Families mourn Jacksonville shooting victims, Tropical Storm Idalia forms: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Families mourn Jacksonville shooting victims

Families are mourning Jacksonville shooting victims, as authorities investigate the attack as a hate crime. Plus, Tropical Storm Idalia forms and may hit Florida as a hurricane this week, USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub talks about how mRNA technology can be used to fight cancer, Medicare's priciest drugs may get cheaper as feds begin negotiations, and USA TODAY National Correspondent Marc Ramirez looks back at the integration of a Baltimore amusement park, on the 60th anniversary.

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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 28th of August 2023. Today, a hate crime in Florida. Plus, a tropical storm is brewing in the Gulf, and how mRNA-based technology could be used to fight cancer.

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Hundreds of people gathered yesterday to mourn the loss of three Black people who were shot and killed in what authorities say was a racist attack in Jacksonville, Florida on Saturday. Authorities say the suspect, a 21-year-old white man carrying an AR-style rifle and a handgun bearing a swastika, opened fire at a Dollar General store in a predominantly Black neighborhood. The suspect then shot and killed himself at the store.

Law enforcement officials identified the victims as 19 year old A.J. Laguerre, 29 year old Jerrald Gallion, and 52 year old Angela Michelle Carr. The Department of Justice is investigating the shooting as a hate crime. And authorities said the shooter also drove to Edward Waters University, the first historically Black college in Florida, before driving to the store. President Joe Biden said in a statement yesterday that white supremacy has no place in America.

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Tropical Storm Idalia formed yesterday in the Gulf of Mexico amid warnings that it could slam into Florida as a hurricane this week. According to the latest forecast from the National Hurricane Center, Idalia could approach Florida on Wednesday as a Category 2 with winds up to 100 miles an hour. The National Weather Service in Tampa warned of tropical storm and hurricane conditions Tuesday into Wednesday. And Ryan Truchelut, chief meteorologist at Florida-based WeatherTiger, said there are warning signs that Idalia could reach major hurricane intensity, bringing it to Category 3 status. You can stay up to date on the storm all week with usatoday.com.

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mRNA-based technology was made famous by COVID-19 vaccines in recent years. Now, the Biden administration announced plans this week to enlist the technology to fight cancer. I spoke with USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub to learn more. Thanks for hopping on, Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

Karen, how would this technology work?

Karen Weintraub:

So we're sort of familiar now with the mRNA technology in the COVID vaccines. The "m" in the mRNA stands for messenger. The messenger RNA is what carries the messages from the DNA in the nucleus, which is our genetic code, to the proteins to tell the cells what proteins to make. In the case of the vaccines, it makes the spike protein that's on the surface of the virus that causes COVID. By making the protein, it sensitizes our immune system. And when our immune system sees the real spike protein, the real virus, it attacks it and kills it. And that way you don't get sick. So the same idea would work here except it would be trained against something that's on the surface of the tumor that you have and it would train your immune system to attack your tumor. It might also be used kind of in the opposite. If your body is attacking itself in an autoimmune disease, they might be able to train your body to stop attacking and stop that autoimmune disease.

Taylor Wilson:

And how might this be more effective than traditional cancer medications?

Karen Weintraub:

So something like chemotherapy is very nonspecific. It kills a lot of healthy cells along with the cancer cells. So we know about people who have terrible side effects with chemo. They lose their hair, they feel awful. That's because the chemo is killing healthy cells along with the cancer ones. And the idea behind these sort of more targeted therapies is to more specifically kill the cancer cells. If they can just kill the ones they want to get rid of and not the healthy ones as well, you'll have fewer side effects. At least that's the hope.

Taylor Wilson:

We know that cost is often a barrier for new medicine. How expensive would this be?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah, so that's potentially one of the most exciting things about this is they say that they can do it for relatively little money. It's not specific to you. The two companies we're familiar with from the COVID vaccines, Moderna and BioNTech, which paired with Pfizer for the COVID vaccine, they're both working on cancer vaccines right now. But they're talking about personalized vaccines where they take your tumor and make a vaccine specific to that. What these folks at Emory are doing would be more generalized. They would make a vaccine against, say, a specific kind of breast cancer, for instance. [It] would be an off the shelf kind of medicine. So it wouldn't have to be specific to you, so it would be a lot cheaper. Personalized treatments are on the order of $1 million. Say, vaccines are on the order of $100. This would be closer to that price range supposedly. We'll see what actually happens when this is developed.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. So what's next for mRNA cancer treatments going forward?

Karen Weintraub:

So this is still very early days. It's in the development phase. They're hoping to have a couple of options in clinical trials in people starting in the next three years. So, again, early days, but pretty exciting and a lot of promise.

Taylor Wilson:

Karen Weintraub, you always have exciting news for us from the world of medicine. Thanks so much.

