Random News: March 25, 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 March 25, 2025, and it’s a Tuesday. I usually enjoy being a human, but today I’d prefer to be a capybara. No job, few responsibilities, hanging out with my animal friends on a sunny river bank. Sounds nice, huh?

• But I still seem to be a Homo sapiens, so I guess let’s see what’s going on.
• If you’re one of the 15 million people who shared your DNA with 23andMe— like me — stop reading this Random News report right now and delete your DNA from the service immediately.
• Go on. I’ll wait here.
• Done? Good. 
• The genetic information company announced Sunday that it is headed to bankruptcy court to sell its assets. And 23andMe’s financial distress prompted California Attorney General Rob Bonta to issue an unusual privacy consumer alert about it.
• “I remind Californians to consider invoking their rights and directing 23andMe to delete their data and destroy any samples of genetic material held by the company,” he said in a statement.
• The company said there will be “no changes” to the way it protects consumer data while in bankruptcy court. But unless you take action, there is a risk your genetic information could end up in someone else’s hands — and used in ways you had never considered.
• That data could be sold to the US government. To law enforcement agencies. To China. For God’s sake, Elon Musk might buy it.
• Here’s how to do it…
• Log into your 23andMe account. Go to your Profile, then to Settings.
• Scroll to the “23andMe Data” section at the bottom of the page and click View.
• If you want to download your data, select what data you want to save. I didn’t bother.
• Scroll to the “Delete Data” section and click Permanently Delete Data.
• Confirm your request: You’ll receive an email from 23andMe, and click the link in the email to confirm.
• I did this process yesterday and it seemed to have worked. And yet, how would I know for sure? I guess at least making the effort is worth something, and I documented the process of deleting my data in screen captures that I’ll save.
• I do want to add… both Kat and I got a lot out of 23andMe. Both of us found information about our respective backgrounds and family relationships that were meaningful to us.
• So it’s a shame that typical corporate bullshit caused us to have to eliminate it entirely, but we both did without hesitation under the circumstances, and I highly recommend you do as well.
• Immediately. This could get real bad.
• Let’s move on.
• Members of Congress in both parties exploded in anger yesterday after the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic revealed he was inadvertently included in a highly-sensitive Trump administration Signal chat on airstrikes in Yemen.
• How sensitive? Jeffrey Goldberg received a text from Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, with precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing. And he got it over two hours before the bombs started dropping.
• Goldberg was added to the chat on the encrypted messaging app Signal earlier this month by White House national security adviser Mike Waltz.
• But the plan for strikes in Yemen came directly from Hegseth.
• And now, some politicians are already calling for an investigation and potential repercussions against the national security officials involved in the lapse.
• I would hope so. Hegseth out here texting war plans to people like party invites.
• Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA), a member of the Armed Services Committee, said it well. “This is an outrageous national security breach and heads should roll. We need a full investigation and hearing into this on the House Armed Services Committee, ASAP.”
• The Signal chat included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and Vice President Vance were among the 18 people in the Signal chat.
• Was the chat that Goldberg received even legit? Yup.
• "At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain," said National Security Council Spokesman Brian Hughes.
• Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), another Armed Services Committee member and a former Air Force brigadier general, tried to downplay it, saying, "I've accidentally sent the wrong person a text. We all have."
• Except my wrong texts involve telling a coworker that I’m picking up bananas at the store… and don’t involve information that could cause thousands of people to die.
• Bacon added, "The unconscionable action was sending this info over non-secure networks. None of this should have been sent on non-secure systems. Russia and China are surely monitoring his unclassified phone.”
• What even is Signal, the messaging app that our top-level government officials were using to communicate classified war plans?
• Well, it’s available for anyone with a phone, and can be downloaded in the Apple and Android app stores. It has not been approved by the government for classified communications.
• Side note: the Presidential Records Act requires federal officials to use government-approved communications channels for all work-related matters, classified or not.
• You may recall in 2016, when Dumpy claimed that his rival Hillary Clinton was using a private email server for communications.
• This is a million times worse than that. Imagine using Facebook Messenger to send confidential war plans to a random group of people.
