Random News: May 5, 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 May 5, 2025, and it’s a Monday. Definitely feels Mondayish so far, but I’m not letting that get me down. I do need to get some more coffee in me to be able to think well enough to write this shit, but I’m sipping and typing as well as I can for now.

• Mexican Independence Day — when they celebrate their separation from rule by Spain in 1810 — happens every year.
• On September 16.
• Today, Cinco de Mayo, is a US holiday that started in California when Mexican-American miners found out that the Mexican army was able to fight off a superior French army on the outskirts of the city of Puebla on May 5, 1862.
• Side note: they won that battle, but not the war. Mexico would live under French rule for years after.
• Now, if you want to use Cinco de Mayo to show true appreciation for Mexican culture and the tremendous contributions that people of Mexican origin have made on America, that’s something I support.
• If you want to eat tacos and drink margaritas and Mexican beer, go ahead. Throw up. Pass out. Do that every day. I don’t give a shit.
• But that’s not been my idea of fun after I, ya know, grew up.
• Let’s do some news.
• I was going to open things with a segment called “Dumpy Being Dumb” when I heard that El Dumpo had the brilliant idea of turning the island museum called Alcatraz back into a prison.
• It’s true. Alcatraz — which closed over 62 years ago on March 21, 1963 when it became too expensive to operate — has been a museum and tourist site on an island near San Francisco after it was abandoned as a prison.\
• A spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons said that the agency "will comply with all Presidential Orders." But they had no answers regarding the practicality and feasibility of reopening Alcatraz or the agency's role in the future of the former prison given the National Park Service's control of the island.
• Do you have any idea how many millions — or billions — of dollars it would take to turn the museum back into a functioning prison?
• Neither does Dump, who — by the time they’d finish the renovations and have it ready for use would be out of office and/or dead.
• And for what? The place only housed some 250 prisoners at any given time.
• So yes, I thought that was the most idiotic thing El Dumpo could come up with on a random Sunday.
• I was wrong.
• Later in the evening, The Dumpster said he has instructed the Commerce Department and US Trade Representative to place a 100% tariff on films that are produced outside the United States and imported into America.
• “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” he screamed into the universe for reasons that literally no one could possibly care about.
• How would such a tariff would be imposed? No one knows.
• Films are intellectual property, not goods, so they represent a kind of service that is not currently subject to tariffs.
• It is definitely true that many foreign cities have offered large tax breaks to film and televisions studios to shoot movies and shows outside of Hollywood. That has led to a large number of productions to shift operations to places like Toronto and Dublin.
• So the way to combat that is for US states to also offer similar incentives. For example, California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed a massive tax credit to bring back more production to Hollywood.
• So let’s start to explain what this is really all about: control of messaging. Dumpy himself let that slip during his screechy rant.
• “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”
• First of all, a movie is not a fucking national security threat, okay?
• And second, while Dump can probably force American film production, in some way, to deliver messages of white nationalism and whatever else he wants to use as propaganda, he can’t do that for films made in other countries.
• Why are movie theater ticket sales down? Well, there was this pandemic, and then many people — like me — decided that the high costs and exposure to germs people wasn’t worth going out to the movies when I have great entertainment options here at home.
• And if they can’t work out how to make streaming networks turn a profit, that’s on them.
• Anyway, if this ridiculous decision of a desperate old man comes to fruition, it indeed would be the first tariff on a service.
• But don’t think Dump’s little game doesn’t have an impact. It does… a negative one on American entertainment companies.
• Netflix stock fell 4%. Disney (-2%), Max parent Warner Bros. Discovery (-3%), Paramount Global (-2%), and Universal Pictures parent Comcast (-1%) all dropped as well.
• But much worse his the market capitalization that Netflix lost today: $20.4 billion.
• So once again, merely by opening his fat orange yap, Donnie Dump is taking money out of the pockets of American companies and their workers.
• Let’s move on.
• Kinda.
• Yesterday, the heads of US public broadcasters National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) defended themselves against efforts by the Dump administration to cut off taxpayer funding.
• They are looking at legal options. Good.
• As you know, last week Dump issued an executive order blocking NPR and PBS from receiving taxpayer funds through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
• PBS’s Paula Kerger warned that some stations in smaller communities across the US could lose 40 to 50% of their funding.
• NPR’s chief executive Katherine Maher warned that the impact to local radio stations was immediate, “especially in a time where we’re seeing an advance of news deserts across the nation, 20% of Americans don’t have access to another local source of news. The impact of this could really be devastating, particularly in rural communities.”
• I will promise you now: the people of the USA will not stand for this shit. And even if in the short term while Dump remains in power there’s an impact on PBS and NPR, we will bring them back to — and above — their current operational status eventually.
• Nothing that Dump does will matter in the long term. America is much bigger and stronger than he could ever hope to be.
• Moving on.
• Since we’re been covering media topics today, how about a fact check on Dumpy’s laughable appearance on “Meet the Press” yesterday?
• Dump said: “Did you see gasoline is now below, in many cases, in many states, below $2 a gallon? $1.98, $1.99, $1.97?”
• Please drive down the street today and take pics of your local gas station’s prices. Show me the ones that are below $2/gallon. I’ll wait here.
• Fact: no state has an average gasoline price below $2.66 a gallon, which was the average price listed in Mississippi. The national gasoline price average as of Friday was $3.18 a gallon.
• And in many places — like here in California — it’s more like $5.
• Dump said groceries are less expensive and even mortgage rates are going down.
• No. 
• Prices of groceries have not declined. Mortgage rates have fluctuated over the last year, but only by small margins.
