Top News Stories –

Max Verstappen becomes youngest F1 winner in history at Spanish Grand Prix –
The delivery of the prodigy Max Verstappen, who became the youngest winner of a Formula One race when he triumphed in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix, brought an iridescence to a sport that for too long has laboured in the single colour of the silver Mercedes. When Verstappen made his F1 debut for Toro Rosso as a 17-year-old last year he was so young that the concerned people at the FIA changed the rules; now you have to be 18. Verstappen was actually only 16 in 2014, when it was first announced that he would be driving in F1. Many sagacious voices said he was too young but there can be no doubts now. He crossed the winning line aged 18 years and 228 days, beating Sebastian Vettel’s previous record by two and a half years – Vettel was 21 and 73 days when he won in Italy in 2008. [Guardian]
Max Verstappen

Magnetic Hyperloop pod unveiled at MIT –
A people-carrying pod designed to levitate and travel at extremely high speeds has been unveiled in Boston. A 30-strong team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is one of several groups and companies working on making the Hyperloop concept a reality. The idea, first envisioned by Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, is to create a transport system that propels pods through airtight tubes. The MIT team said its pod design paved the way for “a mode of transportation that could change how we think about travel”. Critics of Hyperloop say it is unlikely to succeed because of prohibitive costs. A white paper by Mr Musk published in 2013 proposed a Hyperloop tube connection from San Francisco to Los Angeles. At speeds of around 700mph (1,127km/h), Mr Musk predicted the journey time would be around 30 minutes. [BBC] See Video of the Day

Video of the Day –

MIT Hyperloop Intro

Other News Stories –

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Iraqi civil war (2014–present)
  • Suicide bomb attacks in a state owned cooking gas plant in Taji, north of Baghdad, kill at least 18 people, while 11 others die in attacks across the country. (Al-Jazeera) (Reuters via Daily Mail)
• Yemeni civil war (2015–present)
  • A suicide bombing kills at least 30 and injures 70 others in the southern city of Mukalla, Yemen. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claims responsibility for attack. (Xinhua) (Reuters) (Canadian Press via Chronicle-Herald)

Disasters and accidents

• A truck collides with a motorised rickshaw in the Adilabad district of India‘s Telangana state resulting in 16 deaths. (AP via Washington Post)

Law and crime

• Capital punishment in the Philippines
  • President-elect of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, vows to reintroduce capital punishment and give security forces permission to shoot to kill for organized crime figures and people resisting arrest. Duterte is due to take office on June 30, 2016. (BBC)
• A released report from an interview with former U.S. diplomat Donald Rickard reveals that he provided intelligence that led to the arrest of Nelson Mandela. (The Telegraph)

Politics and elections

• Dominican Republic general election, 2016
  • Voters in the Dominican Republic go to the polls for a general election. (AP)

Sports

• 2016 Formula One season
  • 18-year old Max Verstappen becomes the youngest ever driver and the first Dutchman to win a Formula One race by winning the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix. (The Guardian)
• 2015–16 Premier League, 2015–16 Manchester United F.C. season
  • Tens of thousands of people are evacuated from Old Trafford shortly before kick-off between Manchester United F.C. and A.F.C. Bournemouth after a suspect package was found. A controlled explosion was then carried out within the stadium. The package is discovered to be an explosives training device left behind earlier in the week by a private company following a training exercise involving explosive search dogs. (BBC)

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