Freeform dropped the trailer for Cruel Summer season 2 on Monday. The Jessica Biel-produced thriller series “follows the rise and fall of an intense teenage friendship. Approaching the story from three different timelines surrounding Y2K, the season twists and turns as it tracks the early friendship between Megan, Isabella and Megan’s best friend Luke, the love triangle that blossomed, and the mystery that would impact all of their lives going forward,” per the network. Sadie Stanley, Lexi Underwood, Eloise Payet, Griffin Gluck, KaDee Strickland, Lisa Yamada and Sean Blakemore star, with Paul Adelstein and Braeden De La Garza appearing in recurring roles. Cruel Summer premieres June 5, at 9:00 p.m. EDT on Freeform, with a special two-episode premiere before moving to its regular 10 p.m. time slot…
We’re getting our first look at Meg 2: The Trench, a sequel to 2018’s The Meg, which followed a group of scientists whose submarine was attacked by a Megalodon — a giant shark thought to be extinct. Jason Statham, who reprises his role from the first film, now faces three giant sharks. Wu Jing co-stars, along with Cliff Curtis, Sienna Guillory, Skyler Samuels, Page Kennedy, Shuya Sophia Cai and Sergio Peris-Mencheta. The first movie grossed $530 million worldwide. Meg 2: The Trench opens in theaters August 3…
CBS has canceled True Lies and East New York, both after a single season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. True Lies, a reboot of James Cameron‘s spy-action comedy film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, will air its series finale May 17, while procedural East New York, which centers on the officers and detectives of the NYPD’s 74th precinct in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York, will wrap May 14…
(NOTE LANGUAGE) CBS has reversed its decision to cancel S.W.A.T., announcing on Monday that the popular show will return for a seventh and final season, according to Variety.
“We have listened to our viewers and their outpouring of passion for S.W.A.T. and have reached an agreement to renew it for a final season of 13 episodes to air during the 2023-2024 broadcast year,” Amy Reisenbach, President of CBS Entertainment, and Katherine Pope, President of Sony Pictures Television Studios, said in a joint statement.
“S.W.A.T. has aired for six seasons on CBS and garnered a devoted following. We are pleased that we found a way to bring it back and give closure to the show storylines and characters, which audiences deserve,” the statement continued. “Once again, we appreciate the talents and efforts of the cast, writers, producers and crew and everyone who contributed to the success of S.W.A.T. and look forward to its return next season.”
The show — a remake of the ’70s police action drama of the same name staring Criminal Minds‘ Shemar Moore as Daniel “Hondo” Harrelson, a S.W.A.T. sergeant tasked with running a specialized tactical unit that is the last stop in law enforcement in Los Angeles — was a solid performer, and the cancelation drew backlash from viewers on social media, as well as Moore, who called the network’s decision to cancel the show “a f****** mistake.”
In a lengthy social media post, Moore noted, “We’ve done nothing wrong. We did everything that was asked for. And let me tell the truth. We’re diverse. Did you know I am the only African American male lead on network TV? Not streaming, not cable, network television.”
(LONDON) — Russia’s Victory Day parade is meant to be a projection of President Vladimir Putin’s military might. But this year, it was effectively the opposite.
The military parade in Moscow’s Red Square on Tuesday was a significantly shrunken version of itself — thinned out due to Russia’s huge losses in Ukraine and its urgent need for equipment on the front lines. Analysts noted there was seemingly only one heavy tank in the entire parade this year — a World War II-era T-34 museum piece that led the procession. Instead, the parade was almost exclusively light armored vehicles, similar to Humvees.
There appeared to be approximately 50 military vehicles taking part in the Victory Day parade in Moscow on Tuesday. That’s compared to 130 during the 2019 parade.
The flypast part of the event, which usually involves helicopters and fighter jets, was cancelled on Tuesday despite clear, sunny skies in the Russian capital. But perhaps what was most notable was the cancelling of the parade in at least 24 Russian cities due to security concerns that Ukrainian forces might be able to strike them, likely because of Russia’s shortages of troops and equipment.
