Uvalde mass shooting one year later, Trump appears remotely in court: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Uvalde, one year later

It's been one year since the Uvalde mass shooting. Austin American Statesman State Politics Reporter Niki Griswold reflects. Plus, Former President Donald Trump appears remotely in court in the hush money case surrounding him, an investigation into child sex abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Illinois found that thousands of children across the state were sexually abused, USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub talks about a new project that aims to tackle rare, inherited diseases. and Netflix begins cracking down on password sharing.

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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 Wednesday, the 24th of May 2023. Today, one year since tragedy in Uvalde. Plus, Trump appears remotely in court, and a new project aims to tackle rare inherited diseases.

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It's been one year since a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two teachers. Austin American Statesman State Politics Reporter Niki Griswold has more on this devastated community one year later. Niki, welcome to 5 Things.

Niki Griswold:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

Niki, how's the community dealing one year later?

Niki Griswold:

I think it's fair to say the community is still reeling. This was arguably the most devastating thing to happen to this small town of just over 15,000 people where it seems everybody knows each other. And because of that, everyone knows someone personally who was impacted by this massacre. 19 families lost their children in the shooting, and two more families lost mothers, sisters of those two teachers who died. So it has been a really, really grim and devastating year for the town that is still trying to recover at this point.

Taylor Wilson:

We know police controversially waited over an hour to respond to the classroom. Niki, your paper, the Statesman, made the decision to publish a 77-minute video from inside the school showing officers pacing the hall instead of entering the classroom as police are trained to do. I'm wondering, has there been any accountability for that delayed police response?

Niki Griswold:

I would say that the families don't believe that nearly enough accountability has come from the law enforcement agencies that responded that day. There were more than 300 law enforcement officers who were at the school and still did not breach the classroom and kill the gunman for 77 minutes. There has been a little bit of movement after pressure from the families. There have been a very small handful of officers who have been either fired or forced to retire or resign. But again, that is a very small handful and nowhere near the level of accountability that the families want to see. They want to see big oversight, systemic changes to make sure that this never happens again and the people who were responsible for leaving their children with the gunmen in those classrooms for more than an hour are held accountable and see some sort of justice. I think the families don't believe that there is any sort of justice accomplished in the past year.

Taylor Wilson:

Does the Uvalde community still trust police at this point?

Niki Griswold:

I think it's split down the middle. I think there are a lot of families, including the families of the victims, who arguably will never trust police again. Especially there are some children who were at Robb Elementary that day and survive who don't believe that police will arrive to help them if they're in another shooting situation, which is really heartbreaking. But there is a part of the town that kind of wants to see the town move forward and doesn't necessarily want to see the entire police department get laid off or DPS troopers get laid off, because again, this is a small town, so a lot of those employees are neighbors and family members. And so there are some pretty deep divisions that have emerged.

Taylor Wilson:

Has there been any meaningful legislative action either in Texas or I guess anywhere in the US as a response to this tragedy?

Niki Griswold:

In the Republican dominated legislature, most conservative lawmakers are highly, highly resistant to any sort of policies that would restrict access to guns on any level. And so the families have really focused on pushing and advocating for House Bill 2744 filed by State Representative Tracy King, who represents Uvalde, that would raise the minimum age to purchase certain militaries AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles like the one used in the Uvalde shooting from 18 to 21. The Uvalde shooter bought the gun he used in the massacre just days after his 18th birthday after he had unsuccessfully tried to get other people to get it for him before he was legally allowed to do so. So the families have really thrown their weight behind this bill, and it's made a difference.

Typically, meaningful significant gun reform bills don't even get so much as a hearing in the Texas legislature, but this one did. The House speaker appointed a special committee specifically to hear bills related to gun reform. The chair brought up this bill to get a hearing, so the families were able to give testimony directly to the lawmakers on the committee, which was intensely emotional. And in kind of a really stunning move, the Republican chair of that committee was not planning on advancing that bill out of the committee, and the families were really amping up their pressure. They've been coming to the Capitol pretty much every single week since the legislative session started. And so they really doubled down on that pressure and that Republican chair did bring up the bill for a vote, and it passed out of committee, an 8-5 vote.

