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Hamas Leader Assassinated In Iran; Online Protection Bill For Kids; Simone Biles’ Redemption Tour; Oldest & Youngest Olympic Athletes

A daily non-partisan, conversational breakdown of today’s top news and breaking news stories

This Week’s Sponsors:  – Athletic Greens – AG1 Powder + 1 year of free Vitamin D & 5 free travel packs – Boll & Branch Bedding & Sheets – 20% Off 1st Order + Free Shipping | CODE: MONEWS   Headlines: – Welcome to Mo News (01:30) – Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh Assassinated In Iran (03:50) – Israel Targets Hezbollah #2 Leader In Beirut Suburb (09:50) – Senate Passes Child Online Safety Bill, Sending It to an Uncertain House Fate (12:00) – Trump Shooter May Have Posted Violent And Antisemitic Content Online ~ FBI (17:20) – New Secret Service Head Say Assassination Attempt “Failure” At Many Levels (18:20) – Kamala Harris Campaigns With Megan Thee Stallion In Georgia (19:20) – Who’s On Veep’s Veep Shortlist?  – Project 2025 Director Steps Down At Heritage Foundation (20:30) – Employers' Big Hiring Pullback (22:20) – Spirit Unveils Premium Seating Plan (23:30) – US Women’s Gymnastics Team Wins Gold (25:30) – Tearful Coco Gauff Exits Paris Olympics Singles Competition After Controversial Umpire Call (26:50) – Who Are The Youngest And Oldest Olympic Athletes At Paris 2024? (28:00) – On This Day In History (30:00)

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— Mosheh Oinounou (@mosheh) is an Emmy and Murrow award-winning journalist. He has 20 years of experience at networks including Fox News, Bloomberg Television and CBS News, where he was the executive producer of the CBS Evening News and launched the network's 24 hour news channel. He founded the @mosheh Instagram news account in 2020 and the Mo News podcast and newsletter in 2022. Jill Wagner (@jillrwagner) is an Emmy and Murrow award- winning journalist. She's currently the Managing Editor of the Mo News newsletter and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News, Cheddar News, and News 12. She also co-founded the Need2Know newsletter, and has made it a goal to drop a Seinfeld reference into every Mo News podcast. Follow Mo News on all platforms:

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Duration:
30m
Broadcast on:
31 Jul 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

A daily non-partisan, conversational breakdown of today’s top news and breaking news stories


This Week’s Sponsors: 

Athletic Greens – AG1 Powder + 1 year of free Vitamin D & 5 free travel packs

Boll & Branch Bedding & Sheets – 20% Off 1st Order + Free Shipping | CODE: MONEWS

 

Headlines:

– Welcome to Mo News (01:30)

– Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh Assassinated In Iran (03:50)

– Israel Targets Hezbollah #2 Leader In Beirut Suburb (09:50)

– Senate Passes Child Online Safety Bill, Sending It to an Uncertain House Fate (12:00)

– Trump Shooter May Have Posted Violent And Antisemitic Content Online ~ FBI (17:20)

– New Secret Service Head Say Assassination Attempt “Failure” At Many Levels (18:20)

– Kamala Harris Campaigns With Megan Thee Stallion In Georgia (19:20)

– Who’s On Veep’s Veep Shortlist? 

– Project 2025 Director Steps Down At Heritage Foundation (20:30)

– Employers' Big Hiring Pullback (22:20)

– Spirit Unveils Premium Seating Plan (23:30)

– US Women’s Gymnastics Team Wins Gold (25:30)

– Tearful Coco Gauff Exits Paris Olympics Singles Competition After Controversial Umpire Call (26:50)

– Who Are The Youngest And Oldest Olympic Athletes At Paris 2024? (28:00)

– On This Day In History (30:00)


**Mo News Premium For Members-Only Instagram, Private Podcast: (Click To Join)**


Mosheh Oinounou (@mosheh) is an Emmy and Murrow award-winning journalist. He has 20 years of experience at networks including Fox News, Bloomberg Television and CBS News, where he was the executive producer of the CBS Evening News and launched the network's 24 hour news channel. He founded the @mosheh Instagram news account in 2020 and the Mo News podcast and newsletter in 2022.

