Good morning, this is from Power with the Daily Beast. It's Tuesday, May 11, and these are the top stories the ChiChi team is watching right now. The FDA has announced that the Pfizer vaccine will be authorized for emergency use in children between 12 and 15 years of age. The final decision on vaccine use in teenagers will now be made by an advisory panel for the CDC, which is expected to issue a recommendation.
During trials, Pfizer reported that the vaccine was extremely effective for teens, but also noted that some did experience the same side effects as adults, such as fevers, chills, and headaches. GOP house leader Kevin McCarthy is running up support from fellow Republicans in an effort to excommunicate Representative Liz Chain from her position as conference chair. McCarthy, an unapologetic Trump follower, is in favor of replacing Chain with Representative Elise Stefanik, also a vocal Trump ally. A black man convicted of murder by an all-white jury on thin evidence has been locked in prison for 43 years, but now the jury prosecutors are finally admitting that Kevin Strickland is innocent and should be freed.
Strickland has long professed his innocence and a triple murder. Two suspects who pleaded guilty backed him up, and the survivor who blamed him said she was pressured to do so and tried to reverse her statement. The prosecutor on the case says it's an error that must be corrected. After a Tesla Model S crashed in Texas last month and burst into flames, killing two men, police said no one was in the driver's seat, raising speculation that the company's autopilot system was somehow involved.
But a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board says it has evidence that the car owner and the passenger got into the two front seats and that the vehicle could not have been on autopilot before it crashed. Elon Musk actually tweeted the same thing soon after the tragedy happened. The board says the car jumped the curve on a curve and hit a drainage culvert, a manhole, and then a tree, which is when its lithium-ion battery started the fire that engulfed the vehicle and killed the two men inside. The board is still examining data from the car to pinpoint the cause of the crash.
A state investigation into the treatment of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein during his 2008 prosecution for sex abuse found that while Palm Beach County officials gave him, quote, differential treatment, they did not break any laws. The probe started by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2019 centered on the decision by a Florida state attorney not to further prosecute Epstein, as well as allegations that he had been given extraordinary privileges in jail. While incarcerated, Epstein was free to leave for up to 16 hours a day to go to his office, and while he was staying at the jail, he was allowed to have his cell door unlocked. However, the investigation found no evidence that financial influence led to Epstein receiving these privileges, and two women who said that he'd had sex with them while on work release refused to sign sworn affidavits.
State Senator Lauren Book says that she still thinks Epstein's treatment was wrong, saying, quote, NBC said in a statement Monday that it will not be airing the 2022 Golden Globes award show. A 2020 antitrust lawsuit had accused the Hollywood Foreign Press Association of financial double dealing, and critics had pinpointed out that the 87-member group of international journalists lacks a single black member. Last week, Netflix and Amazon both said they were cutting ties with the Press Association, and on Monday, Tom Cruise even announced that he would be returning his three Golden Globe trophies, alluding to a promise made by the organization that it would commit to increasing diversity and add restrictions to members' financial dealings. NBC said in a statement, quote, We continue to believe the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is committed to change.
However, change of this magnitude takes time and work. According to the statement, if the association makes the changes they promise, NBC will air the award show in 2023. That's all for this morning. Check back every weekday morning and afternoon for more information you need to know.
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