Meanwhile, Putin delivered his annual Victory Day speech during the parade in Moscow’s Red Square on Tuesday, which was fairly standard. As he has done in previous remarks, Putin claimed that the Ukraine war was “unleashed” on Russia and blamed “Western global elites” while calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a puppet. He also directly compared his ongoing war in Ukraine to the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in 1945, which is what Victory Day commemorates. He claimed that Russia was fighting for “civilization” “once again” and painted a topsy-turvy picture that Moscow wants peace with all nations.
“Today, the civilization is once again at a decisive, turning point and an actual war has been unleashed against our homeland again,” Putin said. “But we fended off international terrorism, we will protect residents of Donbas too and ensure our security.”
Putin’s speech made clear once more that the Russian president has no intention of negotiating currently or scaling back his ambitions to defeat Ukraine.
On Monday, Zelenskyy announced that he was moving the date of Ukraine’s own Victory Day celebration and renaming it Europe Day. He signed and submitted a draft law to the Ukrainian Parliament that moves the holiday to May 8, which is the date when the rest of the Western allies mark the World War II victory over the Nazis.
The Ukrainian president also compared the current war to the allied efforts to defeat the Nazis.
“We will not allow lies as if the victory in that war could have taken place without the participation of any country or nation. As then we destroyed evil together, so now we are destroying a similar evil together,” Zelenskyy said. “Unfortunately, evil has returned. Although now it is another aggressor, the goal is the same — enslavement or destruction. And just as then we relied on the joint strength of free nations, so now we fight against evil together with the free world, together with free Europe. And we will prevail! It will be the Day of our victory.”
The R&B singer chatted with Shannon Sharpe on the May 8 episode of the Club Shay Shay podcast and shared his views on dating. When asked about what his ideal woman would be and how he would find her, O candidly answered, “She finds me.”
“It’s been a while since I’ve actually been in a you know quote-unquote girlfriend boyfriend type relationship … I believe that she finds me,” he continued, adding that it could be “shes,” as in more than one woman.
Elaborating on the idea of having multiple partners, Omarion explained, “If I really thought about my lifestyle and being with me like the pressure of being with me and it just being one woman … I don’t know if that is it. I don’t come from a traditional standpoint. I feel like I’ve definitely tried the traditional way, and I don’t know if that’s for me.”
“I’m definitely open to love and I really feel like love is acceptance. So if there is one woman, cool, you know. I mean if there’s two, cool. If there’s three, cool, but after three …” the 38-year-old singer-songwriter trailed off, alluding that three women is where he would draw the line.
Omarion was previously dated and was engaged to Apryl Jones, who he shares two children with — son Megaa Omari Grandberry, born in 2014 and daughter A’mei Kazuko Grandberry, born in 2016. The pair split in 2016. In January, rumors swirled he and actress Nia Long were an item after they walked hand-in-hand together at the Los Angeles premiere of You People. However, Long shut down that speculation.
(NEW YORK) — Millions of Americans are planning summer trips in what could be the busiest summer travel season in years. Where you go and how you get there will determine if this summer’s trip will be the most expensive yet.
This summer will mark the first without most pandemic-era travel restrictions. Demand for travel to Europe and Asia is surging and prices are the highest in five years, according to travel app Hopper. Flights to Europe are running about 36% more than this time last year. Delta Airlines added 20% more seats on its international routes and 75% of all its seats were sold by early April, according to CEO Ed Bastian.
In March, travelers spent $9.6 billion on upcoming spring and summer flights, breaking the previous $9.3 billion record in March 2019, according to Airlines Reporting Corp.
There is relief for domestic flights. The average airfare is down about 20% to $306 roundtrip, but still up 6% from 2019, according to Hopper. Airline industry analyst Henry Harteveldt says travelers should set price alerts for itineraries even after they book their flight in case the price of the flight drops.