Jill Wagner (@jillrwagner) is an Emmy and Murrow award- winning journalist. She's currently the Managing Editor of the Mo News newsletter and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News, Cheddar News, and News 12. She also co-founded the Need2Know newsletter, and has made it a goal to drop a Seinfeld reference into every Mo News podcast.

Follow Mo News on all platforms:

(upbeat music) - Hi everyone, it is Wednesday, July 31st. You are listening to the "Mo News" podcast. I am Jill Wagner. This is the place where we bring you just the facts. We read all the news and read between the lines so you don't have to. A lot of news, but first I just wanna take a moment to recognize the US women's gymnastics team, a master class as they finish their redemption tour with a gold medal on Tuesday. I got sucked in. I watched about two and a half hours of gymnastics on Tuesday afternoon. Well worth it, I should say. And even though you know the results, I'd say it's still worth at least watching the highlights if you haven't already. I will have plenty of Olympic news toward the end of the podcast. But for now, let's get to some headlines. Some landmark legislation passes the Senate to help keep kids safe online. What is in it? And will it pass the house? Israel targets a top Hezbollah commander in a Beirut suburb, but some fear that this will lead to an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. What we are learning about a possible motive in the assassination attempt against former President Trump some new information coming out on Tuesday from the FBI. Kamala Harris getting some star power, Megan the Stallion joining her at a campaign rally in Georgia. And what we know about when she could be announcing her vice presidential pick. The director of the controversial Project 2025 steps down at the Heritage Foundation. What former President Trump says about it. Two business news employers are pulling back when it comes to hiring. And Spirit Airlines upping its game, getting a little fancy with a new tier. Think premium seating and unlimited drinks. And as I mentioned at the top, all of the action from the Paris Games, the US Women's Gymnastics Redemption Tour, a massive success. But in tennis, Coco Gough leaves the competition after a controversial call from the umpire. I'll explain. There's also some concerns about the water quality in the River Sen as the men's triathlon is postponed. And as promised, who are the youngest and oldest Olympic athletes at the Paris Games this year? And I've got on this day in history. - Everyone, it's Mosh Wannoonu here with some breaking news before we get to Jill with the rest of the day's news. I'm still technically on vacation here for another day, but I've been out West, which means I'm jumping in here with some breaking news overnight. In the early morning hours on Wednesday, it appears Hamas leader Ismail Hania has been assassinated. He was in Iran at the time and appears he was killed in his residence in Tehran. This is all according to Iran's Revolutionary Guard. So Iranian authorities here are reporting this. Hania has been in charge of Hamas for about seven years. He's normally based in Qatar, but was in Iran for the past couple of days, participating in the inaugural events around Iran's new president. As of early Wednesday morning, the Israelis are not commenting so far and whether they participated in this, though we should note Israel often doesn't when it comes to assassinations carried out by their intelligence agency, Mossad. But this has all the hallmarks of an Israeli intelligence operation. It appears based on the information we're getting in the first couple of hours here out of Iran that Hania, the Hamas leader, has been killed alongside his bodyguard in the apartment Hania was using in Tehran. A reminder here that Israel has vowed to kill Hania and all other top leaders of Hamas, anyone who was involved in the October 7 terror attack on Israel, they killed more than 1200 people and saw more than 200 hostages taken. Hamas has confirmed the death. They say that Hania was, quote, martyred, killed in a, quote, Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran, unclear here, whether it was actually an airstrike or a special operation. But that's what we're getting from Hamas so far. Another Hamas official being quoted on the Hamas news site, this leader is named Sami Abu Zuri. He is saying that Hamas as a movement is strong enough to outlast any deaths of its leaders and they are, quote, "waging an open war to liberate Jerusalem and are ready to pay any price." We've talked about Hania on this podcast before. He left the Gaza Strip back in 2019. He's lived in exile in Qatar and he's been the main international voice for Hamas. He's been here for the terror group, effectively handling all of their foreign affairs, their relationships with Iran, other countries. He was recently invited several times by Vladimir Putin to Russia and Hania's base of operations in Qatar allowed him to