• The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.76% for the week ending May 1 — roughly the same level it was during November and December when Biden was president.
• Dump said in regard to immigrants: “These are really some really bad, criminal people. And they’re here illegally. So, you know they talk about — your next question will be due process. But they talk about due process, but do you get due process when you’re here illegally?”
• Fortunately, his question got a correct answer by Kristen Welker.
• She responded, “This is the point, sir, about due process. The Constitution says every person, citizens and noncitizens, deserve due process. Why not push to have him come back, present all of that evidence in court, let a judge decide.”
• Legal scholars — as well as Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio — widely agree that the Fifth Amendment’s “due process” clause applies to all people in the U.S.
• Not just citizens. And covering immigrants, documented and otherwise.
• Moving on.
• The next target in the focus of Dump: musicians.
• At least those who perform in the regional Latin style of the narcocorrido: emotional ballads about the drug trafficking underworld.
• Last month, a group that performed the song “El del Palenque” (“He of the Cockfighting Arena”) was barred from the United States in an unprecedented move that critics say raises troubling questions about free speech in America.
• Their transgression, according to the State Department? “Glorifying (a) drug kingpin.” Umm, okay then.
• To be fair, even Mexican authorities aren’t happy about Los Alegres del Barranco, the band that wrote it. They landed in hot water Mexican authorities recently when they performed the tune in the Mexican city of Zapopan. They got a warning from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
• And then the US State Department revoked their visas.
• Many of you are old enough to remember other ridiculous cases where songwriters were criminally investigated and sued in civil cases over their music in the ‘80s and ‘90s.
• Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne were both sued by people claiming their songs drove people to violent actions.
• Bands like N.W.A. were given citations for the content of their songs, while bands like The Doors, 2 Live Crew, Madonna, GWAR, and others have been arrested, cited, or warned about alleged lewdness in their stage shows.
• Let’s move on.
• In today’s Happy Ending News…
• A woman missing for nearly 63 years has been found alive and well.
• Audrey Backeberg was 20 years old when she disappeared from her home in the small city of Reedsburg on July 7, 1962.
• Backeberg, now 82, had filed a criminal complaint against her husband, whom she had married at the age of 15, alleging he had beaten her and threatened to kill her.
• After finding her last week, Detective Hanson of the Sauk County Sheriff's Office spoke to her on the phone for 45 minutes.
• ”I think she just was removed and, you know, moved on from things and kind of did her own thing and led her life. She sounded happy. Confident in her decision. No regrets."
• And she lived happily ever after without having a lifetime of misery with some piece of shit. The end.
• And now, The Weather: “Figurines” by she's green
• From the Sports Desk… more playoff scores. We’re wrapping up the final Round One games while also starting the second round.
• In the NBA: game 7 saw the underdog 7-seed Warriors beat the 2-seed Rockets 103-89, punching their ticket to the semifinals. Meanwhile, The Pacers shocked the Cavaliers 121-112, taking a 1-0 lead in their semifinal series.
• So the Conference Semifinals have the Thunder facing the Nuggets, the Timberwolves facing the Warriors, the Cavaliers facing the Pacers per above, and the Knicks facing the Celtics.
• The NHL also had another game 7 yesterday, with the Blues and Jets going to a thrilling double-overtime finish. The Jets prevailed 4-3, which was also the final score of their series.
• Round 2 of the NHL playoffs, which starts tonight, has the Jets facing the Stars, the Golden Knights facing the Oilers, the Maple Leafs facing the Panthers, and the Capitals facing the Hurricanes.
• Today in history… Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire (1260). On his second voyage to the New World, Christopher Columbus sights Jamaica, landing at Discovery Bay and declares Jamaica the property of the Spanish crown (1494). Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread (1809). Emperor Napoleon dies in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean (1821). The first edition of The Manchester Guardian, now The Guardian, is published (1821). Troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico (1862). Workers marching for the eight-hour day in Milwaukee, WI were shot at by Wisconsin National Guardsmen in what became known as the Bay View Massacre (1886). The Music Hall in New York City — later known as Carnegie Hall — has its grand opening and first public performance, with Tchaikovsky as the guest conductor (1891). Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the first perfect game in the modern era of baseball (1904). Authorities arrest Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for alleged robbery and murder (1920). A Fu-Go balloon bomb launched by the Japanese Army during WWII kills six people near Bly, OR (1945). The General Treaty, by which France, Britain and the United States recognize the sovereignty of West Germany, comes into effect (1955). Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space, on a sub-orbital flight via Project Mercury (1961). Secretariat wins the 1973 Kentucky Derby in 1:59-2⁄5, an as-yet unbeaten record (1973). Start of Congressional televised hearings in the United States of America with the Iran-Contra affair (1987). The World Health Organization declares the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as a global health emergency (2023).
• May 5 is the birthday of philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813), philosopher/sociologist Karl Marx (1818), businessman/hatter John Batterson Stetson (1830), geneticist Helen Redfield (1900), actor Tyrone Power (1914), musician/composer Delia Derbyshire (1937), actor Lance Henriksen (1940), singer-songwriter Tammy Wynette (1942), actor Michael Palin (1943), actor John Rhys-Davies (1944), journalist Kurt Loder (1945), drummer Bill Ward (1948), singer-songwriter/guitarist Jon Butcher (1955), singer-songwriter Ian McCulloch (1959), philanthropist/model Vanessa Bryant (1982), actor Henry Cavill (1983), singer-songwriter Adele (1988), and tennis player Carlos Alcaraz (2003).

Alrighty then. Let’s dive into the week and remain strong and committed to fighting for our country and the fairness and justice for all that we’ve developed here for nearly 250 years. Enjoy your day.