Here's a look at trending topics for today, Aug. 7:
Bryan Randall
Bryan Randall, the longtime partner of Sandra Bullock, has died. He was 57.
Randall died Saturday from ALS, his family told People magazine. He had battled the degenerative disease privately for three years.
“Bryan chose early to keep his journey with ALS private and those of us who cared for him did our best to honor his request,” his family told People. “We are immensely grateful to the tireless doctors who navigated the landscape of this illness with us and to the astounding nurses who became our roommates, often sacrificing their own families to be with ours.”
Randall, a professional photographer, met Bullock in 2015 while working at her son Louis’ birthday. He and Bullock made few public appearances together and kept their relationship largely out of the spotlight.
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Montgomery Riverfront brawl
Video has emerged of a fight between a man and a group of people who appear to be boaters on a riverfront dock in Montgomery, Alabama.
In one video posted to social media, a Black man, who a witness described as a cruise boat crew member, engages with a group of White men on the dock. Both sides appear to become increasingly agitated before punches are thrown.
Police were called to the area on Saturday around 7 p.m., the Montgomery Police Department said. It’s unclear what led to the confrontation.
When officers arrived, “they located a large group of subjects engaged in a physical altercation. Several subjects have been detained and charges are pending,” according to a news release from the police department.
Officers “acted swiftly to detain several reckless individuals for attacking a man who was doing his job,” Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed said in a tweet.
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William Friedkin
William Friedkin, the Oscar winning director who became a top filmmaker in his 30s with the gripping "The French Connection" and the horrifying "The Exorcist" and struggled in the following decades to match his early success has died. He was 87.
Friedkin, who won the best director Oscar for "The French Connection," died Monday in Los Angeles, his wife, producer and former studio head Sherry Lansing told The Hollywood Reporter.
The movie, based on a true story, deals with the efforts of maverick New York City police Detective James "Popeye" Doyle to track down Frenchman Fernando Rey, mastermind of a large drug pipeline funneling heroin into the United States. It contains one of the most thrilling chase scenes ever filmed.
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Inter Miami
England vs Nigeria
Top headlines for Monday, Aug. 7
Emergency officials say two firefighting helicopters collided while responding to a blaze in the desert east of Los Angeles, sending one to the ground in a crash that killed all three people on board. The larger helicopter landed safely after Sunday's collision. Cal Fire says the victims included an assistant chief, a fire captain and a contract pilot. A Cal Fire spokesperson says conditions were clear and breezy at the time of the collision. The crash itself caused another fire, which spread to 4 acres before it was extinguished. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
Trucking company Yellow Corp. has declared bankruptcy after years of financial struggles and growing debt. It marks a significant shift for the U.S. transportation industry and shippers nationwide. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed Sunday arrives just three years after Yellow received $700 million in pandemic-era loans from the federal government. But the company was in financial trouble long before that. Industry analysts have pointed to poor management and strategic decisions dating back decades. Experts say former Yellow customers and shippers will face higher prices as they take their business to competitors, including FedEx or ABF Freight. Yellow historically offered the cheapest price points in the industry.
The once-dominant Americans crashed out of the Women’s World Cup on penalties after a scoreless draw with Sweden in the Round of 16. It was the earliest exit ever for the four-time tournament champions. The Americans struggled from the start of the World Cup. With the rest of the world catching up in skill and physical conditioning, the future of the team could look dramatically different. There's no guarantee that coach Vlatko Andonovski will continue with the team as it prepares for the next big tournament, the Olympics in France next year.
Tou Thao, the last former Minneapolis police officer convicted in state court for his role in the killing of George Floyd, didn't show any repentance or admit any wrongdoing as he was sentenced to nearly five years. Thao testified previously that he merely served as a “human traffic cone” when holding back bystanders as former Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 1/2 minutes as the Black man pleaded for his life in 2020. A bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe.” Judge Peter Cahill found Thao guilty in May of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter. Monday's sentence will run concurrently with a 3 1/2-year sentence on a federal civil rights conviction.
Donald Trump's defense attorney says the former president never asked Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election. Speaking on Sunday morning news shows, attorney John Lauro said Trump only asked Pence to “pause” the certification to allow time to investigate concerns about election irregularities. Pence flatly denied that account, saying Trump wanted him to overturn the voters' will, something he said he knew to be unconstitutional and un-American. Trump was indicted last week on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. He has pleaded not guilty. Trump's baseless allegations about election tampering in 2020 have been rejected by numerous courts.
Two conservative groups are asking a federal court to block the Biden administration’s plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers. In a lawsuit filed Friday in Michigan, the groups argue that the administration overstepped its power when it announced the forgiveness in July. It asks a judge to rule the cancellation illegal. The suit was filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute. The Education Department called the suit “a desperate attempt from right wing special interests to keep hundreds of thousands of borrowers in debt.”
Ten cars of an express train derailed in southern Pakistan on Sunday, killing 30 people and injuring more than 90 others. The Hazara Express train was going from Karachi to Rawalpindi when the cars went off the tracks and some overturned. Local television showed rescue teams extracting women, children and other passengers from damaged and overturned cars. The rescue operation was completed by early evening. The injured were taken to a hospital in Nawabshah and the most seriously injured were taken by helicopter to distant military hospitals. Minister for Railways Khwaja Saad Rafiq said an investigation into the cause of the crash was underway.
Niger’s junta shuts airspace and accuses regional countries of planning to invade as deadline passes
Niger’s mutinous soldiers have closed the country’s airspace and accused foreign powers of preparing an attack. The junta has defied a regional deadline to restore the ousted president and said any attempt to fly over the country will be met with “an energetic and immediate response.” West African regional bloc ECOWAS had demanded that the coup leaders reinstate the democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum or face military force. International airlines have begun to divert flights around the airspace of Niger, which the United States and others had seen as the last major counterterrorism partner in the vast Sahel region.
South Korea is preparing to evacuate tens of thousands of scouts from a coastal jamboree site as Tropical Storm Khanun looms, scouting officials said Monday. The World Organization of the Scout Movement said it received confirmation from South Korea’s government of the early departure for all participants in the southwestern county of Buan. That means quickly moving thousands of scouts from 158 countries, mostly teenagers, out of the storm’s path. South Korea’s weather agency said the region will be affected by the storm as early as Wednesday. Khanun has taken an unusual, meandering path around Japan’s southwestern islands for more than a week, dumping heavy rain, knocking out power to thousands of homes and disrupting flights and train services.
