Random News: July 11, 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.

---

Good morning. It’s July 11, 2025, and if you can believe it, it’s a Friday once again! Most of my weeks are busy; this one was no exception. Still, feels like a long way to go before I get to weekend mode, but I’m mostly confident I’ll get there eventually.

• Something to consider about the Epstein files.
• You likely recall the name Ghislaine Maxwell. She’s the socialite woman who was associated with Jeffrey Epstein — a girlfriend of sorts, though the details of their relationship are unclear.
• Maxwell was found guilty of child sex trafficking and other offenses in connection with Epstein in 2021. In 2022 she was sentenced in federal court in New York City to twenty years' imprisonment, which is where she is now.
• So the question is this: if there was enough tangible evidence to send Maxwell to jail for 20 years, and it was presented in court… where is that evidence? It has to exist somewhere.
• The girls she and Epstein were trafficking didn’t have sex with themselves. It was with Epstein’s wealthy and powerful friends. So that list — contrary to what Dump and AG Bondi have said recently — has to exist.
• And if Dumpy and his pals aren’t on that list, they’d have no problem making it public. Think about it: if it included people he hated — say, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden and a bunch of other Democrats and Dump enemies — he’d have had it blasted as front page news immediately.
• So keep that in mind while you’re trying to find any plausible excuse for the sudden turnaround statement of, “There is no list, and Epstein killed himself.”
• You’re being made a fool of.
• Moving on.
• I want to give you another reminder that the evening of this coming Thursday July 17 is “Good Trouble Lives On,” a nationwide day of protest.
• Most events start around 7pm. Finish work, grab a bite to eat, grab your sign, and hit the streets with us.
• Link in the comments below.
• And now, the news.
• Yesterday, US District Judge Joseph Laplante agreed to issue a new nationwide block against Dumpy’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship.
• The ruling is significant because, as you know, the Supreme Court of Assholes recently curbed the power of lower court judges to issue nationwide injunctions, while keeping intact the ability of plaintiffs to seek a widespread block of the order through class action lawsuits.
• And that’s exactly what happened yesterday in New Hampshire.
• Laplante granted a request from immigration rights attorneys to certify a nationwide class that “will be comprised only of those deprived of citizenship” and issued a preliminary injunction indefinitely blocking Dump’s Day One order from being enforced against any baby born after February 20.
• The judge stated, “The preliminary injunction is just not a close call to the court. The deprivation of US citizenship and an abrupt change of policy that was longstanding … that’s irreparable harm.”
• Side note: Laplante is an appointee of George W. Bush. He said he would pause his order for several days to give the Dump administration time to appeal his decision, which they certainly will.
• But good news nonetheless, and judges across the country will also be making use of class action lawsuits to stop — or at least delay — Dump’s sinister plans.
• Moving on.
• We have a bunch of news from the Immigration Desk.
• Let’s start with a huge confrontation yesterday between protesters and federal officials carrying out a raid on a Southern California farm.
• Vehicles from Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and Border Protection blocked the road in a largely agricultural area of Camarillo lined with fields and greenhouses. There were military-style vehicles and a helicopter flying overhead.
• TV images showed protesters shouting at agents wearing camouflage gear, helmets, and gas masks. It wasn't clear why the authorities released chemicals like tear gas.
• Dump told voters that he’d be focusing his deportation plan on gangsters and violent criminals.
• Instead, federal immigration enforcement agents have ramped up arrests in Southern California at car washes, farms, and Home Depot parking lots to take working people into custody.
• Moving east to Ontario, CA, ICE agents seeking to detain a Honduran landscaper chased him into a Southern California surgical center and quickly found themselves in a tense standoff as clinic staff demanded to see identification and a warrant.
• That’s how you do it! Hats off to those brave folks.
• In a video clip of the Tuesday altercation, Ontario Advanced Surgery Center staff in blue scrubs are heard telling an armed ICE agent wearing a mask and bulletproof vest to let go of the man, who is crying and gasping for breath.
• A staff member shielded the man. “Get your hands off of him. You don’t even have a warrant, Let him go. You need to get out.”
• Nearby, the bishop of San Bernardino formally excused Catholic parishioners from their weekly obligation to attend Mass following immigration detentions on two parish properties in the diocese, which includes Ontario.
• In more immigration news…
• After regaining his freedom, Mahmoud Khalil is seeking something else: restitution.
• Yesterday, his lawyers filed a claim for $20 million in damages against the Dump administration, alleging Khalil was falsely imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted, and smeared as an antisemite as the government sought to deport him over his role in campus protests.
