Random News: April 18, 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 April 18, 2025, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! Once again, we have a lot to discuss. I’d love to find myself back in an era where news was less important, and we could just live our lives and have a good-ass time. But that’s not how it is right now, so let’s jump in.

• Why do we continue to keep Maryland father of three Kilmar Abrego Garcia as our top story? It’s definitely not only about Garcia himself, though we certainly sympathize for him and his family.
• No, it’s a flashpoint that will determine the actions of the fascist government moving forward. So keeping an eye on this one man’s situation will allow you to predict what will happen to millions of others.
• So some much-needed good news.
• Kilmar is alive. Having seen no evidence of this until yesterday, many of us assumed the worst.
• But he met with Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) from his home state. A reminder: Abrego Garcia was sent to the infamous CECOT prison in El Salvador despite living in the USA under legal protection, and not having been accused or convicted of any crime.
• Van Hollen posted a photo of the meeting on social media, saying he also called Abrego Garcia’s wife “to pass along his message of love”.
• There’s no indication that he will be released from the facility where torture and unthinkably horrible conditions are rampant. 
• El Salvador’s president, a real asshole name Nayib Bukele, said, “Now that he’s been confirmed healthy, he gets the honor of staying in El Salvador’s custody.”
• And again, his imprisonment is in defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court who ruled unanimously for the Dump administration to return him to the USA.
• Some hopeful news in that regard…
• Yesterday, a federal court denied the Dump administration's effort to appeal an order mandating that government officials be deposed about Abrego Garcia’s mistaken deportation and their failure to bring him back.
• A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit didn’t mince words.
• ”It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order."
• The Fourth Circuit ruling against the Dump administration came just one day after the government filed an appeal of a lower court order, a remarkably short time for a court to reach a ruling.
• Well done, Fourth Circuit.
• Maryland Judge Paula Xinis had ordered the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release and return, an order unanimously upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
• In this major test as to whether or not the United States of America is now under a fascist dictatorship that will not heed the rule of law and may result in civil war, the judges added…
• ”It is, as we have noted, all too possible to see in this case an incipient crisis, but it may present an opportunity as well. We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos. This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time."
• Yes, while there’s still time… assuming there is still time. I have my doubts.
• It’s likely that the DOJ will appeal the Fourth Circuit's decision to their last line of defense… the Supreme Court.
• In other news — but certainly still on this same topic…
• Yesterday, the Supreme Court kept on hold Dumpy’s restrictions on birthright citizenship but agreed to hear arguments on the issue in May.
• What is birthright citizenship? It automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally.
• It has been part of American law since it was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. If you are born here regardless of circumstance, you’re an American.
• Dump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally has been halted nationwide by three district courts around the country. Appeals courts have declined to disturb those rulings.
• Dumpy and his supporters have argued that there should be tougher standards for becoming an American citizen.
• Let me ask you something: where did you choose to be born?
• Oh wait, you didn’t make that choice?
• Anyway, if the court agrees with Dump, it risks creating a confusing patchwork of rules in which the state in which a child is born could determine whether citizenship is granted automatically.
• Jesus Fucking Christ.
• Let’s do some more related news. We can’t let this shit slip away unnoticed.
• Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez, a US-born man initially charged with being an “unauthorized alien,” has been released after spending the night in jail on a 48-hour hold requested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
• Let me say it loudly for the idiots: THIS MAN WAS BORN IN THE USA.
• Lopez-Gomez, 20, was arrested by Florida Highway Patrol on Wednesday when the car he was riding in was pulled over for a traffic stop.
• The American citizen — born in Grady County, Georgia, where he lives in the city of Cairo — was crossing into Florida for his work in construction in Tallahassee, about 45 minutes from home.
• So that’s how it is now? We just arrest people who have brown skin for (checks notes) no reason at all?
• The new Florida law Lopez-Gomez was arrested under — designed to discourage undocumented immigrants from entering the state and touted by its Republican leaders — has been temporarily blocked by a judge.
• The Georgia man was released last night.
• He appeared virtually earlier yesterday before Leon County Judge LaShawn Riggans, who was handed a copy of his birth certificate brought by Lopez-Gomez’s mother, Sebastiana Perez.
• Even after the judge found no probable cause for the charge of crossing into Florida illegally, she didn’t have jurisdiction to release Lopez-Gomez because of the ICE hold.
• See, under an ICE hold (or immigration detainer), ICE asks law enforcement agencies to notify it “before releasing a removable alien” and to “hold the alien for up to 48 hours” to give DHS time take the migrant into custody.
• This is not how America is supposed to work. None of this.
• Let’s wrap up this section with a less happy tale.
• This week, an immigration judge denied bond for Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts University graduate student from Turkey who was detained last month after her visa was revoked.
• Öztürk, 30, is being held at a federal detention facility in Basile, Louisiana, where she was eventually transferred after being detained last month by immigration authorities outside her apartment in Somerville, MA. 
