Random News: December 31, 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 December 31, 2024, and it’s a Tuesday. I will tell you, the experience of years flying by more quickly as your life progresses is 100% accurate. I think the way to slow down and enjoy life is to make sure you find ways to recognize and appreciate each moment. Easier said than done. But I believe it’s true. Try it.

• It’s the final day of 2024… the 366th day of the year.
• Did you forget 2024 was a leap year? Indeed it was… hence the 366 days. As I’ve spoken about on many occasions, our common systems of measuring time are not all that accurate for the long term.
• The leap year came into effect via Julius Caesar. Yes, the Roman emperor. 
• On January 1, 45 BC, he reformed the historic Roman calendar to make it a consistent solar calendar. His rule for leap years was a simple one: add a leap day every 4 years. 
• And it was a scientifically pretty good call. A Julian year lasts almost exactly 365.25 days, so every four years would indeed require an extra day to stay aligned with the calendar.
• Even so, it’s not perfect that way; due to tiny variables, the Julian calendar drifts by about 3 days every 400 years.
• So they tightened it up further in October 1582 with the Gregorian calendar, the one we still use today.
• The principal change was to space leap years differently so as to make the average calendar year 365.2425 days long.
• The rule for leap years is as such…
• Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400.
• Alrighty then.
• Anyway, based on this logic, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 were not leap years, but the year 2000 was.
• Let’s stop wasting time and move on.
• The schedule of funeral services for former president Jimmy Carter has been released. They span six days, three cities, and multiple stops at places that held significance during his life. President Carter died Sunday at the age of 100.
• The celebration of Carter's life begins this coming Saturday, January 4, when his remains depart the Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, GA, in the morning.
• The motorcade will travel through Carter's hometown of Plains to his childhood home and family farm before heading to Atlanta. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, and other dignitaries will observe a moment of silence with the motorcade at the state Capitol, honoring Carter's time as a state senator and governor.
• From there, Carter's remains will lie in repose at the Carter Presidential Center, where members of the public can pay their respects from 7pm on Saturday through 6am on Tuesday, January 7.
• That day, his body will be transported to Washington, D.C., where the former Navy lieutenant will be transferred from a hearse to a horse-drawn caisson from the U.S. Navy Memorial to the U.S. Capitol.
• There will be a 3pm Tuesday service where members of Congress will pay their respects in the Capitol Rotunda, and the public will be allowed to pay respects while Carter lies in state.
• After a final ceremony at the Capitol, Carter's motorcade will travel to the Washington National Cathedral for a National Funeral Service before a final flight back to Georgia on Thursday.
• Then Carter will be celebrated with a private funeral at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, where he taught Sunday School well into the final years of his life. Following the service, Carter will be interred at the family home in a private ceremony, buried beneath a willow tree next to his late wife Rosalynn.
• And not to make light of this solemn occasion, but based on the above, Carter seems to have a more interesting and a active life as a dead guy than I do as a living one.
• Kidding aside, I’m glad to see he’s being honored with the respect that he deserves.
• Let’s talk about tonight, aka New Year’s Eve.
• When I was young, tonight was the premier party night of the year. From when I was probably 15 until I was in my early 30s, I can’t tell you how many new years started with me being hungover as hell and wanting to die.
• At some point, I decided that it was less fun than I’d imagined it was. So I stopped. Not just partying on New Year’s Eve; I stopped drinking alcohol almost entirely.
• But that was my situation anomy decision. I don’t tell other people what to do. And I’m not saying to go to bed at 9pm.
• You should have a good time tonight. It’s worthwhile noting the passing of another year and being optimistic about a new year approaching.
• I’m not going anywhere, but I’ll be here at home with my family, watching the ball drop, eating some snacks, and almost certainly barely staying awake for maybe ten minutes past midnight.
• But you have fun. And this is really simple: if you drive, don’t drive. And don’t allow people you care about to do that either.
• And don’t get in fights. And don’t get in trouble with cops. And definitely don’t fight cops. They always win. There’s a bunch of them and they have tasers and guns and stuff. It’s a bad idea.
• Start the new year on a positive note. Not on a “wake up in a holding cell” note. I speak from personal experience, you see.
• Why is New York’s Times Square so synonymous with New Year’s Eve? There’s an actual reason.
• It was 120 years ago in 1904 that the New York Times moved its headquarters to the new Times Building near the bustling intersection of Seventh Avenue, 42nd Street, and Broadway in Midtown Manhattan.
• The paper's owner, Adolph Ochs, successfully lobbied the city to rename the area, previously known as Longacre Square.
• So Ochs threw a massive New Year's Eve celebration to commemorate the headquarters' opening, with an all-day street festival and extravagant fireworks display.
• The party was a smashing success, and it became an annual part of cultural tradition. But just a few years in, the city banned the fireworks display.
• That's why Ochs asked the Times' chief electrician, Walter Palmer, to come up with a New Year's Eve spectacle that didn't involve ashy firework debris raining down on revelers. And he came up with an illuminated ball that dropped at the stroke of midnight.
• And now you know.
• Let’s move on to some actual news.
• The US Treasury Department notified lawmakers yesterday that a China state-sponsored actor infiltrated Treasury workstations in what officials are describing as a “major incident.”