“If you haven’t booked a summer trip yet, don’t waste time to do so. Do your shopping, book your flights now, check the fare carefully, because in many cases, that fare may be refundable in the form of a travel credit on the airline where you booked your flight,” Harteveldt explained. “Let’s say you find a fare that costs $500 per person, but a few weeks from now, that fare has dropped to $350 per person. You can cancel the initial reservation, get a travel credit for each ticket for the full amount you paid, rebook at the lower fare, and you’ll have that travel credit to use on that airline for a future trip.”
But some airlines still have change fees on certain fares, even business class fares, and some fares, such as basic economy fares are completely nonrefundable. They are use it or lose it. So do your flight shopping and booking very carefully, “but don’t wait,” Harteveldt explained.
Expedia says its summer flight searches are up 12% since last year. The most searched destinations include Cancun, Riviera Maya, Punta Cana and Cabo. Hopper says its top domestic destinations are New York, Orlando and Las Vegas. London, Paris and Tokyo top its international list.
If you’re not planning on flying, there is good news for rental car prices. Hopper says the prices are down and are averaging about $46 per day, a 17% drop since last year. However, hotel prices are up 11% from last year and are averaging $237 per night, according to Hopper.
Vacation rental company VRBO says 60% of its vacation homes in July are already booked. The company also says if you plan to rent for the Fourth of July, it’s best to book no later than May 10. If you’re hoping for a Labor Day vacation, you should book no later than July 14.
(BUFFALO, N.Y.) — Since the May 14, 2022, mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York supermarket, those who narrowly escaped with their lives and the loved ones of the 10 Black people gunned down by a white supremacist teenager say healing remains elusive.
Even the guilty plea from the killer, Payton Gendron, and his apology in open court at his sentencing, offered little solace.
Now, at the one-year mark of the shooting, the consensus among those residents and family members interviewed by ABC News is that they may never truly heal.
Here is how they are coping in their own words, based on condensed excerpts taken from recent interviews:
Fragrance Harris Stanfield was working inside the Tops store on Jefferson Avenue at the time of the mass shooting.
My life was destroyed. That’s probably why I don’t know what to say. I mean, it was destroyed.
I was a high-level person before. I kind of just moved at the speed of light.
Now, if I was Flash before, I’m like Captain America when he came back and was old, and he just sat down.
It feels like you’re a zombie. Or if you think about science fiction, there’s a space between the dead and the living. We live there. A lot of times you’re invisible. People don’t acknowledge you. You’re dismissed. Nobody understands you. They don’t know why you’re going through what you’re going through. You don’t get a lot of empathy. You’re expected to move on somehow, move on in a way as if it didn’t happen to you, to be grateful for what you have, as if I’m not grateful.
I feel like I’ve aged in the last year. My kids have walked me through crowds of people because I can’t do it anymore. They have held my hand, not me holding theirs. It’s like I’m the kid sometimes. My kids are still young and I’m not old. But I’m at the point where they have to help me.”
Mark Talley’s mother, Geraldine Talley, was killed in the massacre. He founded Agents for Advocacy, a nonprofit devoted to raising awareness of systemic racism and socioeconomic inequality.
The first three to five days after the attack were chaotic. I didn’t know how to feel, what to do. I just felt terrified. I felt like my mind was going crazy. And after those days were up, that’s when the advocacy started.
So I wouldn’t go crazy and stab the first person I saw when I was to walk outside, I just started volunteering on Jefferson Avenue (on the east side of Buffalo) with a bunch of organizations, seeing what they were doing, how they were doing it. That inspired me to want to start my own organization.
The organization I’ve created, Agents for Advocacy, our main mission is to raise awareness of systemic racism and to put awareness on socioeconomic equity and equality issues, while, hopefully, working on one day fostering a reality in which one’s race and environment doesn’t dictate one’s future.
My mother’s memory lives through me. I could really care less about all the monuments, basically all the stuff that’s being done and talked about with people from 5/14. Wherever I am, she’s at.
Barbara Massey Mapps, the sister of Katherine ‘Kat’ Massey, who was a community activist killed in the massacre.
I’m sad every day, but I’m not sad all the time. You break down. I could be just doing something and think of something funny, and I can’t call Kat.
