May 15 top stories
Hello, it is May 15. Here are today’s top stories.
8 dead after bus carrying farm workers in Florida hit by truck
Local news reported that eight farm workers are dead and 45 others were injured in a bus crash around 6:35 a.m. in north-central Florida on Tuesday.
The bus carrying approximately 53 farm workers on their way to work and a pickup truck, for unknown reasons, traveled towards the center line before the vehicles sideswiped each other. After the two vehicles collided, the school bus traveled off the roadway onto the grass shoulder, where it went through a fence, struck a tree and overturned.
Local officials said: “We have eight confirmed fatalities. We’ve had approximately 40 people transported to local area hospitals. Some of those are also in very serious condition so there’s a high probability this may be beyond eight fatalities. And the driver of the Ford pickup was also transported to the hospital with serious injuiries.”
Mexican officials said the victims were all from Mexico and were in the US on temporary agricultural worker visas.
Local authorities identified the driver of the truck as Bryan Maclean Howard, who was arrested and charged with eight counts of Driving Under the Influence – manslaughter.
Takeaways from Michael Cohen’s testimony in the Trump hush money case
Multiple sources reported that Michael Cohen implicated his former boss Trump in the hush money scheme to pay Stormy Daniels just days before the 2016 election, saying he doled out $130,000 at Trump’s direction and was promised reimbursement.
Cohen’s testimony tied together the prosecution’s allegations that Trump broke the law by falsifying business records to reimburse Cohen.
Trump’s defense tried to use Cohen’s words to discredit him and paint Cohen as someone who hated Trump and who was hellbent on getting revenge while making money off the former president. They questioned his obsession with ruining Trump’s reputation and Cohen vehemently denied it.
Cohen and Trump mostly avoided eye contact while he testified on Monday and Tuesday. Trump spent long stretches of Cohen’s questioning with his eyes closed or thumping through a stack of news stories. Several of Trump’s allies flocked to the Manhattan criminal courthouse to display their support for the former president.
FAA faces air traffic controller shortage
According to new Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) numbers, despite a surge in hiring last year, air traffic control stations nationwide are still about 3,000 controllers short.
The numbers show the challenge of filling the gap that led to flight delays and concerns that fatigue contributed to a series of near collisions on runaways last year. The shortage is a concern for airlines, controllers, and watchdogs like the inspector general who last summer concluded the agency made limited efforts to ensure adequate controller staffing at critical air traffic control facilities.
The FAA has about 11,500 controllers. The staffing plans developed by the FAA and the union representing air traffic controllers calls for more than 14,600 controllers to fully staff towers and centers.
But at the same time, its air traffic control organization lost more than 1,300 employees, including controllers who retired or candidates who dropped out of training.
The FAA is aiming to hire 1,800 controllers in the current year, which ends in September.
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1,500 Georgia State University applicants got acceptance emails by mistake
Georgia State University (GSU) mistakenly sent out emails normally sent to applicants who have been accepted.
What happened? Roughly 1,500 undergraduate applicants received a “welcome” email for the 2024-25 school year – before discovering their new status was the result of an error by the school’s admissions office.
School officials told a news outlet in a statement Monday: “The email to the prospective students was not an official acceptance letter, it was one of several communications sent to accepted students after they are admitted. This particular group of 1,500 had incomplete applications. We sent them follow-up communication explaining the error and encouraging them to complete their applications so they could be considered for admission.”
One of the disappointed applicants was stunned by the news that she had not been accepted to GSU. Her mother told a news outlet: “She really won’t talk about it. She would not come out of her room all day. She’s just very disappointed.”
See Alex’s story about some orcas sinking a yacht after ramming it.
Yacht sinks after being rammed by orcas
Thanks, Callie.
A group of orcas (killer whales) caused a sailing yacht to sink in waters near the Strait of Gibraltar near Morocco.
Two people on the yacht said they felt blows to the hull and rudder and that water started to seep into the boat. The couple made an emergency call and a nearby oil tanker rescued them.
The yacht was left adrift and eventually sank.
This incident is the most recent orca ramming in the Strait of Gibraltar, which has happened quite frequently over the past four years.
Scientists and experts suspect that there is a specific group of around 15 orcas that are targeting sailing vessels. This group of orcas is called “Gladis.” Scientists are not sure why they are behaving this way but said they could be trying to play around and causing other orcas to copy them.
There is a theory circulating on social media that the orcas are seeking revenge for an orca that was hit by a boat, but experts say there is no evidence for this.
Experts say the orcas are likely curious and playing around because if they really wanted to do damage and harm people, they could easily do that as they are powerful.
Orcas are very intelligent animals that can weigh 10,000 lbs and swim at speeds over 30 mph.
Thanks for that story. That’s all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light!
8 dead after bus carrying farm workers in Florida hit by truck
Takeaways from Michael Cohen’s testimony in the Trump hush money case
https://apnews.com/live/trump-trial-updates-michael-cohen-day-16
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/nyregion/cohen-trump-criminal-trial-takeaways.html
FAA faces air traffic controller shortage
1,500 Georgia State University applicants got acceptance emails by mistake
Yacht sinks after being rammed by orcas