move about the world. He was reportedly worth several billion dollars. Money Hamas gets from taxes. They charge Palestinians in Gaza, reselling aid that they get as well as a support from Iran. Notably, Iran was where he was at the time of this assassination. Iran is a top weapon supplier and supporter of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The other Hamas leader we have to talk about on this podcast is also at the top of Israel's kill list. It is Yayah Sinwar. He is the leader of Hamas in Gaza. He handles the military affairs in Gaza while Hania, until now, has handled political affairs and international relations on behalf of the terror group. Notably, in recent weeks, the Israelis launched a strike to kill the number two in Gaza. Sinwar is number two. That's a guy named Mohammed Dif. The Israelis believe they have killed him, though Hamas has not confirmed it in the last couple of weeks. But again, Hamas is confirming the death of their top leader right now, Hania, in Iran. This assassination comes at a very precarious time as the Biden administration has been trying to push Hamas and Israel to agree to at least a temporary ceasefire and a hostage release deal. Hania was involved in those talks. And also reportedly, one of the people pushing for a ceasefire deal saying that this war has lasted long enough and had gotten pushed back from Sinwar, the other leader in Gaza in recent weeks. Still, Israel has vowed to take out all top Hamas leaders here. And it comes as they've been running a years-long assassination campaign targeting other leaders in Iran, mainly Iranian nuclear scientists, people associated with trying to build an atom bomb inside Iran. Notably, about four years ago, an Iranian military nuclear scientist named Fakhrizadeh was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran. That was an assassination also suspected to have been conducted by Israeli intelligence operatives. So, Hania confirmed dead here. It comes as Israel again has vowed to take out all Hamas leaders involved on October 7th, no matter where they are in the world. This mimics an effort Israel had in the 70s, following the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympic Games in Munich by Palestinian terrorists, following the Munich Olympic massacre, Israel vowed and followed through by doing the same, killing a number of top Palestinian liberation organization leaders around the world in the years following those Olympics. All right, so a lot of developments here overnight in the first couple of hours will be monitoring the headlines throughout the day over on the Monus Instagram account. So please make sure to be refreshing that throughout the day. We'll be watching the reaction as it comes in throughout the day. And this news comes as the Israelis also appear to have taken out the second in command of another terror group on Tuesday, a top Hezbollah leader in Lebanon. That's another terror group supported by Iran that operates out of Lebanon. So a lot of major headlines coming out of the region right now, I'll send it back to Jill with more on that other strike. Israel says that it carried out a strike on a neighborhood in Beirut, considered a Hezbollah stronghold targeting a top Hezbollah commander. It is a response to a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 12 children and teens in the Golan Heights over the weekend. Hezbollah first took credit for the rocket attack, and denied it, but Israel and the US have said that they are both confident that it was, in fact, an Iranian built Hezbollah rocket that killed the 12 young people in the Golan Heights. Now to the response, the target of Tuesday's strike, Fuad Shukar, also known as Al-Haj Mohsen. He heads the terror group's precision missile project and is a senior advisor to the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. Shukar is not just wanted by Israel. The US had a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. He is wanted by the US for his role. In the 1983, Marines barracks bombing in Beirut, it killed 241 US Marines. Also, the US says that during the Syrian Civil War, he aided Hezbollah fighters and pro-Syrian regime troops as they battled anti-Assad forces. Minutes after the IDF confirmed the strike, Defense Minister Yoav Galant put out a statement saying that Hezbollah, quote, crossed the red line. The airstrike on Beirut's southern suburb damaged several buildings. But the question is, where do we go from here? And will this spark the wider all-out war that the US and others have feared? Well, a lot of that depends on whether this is it from Israel in terms of its retaliation for the killing of 12 children. A senior Israeli official tells Bloomberg that no further military activity should be expected at this time. And it also depends on how Hezbollah responds, which could be dependent on whether Shukar is dead or alive. His fate at this point is unclear. Hezbollah initially said that he survived, but there are reports that he was in fact killed, including from Saudi-owned news outlets. They say that his body is being held at a hospital in Beirut. The IDF says that he was killed as well. Diplomats though, trying to contain the fallout. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that he does not believe a full-fledged war is inevitable between Hezbollah and Israel. Although he is still concerned about the potential for escalation, I was listening to one analyst retired General Robert Abrams. He is an ABC News contributor. His take was that this was quote, low to medium range in terms of potential responses from Israel. He says they could have committed to an all-out ground offensive. Hezbollah and Israel last fought each other in a major war back in 2006 and have been trading fire since the eruption of the Gaza war in October when Hezbollah started to fire at Israeli targets. And what it says is solidarity with the Palestinians. But up until this point, the hostilities have mostly been limited to the border region between southern Lebanon and northern Israel. I'm recording this on Tuesday evening. So it is possible that there will be more developments between now and the time that you listen to the podcast. We'll have all of the latest over on the Instagram account that is at M-O-S-H-E-H. Okay, now back here in the US. This effort to help keep kids safe online. Lawmakers in the Senate passed some landmark legislation their first in two decades to regulate social media in order to protect children. The Senate on Tuesday voted overwhelmingly 91 to 3. So we've got both Democrats and Republicans on board to impose sweeping safety and privacy requirements for children and teens on social media and other platforms on the one side pushing for this legislation parents who say that their kids lost their lives because of something that they may have seen on social media. In some cases, they've been showing up at hearings with tech CEOs bringing pictures of their children who they say died because of things like cyber bullying. And on the other side, you have tech companies who have been lobbying against a new regulation. So the legislation is called the Kids Online Safety Act or COSA and the Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act. They create what's called a duty of care for social networking platforms. What that means is that these tech companies would be required to protect minors against mental health disorders and from abuse, sexual exploitation and other harms. And according to the New York Times, the companies could be held liable for failing to filter out content or limit features that could lead to those adverse impacts. The second part of the legislation which strengthen privacy protections for anyone under the age of 17, by default, it would turn on the highest privacy and safety settings for teens. And it also bans targeting advertising to children and teens. It also requires that these tech companies allow users to delete personal information with what they are calling an eraser button. The two bills represent the most significant restrictions on tech platforms to clear a chamber of Congress in decades. And as I mentioned, it was a rare bipartisan effort led by Democratic Senator Rick Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Senator Marcia Blackburn of Tennessee. Blumenthal admitted that he and Blackburn are unlikely partners here and they have quote diametrically opposed voting records on most things, but says that they were both really moved by parents who told these horrific stories about how they lost their children, some to suicide. And from young people who testified about how social media really harmed their mental health, one of the moms, Juliana Arnold, lost her 17 year old daughter to fentanyl poisoning. When someone on Instagram sold her counterfeit Percocet in an interview, she said, quote, "It makes you feel like you have a purpose "after all of this horror. "It feels good to be doing something good "and taking something so dark and bringing light to it." And it also comes after Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, recently called for a warning label on social media platforms, kind of like what we see on tobacco products like cigarettes, which state that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents. So what happens now? This measure goes to the house, which is in summer recess until September. Speaker Mike Johnson has said he is open to looking at it, but he has not committed to bringing it to the floor for a vote. Senators Blumenthal and Blackburn, they say that they have met with House leaders several times and do think that there is support for the bill. So this seems on face value to be pretty common sense steps to help protecting kids online. So what is the argument against the bill? Well, tech companies say this would force them to moderate content. Groups like the ACLU say that it restricts free speech. Senator Ron Paul, Republican of Kentucky, he has recently called the bill the Pandora's Box