• The filing — a precursor to a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act — names the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the State Department.
• If you need some background: Khalil is a 30-year-old recent graduate student at Columbia University who was arrested and put in the queue for deportation because of pro-Palestine speeches he gave at the school.
• Khalil said he plans to share any settlement money with others targeted in Trump’s “failed” effort to suppress pro-Palestinian speech. In lieu of a settlement, he would also accept an official apology and changes to the administration’s deportation policies.
• Back in March, Khalil was abducted by plainclothes federal agents, who refused to provide a warrant and appeared surprised to learn he was a legal U.S. permanent resident.
• He was then transported to an immigration jail in Jena, Louisiana, a remote location that was “deliberately concealed” from his family and attorneys, according to the filing.
• While imprisoned, Khalil was denied his ulcer medication, forced to sleep under harsh fluorescent lights, and lost 15 pounds in a few weeks.
• And his firstborn child was delivered while he was held in custody.
• Khalil, who has condemned antisemitism before and since his arrest, was not accused of a crime and has not been linked to Hamas or any other terror group.
• And a memo signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged Khalil hadn’t broken the law, but argued he should be deported for his beliefs.
• On June 20, after 104 days in custody, Khalil was ordered released by a federal judge, who found the government’s efforts to remove him on foreign policy grounds were likely unconstitutional.
• A pertinent side note: Border Czar Tom Homan just said in an interview: "People need to understand ICE officers and Border Patrol don't need probable cause to walk up to somebody, briefly detain them, and question them based on their physical appearance."
• So Dump’s administration is claiming that if your skin is brown, it is legal to detain you. They’re saying it openly. This isn’t speculation or opinion; it’s what they’re saying officially.
• Is that how you were brought up to understand freedom in the USA?
• Let’s move on.
• As mentioned yesterday, Dumpy is attacking Brazil with a massive 50% tariff because his criminal pal Jair Bolsonaro is facing accountability for his actions.
• And now — as one would expect — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is ready to impose retaliatory tariffs.
• Lula said in an interview that at first he thought the letter from Trump was a fake. Who can blame him?
• What kind of an idiot president would slap tariffs on one of the only countries with whom we have a trade surplus? Last year alone, the U.S. exported more to Brazil than it imported. That's why Lula called Trump's claim that the trade relationship was "far from reciprocal" simply inaccurate.
• What do we get from Brazil? A lot. Soybeans, crude petroleum, iron ore, raw sugar, coffee, meat (beef and poultry), and orange juice.
• But wait… there’s more tariff news from President Idiot.
• The United States will impose a tariff of 35 percent on goods imported from Canada starting August 1.
• And those are just a couple examples of TACO’s new series of threats issued this week for tariffs of between 25 percent and 40 percent on imports from 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea.
• But few countries are more exposed to Dump’s tariffs than Canada, which sends more than three-quarters of its exports to the United States. 
• Donald Trump is — and always has been — inept and incapable of the job of president. He proves it over and over.
• Let’s just move on.
• We neglected yesterday to mention the sudden resignation of Linda Yaccarino as CEO of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that’s owned by Elon Musk.
• I frankly don’t give a shit. Yaccarino was CEO in name only, a figurehead to protect Musk from certain legal liabilities as the person actually running the company.
• But there are some fascinating side notes on this. First, you may remember a little over two years ago when Yaccarino took on the task to improve the sinking ship performance of Twitter’s advertising.
• And then Musk posted an antisemitic tweet that drove away major brands such as Disney, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Comcast, Lionsgate and Warner Bros Discovery, who all paused their advertising on the platform.
• And then Elon said to those advertisers out loud at a conference, “Go fuck yourselves. I don’t want them to advertise. If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money, go fuck yourself. Go. Fuck. Yourself.”
• But that’s not what I want to discuss. And if you’re sensitive to disgusting topics, you might skip the rest of this section. Trigger warning for about five bullets.
• As we mentioned earlier this week, Grok — the AI chatbot integrated with X — posted several antisemitic remarks, including some praising Hitler and the Holocaust, after Musk and his engineers tweaked the algorithm to be more “anti-woke.”
• It was just a week ago today that Musk wrote, "We have improved Grok significantly. You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions."
• Well people noticed a difference, alright. In addition to its newfound love of Nazis, Grok also wrote extremely violent rape fantasy narratives.