• This idiotic maneuver isn’t going to just fade away… at least not for a little while.
• This morning, Dump’s top intelligence officials are facing Congress to get questioned about the security breach. 
• FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard are among the witnesses who are appearing today before the Senate Intelligence Committee and tomorrow before the House Intelligence Committee in back-to-back hearings.
• I doubt they’ll offer any reasonable excuse for their absolute ineptitude.
• And before I wrap up this topic, a big thanks to Jeffrey Goldberg for making this public the moment it happened, and not waiting for two years to include in some tell-all book.
• Moving on.
• Yesterday, Judge Patricia Millett noted that Nazis were treated better under the Alien Enemies Act than Venezuelan migrants removed from the U.S. and flown to El Salvador earlier this month. 
• Millett noted that during World War II, Nazis were put before hearing boards under Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, and Dumples the Evil Clown’s administration has conceded that immigrants deported to El Salvador and detained in a maximum security prison did not have the chance to appear in court. 
• Millett, ruled migrants may continue to be detained under the Alien Enemies Act, but they may not be deported until there is a decision on a preliminary injunction to stop the removals.
• And then, late last night, Dumpy invoked the state secrets privilege over its use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants, again refusing to provide more details about the flights to a judge.
• The invocation deems details about the flights a state secret — seeking to limit information to U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who has vowed to “get to the bottom” of whether Dump violated his order to turn around or halt the flights. 
• I thought this guy was all about transparency in government, right?
• Now he can’t even follow one of the most important concepts in American freedoms and justice. And when he gets busted, it’s a “state secret.”
• Fuck you, Donnie.
• Moving on but still on the topic of immigration…
• Yesterday, another Columbia University student said that Dump has targeted her for deportation over her pro-Palestinian views, accusing immigration officials in a lawsuit of employing the same tactics used on Mahmoud Khalil and other college activists.
• Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old legal permanent resident who came to the U.S. as a 7-year-old child, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement moved to deport her after she was arrested March 5 while protesting the Ivy League school’s disciplinary actions against student protesters.
• She was at a sit-in at a library.
• And then ICE officials signed an administrative arrest warrant and went to her parents’ residence seeking to detain her.
• Again, let’s note that Chung has lived in the U.S. since emigrating from South Korea with her parents at age 7. You know what we call a person like that?
• An American.
• Let’s do some SCOTUS news.
• Yesterday, the Supreme Court declined to take up a case brought by casino mogul and Dumpy donor Steve Wynn that would have challenged a landmark decision that established a higher standard for public figures to successfully sue for defamation. 
• The Court formally declined to consider 83-year-old Wynn's request to revisit their decision in a case known as New York Times Company v. Sullivan as a part of Wynn's legal battle against the Associated Press. 
• This was a unanimous 1964 Supreme Court decision that determined the First Amendment requires a public figure to prove a defendant acted with "actual malice" and knew a statement was false or recklessly disregarded the possibility that it was false to sustain a claim of defamation.
• The higher standard makes it more difficult for those in the public eye to win defamation cases. First Amendment advocates see it as a fundamental pillar on modern press freedoms.
• Why does Wynn give a shit? Because he sued the AP in 2018 over its reporting about sexual misconduct allegations against him from the 1970s that were filed with law enforcement. He had to step down from his position as chief executive of Wynn Resorts after the Wall Street Journal published sexual misconduct allegations.
• And the old douchebag also stepped down from his role as the finance chairman for the Republican National Committee. Ha ha.
• Anyway, this is good news, and yes: we don’t want public figures suing every time something they don’t like is published about them.
• Let’s move on with what might be not-bad news.
• Dump will nominate Susan Monarez, the acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a longtime federal staffer, to the permanent position.
• Monarez is a replacement for Dumpy’s original choice, David Weldon, a former Florida congressman, to lead the CDC.
• Weldon is a real piece of shit who even the worst members of Congress couldn’t get behind. He’s closely aligned with RFK Jr., who for years has been one of the nation’s leading anti-vaccine activists.
