Random News: March 9, 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 9, 2025, and it’s a Sunday. I’m up a little later than usual, which is unsurprising because I’m actually up at the same time as yesterday… which is now later for reasons of clocks and laws.

• I’m just gonna assume you also set your clocks an hour ahead last night and Daylight Savings Time has already wreaked havoc upon your life.
• No need to discuss it further, though I reserve the right to be super cranky tomorrow morning when I’m writing this report in the dark.
• Moving on.
• On Friday, all employees in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services were notified of the option to voluntarily resign in exchange for a $25,000 payment.
• Let me repeat that ALL employees of this crucial government service were given this offer. If every one of them took it, that department would literally be gone, staffed by no one.
• Employees have been given until a deadline of March 14 to reply.
• Last week, a similar buyout of $15,000 to $25,000 was offered to employees in the Social Security Administration.
• If you can’t see the writing on the wall, you’re probably one of the first people who will be affected by what’s happening.
• These offers are how President Musk and his assistant Donnie Dump are slashing the federal workforce through mass layoffs and financial cuts. The 62,200 job cuts in February surged U.S. layoffs to their highest mark since July 2020 in the midst of the pandemic.
• Who works for HHS? The 80,000 employees that serve several major health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
• It’s unclear how the layoffs and buyouts will impact some of the challenges facing HHS and its new chief, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including addressing the bird flu outbreak which has contributed to a spike in the price of eggs, as well as a measles outbreak which has claimed lives.
• Donnie Dump continues to talk about how Elon is doing such a good job running DOGE.
• Why, then, on court documents and official information, is Elon completely unconnected to DOGE? Why is it being formally run by Amy Gleason, someone who seems to have no actual role with the pseudo-agency?
• Dumpy officially named her the head of the U.S. DOGE Service, a position that seems to convey extraordinary power. But no one has heard of her. Her name does not appear on the DOGE website.
• In his bloviating address to Congress Tuesday, Dump made clear that Musk is in charge, saluting him as the head of DOGE, with Musk smiling down on the president from the visitors’ gallery. Yet government lawyers have argued in court that Gleason — and not Musk — is the agency’s leader.
• And they’re keeping Gleason in hiding. She does not respond to any requests for interviews.
• If you don’t think this is a fucked up situation, again… I don’t know what to tell you.
• Let’s move on.
• Of the big box stores, Target has always been my preference. Or at least they were until January, when the retail chain said that it would phase out a handful of DEI initiatives.
• They’ve canceled programs designed to help Black employees build meaningful careers, and for setting hiring and promotion goals for women, members of racial minority groups, and other underrepresented communities.
• So this past Wednesday, groups called for a 40-day boycott of Target, asking people to give up shopping at the company’s stores during the Lenten period that kicked off this week
• The boycott runs through April 17.
• The Minneapolis-based company operates nearly 2,000 stores nationwide and employs more than 400,000 people.
• As you’re all too sadly aware, Dumples the Clown’s White House has sought to rid the federal government, schools, and private workplaces of DEI policies that were adopted to counter discrimination.
• Let’s do some news from the International Desk.
• Things aren’t going well in Syria.
• The death toll from two days of clashes between Syrian security forces and loyalists of ousted President Bashar Assad and revenge killings that followed has risen to more than 1,000. It’s one of the deadliest acts of violence since Syria’s conflict began 14 years ago.
• Electricity and drinking water have been cut off in large areas around the city of Latakia.
• The clashes, which erupted Thursday, marked a major escalation in the challenge to the new government in Damascus, three months after insurgents took authority after removing Assad from power.
• And thousands of people have fled to nearby mountains for safety.
• Sigh.
• Things aren’t going well in Ukraine.
• Russian strikes on the country killed at least 20 people over the weekend, as heavy aerial attacks continued after the U.S. stopped sharing satellite images with Ukraine.
• The decision to withhold intelligence and military aid came on the heels of a White House visit last week by Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who somehow made both Dumpy and that other guy get bigly sad.
• Without U.S. satellite imagery, Ukraine's ability to strike inside Russia and defend itself from bombardment is significantly diminished.
• At least 11 people were killed in multiple strikes on a town in Ukraine's Donetsk region late Friday. The attack also damaged eight apartment blocks in the town of Dobropillya, where at least five children were among the injured.
