This week, last year: 24th – 30th July

Chris Froome en route to winning the uphill time trial in stage 18 of the 2016 Tour de France. Photo: Pete Goding Goding Images / PA Images

Our news highlights from 12 months past, for your weekly dose of Slow Journalism perspective…

Sun 24th July 2016
Chris Froome wins the Tour de France, becoming the first British man to have done so three times.

The International Olympic Committee decides against a blanket ban on Russian athletes at the Rio Olympics in response to the McLaren report, which detailed the country’s state-sponsored doping programme. Instead, the individual federations of the 28 sports at the Games will decide on whether they want to impose a ban.

Mon 25th July 2016
US telecoms firm Verizon acquires internet company Yahoo for nearly 
$5 billion. Verizon 
bought AOL in 2015.

“I put lipstick 
on a pig” — Tony Schwartz, who ghost-wrote Donald Trump’s bestselling 1985 book The Art of 
the Deal, says in a The New Yorker interview 
that he feels a “deep remorse” for helping 
the Republican presidential candidate appear “more appealing than he is”.

Tue 26th July 2016
Nineteen people are killed and 26 are injured in a knife attack at a care home in Japan. The Tsukui Yamayuri-en centre in Sagamihara, west of Tokyo, houses people with mental disabilities. The suspect, 26-year-old Satoshi Uematsu, sent letters to politicians in February in which he stated that his goal was the mass euthanasia of disabled people.

An 86-year-old priest is murdered in Normandy by two followers of Isis. Father Jacques Hamel is killed by men armed with knives in a church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray. The men, who also wound one of five hostages, are shot dead by police.

Wed 27th July 2016
It’s revealed that 35 foreign workers at UK burger chain Byron were arrested in raids by immigration officials. The Home Office says it conducted the 4th July round-up of workers suspected of breaching immigration laws with the full cooperation of the business. Byron refuses to confirm workers’ claims that it set up fake health and safety training sessions to enable the Home Office raid.

Buzz Aldrin tweets 
his travel expenses for the Apollo 11 mission of July 1969 during which he became the second person to walk on the moon. His published expenses consist of a $33.31 travel voucher to Cape Kennedy, Florida. The tweet marked the 47th anniversary of his return trip to Houston, via “the Moon” and “Pacific Ocean”.

Read ‘Houston, we have a program’, our account of the software pioneers who made the Apollo missions possible – and of how their coding milestone was recently rescued from oblivion

Thu 28th July 2016
US rights group the American Civil Liberties Union says that Chelsea Manning may face charges for attempting suicide. The former army private, who is serving a 35-year sentence for sharing US military secrets with WikiLeaks, may face indefinite solitary confinement or a transfer to a maximum-security facility.

Fri 29th July 2016
“Lord, forgive so much cruelty” — Pope Francis leaves a message in the guest book at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where 
1.1 million people were killed during the Second World War. The pontiff attended a memorial service and met former inmates during his visit to the former concentration camp in Poland.

Sat 30th July 2016
Donald Trump criticises the mother of a dead American-Muslim soldier. The presidential candidate suggests that Ghazala Khan, who stood silently through her husband Khizr’s speech at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday 26th July, was unable to speak due to her religious beliefs. Khan tells ABC News that she chose not to speak in public because it would be 
too painful.

Posted on Wednesday, July 26th, 2017 - Categories: Extras, The week that was.