What mattered most to voters in the May primaries, Spelling Bee returns: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: What mattered most to voters in the May primaries
Congress reporter Candy Woodall breaks things down. Plus, Congressional editor Ledge King takes a look at red flag gun laws, the school district police chief in Uvalde is under fire after a slow police response to the mass shooting, European leaders approve a partial oil embargo on Russia and it's time for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
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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 31st of May, 2022. Today, a look at May primaries and what they can tell us for this fall's midterm elections. Plus red flag laws, and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
- Hurricane Agatha has made landfall in Mexico. It touched down as a category two, the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the Eastern Pacific in May.
- French journalist Frederic Leclerc-Imhoff was killed yesterday in Ukraine. He was on a humanitarian bus alongside civilians, fleeing a city in the Donbas region.
- And then there were four. The New York Rangers beat the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 7 of their Eastern Conference semi-final series last night. The Rangers will next take on the two time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning for a spot in hockey's Stanley Cup Final. Out west, Game 1 of the West Finals between the Edmonton Oilers and Colorado Avalanche is set for tonight.
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May primaries are in the rear view mirror, snd this fall's midterm elections are right around the corner. Congress reporter Candy Woodall has more on what topics mattered most for voters during the primaries.
Candy Woodall:
I think for most of May, the voters I was talking to were very concerned about the economy. That's something that is hitting every wallet right now. They feel it when they go get gas, they feel it when they go to the grocery store, and nearly everyone I talked to said that's the number one issue for them.
Now, two things happened in May that really changed the scope of the primaries and the general election in 2022. The first is abortion. Early this month, we had a leaked draft opinion come out that showed, or suggested really, that the Supreme Court was going to overturn Roe v. Wade. That has sent a number of voters to consider how much more they're going to be motivated to go to the polls. And it's not just women. I've talked to men who say this is a top issue for them. They believe women should be able to choose what to do with their body.
The other big issue that happened later in the month is gun violence. There was a violent, racially motivated shooting in Buffalo. And then right after that, a week later, this tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas. 19 children and 2 teachers dead. And I talked to people who are very concerned about gun laws now. And I talked to people who were concerned about gun laws before this shooting. There was a woman in Philadelphia I interviewed and she's basically told me that every month, it feels like a mass shooting in Philadelphia, if not every week because the number of shootings in that city.
A voter I talked to in Philadelphia, Viola Owens, this has been an issue for her for a long time, because in Philadelphia, there's a high number of shootings every week. They already have more than 800 shootings this year and about, I think more than 140 of them have been fatal. So it depends on where you live. But now across the country, gun laws are coming to the forefront because of the recent shootings in Buffalo and Texas. And there actually seems to be some real movement on this issue in Congress. So I think this issue will stay in the forefront probably at least this next month. And then we'll just have to see what happens from there, if Congress actually can act on a bipartisan deal or if it just gets pushed away, like it has so many times in the past.
Taylor Wilson:
For Candy's full roundup, click on a link to the full story in today's episode description.
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Red flag laws might be the only measure Democrats and Republicans agree on. We mentioned them on 5 Things yesterday as possibly the first piece of national legislation to come out of the wake of the Uvalde massacre. But what exactly are they? Congressional editor Ledge King explains how they work.
Ledge King:
Well, we'll see just how much common ground there is. But for right now, there is some bipartisan interest in what are called red flag laws or extreme risk protection orders as they're more technically known. Essentially what they do is they would allow a family member or the police to come to somebody's house who has demonstrated some sort of threat to themselves or to others. And they would then be able to petition a court to have those firearms, if that person possesses firearms, to be immediately ... That those firearms be immediately removed from that person. So it would require a judge to agree to that, and there are 19 states and the District of Columbia that now have them on the books. They've been invoked hundreds of times and not everyone is granted, but many are. And the vast majority of them are used, even though we're talking about mass shootings as a tool to maybe stop the next mass shooting, they're much more overwhelmingly used to prevent potential suicides. So the mass shootings would be one area where they think red flags could help more. And so it's being discussed on a bipartisan basis right now in Congress.
The way it'll be constructed is not that it'll be a federal law to blanket the entire country. That's unlikely to pass, get approval from Republicans. What is likely to happen is a federal program that through the Department of Justice provides grants and incentives to states to adopt these particular kinds of laws. There might be some minimum standards by which the laws would have to comply in order to qualify for the grants, but it's really a state-driven kind of process. So no, there won't be ... Very unlikely that there'd be a federal law for red flags everywhere. It will be on a state by state basis. And the states will have to take the initiative.
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The School District Police Chief in Uvalde, Texas, Pete Arredondo, will not be sworn in as a newly elected Uvalde city council member as planned today. He was elected to city council on May 7th and was scheduled to be sworn in today, something Uvalde mayor, Don McLaughlin, said yesterday won't happen. Arredondo led the law enforcement response during last week's mass shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 children and 2 adults dead. He prevented officers from confronting the gunman for more than an hour, according to Texas authorities, even as parents outside the school desperately pleaded for police to break into a classroom where the shooter had locked himself in with the kids. The Texas Rangers have intensified an examination of the police response to the shooting as has the US Justice Department. Meanwhile, with today marking one week since the tragedy, funerals have begun and the community continues to mourn. Family practitioner, Dr. John Preddy, delivered two of the children killed as babies, Nevaeh Bravo and Rojelio Torres.
Dr. John Preddy:
What their mothers, and their fathers, and their grandparents, and then I, and everyone has done to try to make their lives good, and make them healthy, and move them ahead, and make them successful in the world and that sort of thing. And literally got snuffed out in a matter of seconds.
Taylor Wilson:
For more on the Uvalde victims, visit USATODAY.com.
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European leaders reached a deal yesterday on a sixth sanction package against Russia. The move includes a partial oil embargo against the country as its invasion of Ukraine continues. The embargo will apply to oil transport made by sea, allowing a temporary exemption for imports moved by pipeline. EU Council President Charles Michel said the deal covers more than two thirds of oil imports from Russia into the rest of Europe. Meanwhile, Russian state gas giant, Gazprom, said it will cut off supplies to Dutch trader, GasTerra, today for failing to pay for deliveries in rubles, the Russian currency as President Vladimir Putin now requires.
Elsewhere, Turkish President Recep Erdoğan told Putin that he's ready to resume a role in ending the war in Ukraine. That includes taking part in a possible observation mechanism between Ukraine, Russia and the United Nations. Negotiations previously held in Istanbul in March failed to make headway.
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The Scripps National Spelling Bee is here and its fully in person at its usual venue outside Washington, DC for the first time since 2019. But the pandemic is still affecting kids who have spent years preparing. Some schools and sponsors have dropped out in recent years. Regions have been consolidated and the bee has fewer than half the spellers it had three years ago. Scripps had 245 regional sponsors in 2020 for the bee, that was ultimately canceled because of the pandemic. This year, that number is down to 198. That means some kids faced a tougher path to the bee in supersized regions. Along with other rules, spellers are only eligible if they did not reach their 15th birthday on or before August 31st of last year. And the bee won't be on ESPN this year. You'll have to tune in on the Scripps' own networks of ION and Bounce. A reminder about last year's winning word, Murraya, a group of flowering plants in the South Pacific.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us seven mornings a week on whatever your favorite podcast app is. Thanks to PJ Elliott for his great work on the show, and I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.