Kat kept us together. She made us laugh, she made us think, she made us more compassionate. I can’t walk a mile in Kat’s shoes. But we can do more. We’re gonna do more because we have to make some changes.
The pain is still fresh. I don’t know if it’s ever going to go away because, you know, there’s a big difference when you know your loved one is going to die because they’re sick.
We were too close, maybe. There isn’t going to be another Kat. I’m going to get a shirt that says, “Kat Massey, our family legend.”
Wayne Jones, whose mother, Celestine Chaney, was killed in the shooting rampage. He is a youth football coach and owner of a Buffalo construction company.
It’s like a dream. Like, I would wake up and be, ‘Yo, your mom’s gone. She died in Tops.’ Still today, I wake up and think the same.
The hardest thing for me to cope with is the calls from my older children having bad days, and crying on the phone. I might be having a good day, then here comes the children, ‘Oh, man, I miss grandmother today,’ or ‘My day is going bad.’ And me, I’m just not being able to be like the superhero I usually am and fix the problem. All I can do is talk to them and reassure them that it’s going to be OK.
So, the healing, I don’t know when that will come because it’s still so fresh, still just like it was yesterday. I have good days and bad days, but it’s always there in the back of my mind. It’s just an emptiness. At this point, it just sucks. But you got to deal with it.
Hopefully, it never happens to anybody else. But the reality that somebody else is gonna be sitting in this chair probably in the next two months, giving you the same interview about what happened to their parents or their child or their loved ones.
I wish the government could come together and do something. Do something, jeez! People are getting killed by weapons of war and we can’t come together and say, no citizen needs an AR-15. I’m not against weapons, but you don’t need a 30-round clip in the inner city. I mean, it just shows that in America, people really don’t care. It’s just news for the day and we move on. We don’t solve any problems.
Garnell Whitfield Jr., whose mother, Ruth Whitfield, was killed in the Tops shooting. He’s a retired Buffalo fire commissioner and co-founder of Pursuit of tRuth, a nonprofit fighting white supremacy.
My family made a conscious decision when this happened, we would not go quietly into the night. We would not allow our mother to be remembered as a victim and we’re not going to live the lives of victims. That requires us to speak out. That requires us to work.
Not being busy is not good for me. You asked me if I had time to grieve, actually, probably no. Maybe I’m avoiding it by doing what I’m doing because I don’t have time to grieve.
I still cry all the time. It’s not getting any easier.
I wrote an impact statement. I didn’t talk about it. I didn’t read it in court at the (killer’s) sentencing. I could have, but I didn’t want to. But I wrote that I forgive this guy because that’s my faith, that’s what I have to do as a Christian, as a believer. Because I’ve been forgiven, we have to forgive. But I don’t forget.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will meet Tuesday afternoon with congressional leaders at the White House — as a fast-approaching deadline looms to either increase the nation’s borrowing limit or risk an unprecedented and potentially devastating debt default that would ripple across the global economy.
Tuesday’s meeting will be the first time since February that Biden has sat down with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to discuss the debt and spending.
The intervening months have been filled with back and forth, with Biden leading Democrats in pushing for a raise to the debt ceiling “without conditions.”
McCarthy and other Republicans, meanwhile, continue to say they will only agree to raise the borrowing cap if Biden also agrees to some federal spending cuts and budget changes.
Both sides have repeatedly insisted they don’t want to see a default, but comments from Democrats and Republicans as recently as this week show how far apart they publicly remain on reaching an agreement.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Sunday on ABC’s This Week that the federal government could run out of money to pay all of its bills by June 1, though uncertainty remains about the exact “X-date” when default would begin.
“Whether it’s defaulting on interest payments that are due on the debt or payments due for Social Security recipients or to Medicare providers, we would simply not have enough cash to meet all of our obligations,” Yellen said. “And it’s widely agreed that financial and economic chaos would ensue.”
Why Biden is meeting with lawmakers about the debt ceiling
The U.S. can pay most but not all of its bills with the tax and other revenue it takes in, and it must borrow the rest of the money. But Congress enforces a limit on how much debt the government can incur and when that ceiling — currently set at about $31.4 trillion — is reached, lawmakers must increase it before the government can borrow more funds.
