Random News: August 17, 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 August 17, 2025, and it’s a Sunday. I slept so hard that my brain is coming online with the speed of a 14.4 dial-up modem, for those of you old enough to remember SCREEE BRRRRR WHHRRRR BINGBONG BINGBONG and so on. Coffee is helping.

• There’s some more info slowly coming out about the summit held on Friday in Alaska between Donnie Dump and Vladdy Putin.
• I can’t help but continue to feel like the entire event was purely an attempt at distraction from things like Dump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and more, but that’s not important at the moment.
• According to special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, Putin agreed at the summit to allow the U.S. and European allies to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the 3+ year-long war.
• They say that, but like most dealings with Russia, I wouldn’t put much faith in it until I see it.
• Witkoff added that Russia said that it would make a legislative commitment not to go after any additional territory in Ukraine.
• The question being, what is “additional”? Do they mean territory beyond the parts of Ukraine that Russia has already annexed like the Donbas region in the east, or leaving the country’s borders as they were before Russia attacked?
• We all know the answer.
• One Ukrainian official stated it clearly: “We are not going to put 1 million Ukrainians into occupation. It’s unbelievable that it is even possible to propose anything like that in the modern world.”
• Agreed.
• Tomorrow, European leaders will join Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he meets with Dump in Washington.
• It’s smart of them to present a unified front, and not leave Zelensky there on his own.
• Accompanying him will be NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
• A question that’s probably on their minds: why did Dump act like such a wimp and not use the economic leverage he had against Putin?
• The Russian economy is fucked. They have massive inflation and sky-high interest rates, which have caused many Russian business leaders to warn of impending bankruptcies.
• Dumpy — who pretends to talk tough but then acts like a pussy when it’s time to take action — had threatened to levy tough sanctions on Russia earlier this month, but those plans fizzled out.
• Anyway, until we hear proof otherwise, the summit was pointless showmanship. There’s still no ceasefire. There’s no agreement in place. There’s a whole lot of nothing.
• Meanwhile, back in the USA…
• Yesterday afternoon, hundreds and hundreds of people gathered peacefully in the nation's capital to protest Dumpy's attempted takeover of the city's police department and deployment of National Guard units alongside federal agents.
• They chanted, "Shame" and "Trump must go now!" while marching to the White House.
• As we reported, Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted to appoint DEA Administrator Terry Cole as an "emergency police commissioner" who would assume full operational control over D.C. police.
• That bullshit got shut down fast on Friday when D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit in federal court.
• I love the statement from protestor John Smith about a city that’s allegedly a hellscape, fully overridden by violent thugs, at least according to Dumpy.
• Smith said, “I think he doesn't know what he's talking about. I’m a little old white man and I walk around safely all the time."
• The next thing to protest in D.C. are the three states that moved to deploy hundreds of members of their National Guard to the nation’s capital.
• West Virginia said it was deploying 300 to 400 Guard troops, while South Carolina pledged 200, and Ohio says it will send 150 in the coming days.
• I have to assume that everything is perfect and everyone has great lifestyles in WV, SC, and OH for them to be volunteering their resources to send to D.C. for (checks notes) no reason at all.
• I mean, Cleveland, OH has a violent crime rate of 1561 per 10,000, the sixth highest in the nation. Dayton, OH is at 1339 per 10,000. Toledo, OH is at 1041. All are far worse than D.C. Why hasn’t Governor DeWine sent troops there?
• Anyway, they’ll be joining the many federalized local police forces and about 800 District of Columbia National Guard members.
• Armed military, aggressively bullying citizens in the streets? Is that the USA that you envisioned? It’s not my USA.
• Let’s move on.
• Some potential good news in regard to Hurricane Erin, which had exploded into a Category 5 powerhouse. It was downgraded to a Category 3 storm this morning, but rip currents and surf remain life threatening to beachgoers along the U.S. East Coast.
• Maybe don’t go swimming int he ocean during a hurricane. Sound good?
• Erin still has dangerous 125 mph winds, and it’s currently about 200 miles north-northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Yesterday, Erin's sustained winds had reached 160 mph.
• Nearly the entire island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands was without electricity early this morning. Scattered outages were reported on St. John and St. Croix.
• The hurricane is not expected to have a direct hit on U.S. shores. Still, ya know, be safe and stuff.
• Moving on.
• Anyone noticing that their electricity bills seem kinda high?
• Across the USA, electricity prices have jumped more than twice as fast as the overall cost of living in the last year. That's especially painful during these dog days of summer, where in many places, air conditioners are working overtime.