• Fucking hell.
• The Treasury was informed by a third-party software service provider on December 8 that a threat actor used a stolen key to remotely access certain Treasury workstations and unclassified documents.
• The compromised service has been taken offline and officials are working with law enforcement and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). They claim that there is no evidence indicating the threat actor has continued access to Treasury systems or information.
• The third-party software service provider, BeyondTrust, said hackers gained access to a key used by the vendor to secure a cloud-based service that Treasury uses for technical support.
• How. does a company named BeyondTrust get hacked? Is irony dead? I think it’s dead. I poked it with a stick. It’s dead.
• Moving on.
• We’re ringing in the new year with more people than ever before.
• The world population increased by more than 71 million people in 2024 and will be 8.09 billion people tomorrow on New Year’s Day.
• The 0.9% increase in 2024 was a slight slowdown from 2023, when the world population grew by 75 million people. In January 2025, 4.2 births and 2.0 deaths were expected worldwide every second.
• The United States grew by 2.6 million people in 2024, and the U.S. population on New Year’s Day will be 341 million people. In the coming month, our country will have one birth every 9 seconds and one death every 9.4 seconds.
• International migration was expected to add one person to the U.S. population every 23.2 seconds. The combination of births, deaths and net international migration will increase the U.S. population by one person every 21.2 seconds.
• So welcome, new people. And farewell to those who… leave.
• 2025 brings a slew of new laws to various states across the country the USA.
• At least 20 states increase statewide minimum wage starting January 1 — the highest in Washington state at $16.66 an hour, followed by California at $16.50. Kentucky becomes the latest state to legalize medical marijuana and several states, including Delaware, tighten gun control.
• Minnesota is the latest state to increase transparency when purchasing tickets to concerts, sporting events, and other large-scale events. It’s a law that was inspired by a state rep trying to get tickets to Taylor Swift's Eras Tour last summer.
• A Florida law that bans children under 14 from having social media accounts, and limits 14 and 15-year-olds to accounts authorized by their parents, takes effect tomorrow.
• California has a slate of new laws to stiffen penalties for retail theft and drug-related crimes.
• We also have a new law that says schools can no longer require teachers to out LGBTQ+ students to their parents.
• I voted for that.
• And now, The Weather: “Only One” by Void Comp
• From the Sports Desk… we’re heading into the final week of the regular NFL season, and not everything is locked in for the playoffs just yet.
• In the AFC, the current seedings are (1) Chiefs, (2) Bills, (3) Ravens, (4) Texans, (5) Steelers, (6) Chargers, and (7) probably Broncos. But the Dolphins and Bengals still have dim but present hopes of miracles.
• In the NFC, the current outlook is (1) Lions, (2) Eagles, (3) Rams, (4) probably Buccaneers, (5) Vikings, (6) Commanders, and (7) Packers, with the Falcons holding onto to hope to get in over the Bucs.
• By this time next week, the teams and seeds will be set in stone.
• Today in history… Vandals, Alans and Suebians cross the Rhine, beginning an invasion of Gaul (406). The British East India Company is chartered (1600). Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness (1759). The incorporation of Baltimore, MD (1796). Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of the Province of Canada (1857). Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two (1862). Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, files for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine (1878). Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, NJ (1879). The first New Year's Eve celebration is held in Times Square in Manhattan (1907). President Harry S. Truman officially proclaims the end of hostilities in World War II (1946). General Motors becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year (1955). The AT&T Bell System is broken up by the United States Government (1983). Czechoslovakia is peacefully dissolved in what is dubbed by media as the Velvet Divorce, resulting in the creation of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic (1992). The first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, resigns from office, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President and successor (1999). Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur (2009). The World Health Organization is informed of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause, detected in Wuhan (2019). The World Health Organization issues its first emergency use validation for a COVID-19 vaccine (2020).
• December 31 is the birthday of explorer Jacques Cartier (1491), English general Charles Cornwallis (1738), painter Giovanni Boldini (1842), painter Henri Matisse (1869), businesswoman Elizabeth Arden (1878), American general/politician George Marshall, Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal (1908), singer-songwriter/activist Odetta (1930), actor Anthony Hopkins (1937), singer-songwriter/guitarist Andy Summers (1942), singer-songwriter/guitarist/actor John Denver (1943), actor Ben Kingsley (1943), fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg (1946), singer-songwriter/keyboard player Burton Cummings (1947), singer-songwriter Donna Summer (1948), bass player/songwriter Tom Hamilton (1951), actress Bebe Neuwirth (1958), actor Val Kilmer (1959), singer-songwriter/guitarist Scott Ian (1963), musician Psy (1977), and whatever Donald Trump Jr. (1977) is.

Welp, that’s it for now. My final Random News report of 2024. Tomorrow we start a fresh new version. I’ll add that a lot of people are predicting 2025 to be a terrible year before it even starts, and frankly it’s easy to see why. Will the USA descend into a fascist dictatorship? Will global climate change wreak havoc on our lives? Will the economy crash? I mean, yeah, maybe those things will happen. What’s more important is how you react. Together, we can still make this little planet a good place to live for everyone, if that’s what we want. I remain positive and optimistic. Enjoy your day.