The U.S. hit its debt limit in January and has been employing “extraordinary measures” since then to keep its bills paid, the treasury secretary has said.
On May 1, Yellen sent a letter to McCarthy and other top lawmakers urging action.
“We have learned from past debt limit impasses that waiting until the last minute to suspend or increase the debt limit can cause serious harm to business and consumer confidence, raise short-term borrowing costs for taxpayers, and negatively impact the credit rating of the United States,” she wrote.
Later on May 1, the White House invited McCarthy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to a meeting at the White House.
What Democrats want: A ‘clean’ hike
Last week, the president spoke bluntly of how he viewed the GOP strategy.
“Let’s get it straight: They’re trying to hold the debt hostage to [get] us to agree to some draconian cuts, magnificently difficult and damaging cuts,” Biden said on Friday.
Schumer also criticized Republicans in a floor speech on May 1: “If the hard right continues running the show in the House, the dangers of a first-ever default are growing day by day. The only real solution is for both parties to past a clean bill … with no brinksmanship, no hostage-taking.”
On Monday during a White House briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the president planned to make “very clear” with the congressional leaders on Tuesday that their “constitutional duty” is to raise the debt limit.
“We should not have House Republicans manufacturing a crisis on something that has been done 78 times since 1960,” she said.
“Congress must avoid default without conditions — without conditions — as they did three times before in the last administration,” she said.
Biden resisted earlier Republican pressure to negotiate by challenging conservatives to publicly present their specific budget plan. The president released his own in early March, with House Republicans then unveiling their debt limit bill in mid-April.
“I’m happy to meet with McCarthy, but not on whether or not the debt limit gets extended,” Biden said in late April. “That’s not negotiable.”
Congressional Democrats have also indicated they are open to talks about spending and the budget — possibly even simultaneously with work on a separate debt ceiling bill.
“We, of course, are open to having a discussion about what type of investments, what type of spending, what type of revenues are appropriate in order to protect the health, safety and economic well-being of the American people,” Jeffries said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “That is a process available to us right now.”
What Republicans want: Spending cuts
On April 26, House Republicans narrowly passed their bill to effectively raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion while reducing funding for federal agencies to 2022 fiscal year levels and limiting growth in government spending to 1% per year.
Afterward, McCarthy addressed Biden at a news conference: “We’re the only ones to pass a plan. So, I think it’s up to you now. Whether the economy goes in any trouble, it’s you, because the Republicans raised the debt limit.”
“We’ve done our job,” he said.
The GOP proposal would also reverse much of Biden’s signature climate, education and tax agenda.
“The House bill that they put out was their first parameter,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said on ABC’s This Week on Sunday when pressed by anchor George Stephanopoulos about the spending cuts the GOP wants. “It is the beginning of a negotiation.”
Lankford said then that the “most stunning part about this” was the lack of ongoing talks between the White House and Republicans.
“President Biden has been sleepwalking towards this crisis,” McConnell said in a floor speech on May 2.
“We have divided government. The American people gave Republicans the House, Democrats have the presidency,” McConnell said then. “The president and the speaker need to reach an agreement to get us past this impasse.”
Senate Republicans have stayed in lockstep with their House colleagues. Mike Lee of Utah this weekend led a letter addressed to Schumer and signed by 43 total Republican senators that stated their staunch opposition to backing any debt limit increase without “substantive spending and budget reforms.” They also threatened to filibuster any bill brought to the floor that doesn’t include their requests.
Americans are closely divided on whom they’d blame if the federal government defaults on its debts, with 39% saying in a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll that they’d mainly point the finger at Republicans in Congress, while virtually as many, 36%, said they’d mainly blame Biden.
Sixteen percent said that they’d blame both sides equally.
Democrats this weekend did not entirely rule out two possible ways to prevent a debt default: either a short-term hike or the president trying to invoke the 14th Amendment, which states that the public debt “shall not be questioned.”
When asked by MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on Friday if he would consider using the amendment, Biden said he had “not gotten there yet.”