• Example: in Pembroke Pines, FL, Al Salvi's power bill is up to $500 a month. He says, "There's a lot of seniors down here that are living check to check. They can barely afford prescriptions such as myself. Now we got to decide whether we're going to pay the electric bill or are we going to buy medication. And it's not fair to us. You're squeezing us between a rock and a hard place."
• It's obviously not just Florida that's wrestling with high-priced power. Electricity prices have been rising rapidly across the country — thanks to a combination of factors.
• One of them is power-hungry data centers that have been popping up all over, serving the boom in artificial intelligence.
• So your insane power bill is the result of some incel down the street being online with his computer girlfriend for 18 hours a day.
• The Energy Department projects data centers and other commercial customers will use more electricity than households for the first time ever next year.
• Fucking pricks.
• Moving on with a note from the Health Desk…
• Not only are COVID cases climbing again, marking another summer wave as kids go back to school.
• But this uptick arrives with an added layer of uncertainty because it’s unclear when and which Americans can receive updated vaccines this fall.
• One problem with the current strain of COVID is that many won’t even know they have it, because the symptoms can be indistinguishable from a cold or other respiratory bug. Yet hospitals are no longer flooded with patients because immune systems are much better trained to fight the virus five years after it arrived.
• Thank the medical gods for those vaccines.
• However, it’s likely that this fall, access to those vaccines will be limited to adults ages 65 and older, and people who have chronic conditions, weakened immune systems, or are pregnant.
• And emergency room data suggests current infections are disproportionately affecting children.
• The good news: most children now have some level of hybrid immunity from prior infection and vaccination. But vaccines still play a key role in giving a child’s body a robust immune response.
• And while people still get COVID despite the fact that they’ve been vaccinated, they tend not to die or get severely ill. The best analogy is like wearing a seat belt. It doesn’t prevent an accident, but it decreases the likelihood of dying from one.
• And now, The Weather: “milk of the madonna” by Deftones
• An RIP going out to actor Terence Stamp, perhaps best known in the USA for playing General Zod in Christopher Reeve’s ‘Superman’ films. He died yesterday at 87.
• But Stamp had many notable performances, including ‘Billy Budd,’ his 1962 film debut for which he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He also earned a BAFTA for his portrayal of a trans woman in ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.’
• From the Sports Desk… gotta give some props to the leading team in MLB, the Milwaukee Brewers.
• Last night, they set a single-season franchise record with their 14th straight victory. To do so, they had to rally from seven runs down to beat the Cincinnati Reds 6-5 in 11 innings.
• The last time Milwaukee was this hot? 1987, when they opened the season by winning their first 13 games.
• Today in history… Cesare Borgia, the son of a pope, becomes the first person in history to resign the cardinalate (1498). The first group of colonists lands in the New World to create Roanoke Colony in modern-day North Carolina (1585). The British parliament accepts registration of births, marriages, and deaths (1836). The Union beats the fuck out of Confederate-held Fort Sumter in Charleston (1863). Bridget Driscoll became the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed in a collision with a motor car in the United Kingdom (1896). US Marines raid the Japanese-held island of Makin (1942). The novella ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell is first published (1945). The first meeting of Narcotics Anonymous is held, appropriately, in Southern California (1953). Pioneer 0, the attempted first launch beyond Earth’s orbit, fails on launch (1958). Cat 5 Hurricane Camille smashes the Gulf Coast, killing 256 people (1969). The Soviets launch Venera 7, the first spacecraft to soft-land on another planet (1970). US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky (1998). Michael Phelps wins a record eight gold medals at one Olympic Games (2008). 
• August 17 is the birthday of painter Francesco Albani (1578), frontiersman Davy Crockett (1786), activist/journalist Marcus Garvey (1887), actress Mae West (1893), US general Leslie Groves (1896), lawyer/spy Mark Felt (1913), actress Maureen O’Hara (1920), military pilot Francis Gary Powers (1929), poet/writer Ted Hughes (1930), computer scientist Margaret Hamilton (1936), actor Robert De Niro (1943), businessman Larry Ellison (1944), drummer Sib Hashian (1949), guitarist/composer Eric Johnson (1954), bassist/composer Colin Moulding (1955), singer Belinda Carlisle (1958), actor Sean Penn (1960), NFL coach Jon Gruden (1963), singer/actor Donnie Wahlberg (1969), NFL player Antwaan Randle El (1979), NBA player Rudy Gay (1986), actor Austin Butler (1991), singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers (1994), and rapper Lil Pump (2000).

Okay then. I’ve got various things to do. Enjoy your day.