July 28 top stories
Hello! I’m Renca and I will take Alex’s place for today’s top news. Today is Friday, July 28th. Here’s the news.
Trump gets more charges
Former president Trump got more charges in his classified documents case. Special Counsel Jack Smith said Trump wanted security videos to be deleted so a grand jury couldn’t see it. Smith also said Trump worked with two aides to keep classified documents and hide it from a grand jury.
Trump denied he did anything wrong. He said the new charges were just an attempt by the Biden administration to distract people from his son Hunter’s case.
Emmy Awards postponed
The 75th Annual Emmy Awards will not happen on September 18th. It will be postponed to January 2024 due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes that have paused Hollywood. There are comments that people are not surprised this happened because earlier this month, Hollywood actors decided to join the writers who have been striking for a while.
This strike has shut down many productions of movies and TV shows. This recent June, the Daytime Emmy Awards was supposed to happen on June 16th, but have been postponed. They did not share when the new date is.
In a few other articles, they mentioned that yesterday the vendors and other people who are involved with the Emmy show were told that their services would need to be pushed to a later date. The last time that the Emmys were postponed was in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks.
First woman executed in Singapore in 20 years
Saridewi Djamani (45) was the first woman to be executed in Singapore in almost 20 years. The punishment was death by hanging. She was convicted of smuggling around 30 grams of heroin. She was sentenced to death in 2018.
The last time a woman was executed in Singapore was in 2004, a 36 years old woman was hanged for also drug-related crimes.
The Global Commission on Drug Policy and the International Federation for Human Rights and Amnesty International have tried to halt Saridewi’s execution but did not succeed. Singapore’s government said that they are maintaining this death penalty as a way to prevent drug-related crimes to make the city safe and the public widely supports it. In one of the articles, it says that Saridewi did testify and explained during her trial that she was stocking up on heroin for personal use during the Islamic fasting month however the article also mentioned that she did not deny selling drugs. Amnesty International said that Singapore is one of the four countries with China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia that have drug-related executions.
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Ukrainian fencer disqualified at championship game
At the World Fencing Championship, Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan (32) was disqualified because she refused to shake hands with Anna Smirnova who is a Russian. Kharlan, the first fencer to face a Russian or Belarusian since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, won 15-7 in Milan. After the match was finished, Kharlan refused to shake hands but offered her sabre (sword) to tap blades. Smirnova got upset and appealed. She decided to do a 45-minute sit-down protest. Smirnova is a Russian competing under the neutral flag. A few hours later, the results showed that Kharlan who is a 4 times individual champion and four-time Olympic medalist, have been disqualified from the women’s sabre individual. She explained that the president of the International Fencing Federation told her that it was “possible” to not shake hands, but offer to touch of their blade instead. In fencing, not shaking hands does result in a black card and expulsion. Since the full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine back in February, there has been a ban on Ukrainian athletes to compete against Russian or Belarusian athletes. As of this recent Wednesday, the Ukrainian government decided to lift the ban and athletes can resume to compete against Russians and Belarusians who participate as “neutrals” which the fencing championship is one of them. Kharlan said that she said she is disappointed that she listened to the president of the International Fencing Federation and she mentioned that Ukrainian athletes are ready to face Russians on the sports field, but we will never shake hands with them.
Tick bite leads to meat allergy
A potentially life-threatening allergy to red meat may impact almost half a million Americans in certain parts of the country, and many doctors have no idea what it is from or how to treat it. The alpha-gal syndrome is rising in the population now- a tick-borne illness that leads to allergic reactions from eating red meat, deer, pork, or goats. Some people have developed an allergy to dairy and other related stuff. The allergy symptoms do not appear until after a few hours later due to the stomach slowly digesting meat. The alpha-gal is a specific sugar molecule that comes from the blood of cows, deer, goats, and pigs. It is not found in humans, fish, or birds. So when the ticks, specifically the lone star tick, feed on those mammals, the alpha-gal gets into their saliva then when the tick bites a human, this alpha-gal gets transmitted to people. When that happens, the body recognizes the alpha-gal as a “foreign object” and then will produce the antibodies that make the immune system allergic to it. There is a small percentage of doctors who know about this, and this is a recent a new discovery that was found through a cancer drug. Experts are saying that people need to cover up when outdoors and regularly check yourself for tick bites. CDC advises people to use insect repellent.
That’s all for now. Have a great weekend and stay with the light.
Trump: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/28/politics/trump-classified-documents-case-2024
Singapore: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66333776
Fencing: https://www.bbc.com/sport/fencing/66322668
Tick: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/alpha-gal-syndrome-red-meat-ticks-lone-star-rcna96636