Wizard Crimes & Soapy PR
Harry Potter was nearly arrested. The Ocean gets an oil change. The US is seeking to send about $100 Billion in aid to wars. Disneyland Cast Members seek to unionize.
You're Arrested, Harry
Cops in England were called on Sunday to respond to reports of a man walking around carrying a massive knife. Clearly a danger to those around them, possibly planning some kind of attack. Spooky.
One thing tho: it wasn't a knife. It was a replica Harry Potter wand, and the person holding it was just some random Harry Potter fan.
Thankfully, the cops didn't kill anyone.
Anyway, that's pretty funny. Also, J.K. Rowling is a transphobic piece of shit.
Ocean is Not Car Engine
The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago has called a national emergency after an unknown ocean vessel has overturned and began leaking oil near the beaches of Trinidad.
The oil has already washed up over beaches of Trinidad, while the local government says they actually do not know who the hell owns the defunct ship. Quite literally a floating time bomb of an oil spill that washed up near their nation and decided to just leak dinosaur juice everywhere.
Initial attempts to seal the vessel and contain the spill have failed, so now its a matter of figuring out how to CTRL+Z the oil out of the ocean, which unfortunately a tall task, even for Clippy.
Dem-Majority Senate Passes $100B War Funding Bill, GOP Wants to Spend More
The Democrat-majority US Senate passed a spending bill pledging just under $100 Billion in aid to Ukraine and Israel, as well as for humanitarian aid to Gaza, though notably they're spending literally billions more on supporting the assault on Gaza than the humanitarian aid.
To be clear: this is not yet law. The Senate passed this bill, but the Republican-controlled House has already said they want to spend more money, including funding "for the border" which happens to suddenly and desperately need funding every other presidency, according to Republicans talking on cable news shows.
This is likely going to result in either more back-and-forth, or ultimately just some tweaks to the package to include more "wins" for Republicans in this $100 Billion that is still not going towards helping the homeless or feeding the hungry.
Unionizing the Happiest Place on Earth
Employees at Disneyland in California (called "Cast Members," not unlike the "Sandwich Artists" of the Subway clan) are seeking to unionize, following the precedent sent by their cousins at Disney World in Florida.
About 1,700 Cast Members got themselves some union cards to unionize under the representation of the Actor's Equity Association.
Disney is famously anti-union, so this may be an uphill battle, but the precedent is already set, making it just that much more of a bad look to keep trying to union bust.
Solidary, always.
A Note
There was a shooting towards the end of a celebratory parade for the Superbowl victory by the Kansas City team. 22 people—including 8 children—were shot by a person shooting into the crowds.
Of all of this, I want to just call out one statement from the report:
The shooting outside Union Station happened despite more than 800 police officers who were in the building and around the area, including on top of nearby buildings, said Mayor Quinton Lucas, who attended with his wife and mother and had to run for cover when gunfire broke out.
On This Day…
On this day in 2013, two meteors made the news. (Space people forgive me, I know they're not both meteors, but SPACE ROCKS or whatever), one of which we expected, the other was a surprise.
In the south west of Russia around 9am local time, a massive 60-foot-diameter meteor entered the atmosphere without our prior knowledge, then proceeded to turn into a fireball brighter than the sun while exploding, injuring around 1,500 people and generally causing a ruckus. We legit had no idea it was coming, largely due to it being obscured by the sun.
Here's the kicker: we were expecting the other one. The SPACE ROCK named 367943 Duende (beautiful name) was being tracked and widely discussed on the news, as it would be passing by Earth that day. We were fixated on the sky, but the other meteor was like "NO, ME FIRST."
Here's the Weather
More Stuff
- Despite the loud cries of capital-G Gamers, a recent report shows only around 2% of video games actually include queer character or stories
- A Tesla employee killed in a crash was found to have been using Tesla's full self driving mode
- Microsoft has announced they'll be releasing some first party games like Sea of Thieves on PS5 and Nintendo Switch
- In a sign of the times, a Swedish water park was engulfed in flame
- Biden's campaign has joined TikTok, despite trying to ban it earlier in his presidency
- A man in England has become the first in the country to be convicted of "cyber-flashing" after sending unsolicited dick pics
- Another door has fallen off another plane. At least this time it wasn't a major airliner
- After footage came out of Israeli soldiers stripping, binding and beating Palestinians, Israel says they'll maybe handle it
Even More Stuff
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