• Much like Abrego Garcia and Lopez-Gomez, Öztürk has not been charged with any crime. She was detained after co-writing an op-ed in the campus newspaper.
• You may have seen the footage of her getting grabbed off the street in March by men wearing masks and in plain clothes.
• Her detention violates her First and Fifth Amendment rights. Her attorneys are seeking to have her either released on bail or transferred to Vermont from Louisiana.
• Again, this is a complete violation of due process. Charge her or release her. Those are your options.
• Let’s move on.
• We’re coming up on the first 100 days of Dump’s second term, and by any reasonable measure, his presidency thus far will be judged an epic failure.
• A legislative failure: he’s signed only five bills into law, none of them major, making this the worst performance at the start of a new president’s term in more than a century.
• An economic failure: growth has slowed, consumer and business confidence has cratered, and markets have plunged, along with Americans’ wealth.
• A foreign-policy failure: he claimed he would end wars in Gaza and Ukraine, neither of which has happened.
• And perhaps most importantly for us, a constitutional failure. His executive actions, brazen in their disregard for the law, have been slapped down more than 80 times already by judges, including those appointed by Republicans.
• We’re going to see some drastic steps taken — and soon — to prevent this one piece of shit from dragging down the entire world as he gets closer and closer to the inevitable end of his life.
• In other news…
• As many of you recall, for a good while we ran a weekly feature called “Sunday Gunday” where we’d list the dozens and dozens of shootings that happened each Friday and Saturday in the USA.
• There were so many that I was spending an hour of my Sunday morning listing them all. It wasn’t worth it.
• But I do feel obligated to mention yesterday’s mass shooting at Florida State University.
• A 20-year-old gunman named Phoenix Ikner opened fire at the school, killing two people and wounding at least six others. He’s the son of a sheriff’s deputy whose former service weapon was used in the shooting.
• Ikner is a current FSU student. Officers shot him after he refused to comply with commands and he is now receiving medical care.
• Ironically, Leon County Sheriff Walter McNeil says that the shooter is a member of the sheriff’s office Youth Advisory Council, and has been “engaged in a number of training programs that we have.”
• “So it’s not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons,” McNeil says.
• Yeah, I’ll bet.
• Asked to comment on the shooting and killing of these young people, Dumpy Dump stated, “I have an obligation to protect the Second Amendment.”
• Which is fine, but maybe he should look at his obligations to the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments, to which he is also obligated and yet seems to ignore.
• Moving on…
• Luigi Mangione was indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury on one count of murder with a firearm, another firearms offense, and two counts of stalking for the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. If convicted as charged, he would be eligible for the death penalty.
• Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi had instructed federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Mangione, who is already facing state murder charges in the case.
• Mangione has pleaded not guilty to the 11 charges brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and four charges he faces in Pennsylvania.
• The words "delay," "deny" and possibly "depose" were found written in Sharpie on shell casings at the scene of killing. These would be references to the typical tactics health insurers use to get out of their responsibility of paying medical claims.
• Of note: Mangione was never a UnitedHealthcare customer. 
• Still a lot to learn here before conclusions are made, but many of you are aware that so many Americans have been so badly hurt by our country’s lack of health care that Mangione has gained anti-hero status to many.
• Let’s move on with some good news. We need that.
• A federal judge has once again blocked Department of Government Efficiency staffers who are operating inside the Social Security Administration from accessing sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.
• U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander issued a preliminary injunction via a lawsuit filed by a group of unions and retirees in Maryland, which is one of more than a dozen suits to raise alarms about the kind of data DOGE has accessed, and how such data could be used.
• Late yesterday, Hollander wrote that "the issue here is not the work that DOGE or the Agency want to do," but rather "how they want to do the work."
• "To be sure, rooting out possible fraud, waste, and mismanagement in the SSA is in the public interest. But, that does not mean that the government can flout the law to do so."
• Thank you.
• This latest ruling prevents DOGE staffers from accessing Social Security databases that contain personally identifiable information, directs them to delete any non-anonymized data in their possession from those databases, and to remove any software that DOGE staffers have previously installed on SSA systems; and to stop accessing or altering Social Security code.
• Can you imagine how things would be with no systems of checks and balances? We are so amazingly fortunate that the Founding Fathers planned ahead for a guy like Dump. Or Musk.
• In economy news…
• Currencies rise and fall all the time because of inflation fears, central bank moves, and other factors. But economists worry that the recent drop in the value of the U.S. dollar is so dramatic that it reflects something more ominous as Dumpy tries to reshape global trade: a loss of confidence in the U.S.
• The dollar’s dominance in cross-border trade and as a safe haven has been nurtured by administrations of both parties for decades because it helps keep U.S. borrowing costs down and allows Washington to project power abroad — enormous advantages that could possibly disappear if faith in the U.S. was damaged.