of Unintended Consequences, arguing that it would stifle First Amendment protected speech. And there is concern that it could push social media companies to censor important conversations, particularly among marginalized groups. But again, you've got child safety advocates, parents and a lot of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle really pushing for this. So we will stay on top of what happens with this bill if it changes once it gets to the house and keep you posted. We're always talking about health trends and food trends and how hard it is to get all of your nutrients. Well, one way to get all the important ones is HE1 powder. It is just one scoop with a glass of water in the morning. It is easy and quick. So you can replace multiple health supplements like multivitamins, digestivates, immune support and more with just one simple scoop. There's things like folate, magnesium, my favorite ashwagandha for stress support, vitamin C and zinc, all for your immune system. It's good to know that you could cover your nutritional bases and just set yourself up for success in just 60 seconds. So with your first purchase of HE1, they are giving Monews listeners a free one year supply of their vitamin D and five free travel packs of HE1. Visit drinkagone.com/monews to take advance to this offer. You can get a discounted monthly subscription or try it one time for just a month. Again, that is drinkagone.com/monews, M-O-N-E-W-S for this special deal and really start to take ownership of your health. Time now for the speed read. Starting with the assassination attempt of former President Trump from Reuters, the man who tried to assassinate the Republican presidential candidate appears to have posted violent anti-Semitic and anti-immigration content online as a teenager, a senior FBI official told the U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abate at that hearing revealed the existence of the social media account, which dated to 2019 to 2020. That is when the shooter, Thomas Crooks, would have been 15 to 16 years old and it's some of the first evidence to become public about a potential motive in that July 13th attack at a campaign rally in Western Pennsylvania. He told lawmakers that it's something that they just recently uncovered and more than 700 comments were posted by the account. Some of these comments, if ultimately attributable to the shooter, appear to reflect anti-Semitic and anti-immigration themes to espouse political violence and are described as extreme in nature. - And he said their investigation continues, the glaring security lapse that led last week to former Secret Service Director, Kimberly Cheetles resignation, also still under investigation. Her immediate successor, Acting Secret Service Director, Ronald Rowe, told lawmakers that he visited the outdoor rally site in Butler and climbed onto the roof of a nearby building from which Crooks fired. - And I laid in a prone position to evaluate his line of sight. What I saw made me ashamed. As a career law enforcement officer and a 25 year veteran with his Secret Service, I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured. - Rowe told lawmakers that he has since taken steps to prevent similar lapses from occurring. He also said that one of these Secret Service systems designed to detect drones was not working on the day of the shooting because of problems with the cellular network bandwidth and we know Crooks flew a drone near the rally site ahead of his assassination attempt. Now to presidential politics from the Washington Post, Vice President Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee is planning a battleground state tour next week with her running mate who that person is still unclear. But there is some reporting that she has narrowed it down to a few people. The top contenders, according to USA Today, US Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former astronaut and US Navy captain, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, elected governor of Pennsylvania in 2022, very popular in the state, which is considered a must win in the 2024 presidential race. And then there is Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who is 60 and was a member of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party. Some other names being floated around Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Kentucky Governor Andy Bashir, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Harris' campaign has signaled that she would select her vice presidential pick by August 7th, but that her choice could be unveiled sooner. She told reporters on Tuesday that she had not made her final pick yet. On Tuesday, she headed to Atlanta for a large rally with rapper Megan Thee Stallion. Her campaign is looking to put Georgia in play in November. And on the Republican side, the head of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, Paul Danz has stepped down from his post as the operation also wraps up its policy drafting. According