Monday, July 5 top stories
It is Monday, July 5. Hope your weekend was good. I am doing today’s top stories from home. Ready for the news?
In Ocean City, Maryland, there was a massive fireworks mishap that happened on Sunday morning, sending explosions and smoke rising near the beach while people were getting ready to enjoy the day. NBC News explained that workers contracted by the city were beginning to set up fireworks for the evening when somehow the fireworks were set off. Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured — there were some employees who had minor injuries. The mistake led to the cancellation of all Fourth of July fireworks shows in the area.
Joey Chestnut ate 76 hot dogs in 10 minutes during yesterday’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest to break his own record from last year and win for the 14th time. Chestnut said in an interview that “it felt good.”
In another competition, Eric Booker won the lemonade chug contest by drinking one gallon of Nathan’s lemonade in 37 seconds.
The remaining, standing part of the collapsed condo in Surfside, Florida was brought down last night in a controlled demolition using explosives. Officials were concerned that strong winds from Tropical Storm Elsa would cause the remaining building to become unstable and threaten search crews. Now the entire Champlain Towers South is on the ground and search crews are able to move to new places to try and find people from the first collapse. There are 24 confirmed deaths and 121 people still missing.
[Text: UPDATE: The death toll has increased to 27 after three bodies were found.]
Tropical Storm Elsa was a hurricane on Friday, but weakened into a tropical storm on Saturday. As of this morning, it is southeast of Cuba and is expected to pass near the Florida Keys on Tuesday morning and continue moving northwards up Florida’s west coast.
Elsa is blamed for two deaths in the Dominican Republic and one death in St. Lucia. Cuba ordered 180,000 residents to evacuate out of concerns of flooding.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci said 99.2% of recent Covid-19 deaths involved unvaccinated people. Fauci said he is frustrated because he feels that while the coronavirus is a very “formidable enemy,” we have a highly effective countermeasure. Fauci said the U.S. is very fortunate that it has enough vaccines for everyone in the country and is asking people to put aside their “anti-vax or anti-science” views to defeat “the common enemy.”
On Saturday, a professional golfer named Gene Siller, who worked at a country club golf course in Kennesaw, Georgia, was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head on the 10th hole.
Police said there was a Dodge Ram pick-up truck nearby that had the deceased bodies of two other men in the truck bed. It is not known who or where the gunman is and the suspect is considered armed and dangerous.
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is retiring today as CEO. Bezos is the richest man in the world and is transitioning to executive chair so he can focus on his other projects, such as the Blue Origin spaceflight company, the Washington Post, and philanthropy.
The new CEO is Andy Jassy.
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/joey-chestnut-eats-76-hot-dogs-10-minutes-setting-new-n1273076
https://www.axios.com/surfside-condo-building-demolished-c410fe65-2edb-4a96-befd-a4f6c10ba343.html
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/2021-07-05-tropical-storm-elsa-forecast-florida-southeast
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gene-siller-golfer-two-other-men-shot-dead-georgia-course/
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/05/tech/jeff-bezos-amazon-ceo-exit/index.html