Tuesday morning news - May 25, 2021

For WORLD Radio, I'm Kent Covington. 

Blinken to Middle East in effort to jumpstart peace talks » Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in the Middle East this morning to push for peace talks between Iraeli and Palestinian leaders.

Blinken told ABC’s This Week...

BLINKEN: We have to start putting in place the conditions that would allow both sides to engage in a meaningful and positive way toward two states.

In a statement, President Biden said Blinken will work with regional partners to help provide humanitarian aid and rebuild in the Gaza Strip. That follows an 11-day battle between Palestinian militants and the Israeli military.

And Blinken hopes to help jumpstart long-stalled peace talks.

The secretary will visit with leaders in Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt this week. He will not see anyone from Hamas, which runs Gaza. Hamas is a U.S.-designated “foreign terrorist organization,” and contacts between American officials and the group are banned.

That means the U.S. must rely on third-party countries like Egypt and Qatar to pass messages to Hamas.

West condemns plane's diversion to arrest Belarus journalist » Western nations continue to express outrage and the EU threatened more sanctions Monday against Belarus. That after the Belarusian government forced the diversion of a plane in order to arrest an opposition journalist.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters...

PSAKI: Obviously we’re outraged, as the international community has expressed and we have expressed as well. And we think this was a brazen affront to international peace and security by the regime.

The commercial airline Ryanair said flight controllers told the crew there was a bomb threat against the plane as it was crossing through the country’s airspace and ordered it to land in the capital of Minsk.

A fighter jet was scrambled to escort the plane — in a show of force by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

When the plane landed, authorities arrested activist and journalist Raman Pratasevich. The 26-year-old ran a popular messaging app that played a key role in helping organize massive protests against Lukashenko.

The EU summoned Belarus' ambassador “to condemn” the move. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen earlier said it amounted to a “hijacking.”

Intel: Wuhan lab staff sought hospital care with COVID-19 symptoms in Nov., 2019 » Newly revealed U.S. intelligence is further fueling speculation that COVID-19 may have escaped from a Chinese lab. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown reports.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology got sick enough to seek hospital treatment in November of 2019and their symptoms were consistent with COVID-19. That according to previously undisclosed U.S. intel.

Many experts believe November, 2019 was when the virus began spreading in Wuhan.

The Wall Street Journal reported that officials familiar with the intelligence had differing views on the strength of the evidence behind the assessment.

One official said an international partner provided the information and that further investigation is needed. But another said—quote—“The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It was very precise.”

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied that the virus escaped the Wuhan lab. But it has not shared relevant records from the laboratory.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

New York City schools returning to in-person classes in fall » The nation’s largest school district is heading back to class next fall.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced that classrooms will open for in-person instruction in September with no remote option.

DE BLASIO: That’s the news I think parents, kids, everyone’s been waiting for to know we’re going to be back strong, ready safe.

De Blasio said the roughly 1 million students who attend traditional public schools in The Big Apple will be back at their desks.

The mayor said COVID-19 is “plummeting” in the city as health workers have administered almost 8 million vaccine doses.

Gas prices remain elevated » Gas prices remain elevated after the Colonial Pipeline shutdown.

The average U.S. price of a gallon of regular unleaded jumped 8 cents over the past two weeks, to $3.10.

The lingering effects of the shutdown is one reason. Analysts say another is the rising price of corn. Corn is a key ingredient in ethanol, which is blended by refiners into gasoline.

But Patrick De Haan of Gasbuddy.com said Monday...

DE HAAN: The national average should drop back under $3 per gallon by Memorial Day weekend. We anticipate about $2.98, but we may see prices go back up later in the summer.

He said that may depend on how much demand there is for gas around the holiday weekend.

The price at the pump is more than a dollar higher than it was a year ago. But of course gas prices plummeted during pandemic lockdowns.

The highest average price in the nation right now is $4.23 a gallon in the San Francisco Bay Area. The lowest average is $2.53 in Houston.

I’m Kent Covington, and for more news, features, and analysis, visit us at wng.org.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.