May 10 top stories
Hello, it is May 10. Here are today’s top stories.
Air Force airman shot and killed by police in Florida
A Florida county sheriff on Thursday released a four-and-a-half-minute body-camera video of a deputy fatally shooting a Black airman, Roger Fortson, 23, in his apartment last week on May 3.
The video shows the deputy arriving on scene and being directed to apartment 1401 by a woman whose face is blurred. The woman tells him that someone had overheard arguing here.
The video shows the deputy knocking and twice saying, “Sheriff’s office. Open the door.” When Fortson opens the door, he appears to be holding a gun that is facing downward. The deputy says, “Step back,” and fires his weapon multiple times. Fortson falls to the floor. The deputy twice yells, “Drop the gun,” to which Fortson replies, “It’s over there.” The deputy then calls for medical assistance.
The family of the deceased has insisted the deputy, who was investigating a domestic violence complaint, knocked on the wrong door. His mother described him as compassionate, intelligent, loving and respectful.
The deputy is currently placed on administrative leave and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the shooting.
Biden vows to withhold weapons from Israel over Rafah invasion
President Biden said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that if Israel invades the Gaza city of Rafah, the U.S. will stop supplying it with offensive weapons.
This is the first time that Biden has said publicly that an Israeli military ground operation in Rafah will result in a halt to the supply of offensive weapons to Israel. His administration has already put hold a weapons shipment to Israel.
The Biden administration opposes a broad Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground operation in Rafah that would not include a credible plan to protect civilians. Biden said in the interview that he told PM Netanyahu and members of its war cabinet that they would not receive U.S. support if they entered the population centers in Rafah.
The IDF so far have not gotten into the population centers.
PM Netanyahu responded Thursday to President Biden’s threat to suspend military aid if Israel invades Rafah, declaring in a video on X: “If Israel needs to stand alone, it will stand alone.”
1 in 8 adults have taken popular drugs used for weight loss, poll says
According to a new survey data from Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), about 1 in 8 adults in the United States has used a GLP-1 drug like Ozempic, Wegovy or Mounjaro at some point in their life, and half of them – about 6% of adults, or more than 15 million people – are currently using a prescription.
The US FDA has reported shortages of the GLP-1 medications over the past year as drugmakers have raced to keep up with skyrocketing demand.
Last week, Novo Nordisk said that at least 25,000 people in the US are starting its drug Wegovy each week – five times more than were able to start the medicine each week in December.
According to the new survey, most adults who have used these drugs have done so to manage chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. More than 40% of respondents who have diabetes and about a quarter of those who have heart disease said they have used GLP-1 drugs.
But the KFF poll found that about 2 in 5 adults used GLP-1 drugs solely to lose weight.
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Target to limit Pride collection to select stores
Bloomberg News reported on Thursday that Target is planning to cut LGBTQ-themed merchandise from some of its stores during Pride Month this June after a backlash hit sales of the retailer last year.
Target plans to offer the full assortment of the merchandise online but is examining store-level data to decide which physical locations will carry the products.
Target is likely to stock the products in about half of its nearly 2,000 stores in the U.S.
The move comes after Target was forced to remove some items, including certain transgender swimsuits, from its LGBTQ+ themed collection last year after facing customer backlash and confrontations between customers and employees in some stores. Target blamed the backlash in part for a drop in its sales in its second quarter last year.
See Alex’s report on a Texas woman who gave a rare birth of identical quadruplets.
Texas woman celebrates rare birth of identical quadruplets
Thanks, Callie.
Earlier this month in Houston, a mother named Mercedes Sandhu gave birth to identical quadruplets, four girls named Hannah, Rebecca, Lucy, and Petra.
Mercedes and her husband, Jonathan, had two children prior to this birth, so their family has doubled in number.
Mercedes explained to USAToday that the babies are still in the neonatal intensive care unit and are scheduled to go home later this summer. The quadruplets were delivered early via cesarean section, at 29 weeks, to ensure the safety of the babies and the mother.
Identical quadruplets occur in pregnancy when one fertilized egg splits into four identical embryos. This means the girls share the same genetic information. This is different from fraternal twins, triplets or quadruplets because this is when two or more separately fertilized eggs develop in the uterus at the same time.
It is very rare for anyone to have identical quadruplets. It is estimated that it occurs in one out of every 11 million pregnancies.
Thanks for that report. That’s all the top stories for this week. Have a nice weekend and stay with the light!
Air Force airman shot and killed by police in Florida
https://apnews.com/article/florida-deputies-black-airman-killed-c747bffae2690dd8fa0908f4b95821b6
Biden vows to withhold weapons from Israel over Rafah invasion
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/why-biden-is-threatening-israel-rafah-00157203
1 in 8 adults have taken popular drugs used for weight loss, poll says
Target to limit Pride collection to select stores
Texas woman celebrates rare birth of identical quadruplets