• Conversely, Monarez has been serving as the CDC’s acting director since January and came from another federal government agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. She holds a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, and her postdoctoral training was in microbiology and immunology at Stanford University.
• In other words, an actual qualified person.
• And now, The Weather: “Talk” by Lucy Dacus
• Let’s do a chart. We’re going back to this date in 1988.
• At the time, I was… Lordy, what was I even doing? I was 19 and in a period of upheaval. I had an apartment in Studio City and was attending Musicians Institute in Hollywood. I was also working as a furniture salesman.
• But I had no idea how the rest of my life would go. It took another year and a half before I settled in and started working toward my bachelor’s degree again.
• Much like my life at the time, music was all over the place. Here was the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart… and yes, I’m Rickrolling you as a matter of factual circumstance.
• 1. Never Gonna Give You Up (Rick Astley). 2. I Get Weak (Belinda Carlisle). 3. Father Figure (George Michael). 4. Man In The Mirror (Michael Jackson). 5. Endless Summer Nights (Richard Marx). 6. She's Like The Wind (Patrick Swayze Featuring Wendy Fraser). 7. Out Of The Blue (Debbie Gibson). 8. Just Like Paradise (David Lee Roth). 9. I Want Her (Keith Sweat). 10. Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car (Billy Ocean). 11. Hysteria (Def Leppard). 12. Rocket 2 U (The Jets). 13. (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay (Michael Bolton). 14. Girlfriend (Pebbles). 15. Be Still My Beating Heart (Sting). 16. Devil Inside (INXS). 17. I Found Someone (Cher). 18. Some Kind Of Lover (Jody Watley). 19. Where Do Broken Hearts Go (Whitney Houston). 20. Wishing Well (Terence Trent D’Arby).
• From the Sports Desk… in 2018, one of the most decorated skiers in the world, Lindsay Vonn, was forced to step away from her sport due to a series of injuries to her left leg.
• Vonn holds numerous records, including the most World Cup victories by any skier — male or female — in both the downhill and the super-G events. She’s won World Cup events in all five disciplines: downhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom, and combined.
• And now, six years later at age 40, she’s back. On Sunday, Vonn made headlines by becoming the oldest woman to earn a medal in a World Cup race, following her second-place performance in the Super-G race of the World Cup finals in Sun Valley, ID.
• Side note: I skied Sun Valley when I was a senior in high school. That place is awesome.
• Today in history… Italian city Venice is founded (421). Robert the Bruce becomes King of Scots (1306). Hernán Cortés, entering province of Tabasco, defeats Tabascan Indians (1519). Sir Walter Raleigh is granted a patent to colonize Virginia (1584). Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens (1655). Percy Bysshe Shelley is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet ‘The Necessity of Atheism’ (1811). Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, departs Massillon, OH for Washington, D.C. (1894). The Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama and charged with rape (1931). United States Customs seizes copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" on obscenity grounds (1957). Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, AL (1965). The first fully functional Space Shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch (1979). The European Union's Veterinarian Committee bans the export of British beef and its by-products as a result of mad cow disease (1996).
• March 25 is the birthday of mathematician/astronomer Christopher Clavius (1538), U.S. navy founder John Barry (1745), sculptor Gutzon Borglum (1867), conductor Arturo Toscanini (1867), composer Béla Bartók (1881), director David Lean (1908), journalist Howard Cosell (1918), businesswomen Eileen Ford (1922), film critic Gene Shalit (1926), activist Gloria Steinem (1934), singer-songwriter Hoyt Axton (1938), screenwriter D. C. Fontana (1939), singer-songwriter/pianist Aretha Franklin (1942), singer-songwriter/pianist Elton John (1947), singer-songwriter/guitarist Buzz Osborne (1964), actress Sarah Jessica Parker (1965), MLB player Tom Glavine (1966), singer-songwriter/guitarist Jeff Healey (1966), WNBA player Sheryl Swoopes (1971), race car driver Danica Patrick (1982), and NBA player Kyle Lowry (1986).

Okay then. I’ll go do what I do now, which is to work out, have meetings, write and draw shit, and earn a living. Last reminder: get your DNA away from 23andMe right now. Enjoy your day.