It was a really, really shocking move and a very emotional one for the families in the room who had traveled to Austin to be there that day. They burst into tears of joy and relief after months of their advocacy work finally paying off. But that joy was very short-lived. Just the next day the bill stalled and then the next committee that had to move it forward, the Republican chair of that committee kind of quietly killed that bill by ensuring it didn't meet the next legislative deadline.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for your work on this and for talking with me today. Really appreciate it.

Niki Griswold:

Yeah, thanks for having me.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

Former president Donald Trump appeared remotely by video yesterday for a pre-trial hearing in the hush money case surrounding him. A judge scheduled his criminal trial for March 25th of next year in the heart of presidential primary season. Trump was mostly silent during the hearing, but he wrote on social media afterwards that he believes his First Amendment rights have been violated. He pleaded not guilty last month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign to bury allegations that he had extramarital affairs.

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A multi-year investigation into child sex abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in Illinois found that nearly 2,000 children across the state were sexually abused. The report formally concludes the investigation the Attorney General's office opened in 2018 and contains some 50 pages of recommendations to the diocese for the handling of future child sex abuse allegations. Before Attorney General Kwame Raoul's investigation, the Catholic Diocese of Illinois publicly listed only 103 substantiated child sex abusers. Raoul's report names and details information, about 451 of them, 330 have died.

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A new collaboration has been announced that aims to tackle rare inherited diseases. I spoke with USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub to learn more.

Welcome back to the show, Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

Karen, what are the specific goals here?

Karen Weintraub:

Right. So there are about 7,000 diseases that are considered rare. They affect fewer than 200,000 people. Some as few as five or six people in the country. Most of them are genetic caused by a single misspelling in the genes out of 3 billion base pairs, one of them is screwed up. The hope is that gene therapy can be used to correct the genetic mistake and to fix the disease, certainly improving the quality of people's lives, potentially extending them. The issue is that the process of developing a gene therapy right now is very time-consuming and expensive. Basically, it takes a few heroes to really put their personal lives on hold for years and years to pursue treatments, understanding of the disease, fundraise, tons of different aspects. It's an incredible amount of effort and work that these parents typically put in to help save their kids.

Taylor Wilson:

And Karen, which diseases were selected as treatment candidates by this consortium?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah, there are things you've probably never heard of. Again, some of them affect... Just one of them, spastic paraplegia 50 affects literally nine people in the United States as far as we know. Another one, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. There are different variations, this one is type 4J. Something called congenital hereditary endothelial dystrophy. They're quite a mouthful, but they can be absolutely debilitating and life-ending. And so the hope again is that these gene therapies can really provide transformative therapies. The problem is right now, at first, and for kids who already are born or growing up with these diseases, they're probably not cures. The hope is that eventually these conditions can be diagnosed at birth, given very early in life, maybe even in utero in some cases, and can prevent the symptoms from developing and can completely provide a cure. But at this point, they're not there yet.

Taylor Wilson:

And who's funding this project?

Karen Weintraub:

It's called the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. It's a nonprofit arm of the government agency that raises funds. They're coordinating this effort. They've raised or collected the funds. They've got about 97 million at the moment. Some are in-kind, manufacturers have promised to make drugs that are developed through this consortium. And some is actual cash. Again, it's going to take that much probably for these eight conditions to get them to the point of treatment development. The hope is that small scale clinical trials can start next year and yield results within the next 12 to 18 months after that. And then hopefully, some company, it will de-risk the investment that a company has to make in developing these drugs. And hopefully then the commercial interest will step in and develop these drugs for the market. The hope is that they're going to start with these eight diseases where treatments can be developed relatively quickly and then spread that to other treatments, to other diseases as time goes on.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Karen Weintraub, thanks as always.

Karen Weintraub:

Thanks.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

The Netflix crackdown on password sharing has begun. Just months after rolling out restrictions in some other countries, the streaming service is doing the same stateside. Netflix says only people under the same roof can share accounts. So you have two options for sharing your account with someone who doesn't live with you; transfer their profile to a new membership or share your account for an additional $8 a month fee. Netflix long encouraged password sharing, but it changed its tune as subscriber growth slowed amid growing competition and a return to pre-pandemic viewing habits. Research analyst John Blackledge estimates that the company could pick up more than 2 million new US subscribers from the initiative. Netflix accounted for 7.3% of total TV viewing in February of this year according to Nielsen.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every day of the week right here wherever you get your podcast. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump in court remotely, Netflix cracks down on passwords: 5 Things podcast