7 killed in Mississippi bus crash identified

(NEW YORK) — Life-threatening heat spread across the eastern half of the U.S. this week, first hitting the Midwest, then the Northeast and now the South.

Chicago hit 99 degrees on Tuesday, breaking the city’s daily record of 97 degrees. Some schools in the area closed early due to the weather.

On Wednesday, the heat moved east. Record highs were shattered in Washington, D,C., which reached 101 degrees, and Greenwood, Mississippi, which reached 103 degrees.

The final tennis major of the year, the U.S. Open, which is underway in New York City, operated under an “extreme weather policy,” with stadium roofs partially closed and extended breaks for players.

The heat has now left the Midwest and Northeast.

On Thursday, the South is in the bull’s-eye, with record highs possible in cities including Nashville, