Random News: August 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 August 9, 2025, and it’s a Saturday. It’s nice to wake up on a relaxing Saturday in my own home with nothing pressing to do. I’m in my bathrobe and have a full cup of Peet’s Brazil (holy fuck, coffee is expensive due to that idiot’s tariffs), and I can take my time in checking today’s news.

• I don’t know about you, but I am sick to fucking death of having that Old Orange Blob be the topic of more than half of my news stories every fucking day.
• On one hand, I feel a responsibility to make sure you’re aware of how that shithead is destroying our way of life in the USA.
• On the other, I know he thrives on getting attention, and not giving Dumpy what he wants is kind of my favorite hobby.
• Anyway, it’s a conundrum, but I will always err on the side of giving you the info you need to resist his bullshit any way you can.
• Okay, let’s do this.
• You might not have noticed on Thursday night that Dumples the Fascist Clown signed an executive order to give political appointees power over the billions of dollars in grants awarded by federal agencies.
• Scientists say it threatens to undermine the process that has helped make the U.S. the world leader in research and development.
• The order — which reeks of far-right Project 2025 involvement — requires all federal agencies, including FEMA, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health, to appoint officials responsible for reviewing federal funding opportunities and grants, so that they “are consistent with agency priorities and the national interest.”
• It also requires agencies to make it so that current and future federal grants can be terminated at any time — including during the grant period itself.
• This mechanism has always been politically neutral. It’s one of the main reasons that the USA has been a world leader in science for the past 100 years. And that leads to us being a leader in technology and gives massive advantages in business, medical treatment, and much more.
• Now? Not.
• The changes will delay grant review and approval, slowing progress for cures and treatments that patients and families across the country urgently need.
• Dump has already terminated thousands of research grants at agencies like the NSF and NIH, including on topics like transgender health, vaccine hesitancy, misinformation, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
• Vladimir Putin couldn’t have hoped for a better person to destroy the USA form the inside out than Donnie Dump.
• Speaking of whom…
• Dump is meeting with Putin next week, on August 15 in Alaska.
• Putin has allegedly proposed a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine. All Ukraine has to do is give up a huge portion of its own country.
• Let me ask you a question. If the USA was under attack and some other country said that we could end the war, but that Texas would no longer be part of the U.S. and instead would be owned by Saudi Arabia, do you think Americans would be cool with that?
• Anyway, the Kremlin has confirmed the Putin-Trump summit in Alaska, adding that Dumpy had been invited to visit Russia after the meeting.
• All three previous sets of talks between Russia and Ukraine failed to bring visible progress, and it's unclear whether a Dump-Putin meeting can bring about a ceasefire.
• Political experts are already calling the Alaska summit a big win for Russia. There’s no way a strong U.S. president — like Obama or even Bush/Cheney — would have bowed to Putin in this manner.
• Let’s move on.
• Hey, here’s some more fuckery.
• Yesterday, Dump’s administration told Harvard University it could take control of the school's patents stemming from federally funded research.
• At this point, we all just live in a mafia-run ghetto.
• Dump’s Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, is launching an "immediate comprehensive review" of whether Harvard has complied with federal laws around patents.
• And yes, the patents in question could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Lutnick threatened to grant third-party licenses to Harvard's patents or take the titles to any patents where Dumpy claims that Harvard has failed to comply with government title and disclosure requirements.
• He gave Harvard until September 5 to respond and prove it's complying with the Bayh-Dole Act, which says universities receiving federal research grants have to show that inventions issuing from that funding are being used to benefit Americans. 
• Fucking fascist assholes. All this because Barron Dump didn’t get accepted there.
• Moving on.
• Quiz time. How many people have run the IRS since Dumpy took office and 6-1/2 months ago?
• The answer… is seven. SEVEN. 
• Danny Werfel resigned just as Dump took office, though his term lasted until 2027. Then Douglas O’Donnell. Melanie Krause. Gary Shapley. Michael Faulkender. And then Billy Long, who was removed by Dump yesterday.
• Long lasted just two months one the job, and now Dump is nominating him for an ambassadorship. Sounds like Long learned some interesting stuff while running the IRS.
• As of May, some 25,000 staffers had left the IRS, a 25% decrease from February levels. Meanwhile, staff from DOGE tried to get complete access to the IRS's tax data system, sparking a lawsuit.
• The reverberations from the criminal takeover of the USA will last a very, very long time.
• A note from the Health Desk…
• The summer surge of COVID-19 doesn't appear to be slowing down — instead, a key indicator for tracking the spread of the virus has increased, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Yesterday, they shared an update, with wastewater activity for COVID-19 being at a "moderate" level nationwide, up from "low" the previous week. 
• Where is it bad? It’s currently the highest in the Western U.S., with high levels in Alaska, California, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah.
• But it’s not limited to us folks in the West. Other metrics are also showing increases in the illness, growing or likely growing in 45 states, which is up from 40 states last week.
• Kat and I were just talking about how it’s a fucking miracle that after two plane flights and four days around lots of people in casinos during our Vegas trip last weekend, neither of us got sick at all.
• Pure luck. I have multiple friends who either have COVID now or just got over it.
• And from the Environment Desk…
• The Dump Administration is ending a program to help low-income households and communities get access to affordable solar energy.
• Why? Dump is doing anything to try and reverse former President Biden's climate agenda and boost fossil fuels instead.
