Tuesday, October 19 top stories
It is Tuesday, October 19. Here are today’s top stories.
Today North Korea’s military fired a ballistic missile into the sea. Just yesterday officials in the U.S. said they were ready to resume talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, which hasn’t picked up since former President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un’s second summit ended without a deal in 2019.
South Korea’s military said the missile was designed to be launched from a submarine, but it’s not clear whether the missile was fired from one or on a platform on the sea. This means that North Korea is continuing to advance in its capabilities with launching a variety of missiles.
A Haitian government official said the gang who kidnapped 17 missionaries from the U.S. and Canada is demanding a ransom of $1 million per person in exchange for their release. It’s not clear if the $1 million includes children as there are five children among those kidnapped, including an eight-month-old child. The missionaries were working with an organization called Christian Aid Ministries and were traveling in a van when it was ambushed by armed gang members. The gang’s name is 400 Mawozo gang and news reports said it controls an area east of Port-au-Prince. The Washington Post said the U.S. government has a long-standing policy of not paying ransoms for American citizens abroad. The White House said President Biden is receiving regular updates on the situation.
Washington State University fired its head football coach Nick Rolovich because he refused to get a coronavirus vaccine to comply with a statewide mandate for public employees to be vaccinated. Rolovich was the highest-paid public employee in the state with a $3.1 million salary. Four assistant coaches were also fired. Rolovich applied for a religious exemption but was denied. He did not share his reasons why he is refusing the vaccine.
Local news in Connecticut reported that 94 people in the Yale New Haven Health System lost their jobs on Monday because they did not get a Covid-19 vaccination. A total of 28,000 employees work in the hospital system, so 94 employees is a very small percentage. A hospital official said the employees can get their jobs back if they get their shots. Most of the employees worked in nursing, food and nutrition, and environmental services.
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CNN Business reported that there are about 200,000 shipping containers on about 70 cargo ships off the coast of Los Angeles on Monday that are waiting to be unloaded but can’t because of backlogs at the port. A LA port official said there is about two weeks’ worth of work sitting at anchor right now and that workers are trying their best to unload as quickly as they can because the items are things like toys, Christmas products, and parts and components for factories. Some of the reasons for the backlogs are a shortage of truck drivers to pick up cargo and American consumers and businesses ordering at higher rates now compared with last year when much of the global economy was slowed down by the pandemic. The port official said they expect the backlog to last into February 2022. There are other countries in the world that are experiencing similar delays and backlogs in their supply chain.
A scuba diver swimming off the coast of Israel happened to find a 900-year-old sword that dates back to the Crusades. The sword was covered with shells and is about four feet long and weighs four pounds. Archaeologists say the sword is from the Third Crusade, when Christian kings in Europe tried and failed to reconquer Jerusalem from the Muslim sultan Saladin. Experts said it makes sense that a sword was found at sea because many battles were waged near beaches when Christian soldiers landed and were sometimes attacked by Muslim forces.
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/94-unvaccinated-staff-at-Yale-New-Haven-Health-16543377.php
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/18/business/container-port-record-backlog/index.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/18/supply-chain-chaos-is-hitting-global-growth-and-could-get-worse.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/18/world/middleeast/crusader-sword-found-israel.html