Random News: January 1, 2025

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 January 1, 2025, and it’s a Wednesday. I’m up somewhat early for a New Year’s Day after barely remaining conscious until midnight last night, and then sleeping soundly despite the sound of most of Los Angeles exploding in the distance.

• Rabbit rabbit rabbit.
• And Happy New Year to you all. Did you make any New Year’s resolutions?
• I didn’t. I understand the concept; I just don’t feel tied to a specific date to start doing things that are meant improve my life and that of those around me.
• While two in five (43%) Americans said they weren't making a resolution, the majority of those who did had goals falling into one of six categories:
• Save more money (21%), eat healthier (19%), exercise more (17%), lose weight (15%), spend more time with family/friends (14%), and quit smoking (9%).
• I mean, those are all admirable goals.
• I should now mention that "Ditch New Year's Resolution Day" is January 17. Less than 1% of people claim that they stuck to their resolutions for an entire year.
• And the majority give up within a couple of months.
• Let’s do some news.
• And yes, let’s get the current shitty stuff out of the way.
• Early this morning, some asshole drove a pickup truck around barricades and plowed his vehicle through a crowd of New Year's revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans at a high rate of speed, leaving at least 10 dead and injuring dozens of others.
• Happy fucking new year, I guess.
• After mowing down numerous people over a three-block stretch while firing shots into the crowd, the suspect got out of the truck wielding an assault rifle and opened fire on police officers.
• Cops returned fire, killing the piece of shit who was not immediately identified. At least two police officers were shot and wounded.
• Improvised explosive devices found in and around the scene on Bourbon Street were apparently found to be viable. This was absolutely a planned act of terrorism.
• In addition to being a packed destination for New Year’s Eve, tens of thousands of college football fans were in the city for tonight’s Sugar Bowl playoff game between Georgia and Notre Dame at the nearby Superdome.
• The stadium was on lockdown this morning, but the game was expected to be played as scheduled.
• As of my writing this news, no solid information has been provided about the asshole who did this. Of course, there’s tons of speculation and innuendo already going around.
• For now, let’s move on.
• As we’ve mentioned recently, this coming Friday the House is holding a vote to see if Mike Johnson (R-LA) gets to remain Speaker.
• Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said yesterday that Johnson does not have the votes to keep the gavel and that he remains undecided on whether he can support the Louisiana Republican in the Friday floor vote, despite Dumpy endorsing Johnson.
• Roy added that Johnson does not yet have the support to be Speaker. “Right now, I don’t believe he has the votes on Friday,” he said.
• Keep in mind that at the moment, all it takes is literally one vote to derail the Republicans in any effort they make in the House.
• Let’s assume that all Democrats vote for Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker. That means that a single vote against Johnson from people like Roy — or fellow right-wingers Andy Harris (R-MD), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Victoria Spartz (R-IN) or others — will take Johnson out.
• Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) has said he will vote for a person other than Johnson, regardless of Dumpy’s endorsement.
• Guess we’ll see on Friday. But I can tell you, I’m already seeing a lot of signs of unrest about Dumpy among his fellow conservatives.
• The big-time racists and xenophobes have been boiling with rage over Elon Musk’s opinions on legal immigration, and his influence on Dump seems overwhelming.
• 2025 might be more interesting than you currently assume. I mean that in every way.
• Moving on.
• Most of Puerto Rico spent New Year’s Eve in darkness as a critical failure in their power grid caused a massive blackout affecting a large part of the island yesterday.
• It began yesterday morning at 5:30am. The outage initially knocked out power to nearly 90% of customers. By noon over 1.2 million users, or more than 80% of customers, were still without power.
• Power outages on the island have been a long-running source of frustration for Puerto Ricans who rely on a fragile and poorly-maintained power grid, with modernization efforts slow to materialize over several decades.
• Reminder: Puerto Rico is a US territory.
• Let’s head back to the MAGA civil war for a moment.
• It’s no surprise that Elon Musk is a proponent of H1-B visas. He was personally able to work in the USA because of receiving one, and his car company Tesla is among the U.S. companies that bring thousands of foreign engineers and other skilled workers into the U.S. each year.
• Here's a rundown of the top 20 companies as listed by the number of H-1B petitions for initial employment the U.S. approved in fiscal-year 2024… 
• Amazon: 3,871 in 2024. That figure was down from more than 4,000 H-1B visas in 2023 and nearly 6,400 (!) in 2022.
• Cognizant: 2,837. 
• Infosys: 2,504.
• TCS: 1,452. 
• IBM: 1,348.
• Microsoft: 1,264.
• HCL America: 1,248.
• Google: 1,058.
• Capgemini.: 1,041.
• Meta Platforms: 920.
• Deloitte: 891. 
• Apple: 864.
• Intel: 851.
• Accenture: 833.
• LTIMindtree:798.
• Tesla: 742.
• Ernst & Young: 741.
• Goldman Sachs: 678.
• Wipro: 609.
• Walmart: 654.
• Who are these H1-B recipients? Coders, coders, and more coders. They’re software engineers, developers, and analysts. All of these companies require huge amounts of custom code created for their business operations.
• The grand majority of the recipients are from India; a good number are from China; the remainder from Canada, Korea, the Philippines, and other countries. 
• In other news…
• The FBI arrested a Virginia man it says had the largest stockpile of explosives recovered in the agency’s history. 
