Suspect in Waukesha parade crash due in court, Grammy nominations: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Suspect in Wisconsin Christmas parade crash to appear in court
At least five people are dead and witnesses are speaking out about what they saw. Plus, consumer reporter Michelle Shen talks about a new tool that lets you visualize how climate change could affect your home, national correspondent Trevor Hughes looks into part of the infrastructure bill that protects pedestrians, the jury begins deliberations in the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial and Grammy nominees are set to be released.
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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 Tuesday, the 23rd of November, 2021. Today, a witness speaks out after the Wisconsin parade tragedy, plus efforts to make crossing the streets safer, and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
- The White house says about 95% of federal workers have complied with President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The executive office of the president has reached 99%.
- At least 45 people are dead after a bus crash in Bulgaria. The bus was bringing people home to North Macedonia from a tourist trip in Istanbul when it crashed and caught fire earlier this morning.
- And the country of Qatar for years employed a former CIA officer to help spy on soccer officials as part of an effort to win the rights to host next year's World Cup. An Associated Press investigation found that now private contractor, Kevin Chalker, worked for years to keep tabs on people around the world, including the country's critics.
The suspect in the crash that killed at least five people and injured more than 40 at a Wisconsin parade over the weekend will appear in court today. Thirty-nine year old Darrell Brooks Jr. has been identified and will be charged with five counts of intentional homicide. Police said he was fleeing a domestic disturbance with a report of a knife when he slammed into the parade in Waukesha. Witness Angelito Tenorio described the horrifying scenes from Sunday. A warning: They're graphic, and you can skip ahead about 60 seconds if you'd prefer.
Angelito Tenorio:
As we were walking back towards Main Street, that's when I saw the SUV just barreling down the parade route heading towards the crowd, heading towards the participants in the parade. And I vividly remember the sounds of loud band music. And then I remember the sounds of an engine revving as if the motorist was like flooring it. And then I remember a loud bang. And immediately after that, I just heard deafening screams and cries from people who were in the parade, people who were watching the parade. And at that point, it was truly horrific. It was absolute chaos. People were leaving behind their belongings, grabbing onto their kids, calling out the names of their loved ones of their kids trying to account for each other and the crowd quickly spread and left the scene. And that's when I saw what looked like people who were lying still in the middle of the street, on the ground, who appeared to be struck by the vehicle.
Taylor Wilson:
President Joe Biden offered his condolences yesterday to the victims.
Joe Biden:
People in Waukesha were gathered to celebrate the start of a season of hope and togetherness and Thanksgiving. This morning, Jill and I, and the entire Biden family, and I'm sure all of us pray that that same spirit's going to embrace and lift up all the victims of this tragedy, bringing comfort to those recovering from the injuries and wrapping the families of those who died in the support of their community.
Taylor Wilson:
And hundreds gathered in the Milwaukee suburb yesterday to honor the victims.
Vigil speaker:
Tonight, this vigil is a small first step in healing for our community.
Taylor Wilson:
Those killed were four women and a man aged 52 to 81, and at least nine patients were in critical condition as of yesterday, including six children.
Climate change is here and its effects will increasingly impact almost everyone's lives in the coming years. With those challenges comes new technology to try and fight it. And a new tool lets you visualize how climate change could affect your home as Economy and Consumer reporter Michelle Chen explains.
Michelle Chen:
It was actually created by a research institute that specializes in AI in Montreal. And it was an effort that was two years in the making and they used this tool that was actually developed in Montreal as well called generative adversarial networks, also known as GANs. And basically it takes these two like neural networks and it's pretty complicated, but essentially it took a team of like 20, over 20 machine learning scientists to build it because it's actually very challenging to put smog or create a fake image of something flooding because there's a lot of natural properties, right? So for smog, objects that are closer versus further away look different in a smoggy environment, right? So this model needs to be able to recognize objects that are closer and objects that are farther, what their relative size is and be able to determine that. Flooding is an even more difficult challenge because you have to account for like gravity and different sorts of planes and the way that water flows.
And it was actually really extraordinary the way that they were able to get photos to feed into this machine learning model because they had trouble sourcing photos of floods because most of the time when a place is flooded, people just run away, right? They're not going to stay and grab all these great photos. And so what they did was they worked with a video game creator in Montreal and they basically had these video game developers flood their virtual environment, which was based on the San Francisco Bay Area and send photos of floods in this like fake video game world. And they actually used those photos to feed into the model.
Taylor Wilson:
Crossing the street is getting more deadly, but President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill could change that. National correspondent Trevor Hughes has more.
Trevor Hughes:
Walking across the street has never been more dangerous than in the past 32 years. And what's particularly alarming is that last year people drove less. And so you're talking about a fatality rate that actually went up, not just in total numbers, but in what we call vehicle miles traveled. Because people drove less, but they were hitting pedestrians more. So it has not been this dangerous in 30 years. The Biden infrastructure plan contains billions of dollars for new infrastructure. And we're talking about things like mid-block crosswalks. And if you live in a city where you see those lighted flashing crosswalks that tell you to stop while pedestrians are crossing, that's a big element, but also speed cameras, red light cameras and even things like traffic circles, roundabouts, which tend not to be popular in the United States, but are actually significantly better for pedestrian safety.
There's a lot of concern among the safety planners that road departments, highway departments across the country are going to take this money and use it to make the roads better, but make the roads better for cars, for drivers rather than for pedestrians. And there's this ongoing discussion about what we should be doing in terms of our infrastructure in this country. Should we just make it more convenient for drivers to go places? Because it's easy to think that every person drives. And the reality is a lot of people don't drive. And during the pandemic, you had a lot of folks avoiding transit who might ordinarily been taking it because they were worried about exposure to COVID-19 so they started walking. And that's one of the things that safety planners say, is that if you want people to walk, if you want people to take transit - which involves walking to bus stops, walking to train stations - then you have to make it safe for them to do that.
Taylor Wilson:
You can read the full story in today's episode description.
The jury will begin deliberations today in the trial of three men charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery. Twelve jurors will decide if Travis and Gregory McMichael, along with Roddie Bryan, are guilty. The three white men chased down Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, in pickup trucks in February of 2020. They thought he was a burglar in the area and were not even arrested until two months after incident. That's when video went viral of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery, something his lawyers have tried to paint as self defense. Legal experts say that because only Travis McMichael testified, the jury's verdict will depend on what they believe about him specifically. You can read more about the case and this month's trial on USATODAY.com.
Taylor Wilson:
Nominees for the 64th Grammy Awards will be out this morning and it's the first year of selections after some major sweeping changes. The Recording Academy earlier this year ditched anonymous selection committees. It now allows its more than 11,000 voters to choose nominees, inserting categories, and every one of them is eligible to weigh in on top honors like album and song of the year. Nearly 3,000 new music creators were invited to join, including an increased number of women and people of color. Changes came in the wake of The Weeknd calling the Grammys corrupt after he was shut out of last year's ceremony despite having 2020s biggest song.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us seven mornings a week wherever you're listening right now. And if you're on Apple Podcast, we ask for a five star rating and review if you have a chance. Thanks to PJ Elliott for his great work on the show, and I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.