• Since mid-January near the time of Dump’s inauguration, the dollar has fallen 9% against a basket of currencies, a rare and steep decline, to its lowest level in three years.
• Traditionally, the dollar would strengthen as tariffs sink demand for foreign products.
• But the dollar not only failed to strengthen this time. It fell, puzzling economists and hurting consumers. The dollar lost more than 5% against the euro and pound, and 6% against the yen since early April.
• In other business news…
• Google has been branded an abusive monopolist by a federal judge for the second time in less than a year, this time for illegally exploiting some of its online marketing technology to boost the profits fueling an internet empire currently worth $1.8 trillion.
• Yesterday, the ruling U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema comes on the heels of a separate decision in August that concluded Google’s namesake search engine has been illegally leveraging its dominance to stifle competition and innovation.
• Although antitrust regulators prevailed both times, the battle is likely to continue for several more years as Google tries to overturn the two monopoly decisions in appeals while forging ahead in the new and highly lucrative technological frontier of artificial intelligence.
• The funny thing is that there is no protagonist in this story. It’s all a big caldron of evil.
• And now, The Weather: “catch these fists” by Wet Leg
• Let’s do a chart. It’s the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart from this date ten years ago, in April 2015.
• What was I doing then? Well, pretty much the same things I’m doing now. Ten years isn’t very long once you get to be somewhat old and cranky.
• I will say this: I love new music. Every day in this report, you see a song suggestion that is almost always one that was released within the past couple of weeks.
• But almost none of my daily “The Weather” recommendations are pop music. Oh, they may be pop stylistically — indie pop or art pop, for example.
• Must new pop music — the kind that would be on a Billboard chart — is complete shit. That being said, there are a few decent songs on this list. Note that in many cases, these chart-topping artists are nowhere to be found in 2025.
• 1. Uptown Funk! (Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars). 2. Sugar (Maroon 5). 3. Love Me Like You Do (Ellie Goulding). 4. Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Grey) (The Weeknd). 5. Thinking Out Loud (Ed Sheeran). 6. Trap Queen (Fetty Wap). 7. Style (Taylor Swift). 8. G.D.F.R. (Flo Rida Featuring Sage The Gemini & Lookas). 9. FourFiveSeconds (Rihanna & Kanye West & Paul McCartney). 10. See You Again (Wiz Khalifa Featuring Charlie Puth). 11. Somebody (Natalie La Rose Featuring Jeremih). 12. Shut Up And Dance (WALK THE MOON). 13. Chains (Nick Jonas). 14. Want To Want Me (Jason Derulo). 15. Time Of Our Lives (Pitbull & Ne-Yo). 16. One Last Time (Ariana Grande). 17. Blank Space (Taylor Swift). 18. Truffle Butter (Nicki Minaj Featuring Drake & Lil Wayne). 19. B**** Better Have My Money (Rihanna). 20. Lay Me Down (Sam Smith).
• From the Sports Desk… as we’ve mentioned several times lately, both the NBA and NHL playoff start tomorrow.
• That will be a nice distraction from (gestures randomly)… everything else in life.
• Today in history… Bostonians rise up in rebellion against Sir Edmund Andros (1689). The British advancement by sea in the Revolutionary War begins; Paul Revere and other riders warn the countryside of the troop movements (1775). Black slaves in the United States of America are counted as three-fifths of persons in a resolution of the Congress of the Confederation, later adopted in the 1787 Constitution (1783). A 7.9 earthquake and fire destroy much of San Francisco, CA and kills more than 3,000 people (1906). The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia brings 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic to New York City (1912). The British Broadcasting Corporation announced that "there is no news" in their evening report (1930). Superman debuts in Action Comics #1 (1938). The Doolittle Raid on Japan: Tokyo, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya are bombed (1942). The International Court of Justice holds its inaugural meeting in The Hague, Netherlands (1946). A redacted version of the Mueller report is released to the United States Congress and the public (2019).
• April 18 is the birthday of Roman emperor Gratian (359), noblewoman Lucrezia Borgia (1480), lawyer Clarence Darrow (1857), conductor Leopold Stokowski (1882), actress Barbara Hale (1922), singer-songwriter Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (1924), journalist Robert Christgau (1942), actor James Woods (1947), actor Rick Moranis (1953), actress Jane Leeves (1961), TV host Conan O’Brien (1963), NFL player Willie Roaf (1970), actor David Tennant (1971), NFL player Derrick Brooks (1973), actress Melissa Joan Hart (1976), ummm… Kourtney Kardashian (1979), MLB player Miguel Cabrera (1983), and actress America Ferrera (1984).

Okay. That’s plenty. When I have some more time over the weekend, I’ll be telling you about some upcoming opportunities to get personally involved in the fight against the destruction of our country. You — yes you — have powers you won’t believe until they’re tapped. And once you realize that, well… nothing will be able to stop you. Enjoy your day.