Karen Weintraub:

Thanks for having me.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

The Biden administration this week is expected to announce the first 10 prescription drugs that the government will negotiate under a new federal law that aims to reduce the cost of Medicare's most expensive medicines. For the first time, the federal government is able to negotiate drug prices for older Americans because of the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping climate and health legislation passed by Congress last year. Consumer and senior advocates have long pushed for efforts to reign in drug prices for Medicare enrollees and taxpayers. The federal health program for adults 65 and older and disabled people sets reimbursement amounts for medical care from doctors and hospitals. But until now, Medicare has been prohibited from negotiating drug prices under 2003 legislation that expanded Medicare's prescription drug coverage. Analysts say that some expensive and widely used drugs for arthritis, cancer, diabetes, or heart disease could be targeted for negotiation. The pharmaceutical industry is challenging the drug negotiations. Big Pharma and industry allies have filed eight lawsuits seeking to derail them.

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On this day in 1963, Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Maryland welcomed Black people through its gates for the first time. The moment was the culmination of years of work from civil rights activists to desegregate the park. I spoke with USA TODAY National Correspondent Marc Ramirez on the 60th anniversary. Marc, thanks for hopping on 5 Things.

Marc Ramirez:

Absolutely.

Taylor Wilson:

Before the amusement park became desegregated, how did it act as a symbol of this unfair racist system in America?

Marc Ramirez:

It was a place where kids wanted to go. It was in an area of northwest Baltimore that had been for years predominantly white, had been segregated from the time it opened in 1894. But in the 1950s, more and more Black families were moving in and it just really exacerbated the notion of it as a place that... It was really unfair that the Black kids couldn't go. Families would drive by or purposely not drive by so they wouldn't have to explain to their kids why they couldn't go in. As this just over time seemed more and more unfair, there began to be a growing determination to desegregate the park.

Taylor Wilson:

So how did civil rights activists make Gwynn Oak a focus of desegregation in the '50s, and what did they learn from other forms of civil rights activism?

Marc Ramirez:

As they started to protest for the park's desegregation, originally they began with picketing and really trying to approach the owners themselves because it was really more of a mom and pop operation as many amusement parks in those days were. So when those tactics didn't work, they began to ramp up the protests, bringing more and more people on, sneaking into the park in mixed groups of white and Black until they were kicked out or arrested.

Eventually, as they looked towards efforts in the South, efforts like the Freedom Rides or the sit-ins that were taking place in lunch counters across the South, they realized that they really needed to make an economic impact and show the sheer numbers to overwhelm both the park and the jails. They followed the "Jail, No Bail" strategies that had been employed in the South where people who were arrested would refuse bail so that the jail system would become overwhelmed. And so this really came to a head in 1963 when protestors led by the Congress of Racial Equality's Baltimore chapter turned out in hundreds. And in two days of protests, more than 400 people were arrested, including a number of clergy, which was a pretty novel thing at the time. So the publicity that it generated really helped turn the tide in that effort.

Taylor Wilson:

What role did religious leaders play in the integration of this park?

Marc Ramirez:

Clergy hadn't really gotten involved to the degree that they were about to. Certainly Black pastors had been involved in protest efforts. But it was really when the National Council of Churches, recognizing the situation that was happening across the country in terms of the civil rights fight, they decided it really was the time when clergy members could no longer sit on the sidelines. And so they encouraged their members to turn out and help with these efforts.

And so it so happened that just after the council made this decision, this protest at Gwynn Oak took place. And so more than 30 clergy members from Maryland, but also from New York and Connecticut and New Jersey and Pennsylvania, turned out for this effort. And so it was really, I believe, more than 20 of them were arrested, including William Sloane Coffin, who was the chaplain at Yale University and had already been known as a peace activist who would go on to gain an even greater profile. They were among the arrestees. And so this was kind of a new thing at the time that helped to generate so much publicity

Taylor Wilson:

And the park itself later was destroyed largely by a hurricane. But this historic carousel that you write about survived. What's the symbolism of this carousel and where is it today?

Marc Ramirez:

Well, the carousel stands as a symbol of the one remaining attraction that was tied to that park when it was segregated, and of course became the symbol of desegregation on the day it opened when 11-month-old Sharon Langley was the first Black child to ride the carousel. When the park was destroyed by a hurricane the carousel was really the only thing that survived the storm. And it ended up on the National Mall in Washington DC when some concessionaires who operated a carousel there needed to replace their aging carousel and were able to acquire the Gwynn Oak carousel. And once they learned of its role in Baltimore and Maryland civil rights history, they identified the horse that Sharon Langley had ridden and re-outfitted it in sort of a freedom rider's theme.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, USA TODAY National Correspondent Marc Ramirez joining us on the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of Gwynn Oak. Thank you, Marc.

Marc Ramirez:

Sure thing.

Taylor Wilson:

And before we go, USA TODAY reporters are talking to people across the country about how they save and spend their money for a feature story coming out next month. If you want to be part of our reporting, please write to us with your name, age, and the best contact number, or email at [email protected]. We may be in touch. And thanks for listening to 5 Things. If you like the show, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And any comments, you can write them to us at [email protected]. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.