Today's Tuesday, May 25th, and you're listening to The Morning Announcements presented by

Bechtes Media.

Today's episode is brought to you by KOM, the number one mental wellness app.

Sleep more, stress less, live better with KOM.

I'm Sammy Sage.

Today's news starts with an international story involving tiny airline Ryan Air and the

dictator in Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko.

On Sunday night, a Ryan Air flight that was traveling between Athens and Vilnius, Lithuania,

was confronted by a fighter jet and forced by Belarusian authorities to land in Minsk.

The reason was because a Belarusian opposition journalist named Roman Protassifish was on board,

and he was arrested after landing and now faces 12 or more years in prison.

Protassifish is only 26 years old and around the popular social media telegram channel

NECTSTA, which exposed Belarusian police brutality during the anti-government demonstrations

last year.

This act by Belarus was seen to be in violation of international law, so yesterday all 27 European

leaders agreed to oppose sanctions on Belarus and bar EU airlines from flying in their airspace.

White House press secretary Jen Socki called the incident a brazen up front to international

peace, saying the Biden administration is demanding an international investigation.

And here's a fun fact about Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, so you know who we're

dealing with.

At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, he told people they could avoid COVID by drinking

vodka and going to the sauna, and then he himself got COVID, as they always do.

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