(NEW YORK) — Ten months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, two-thirds of Americans continue to oppose its decision — and 51% now think its justices base their rulings mainly on their personal political opinions, not on the law.
Early in 2022, before the abortion ruling, the public divided evenly, 46%-45%, on whether the justices’ rulings were based mainly on the law or on their own political preferences. Today, well fewer than half, 39%, think Supreme Court rulings are based mainly on the law, a 7-point drop in this fundamental measure of confidence in the court.
While these views have grown more partisan, even among Republicans and conservatives, just half think the justices rule mainly on the basis of the law. And today, just 35% to 37% of Democrats, independents and moderates alike, and 27% of liberals, think so. Faith in the court to follow the law has dropped by double digits in three of those groups.
Women are especially likely to oppose the ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But majorities of women and men alike oppose it, and confidence in the court to rule mainly on the basis of the law is down among women (minus 7 points) and men (minus 6 points) alike. (The declines are slight given sample sizes.)
Abortion
Results of this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, underscore broad and continued majority support for abortion rights in the United States, a contrast to the state-by-state upheaval prompted by the high court’s ruling last summer.
Among those results, 78% of Americans say the decision whether to have an abortion should be left a woman and her doctor, rather than regulated by law. (It was 70% and 75% in two previous ABC/Washington Post polls since 2021.) Even majorities of Republicans (58%) and conservatives (60%) hold this view, as do anywhere from 82% to 96% of those with other partisan and ideological preferences.
Notably, even among evangelical white Protestants, typically the leading anti-abortion group, 56% say the decision to have an abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor. That rises to 75% of Catholics, 83% of non-evangelical white Protestants and 92% of people with no religious affiliation.
As noted, 66% overall oppose the court’s Dobbs ruling, including 54% who strongly oppose it — far above strong support, 22%. Overall opposition encompasses 71% of women, compared with 61% of men. It’s also higher among Black (81%) and Hispanic (74%) adults than among white people, 62%.
Most evangelical white Protestants, conservatives and Republicans support the ruling, but not overwhelmingly so — 58% among evangelicals, 55% among conservatives and 54% among Republicans. Those compare with much higher levels of opposition in other political and ideological groups — 71% among independents, 79% among moderates, 88% among Democrats and 92% among liberals.
The result among independents, in particular, marks potential political risk to anti-abortion candidates. Seventy-seven percent of independent women oppose Dobbs, as do 65% of independent men. Seventy percent of suburban women oppose it, as do 63% of suburban men. And 60% in the states won by Donald Trump in 2020 oppose Dobbs, rising to 70% in the states won by Joe Biden.
Similar to attitudes on Dobbs, 66% overall say the abortion drug mifepristone should remain on the market. Half of evangelical white Protestants say so, as do 46% of conservatives and 45% of Republicans — with support rising much higher in other groups.
Among its supporters, 72% say the drug should remain as available as it is now.
While mifepristone is now unavailable in 14 states, 60% of residents of those states say the drug should be available versus 27% who say it should be off the market. In other states, 68% say mifepristone should remain available.
The Supreme Court last month blocked, for the time being, two lower court rulings against mifepristone — one overturning the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug, the other blocking its distribution by mail. That case continues in the lower court.
Methodology
This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone April 28-May 3, 2023, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults. Partisan divisions are 26-25-41%, Democrats-Republicans-independents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points, including the design effect. Sampling error is not the only source of differences in polls.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Maryland. See details on the survey’s methodology here.
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — Kansas City suffered a violent weekend as three separate shootings impacted the city’s downtown over 30 minutes late Sunday.
The shootings come as Kansas City, Missouri, has already faced a violent year, with 59 homicides having already been recorded since the start of the year — the most since 2019.
The incidents began on Sunday at 5:47 p.m. when officers were dispatched to a chicken restaurant downtown. According to an incident summary from the Kansas City Police Department, a man entered the restaurant “saying he had been shot.”
Twenty minutes later, officers responded to the scene of a separate shooting. In that instance, the victim arrived at a local hospital via a private vehicle, according to the incident report.