• The "Solar for All" program had aimed to help more than 900,000 low-income households reduce pollution, and utility bills. Solar for All funded efforts around the country to provide rooftop solar panels, community solar farms, and battery storage.
• But Dump’s Big Bullshit Bill eliminated the funding for the program, despite it being obligated by law and many solar projects already underway that would have represented over $350 million in annual savings on electric bills for low-income households across the country.
• Oh well. Dump ruins everything, as usual.
• A brief side note…
• There have been many occasions where people read this daily Random News report of mine, and ask why I do it.
• They point out that it’s unlikely that many (if any) MAGA-type people read it at all, and even if they did, I am unlikely to ever change even one of their minds.
• And I have to explain that I don’t write this for them.
• A great example of this worldview is when a reporter asked A.J. Muste — a clergyman and pacifist who protested against the Vietnam War — “Do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night in front of the White House with a candle?"
• Muste replied, “Oh, I don't do this to change the country. I do this so the country won't change me."
• Hopefully that explains why I bother with this.
• And now, The Weather: “Common Things” by Wombo
• RIP going out to Jim Lovell, the astronaut who commanded the famous Apollo 13 mission in 1970. He died yesterday at 97.
• As you likely recall, Tom Hanks played Lovell in the ‘Apollo 13’ film, with the famous tagline said by Lovell, "Houston, we have a problem."
• That problem was an oxygen tank explosion that happened thousands of miles from Earth, but Lovell and the crew managed to safely return home.
• Lovell was also the command module pilot for 1968's Apollo 8 mission, the first to carry humans to the moon and back, though it did not land on the lunar surface.
• Let’s do a chart.
• It’s August 1982, and I am getting ready to start my freshman year of high school. I’ve been playing in summer league basketball — in addition to being a in bowling league and going to the beach most days — and I’ve grown four inches over the summer.
• Here was the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart at the time.
• 1. Mirage (Fleetwood Mac). 2. Eye Of The Tiger (Survivor). 3. Asia (Asia). 4. American Fool (John Cougar). 5. Pictures At Eleven (Robert Plant). 6. Abracadabra (The Steve Miller Band). 7. Good Trouble (REO Speedwagon). 8. Daylight Again (Crosby, Stills & Nash). 9. Toto IV (Toto). 10. Always On My Mind (Willie Nelson). 11. Three Sides Live (Genesis). 12. Get Lucky (Loverboy). 13. Dreamgirls (Original Cast). 14. Chicago 16 (Chicago). 15. Dare (The Human League). 16. All Four One (The Motels). 17. Escape (Journey). 18. Gap Band IV (The Gap Band). 19. Rocky III (Soundtrack). 20. Combat Rock (The Clash).
• From the Sports Desk… last night had what might be the greatest head-to-head pitcher matchup in the history of Major League Baseball.
• Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw went toe-to-toe for six innings in front of a sellout crowd. They are the first duo in MLB history to start against each other as rookies and each accumulate 3,000 career strikeouts.
• Scherzer is 41, and currently pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays, where made his 465th career start. Kershaw, 37, started his 443rd game -- all for the Los Angeles Dodgers over 18 seasons.
• Kershaw got the win, allowing one run and seven hits as Los Angeles earned a 5-1 victory. The dude is still kicking ass… he’s 6-2 this season.
• Today in history… Julius Caesar defeats Pompey, who flees to Egypt (48 BC). The Creek native Americans sign a treaty and give up huge sections of Alabama and Georgia (1814). Philosopher Henry David Thoreau publishes his memoir ‘Walden’ (1854). Thomas Edison receives a patent on a two-way telegraph (1892). Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark are crowned King and Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1902). Jesse Owens wins his fourth medal at the Berlin Olympics (1936). The US Forestry Service releases posters featuring Smokey the Bear for the first time (1944). Nagasaki is devastated by the atomic bomb Fat Man, killing tens of thousands of people instantly and many more later (1945). Singapore becomes the only country ever to gain independence unwillingly, being expelled from Malaysia (1965). Followers of Charles Manson kill Sharon Tate and four others (1969). As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office, and Vice President Gerald Ford becomes president (1974). Shannon Eastin becomes the first woman to officiate an NFL game (2012). Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American male in Ferguson, MO, is shot and killed by a Ferguson police officer, sparking protests and unrest in the city (2014).
• August 9 is the birthday of colonial settler John Webster (1590), psychologist Jean Piaget (1896), educator Willa Beatrice Player (1909), astrophysicist William Alfred Fowler (1911), actor Robert Shaw (1927), NBA player Bob Cousy (1928), tennis player Rod Laver (1938), boxer Ken Norton (1943), actor Sam Elliott (1944), drummer Pete Thomas (1954), actress Melanie Griffith (1957), actress Amanda Bearse (1958), rapper Kurtis Blow (1959), fashion designer Michael Kors (1959), singer-songwriter Whitney Houston (1963), NHL player Brett Hull (1964), journalist Hoda Kotb (1964), NFL/MLB player Deion Sanders (1967), actress Gillian Anderson (1968), NBA player Derek Fisher (1974), sprinter Tyson Gay (1982), actor Dan Levy (1983), actress Anna Kendrick (1985), activist/politician Sarah McBride (1990), and singer-songwriter Arlo Parks (2000).

Off to do more Saturday things, m whatever they may be. Enjoy your day.