A deadly weekend of shootings in America, judge delays Fox-Dominion trial: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: A deadly weekend of shootings in America
This weekend brought more gun violence with multiple mass shootings. Plus, USA TODAY Congress Reporter Candy Woodall looks at upcoming Congressional priorities, USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub looks at how an mRNA vaccine could be used to treat melanoma, a judge delays the Fox-Dominion trial, and it's been 10 years since the Boston Marathon bombing.
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Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Monday, the 17th of April 2023. Today more shooting violence in America. Plus Congress has a busy week and weeks ahead, and could vaccines be used for cancer?
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Four people are dead and 28 injured after a shooting at a teenager's birthday party in Alabama on Saturday night. The incident in the small town of Dadeville, near Montgomery, happened after a mother told whoever had guns to leave the property. Someone then opened fire. Police say the suspect is no longer a threat to the community, but they've asked anyone to come forward with any information they have about the shooting. Meanwhile, two people were killed and four others injured in Louisville when someone shot into a crowd at a park on Saturday evening. Authorities say the suspect is still at large. It's the city's second major shooting this week. There have now been at least 160 mass shootings in the US this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as when at least four victims are hit by gunfire.
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Congress is back in session this week and there's a lot to tackle. USA TODAY Politics Editor Candy Woodall breaks it all down. Hello Candy.
Candy Woodall:
Thank you for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah, thanks for coming back on. So what's the biggest congressional priority as lawmakers return this week?
Candy Woodall:
I'm not sure their biggest priority matters as much as what they're going to face when they get back. Congress is returning Monday with a New York standoff between Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, which is led by Ohio representative Jim Jordan, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Republicans say this hearing is about rising crime rates in New York. Democrats say this is just retribution because Bragg indicted former president Donald Trump this month. They say this is just payback and that it's a political stunt. But this hearing on Monday is just the latest escalation of what's going on in Congress.
When they come back, they're going to have to face many things that popped up during their two-week recess. One of them, federal authorities arrested a suspect after a leak of top secret military documents. And then in Texas, a federal judge ordered a pause on US approval of the abortion medication mifepristone, the abortion pill. It's just the latest in the effort to block access to medical abortions across the country.
And of course, there's the ongoing debt ceiling. One of our White House reporters, Michael Collins, is reporting some comments from Biden's chief of staff. It gives you a little indication as to where the White House stands on this issue and where they're not going to budge.
Taylor Wilson:
Candy, guns and gun legislation are also back in the news as they unfortunately so often are in the wake of these recent shootings. President Joe Biden has firmly pointed the finger toward Congress to act. Is there any plan here for action?
Candy Woodall:
No, is the short answer. And I'm so glad you mentioned that, because in the laundry list of things I told you about happening when Congress gets back, gun control right now after two recent mass shootings in Louisville and Nashville, just one of more than 130 this year, and Congress is not going to act on this issue. In fact, on Friday there was an NRA convention. And Trump, DeSantis and other 2024 presidential hopefuls in the GOP, all gave speeches and addressed a core constituency for them, which are gun owners. It was pretty clear that there's going to be no movement in the Republican Party to restrict access to guns or roll back any rights.
Taylor Wilson:
Senator Diane Feinstein is under pressure to resign amid health issues. What are congressional leaders saying about that?
Candy Woodall:
There are some House Democrats, including Ro Khanna and Dean Phillips who said she should step down, she should resign. They're concerned about her health. Ro Khanna is backing Barbara Lee, who is running for Senate in California. This would be the seat that replaces Feinstein. She mentioned earlier this year that she would be retiring. So you hear lawmakers now, some of them calling for her to bow out earlier. And former speaker Nancy Pelosi this week said not so fast. And she questioned why they haven't asked this of some of the older men in the Senate near a similar age.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Candy Woodall. Thanks so much.
Candy Woodall:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
Vaccines for cancer. They've been tested and failed for decades, but now the same technology used to fight COVID-19 could be useful for at least one type of cancer. USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub explains. Hello, Karen.
Karen Weintraub:
Hello.
Taylor Wilson:
So you're right that this could be a big shift in cancer treatment. How would an mRNA cancer vaccine work?
