Hocker reaches Olympic finals

Many students here at Ben Davis who are on the track & field teams have big dreams of running for big colleges, and some even bigger dreams of running at the Olympics.

Current events

Week ending August 6, 2021

Although thoughts of making it to the Olympics might seem outlandish, this graduate from Cathedral here in Indianapolis proves that those dreams can indeed come true. Cole Hocker, who represents the University of Oregon, will be the only American running for a medal this Saturday, after finishing second in his semifinal with a new personal best time of 3:33.87, ahead of reigning world champion Timothy Cheruiyot, and advancing to the gold medal race instead of reigning Olympic champion Matthew Centrowitz ,who couldn’t keep us in the Semifinal 2 and didn’t qualify for the gold medal race in Tokyo.

Hocker says, “If you’d have told me last year, I would have thought absolutely no way, if I’m completely honest,” and it could be imagined that many future Olympians today feel the same way Cole did a year ago. Now this young man, from humble Marion County, Indiana, is an Olympic finalist and medal contender. 

Indianapolis girls critically injured on their way to Indiana State Fair

Three girls Kya Lasley, 17, Keilyn Stauffer, 10, and Megan Murray 17 have been hospitalized since their Dodge pickup rolled off an overpass on I-65 on Tuesday, on their way to the Indiana State Fair, just like many other teens this week.

Their pickup side-swept a red pickup, possibly while they were changing lanes, hit a guardrail on the right side of the highway, then a concrete barrier, ejecting the two 17-year-olds before overturning and landing on Raymond Street.

Family members say they were headed to the Indiana State Fair, but evidently they didn’t make it there before reaching their tragic halt. On Thursday a crowd huddled near the cattle barn at the fairgrounds, where the girls had shown their cows for the county fair 18 days ago, chiming in with prayers and hymns for the injured girls who have a long road of recovery ahead of them. Family and friends have “no doubt” the girls will survive, with Murray’s aunt calling her niece a “headstrong, amazing girl,” and feeling really lucky to have the community behind them. 

Governor. Andrew Cuomo is being asked to resign amid sexual harassment allegations 

N ew York governor Andrew Cuomo, one of the most powerful and influential governors in the United States, is being asked to resign amid numerous accusations of sexual misconduct and harassment.

In a report by the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, 179 Witnesses were interviewed and more than 74,000 pieces of evidence were gathered. Cuomo is yet to face legal consequences for the alleged “unwelcome and non-consensual touching” “Offensive comments” and other extremely inappropriate behavior towards at least 11 women, several who are on his staff or have worked with him. Top Democrats including President Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and New York’s entire Democratic Congressional Delegation have asked for him to resign from office. As of right now, Governor Cuomo has refused to do so and has rather decided to fight the allegations brought against him. 

What do Dr. Fauci and the CDC say about the latest covid-19 wave?

Last Sunday Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that the country’s latest covid-19 surge is going to get worse, but the growing numbers aren’t expected to trigger any new lockdown orders.

Fauci said that Americans who are unvaccinated are largely behind the latest outbreak of infections, saying, “We have a hundred million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not getting vaccinated. We are seeing an outbreak of the unvaccinated,”. He also gives a description of how the vaccines aren’t expected to necessarily cure Covid-19, but to prevent severe illness, “From the standpoint of illness, hospitalization, suffering, and death, the unvaccinated are much more vulnerable because the vaccinated are protected from severe illness, for the most part,”. However, variants of the virus continue to emerge, including the highly transmissible Delta variant. According to recent reports released by the CDC following multiple large public gatherings in a Massachusetts town, 469 covid-19 cases were identified amongst Massachusetts residents who had traveled to the town from July 3-17; of those 469 cases, 346 were recorded in fully vaccinated people (74%). With cycle threshold values similar among specimens from patients who are fully vaccinated and those who are not. New information is being discovered every day as the science is perfected and the virus adapts, so all we can do is try to stay safe, distanced, and masked