to Axios, former President Trump is increasingly trying to distance himself from Project 2025 as Democrats have seized on the plan to paint the ex-president as a threat to democracy. The former president's campaign officials also increasingly criticizing Project 2025 with his campaign's co-manager recently warning people involved in creating it that they would be barred from working in a second Trump administration. Project 2025, not a campaign platform, but it was written by many of the former president's close allies. In a statement Tuesday, the Trump campaign again, trying to distance itself from Project 2025, saying that President Trump's campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the president in any way. Trump said during a rally earlier this month that Project 2025 is seriously extreme and was conceived by people on the severe right. We've covered it here on the podcast before, but just a reminder, Project 2025 proposes a dramatic expansion of presidential power and a curbing of the independence of federal agencies during a second Trump term. During his last administration, Trump moved to implement some of the policy recommendations in Project 2025, including signing an executive order that created a Schedule F job classification that would let him strip civil servants of employment protections and replace them with loyalists to the former president. In business news, also for Maxios, the US job market looks to have frozen up. Companies aren't doing large-scale layoffs, but they have slowed down hiring, and fewer workers are quitting their jobs voluntarily. Employers are showing the least appetite for bringing on new workers in years. So there were 5.3 million hires in June, which is about 300,000 fewer than in May. That's according to the latest job openings and labor turnover survey released on Tuesday. The rate of hiring is 3.4% of total employment, which is the lowest since March of 2020. But on the plus side, the freeze up on the part of employers benefits workers who are already employed. The layoff and discharge rate is the lowest level on records that date back to 2000. One economist says the last time hiring was this low, we were still digging our way out of the Great Recession. The quits rate, which is a temperature check on workers' willingness to voluntarily leave their jobs that held at 2.1% the lowest since August of 2020. The bottom line here, workers looking for new jobs won't find nearly the same opportunities as in recent years, but those with a job seem to have security for now. From CNBC, free Wi-Fi, free checked bag, free snacks, on-spirit, the Florida-based carrier that is practically synonymous with budget air travel in the US, says that it is planning to offer packages for its highest priced tickets, wrapping in perks that it used to charge for a la carte. This is a bid to increase revenue as it struggles with the aftermath of a US block takeover by JetBlue, plus engine recalls, an oversupplied domestic market, and larger rivals who've capitalized on premium and cost-conscious travelers. Starting late next month, spirit will be offering four categories of service. Go big tickets, as they're called, will include a spot in one of the airline's big front seats. And it also comes with free Wi-Fi, a checked bag, one piece of cabin luggage, and unlimited snacks and drinks. And that includes, by the way, alcoholic beverages. Below that package is what's called go-comfy, which will give travelers a seat with standard legroom, but a blocked middle seat for extra space. Then there's go-savvy fairs that come with either a checked bag or carry-on. And then there's just go, which is essentially spirit's original product. Spirit is competing with larger airline rivals like United that have really capitalized on cost-conscious travelers with their own bare-bones products, but they do still offer higher priced options, like extra legroom and first-class. Spirit's CEO says what we realized is that we were sort of seating other markets to other airlines, so now we're saying no, we could still do what we were doing before, but we're also going to compete for people who are willing or want a little more of a premium feel, and would pay for that, they just didn't have it on us. Spirit isn't the only carrier looking to increase its up-market seats to attract more customers. We reported here Southwest Airlines also under pressure to raise revenue last week, saying that it plans to ditch its open seating and offer premium seats with more legroom. And Frontier Airlines in March said that it would start to offer blocked middle seats at the front of the plane for a higher price. Now to the Olympics, starting with women's gymnastics. From NBC News, Simone Biles helped bring Team USA to gold in the women's gymnastics team final. She is now the most decorated American gymnast in the history of Olympics. And these games were a bit of a redemption tour, her words. If you remember back in 2020 at the Tokyo Games, the US won