 6,000 people and more than 2,000 structures are under evacuation orders.
- In case you’re wondering, I’m about 30 miles south of there.
- Moving on to today’s Asshole Files.
- Samuel Bateman, a polygamist religious leader who claimed more than 20 spiritual "wives" including 10 underage girls, was sentenced to 50 years in prison yesterday for coercing girls as young as 9 years old to submit to criminal sex acts with him and other adults, and for scheming to kidnap them from protective custody.
- Bateman’s group was an offshoot of the sect once led by Warren Jeffs. He had pleaded guilty to a yearslong scheme to transport girls across state lines for his sex crimes, and later to kidnap some of them from protective custody.
- Bateman, 48, tried to start an offshoot of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Their practice of sect members sexually abusing girls who they claim as spiritual "wives" has long plagued the FLDS.
- I hope he becomes someone’s unwilling wife while in prison for the next five decades. That would be karmic justice.
- And now, The Weather: “Leash” by Sky Ferreira
- From the Sports Desk… the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Dallas Cowboys 27-20 on Monday Night Football.
- The game was nearly over when linebacker Nick Vigil deflected a Bengals punt after the two-minute warning. But then Dallas cornerback Amani Oruwariye muffed a scoop attempt, and the Bengals recovered.
- And then Cincy scored the go-ahead touchdown three plays later on a 40-yard pass from Joe Burrow to Ja'Marr Chase.
- Womp womp.
- We’re now getting to a point where the NFL playoff picture is shaping up. If those playoffs were starting today…
- AFC: 1. Chiefs. 2. Bills. 3. Steelers. 4. Texans. 5. Ravens. 6. Chargers.
- NFC: 1. Lions. 2. Eagles. 3. Seahawks. 4. Buccaneers. 5. Vikings. 6. Commanders.
- Though I’m sure this will change over the remaining four weeks of regular season games.
- Today in history… Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham are executed for having affairs with Catherine Howard, Queen of England and wife of Henry VIII (1541). Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper ‘De motu corporum in gyrum,’ is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley (1684). The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published (1768). Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state (1817). Major General William Tecumseh Sherman's Union Army troops reach the outer Confederate defenses of Savannah, Georgia (1864). Theodore Roosevelt is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize in any field (1906). Government of Poland in exile send Raczyński's Note, the first official report on the Holocaust, to 26 governments (1942). Japan's biggest heist, the still-unsolved "300 million yen robbery", is carried out in Tokyo (1968). Democracy is restored in Argentina with the inauguration of President Raúl Alfonsín (1983). Helen Clark is sworn in as Prime Minister of New Zealand (1999).
- December 10 is the birthday of mathematician/computer scientist Ada Lovelace (1815), poet Emily Dickinson (1830), economist/academic Elizabeth Baker (1885), dancer/choreographer Hermes Pan (1909), composer Alexander Courage (1919), singer-songwriter Guitar Slim (1926), actor Mako Iwamatsu (1933), NBA referee Dick Bavetta (1939), actress Susan Dey (1952), music producer Paul Hardcastle (1957), actor/film producer Kenneth Branagh (1960), singer-songwriter/guitarist J Mascis (1965), NHL player/executive Rob Blake (1969), drummer Meg White (1974), and NFL player Joe Burrow (1996).
Alrighty then. Doing my exercise and then diving into another hell day of work. I’ll get through it. Enjoy your day.
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