• Sigh.
• Back in the USA…
• People are not happy with the actions of President Musk, and they’re taking it out on his businesses.
• Across the country, his electric vehicle company Tesla's facilities and vehicles are being hit with protests and violence over his role in the Dump administration.
• In recent days, there have been a number of peaceful "Tesla Takedown" protests across the USA, but there have also been several violent incidents that led to arrests.
• A lady in northern Colorado was arrested for spray-painting "Nazi" under the dealership's entrance sign and starting small fires on the lot by igniting molotov cocktails inside vodka bottles.
• In Maryland, a Tesla dealership was tagged with a swastika. In Massachusetts, seven Tesla charging stations were intentionally set on fire. In Portland, Oregon, seven shots were fired at a Tesla dealership. And over 350 protesters gathered in New York City at a Tesla showroom in Manhattan, and arrests were made for disorderly conduct and related alleged crimes.
• Musk might be the second-most hated man in the USA right now. Can you imagine going out today and, knowing who he is and what he’s all about, buying one of his little cars? I can’t.
• Moving on.
• Firefighters in New York were continuing to battle at least one brush fire in a wooded stretch of Long Island this morning as officials warned that high wind gusts would leave the region vulnerable to additional blazes.
• Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency yesterday after four separate fires broke out across large swaths of Long Island’s Pine Barrens region, prompting closures to the highway and evacuations of a military base.
• As of this morning, three of those fires had been contained, while one was still burning in the hamlet of Westhampton. There was no immediate evidence to suggest arson.
• And now, The Weather: “The Lines” by L.A. WITCH
• From the Sports Desk… following up on a story we mentioned the other day, defensive end Myles Garrett is going to remain on the Cleveland Browns after they gave him a fucking ton of money.
• That usually helps.
• They’ve agreed on a record contract extension that averages $40 million per year and includes $123.5 million in guaranteed money, making the star defensive end the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history.
• Of note: four days ago, the Las Vegas Raiders locked up another edge rusher, Maxx Crosby, to a three-year, $106 million extension.
• Crosby’s $35.5 million average annual salary made him the highest-paid edge rusher in football and the highest-paid non-quarterback in league history… for four days until this morning when Garrett’s deal eclipsed his.
• Today in history… First known mention of Lithuania (1009). Napoléon Bonaparte marries his first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais (1796). Francis Ronalds describes the first battery-operated clock in the Philosophical Magazine (1815). The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally (1841). Giuseppe Verdi's third opera, ‘Nabucco’, receives its premiere performance in Milan (1842). The first documented discovery of gold in California occurs at Rancho San Francisco, six years before the California Gold Rush (1842). Pancho Villa leads nearly 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against the border town of Columbus, NM (1916). President Franklin D. Roosevelt submits the Emergency Banking Act to Congress, the first of his New Deal policies (1933). Allied forces carry out firebombing over Tokyo, destroying most of the capital and killing over 100,000 civilians (1945). The Barbie doll makes its debut at the American International Toy Fair in New York (1959). Dr. Belding Hibbard Scribner implants for the first time a shunt he invented into a patient, which allows the patient to receive hemodialysis on a regular basis (1960). Chrysler announces its acquisition of American Motors Corporation (1987). The Notorious B.I.G. is murdered in Los Angeles after attending the Soul Train Music Awards (1997). Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights (2011).
• March 9 is the birthday of explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1451), politician/SCOTUS justice David Davis (1815), businessman/politician Amasa Leland Stanford (1824), politician/diplomat Vyacheslav Molotov (1890), actor/activist Will Geer (1902), engineer Paul Wilbur Klipsch (1904), composer Samuel Barber (1910), novelist Mickey Spillane (1918), saxophonist/composer Ornette Coleman (1930), singer-songwriter Lloyd Price (1933), cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934), actor Raul Julia (1940), chess player Bobby Fischer (1943), guitarist Robin Trower (1945), NFL player Brian Bosworth (1965), actor Emmanuel Lewis (1971), NBA player Matt Barnes (1980), and gymnast Sunisa Lee (2003).

That’s enough for now. I’m trying to stay on my normal schedule today despite the Daylight Savings bullshit. Now it’s time to take a show, put on clothes, and whatever the fuck happens after that. Enjoy your day.