Good afternoon, this is Brooke Howard with The Daily Beast. It's Monday, May 24th, and these are the top stories the Chi Chi team is watching right now. For some reason, the Tokyo Olympics are still happening. The event is barely unpopular in Japan, but two top games officials have managed to make it much, much worse.
On Saturday, as calls for the games to be postponed or canceled altogether, due to the coronavirus became much louder, the International Olympic Committee president showed pretty poor judgment. Reportedly, he said, quote, The athletes definitely can make their Olympic dreams come true. We have to make some sacrifices to make this possible. Sacrifices?
Sacrifices? Yeah, this did not rub people the right way. His comment reportedly came the day after the committee's vice president said the games will absolutely go ahead, regardless of what happens with Japan's COVID-19 situation. Doctors in Japan's second biggest city, Osaka, warned of a, quote, system collapse on Monday after a massive surge in cases.
Recent polling shows that more than 80% of people in Japan are opposed to the games. The nation's largest public school system is heading back to in-person classes this fall. After a long era of Zoom learning, it has finally come to an end in New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that all schools will return to normal in September.
On top of that, there will be no remote option, even for those who want to stay at home. De Blasio said, quote, You cannot have a full recovery without full-strength schools. Everyone back, sitting in those classrooms, kids learning again. He also claimed coronavirus infections are declining in the city as more and more people get vaccinated.
Sasha Johnson, one of Britain's most well-known anti-racist activists, is fighting for her life after being shot in the head at a London house party early Sunday morning. One of Johnson's friends, a fellow activist, told BBC News that her friend had been caught up in random gun violence and that she believed the incident was, quote, more related to rival gangs as opposed to Johnson's activism. Johnson co-founded the political group Taking the Initiative Party and became a prominent organizer and speaker as demonstrations spread from the U.S. to Britain in the wake of George Floyd's death in the summer of 2020.
Johnson's friend commented that she did not believe the activist was the intended victim, but did clarify that she had undergone a successful surgery since the shooting took place. The attack, according to Taking the Initiative, came after, quote, numerous death threats against Johnson, though police have disputed that claim. You know who has a weakness for donuts? Well, besides anyone within a 50-foot radius of a Krispy Kreme.
Bears. But it's not as cute as it sounds. The use of pastries to lure bears in hunting has become a major problem. One outdoor Wisconsin rider-hunter enthusiast says, quote, you want to find bear bait that keeps them coming back.
Apparently using pastries and other delicious snacks to bait black bears is a common practice among bear hunters, at least in states where baiting is legal, and sometimes even where it is not. Environmentalists argue, however, that using pastries and other foods violates the concept of bear chase. They also say the practice can negatively affect grizzly bears, which are endangered. Environmentalists claim that the grizzlies come to associate these foods with human scents and sounds.
Then they say it also puts the grizzlies at risk of being misidentified as black bears and being shot by a so-called accident. While bear hunting is allowed on national forest land, only nine states allow bear baiting. Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. This is due to provision from the United States Forest Service, which delegates wildlife management to the state the forests are in, despite the land being federal.
In turn, environmentalists believe that the Forest Service should intervene and manage the wildlife instead of ceding control to the states. Gordon Sondland is the former U.S. ambassador to the European Union who was fired by then-President Donald Trump after he gave an explosive testimony during Trump's first impeachment inquiry. Now he's reportedly suing former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for about $2 million in unpaid legal costs on the investigation.
The lawsuit reportedly claims that Pompeo promised Sondland that the State Department would pick up his fees ahead of his November 2019 testimony, but then reneged on that offer after Sondland testified that there was a quid pro quo with Ukraine. The State Department allegedly paid Sondland a little more than $86,000 for his legal fees, but the ex-ambassador is now demanding full reimbursement, either from the U.S. government or from Pompeo's personal wealth. That's all for today.
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