• Allegedly, one such post was about Yaccarino herself, with Grok offering an opinion that she is “possesses the resilience and fortitude to handle a big black dick with impressive skill and determination. She wouldn't tap out; she'd own the challenge like she owns her role.”
• The AI went into more vile detail after being further prompted, but I’m not repeating that shit here.
• Anyway, the following day, Yaccarino tweeted “After two incredible years, l've decided to step
• down as CEO of X.”
• I’m amazed she stayed that long.
• And now, The Weather: “In Resin” by Tan Cologne
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s early July 1961. Some big news of the moment: JFK delivers a nationwide address to say that if the Soviet Union attempted to take control of West Berlin, then the United States would be prepared to go to war, even at the risk of nuclear annihilation.
• Um, yikes. Anyway, I’m not there. I’m still seven years and 11 months from being born. Where am I? Almost certainly in the same place I’ll be after I die.
• Here’s the top of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart at the time.
• 1. Quarter To Three (U.S. Bonds). 2. Tossin' And Turnin' (Bobby Lewis). 3. The Boll Weevil Song (Brook Benton). 4. Raindrops (Dee Clark). 5. The Writing On The Wall (Adam Wade). 6. Moody River (Pat Boone). 7. Travelin' Man (Ricky Nelson). 8. Every Beat Of My Heart (Pips). 9. Those Oldies But Goodies (Remind Me Of You) (Little Caesar and The Romans). 10. Yellow Bird (Arthur Lyman Group). 11. Stand By Me (Ben E. King). 12. Dance On Little Girl (Paul Anka). 13. Hats Off To Larry (Del Shannon). 14. Running Scared (Roy Orbison). 15. Hello Mary Lou (Ricky Nelson). 16. San Antonio Rose (Floyd Cramer). 17. You Always Hurt The One You Love (Clarence Henry). 18. Barbara-Ann (The Regents). 19. Tell Me Why (The Belmonts). 20. Dum Dum (Brenda Lee).
• From the Sports Desk… holy shit! An actual American is in the Wimbledon finals.
• Yesterday, 13-seed American Amanda Anisimova beat the best female tennis player in the world — 1-seed Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka — 6-4, 4-6, 6-4.
• The Women’s finals, set for Saturday, will have Anisimova facing off against 5-seed Polish player Iga Świątek.
• Świątek is a otuch cookie. She is a previous world’s No. 1 in women’s singles, and has won 22 WTA Tour-level singles titles, including five major titles: four at the French Open and one at the US Open. 
• In the Men’s tournament semifinals, 5-seed American Taylor Fritz is putting up a fight against 2-seed Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, but Alcaraz is leading 6-4, 7-5, 6-3 in the third set as I wrote this.
• Today in history… Ming admiral Zheng He sets sail to explore the world for the first time (1405). While exploring the North Atlantic Ocean in an attempt to find the Northwest Passage, Martin Frobisher sights Greenland, mistaking it for the hypothesized  island of “Frisland" (1576). Pluto moved inside the orbit of Neptune for the last since until 1979 (1735). The United States takes possession of Detroit from Great Britain under terms of the Jay Treaty (1796). The United States Marine Corp is reestablished after having been disbanded since the Revolutionary War (1798). A duel occurs in which the Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr mortally wounds former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (1804). Waterloo railway station in London opens (1848). Tijuana, Mexico is founded (1889). Fiat founded by Giovanni Agnelli in Turin, Italy (1899). Babe Ruth makes his MLB debut (1914). Former president of the United States William Howard Taft is sworn in as 10th chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the only person ever to hold both offices (1921). The Hollywood Bowl opens (1922). ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee is first published (1960). First transatlantic satellite television transmission (1962). Martin Luther King Jr. is posthumously given the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977). America's first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean (1979). Richard Branson becomes the first civilian to be launched into space via his Virgin Galactic spacecraft (2021).
• July 11 is the birthday of Scottish king Robert the Bruce (1274), physician/censor Thomas Bowdler (1754), US President John Quincy Adams (1767), painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834), writer E. B. White (1899), actor Yul Brynner (1920), actor Tab Hunter (1931), fashion designer Giorgio Armani (1934), boxer Leon Spinks (1953), actress Sela Ward (1956), singer-songwriter Peter Murphy (1957), guitarist Richie Sambora (1959), singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega (1959), NHL player Al MacInnis (1963), rapper Lil’ Kim (1975), NFL player Patrick Peterson (1990), and NFL player Joey Bosa (1995).

Okay then. Time to do the Friday. Enjoy your day.