Monday, May 24 top stories
Hello, it is Monday, May 24. Here are today’s top stories.
U.S. gymnast Simone Biles on Saturday became the first woman to land a very difficult vault move called the “Yurchenko double pike.” A video shows Biles jumping backwards from the vault before spinning twice and landing with a hop. The move is considered dangerous. Biles said she did it because she “can.”
Biles is a four-time Olympic gold medalist and will participate in the Olympic trials in June to qualify for the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
On Sunday Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship and became the oldest golfer to win a major championship at 50 years of age.
Mickelson said he hopes to inspire others, saying there’s no reason why you can't accomplish your goals at an older age. He said it just takes a little more work.
On Sunday in northern Italy a cable car with 15 people in it traveling up a mountain broke off, crashed, and flipped several times before stopping among trees. 14 were killed. The only survivor is a 5-year-old boy, who is in the hospital with broken bones.
CNN explained that five families were in the cable car and that five of the dead were Israeli nationals. The only survivor is also Israeli. Italian authorities are launching manslaughter investigations.
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On Sunday, the president of Belarus ordered a military jet to force a Ryanair passenger jet traveling from Greece to Lithuania to land in the Belarusian capital city of Minsk so authorities could arrest a political rival named Raman Pratasevich.
Pratasevich developed an app that helped protesters to organize massive protests against the president last year. He is considered an extremist to the Belarusian government. His girlfriend and four others were removed from the plane and the flight resumed its trip.
European leaders have condemned the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. There are talks about banning Belarusian planes from the European Union and for European flights to avoid Belarus airspace.
Danny Masterson, best known for his role on “That ‘70s Show,” was ordered on Friday to stand trial on three counts of rape by force or fear.
Three women testified during a preliminary hearing that Masterson raped them in separate incidents in 2001 and 2003. Masterson has denied the allegations.
The Church of Scientology has a big role in the case because Masteron is a member and the three women were former members. There are questions on whether the church tried to keep the allegations covered up to protect Masterson, and questions on the other side on whether the three accusers are trying to work together to take down Masterson and the church.
The trial will likely take place sometime in the next few months. Masterson faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted.
The Wall Street Journal reported that three employees at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were sickened and hospitalized in November 2019 with Covid-19 symptoms — about a month before the coronavirus outbreak started in Wuhan. The report raises fresh questions about whether the virus originated from a lab or from wild animals that were killed at a wet market. The WSJ said they got the information from a U.S. intelligence report from the last days of former president Donald Trump’s administration. A spokesperson for the lab said the report is a complete lie. President Joe Biden’s administration said they still have questions about the origin and want to investigate “plausible theories.”
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
Simone Biles: https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/23/us/simone-biles-yurchenko-double-pike-trnd/index.html
Cable car: https://apnews.com/article/italy-cable-car-84672bf7fcd99f103587cc3862b49dcc
https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/24/europe/italy-cable-car-accident-update-intl/index.html
Phil Mickelson: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/23/sports/golf/pga-championship-final-round-phil-mickelson.html
Danny Masteron: https://apnews.com/article/danny-masterson-religion-entertainment-trials-arts-and-entertainment-c53cf75f0170ea7c4d81d11354b5831a