Random News: January 30, 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 30, 2025, and it’s a Thursday for some reason. I am starting to feel a little better as of early this morning… my cold is getting less annoying, and my stress level is slowly coming down to a less tortuous level. Regardless of all that, there’s a lot of news, so let’s get rolling.

• I rarely cover things like plane crashes here.
• When they happen, they’re tragic, and there’s not much that we can talk about here that will help prevent them.
• But I do want to mention what happened last night for a specific reason. First, the details…
• A jet with 60 passengers and four crew members collided with an Army helicopter last night while approaching the Ronald Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C. The aircraft plummeted into the Potomac River. Everyone on board is feared dead.
• The crash occurred in some of the most tightly controlled and monitored airspace in the world, just a few miles south of the White House and the U.S. Capitol.
• The midair crash happened when a regional jet at the end of a flight from Wichita, KS collided with a military helicopter on a training exercise.
• Shortly before American Airlines Flight 5342 was set to land, air traffic controllers asked if it could use a shorter runway, and the pilots agreed.
• And then, seconds later, the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter got directly in the landing path of the jet. You know the rest.
• All takeoffs and landings from Reagan Airport were halted. It will reopen this morning.
• Fatal crashes of commercial aircraft in the U.S. have become a rarity. The last was in 2009 near Buffalo, NY.
• Donald Dump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy — who was confirmed by the United States Senate to the office literally two days ago on January 28, 2025 by a vote of 77–22 and was sworn in later that day — is a former reality TV star.
• But who is running the Federal Aviation Administration, the entity in charge of all air traffic and crash investigation in the USA?
• No one.
• The former head of the FAA, Mike Whitaker, resigned in December at the request of Elon Musk, clearing the way for Dumpy to select a new one. Whitaker’s last day on the job was the day of Dump’s inauguration on January 20.
• The selection of his replacement is still pending. 
• Obviously, this is a fluid story and we’ll cover it more and more details become available.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, the White House Office of Management and Budget walked back a memo that ordered a freeze on federal assistance, less than two days after the directive led to chaos and confusion around the country as to what programs would be impacted.
• The latest two-line memo from acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget Matthew Vaeth states that the earlier directive is rescinded. It directs those with questions about implementing Dumpy's executive orders to contact the general counsels at their agencies.
• The full scope of the poorly-written directive was not clear, and it left nonprofits, small businesses, universities, and other entities scrambling to determine whether they would be impacted, and congressional offices faced an onslaught of questions from constituents and organizations fearing they would lose federal dollars. 
• And while the White House's memo stated Medicare or Social Security benefits would not be impacted, state Medicaid agencies, federally-funded Head Start early education programs, and community health centers said they were cut off from accessing a web portal run by the Department of Health and Human Services. 
• The memo sparked numerous lawsuits, including from a coalition of nonprofits and Democratic state attorneys general. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., swiftly convened a hearing on a request from the nonprofit groups to temporarily block enforcement of the freeze, and agreed Tuesday to issue a brief pause to fully consider the matter.
• I like the fact that the states stood up to Dump and forced him to back the fuck down. You’re going to be seeing that a lot.
• And — as I’ve mentioned time and time again — the people who were going to get screwed the worst and the fastest are those in red states. Over 82% of the recipients of federal aid are residents of states that voted for Dump.
• And it was those people who were screaming to their GOP Senators that helped the immediate reversal of plans.
• Let’s move on.
• Dumples the Clown announced yesterday that the U.S. will use a detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to hold tens of thousands of the “worst criminal aliens.”
• He later signed a presidential memorandum and said he’d direct federal officials to get facilities ready to receive criminal immigrants in the US illegally. Border czar Tom Homan said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would run the facility.
• Like everything in the Dump regime, details of the plan weren’t immediately clear.
• Guantánamo isn’t a big base. During the Gulf War, the facility held about 700 occupants at max. 
• The base includes just a handful of buildings, and has nowhere near the capacity to house the 30,000 people Trump said could be sent there.
• We have a name for places like that, where tens of thousands of people are held against their will in horrific conditions: concentration camps.
• Let’s move on to some international news.
• A pre-dawn stampede at the world's largest religious gathering killed at least 30 people in India yesterday, with many more injured after a surging crowd trampled bystanders.