Karen Weintraub:
Let me just start by saying that researchers have tried for more than 20 years to develop a cancer vaccine and they have failed repeatedly for various reasons. Nobody entirely knows why and why it's working this time, but it seems to be, at least in early days. The mRNA vaccine is bespoke, is made for each individual cancer patient and it's based on proteins in their particular tumor. And so it takes six, eight weeks to make it. This was tested in people with melanoma and surgeons took off their tumor and then used those cells to figure out what proteins were very common and unique to the tumor, so not in healthy cells. And then they designed these vaccines to go after 34 of those proteins that are unique to the tumor cells and it trains the immune system just like a vaccine against COVID trains our immune system to attack that virus. In this case, they're attacking the proteins made by the tumor.
Taylor Wilson:
And Karen, what kind of side effects are we talking about here?
Karen Weintraub:
At least so far, the study that I reported was only in about 100 people and there didn't seem to be many additional side effects. There's already a standard of care drugs that are used, and on top of those there didn't seem to be much other than the usual. If you remember when you got your COVID vaccine, maybe your arm hurt for a little bit or you were a little tired for a day or two. Those kinds of side effects, but nothing huge.
Taylor Wilson:
And does this technology have doubters when it comes to cancer?
Karen Weintraub:
The doubt really is just that it hasn't been proven yet. So this study is in 100 people followed for less than two years. To really prove that something is successful, you need to make it work in a lot more people over a lot longer period of time. So really just time will tell whether this proves as exciting as it seems right now.
Taylor Wilson:
And you mentioned that it's taken a long time to get this kind of technology rolling. Why has it taken so long for a cancer vaccine like this to pop up?
Karen Weintraub:
Some of it is that the immune system is just really complicated and it's taken decades for scientists to understand how to manipulate it to fight cancer. We know that your immune system normally doesn't attack your own cells and it sees cancer cells often as your own cells. And so it doesn't attack. There was a big transformation about 10, 15 years ago now in understanding how to manipulate the immune system against some cancers. And so we've made some advances there with immunotherapy, if you've heard of that. And that is used for patients with melanoma and has made a huge difference. But this would compound that and once you release the breaks on the immune system with those drugs, this would actually target the cancer and hopefully allow the body to really recognize cancer cells as different and knock them out.
Taylor Wilson:
And Karen, did this research particularly take off after the success of mRNA vaccines in recent years during the COVID pandemic?
Karen Weintraub:
Yeah, so this was a very experimental idea until about 2020. There were early trials, lots of animal studies using mRNA technology. But the fact that these vaccines, that mRNA vaccines have now been used in hundreds of millions of people really gives researchers a sense of confidence that they won't have bad surprises, I guess. That they're extremely safe and that they know what to expect.
Taylor Wilson:
And so what's next for research on this technology?
Karen Weintraub:
So this particular vaccine is from Moderna, but there are other companies, including BioNTech, which helps make the other COVID vaccine, they're also involved in this kind of work. So the next thing is they have to launch a much bigger trial over a longer period of time. Merck, which makes this immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab, that's planning that later this year, they're going to start an 800 person trial and follow people for several years. So it will be a while before we know whether this is truly a success, but progress is moving forward.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. Fingers crossed. Karen Weintraub, thanks so much.
Karen Weintraub:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
A judge has delayed the trial of Fox News and Dominion Voting Systems briefly, pushing its start to tomorrow. It had been scheduled to begin this morning with jury selection and opening statements. The case centers on whether Fox defamed Dominion by spreading false claims that the company rigged the 2020 election to prevent former president Donald Trump's reelection. Records produced as part of the lawsuit show that many of the network's top executives and on-air hosts did not believe the allegations but aired them anyway. The voting machine company is seeking $1.6 billion in damages. You can learn more about the trial by going back and listening to our Saturday episode of 5 Things.
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The Boston Marathon will be held today for the 127th time. One of the world's most famous races will bring some 30,000 runners to the city. That includes two-time Olympic gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge from Kenya. He's competed in 17 marathons in his career and won 15 of them. Now this is his first time running the Boston Marathon. This year is also the 10th anniversary of the Boston bombing. Two bombs made from pressure cookers exploded near the race finish line killing three people, including an eight-year-old child. Many others lost limbs and had other catastrophic injuries. The city remembered the tragedy with a number of events this weekend.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every day of the week right here, wherever you get your audio. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Deadly weekend shootings, Boston remembers marathon bombing: 5 Things podcast