• Brad Spafford was arrested earlier this month at his farm outside Norfolk on charges related to failing to register a short barrel rifle. Court documents seeking to prevent his release include the information that he had more than 150 explosive devices stored at his home.
• Spafford stored the devices in a barn on his property, including devices marked “lethal.” Pipe bombs were also found in a backpack in a bedroom otherwise completely unsecured.
• Collectively, the cache was preliminarily assessed as the largest seizure by number of finished explosive devices in FBI history.
• This asshole Spafford first came to the attention of authorities through a neighbor who reported the defendant was using a photo of President Biden for target practice.
• He also expressed approval for political violence, and shared a conspiracy theory that missing children were taken by the federal government to be trained as school shooters.
• All sounds pretty MAGA to me.
• In international news…
• Ukraine has halted the transportation of Russian gas supplies through the country after a prewar transit deal expired at the end of last year.
• Ukraine Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko said this morning that the transit was stopped in the interests of national security.
• Russia’s Gazprom said that Kyiv’s refusal to extend the deal means the majority state-owned energy corporation has no technical or legal possibility of sending gas through Ukraine. 
• Nearly 40 percent of the European Union’s pipeline natural gas was supplied by Russia before the war. When the fighting got underway, an energy crisis in Europe followed since Russia cut off most supplies through other pipelines.
• Europe has since outlined plans to completely eliminate Russian gas imports by 2027. For now, Russia is expected to lose over $4 billion a year from gas transported to Europe via Ukraine.
• And now, The Weather: “Fastball” by moodlighting
• From the Sports Desk… we don’t do collegiate sports here at Zak’s Random News. But with it being January 1, It thought I’d relay a couple of memories to you.
• My dad took me to the Rose Bowl in two consecutive years. The first one was in 1978, when the Washington Huskies defeated the heavily-favored Michigan Wolverines, 27-20.
• The player of the game was Washington QB Warren Moon. Interestingly, Michigan’s QB Rick Leach had a solid career as a major-league baseball player.
• In 1979, we went again, and saw the Huskies lose again, this time to the USC Trojans, 17-10. 
• USC’s team that year was loaded with talent, including RB Marcus Allen, RB Charles White, OL Anthony Muñoz, OL Keith Van Horne, DB Ronnie Lott, and DB Dennis Smith. All went on to have outstanding careers in the NFL.
• Today in history… For the first time, Roman consuls begin their year in office on January 1 (153 BC). The Julian calendar takes effect as the civil calendar of the Roman Republic, establishing January 1 as the new date of the new year (45 BC). Emperor Honorius issues a historic ban on gladiatorial fights (404). Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral discovers the coast of Brazil (1500). Scotland recognizes January 1 as the start of the year, instead of March 25 (1600). The first traveler's cheques, which could be used in 90 European cities, are issued by the London Credit Exchange Company (1772). Norfolk, VA is burned by combined Royal Navy and Continental Army action (1776). The first edition of The Times of London is published (1788). Ceres, the largest and first known object in the Asteroid belt, is discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi (1801). French rule ends in Haiti, and it becomes the first black-majority republic and second independent country in North America after the United States (1804). The United States bans the importation of slaves (1808). The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect in Confederate territory (1863). Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom is proclaimed Empress of India (1877). Ellis Island begins processing immigrants into the United States (1892). New York, NY annexes land from surrounding counties with four initial boroughs - Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and The Bronx - that are then joined on January 25 by Staten Island to create the modern city of five boroughs. The British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia federate as the Commonwealth of Australia (1901). The first American college football bowl game, the Rose Bowl between Michigan and Stanford, is held in Pasadena, CA (1902). The Republic of China is established (1912). Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay becomes a United States federal prison (1934). Fulgencio Batista, dictator of Cuba, is overthrown by Fidel Castro's forces (1959). Cigarette advertisements are banned on American television (1971). The ARPANET officially changes to using TCP/IP, the Internet Protocol, effectively creating the Internet (1983). Euro currency is introduced in 11 member nations of the European Union, with the exception of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and Sweden (1999). Croatia officially adopts the Euro, becoming the 20th Eurozone country, and becomes the 27th member of the Schengen Area (2023).
• January 1 is the birthday of politician Lorenzo de' Medici (1449), silversmith/patriot Paul Revere (1735), seamstress Betsy Ross (1752), screenwriter/producer William Fox (1879), physicist/mathematician Satyendra Nath Bose (1894), FBI director J. Edgar Hoover (1895), MLB player Hank Greenberg (1911), boxer Rocky Graziano (1919), author J. D. Salinger (1919), philanthropist/diplomat James Hormel (1933), actor Frank Langella (1938), singer-songwriter/guitarist Country Joe McDonald (1942), comedian Don Novello (1943), politician Bob Menendez (1954), rapper/DJ Grandmaster Flash (1958), actor Verne Troyer (1969), and rapper Ice Spice (2000).

So again, happy new year to you all. As I’ve mentioned over and over, good things and bad things happen all the time, all over the world. What’s important is how you react. As my hero Fred Rogers once said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” And my advice to you all… if you can’t find the helpers, maybe the helper is you. Something to consider in this fresh new year of 2025. Enjoy your day.