silver. Biles later withdrew from the games because of the twisties, a destabilizing mental block similar to the yips in golf or baseball. But what a difference four years makes Team USA finished on Tuesday with a score of 171.296. That is almost six points ahead of second-placed Italy. Brazil took bronze. Biles and Jordan Chiles competed in all four events. SUNY leaded bars, beam and floor. And Jade Carey competed on vault. Olympic newcomer, Hesley Rivera did not compete, but she still earned a medal. From Forbes, the men's triathlon event at the Paris Games, which was scheduled to take place Tuesday, has been postponed until today. After the water quality in the river, Senn did not meet the required standards, adding two months-long concerns about holding Olympic events in the polluted river. To tennis, American Coco Goff lost her round three match against Croatia's Donna Vekic on Tuesday. While she did take full responsibility for her disappointing early elimination, she called out the chair umpire and called for more video replay in tennis, following an intense and tearful on court argument near the end of the match. Goff was battling for her life in the second set after Vekic came back from 5-1 to win the first set. She served the ball to Vekic and the return landed on the baseline. So what happened was that the line judge called the ball out at first. And so Goff didn't keep the ball in play. She basically didn't hit it back. But then the chair umpire disagreed and overruled the line judge, giving Vekic to the point and a service break, making any comeback for Goff even harder. So Goff walked over to the umpire. They argued for about five minutes and Goff was in tears before the match resumed. And at that point, it was just again really hard for her to make a comeback. And finally, from the independent, about 10,500 athletes will be competing across 329 events in 32 different sports. But who was the youngest athlete at the Olympics? Chinese skateboarder Zhang Hao Hao will be the youngest competitor at the Games. She is just 11 years old, a month shy of her 12th birthday. She took up the sport four years ago and become China's youngest ever athlete to compete in an Olympic Games. Earlier this month, she told Reuters that to her, the competition is just to get together with her good friends. Skateboarding was first included in the Olympics at Tokyo in 2020. And Zhang will be joined by several other young competitors, including a 12 year old Thai athlete. There are plenty of other young athletes representing their countries. I just mentioned Hesley Rivera. She just turned 16. She is representing Team USA in the gymnastics. And also another 16 year old Quincy Wilson is the youngest athlete in US track and field history as he'll be running in the four by 400 meter relay squad. Okay, now to the oldest athletes competing at the Games. So the oldest athlete traveling to the Olympics will be Australian equestrian star, Mary Jana. This is gonna be the 69 year old seventh Olympics around four months short of her 70th birthday. However, she may not actually compete as she is currently just on standby in case of an injury. Her Olympic debut, by the way, came in Atlanta in 1996, although she has never won a medal. The oldest athletes sets who definitely compete will also be an equestrian, Juan Antonio Jimenez, Kobo of Spain, he is 65. You will be taking part in his third Olympic Games having debuted in Sydney in 2000. And then there is Luxembourg's Nieje Lean, 61 years old competing at her sixth Olympic Games in table tennis. How does she feel? Well, back in 2019, the table tennis pioneer told the Olympic channel, quote, "My heart is very young." And isn't that all that matters? (upbeat music) All right, time to have her on this day in history on July 31st, 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts James B. Irwin and David Scott first used the four-wheeled battery-powered lunar roving vehicle to extensively explore the moon's surface on this day in 2006 because of health problems, longtime Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, handed over provisional power to his brother, Raoul, who has served as the country's acting president until officially assuming the post in 2008. And on this day, in 1965, British author J.K. Rowling, the creator of the immensely popular Harry Potter series was born. And as we know, I have still not read Harry Potter, but I promise I will work on it as soon as my kids are old enough to appreciate the books. All right, a huge thank you for listening to the "Mone News" podcast. If you like what you hear, share this with your friends. It will help us grow, follow us and subscribe to don't miss an episode and review us in the App Store. Moosh, if you are listening, I hope you are enjoying a wonderful vacation with your family. As for everyone else, have a wonderful Wednesday and I'll see you back here tomorrow. - Thanks for listening to the "Mone News" podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)