The last shooting occurred six minutes later; officers responded to a shooting to find an unresponsive victim suffering from a gunshot wound in a grassy area near an intersection. Officers attempted life-saving measures until the arrival of EMS, according to the Kansas City Police,
The three men survived, with two remaining in critical condition, according to ABC News’ Kansas City affiliate KMBC-TV.
The brief period shattered by violence on Sunday paints a bleak picture of downtown Kansas City, where gun violence is so prevalent it is often underreported by media and unsolved by law enforcement.
Since the start of the year the city has suffered 59 homicides, according to analysis from the Kansas City Police, which does not consider officer-involved shootings in their count. While some of the homicides are caused by an argument or stem from domestic violence, the cause of most shootings is unknown by law enforcement. What is more apparent to law enforcement is the weapon of choice — nearly 90% involve some kind of firearm.
Kansas City, Missouri, and neighboring Kansas City, Kansas, have also had several shootings affecting minors last month. On April 13, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot by a resident after Yarl approached the wrong home while picking up his twin brothers. Last Wednesday in Kansas City, Kansas, a young boy was fatally shot while playing in his front yard in broad daylight, according to KMBC. His family said 6-year-old Sir-Antonio Brown was riding his bike when three men in black face masks began firing.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas co-chairs Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a coalition of mayors organized by Everytown for Gun Safety working to reduce gun violence.
“Just like how Big Tobacco needed to be held accountable for its role in promulgating a generation of lung cancer patients, so too does the gun industry need to be held accountable for its role in our gun violence epidemic,” Lucas said at a summit last summer on gun violence prevention.
Last year, the city suffered 155 firearm-related homicides, according to police data. Based on the current rate of violence, the city is currently on track to break last year’s record.
(NEW YORK) — Advisory committees of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are meeting Tuesday and Wednesday to review the first-ever application for an over-the-counter birth control pill.
At a joint meeting, the Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee and the Obstetrics, Reproductive, and Urologic Drugs Advisory Committee will discuss whether pharmaceutical company Perrigo can make its oral contraceptive Opill, which currently requires a prescription, to be available on store shelves.
First approved by the FDA in 1973, Opill is type of hormonal birth control pill known as the “minipill,” which some experts say poses fewer risks than combination pills that rely on estrogen.
Still, buyers would have to screen themselves for any health risk factors, much as they would other OTC medications.
During the meeting, the FDA will hear from the company as well as speakers who will advocate for the need of nonprescription birth control.
Committee members will debate the results of a study Perrigo conducted and there will be an opportunity for open public comment. A vote from the advisory committees is expected to come Wednesday.
If the advisory committees do recommend approval, the next step is approval from the FDA. Although the agency is not bound to follow the advisory groups’ recommendations, the FDA typically does not go against their guidance.
The FDA is expected to make a decision by the summer. If the OTC pill does get greenlit, it would not become available as quickly as COVID-19 vaccines, which were speedily rolled out after the advisory committee meeting to approve them due to the global emergency.
Perrigo, which filed the application in July 2022, argued that changing its pill from prescription to OTC use will improve access to affordable birth control.
“Women’s needs are nuanced, and it’s about time their health options reflect that,” Frederique Welgryn, global vice president for the Women’s Health initiative at Perrigo, said in a statement in March. “At Perrigo, we’re not only committed to prioritizing women’s health — we’re committed to being active champions for it. We’re reimagining a new world where people are empowered to determine their own sexual health journey and access the solutions they want.”
Groups such as the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists support making OTC birth control available to improve access, such as for those living in contraceptive deserts, where access to birth control is lacking.
“We know that barriers to accessing contraception contribute to non-use or inconsistent use of contraception,” Dr. Raegan McDonald-Mosley, CEO of nonprofit group Power to Decide, said a statement. “For people to achieve reproductive well-being and have the power to decide when and whether to become pregnant, we need to dismantle those barriers.”
She added, “As a practicing OB-GYN, I know that people can safely and effectively use a birth control pill without a prescription and without a doctor’s visit.”