• It’s sad to note that deadly crowd incidents are a frequent occurrence at Indian religious festivals, including the Kumbh Mela, which attracts tens of millions of devotees every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj.
• As pilgrims rushed to participate in a sacred day of ritual bathing, people sleeping and sitting on the ground near the rivers said they were trampled by huge swells of devotees coming towards them in the darkness.
• If you want to look at the biggest danger to mankind, just look in the mirror. We have found the enemy, and it is us.
• Moving on.
• Another note from the joke that is the leader of the USA, Donnie Dump.
• He said that he was telling Elon Musk to go “rescue” the “stranded” astronauts on the International Space Station.
• “I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to "go get" the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration. They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!”
• Um.
• Those astronauts are not stranded. They’re fine. And the operation to pick their asses up and bring them back was well underway months before Dump took office.
• What an idiot.
• In our continuing coverage of the pieces of shit who attacked the USA on January 6, 2021 and were subsequently pardoned by Dumpy, meet Andrew Taake.
• Taake is now wanted by authorities on a 2016 charge of soliciting a minor online.
• During the insurrection, he attacked police officers with bear spray and a metal whip. He was released from a federal prison in Colorado after Trump pardoned nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack.
• Texas had requested he be held for the pending warrant but they let him go anyway. 
• Good job, Dumpy. Keep putting more dangerous criminals out on the streets. That’s your favorite thing to do.
• And now, The Weather: “I Want You (Fever)” by Momma
• From the Sports Desk… do you bet on sports?
• I don’t… at least not money. I’ve had multiple friends who basically ruined their lives with sports gambling addictions.
• That being said, there are many, many ways to bet on today’s game.
• You have your typical bet as to which team wins or loses. The current odds have KC favored at -1.5, meaning that they have to win by two points or more to win the bet.
• You can bet the over/under, which is the total amount of combined points scored by both teams. Current line is 49.5.
• There are plenty of bets on which players will score and when and how much.
• People also bet on specific players’ yards, completions, catches, rushes, interceptions, tackles, field goals — you name it, you can bet on it.
• And then there are even more granular prop bets. Will a team score on the first drive? Will they cross midfield? Reach the red zone? Have a 20-yard pass play?
• What’s the point total at the end of each quarter? Will the team that scores last win the game? Will the game be tied at any point (not counting 0-0)? Will there be a score in the last two minutes of either half?
• Trust me that this is only the tip of the iceberg in the world of Super Bowl betting.
• Today in history… Charles I of England is executed in Whitehall, London (1649). Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, is ritually executed more than two years after his death, on the 12th anniversary of the execution of the monarch he himself deposed (1661). The Forty-seven rōnin, under the command of Ōishi Kuranosuke, avenge the death of their master, by killing Kira Yoshinaka (1703). In the first assassination attempt against a President of the United States, Richard Lawrence attempts to shoot president Andrew Jackson, but fails and is subdued by a crowd, including several congressmen as well as Jackson himself (1835). Yerba Buena, CA is renamed San Francisco, CA (1847). Japanese carmaker Mazda is founded, initially as a cork-producing company (1920). Adolf Hitler takes office as the Chancellor of Germany (1933). Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King Jr.'s home is bombed in retaliation for the Montgomery bus boycott (1956). Tet Offensive launch by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army against South Vietnam, the United States, and their allies (1968). The Beatles' last public performance, on the roof of Apple Records in London (1969). Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code (1982). Microsoft Corporation releases Windows Vista (2007). The World Health Organization declares the COVID-19 pandemic to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (2020). 
• January 30 is the birthday of statesman/poet George Villiers (1628), lawyer/politician John Lansing, Jr. (1754), nun/saint Angela of the Cross (1846), US president Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882), civil rights activist Fred Korematsu (1919), actor Gene Hackman (1930), actress Vanessa Redgrave (1937), US vice president Dick Cheney (1941), singer-songwriter Marty Balin (1942), singer-songwriter Steve Marriott (1947), singer-songwriter/drummer Phil Collins (1951), golfer Payne Stewart (1957), singer Jody Watley (1959), sex offender Mary Kay Letourneau (1962), NBA player Jalen Rose (1973), actor Christian Bale (1974), actress Olivia Colman (1974), actor Wilmer Valderrama (1980), and rapper/singer-songwriter Kid Cudi (1984).

Time to get to work and stuff. Enjoy your day.