Random News and Notes 10 June
We’ll save any riot coverage for the end of today’s RNN. Kicking off the update is a story out of Michigan. The Feds have caught another Chinese national trying to smuggle potential bio-weapons material into the country.
Just a few days ago, I brought you the story of a pair of Chinese UM students who were caught trying to smuggle in a fungus that attacks crops. The bad guy – or girl in this case – Chengxuan Han is a Chinese national and is a doctoral student at at the College of Life Science and Technology in the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan of all places.
In what seems to have become a weekly event of late, a container ship is on fire and drifting off the coast of India. The Singapore flagged container vessel MV Wan Hai 503, is approximately 130 NM North -West of Kochi India. According to my go-to source for all things shipping, Sal Mercogliano, there was an explosion in one of the shipping containers that led to the fire.
The crew abandoned ship and the fire aboard is being fought by the Indian Coast Guard. As of this writing there are no injuries associated with this incident. Another ship fire, this one off the coast of Alaska, occurred last week. The car carrier Morning Midas was bound for Mexico from China when one of the EVs onboard caught fire.
On a sad note, Sly Stone, leader of the pioneering funk band Sly and the Family Stone has passed. He was 82. Sly died after a prolonged battle with COPD and other underlying health issues.
Requiescat in Pace.
In the first riot related story we have a current active duty Naval JAG officer calling for the deaths of ICE agents.
Normally I dislike this kind of thing. It smacks of doxxing to me. That said, when threats are made, all bets are off. As Shoe said, we should care because of who this guy is. Moving on. . .
500 Marines have been sent to LA as part of the Federal response to the riots there. It is being reported that they are stationed at 29 Palms. I have heard that base is among the worst in the Corps.
That shit would be funny AF.
The dumbass who was throwing rocks and chucks of cinder block at ICE vehicles has been identified. 40 year old Elpidio Renya was wearing a motorcycle helmet when he was caught on video.
He faces 8 years for each count of assault on a federal officer when he gets caught.
While not strictly riot related, I’m gonna drop this one here. I mean, who’s gonna stop me?
Mexican President and Cartel Pawn, Claudia Sheinbaum is getting pissy that there is a tax on remittances in the BBB currently working its way through Congress. She says she’s going to ‘mobilize’ Mexicans if the remittance tax goes forward.
Remittances – money earned in the US and sent to another country – make up about 4% of the Mexican GDP. In 2023, the last year we have complete data for, Mexico got some $63 billion in remittances from the US. Sheinbaum has good reason to be pissy. The 3.5% tax will most certainly eat into the amount of money sent back to Mexico.
Our final story today amuses me for some reason. Autonomous ride share company Waymo is removing all of its vehicles from LA. Several of their self-driving electric cars have been set on fire during the riots. The funny thing? It seems that the cars had been ordered via the Waymo app before being torched.
It also seems that they are being driven out of the area by humans. Waymo has ‘adjusted’ their service areas in LA county to keep it from happening again.
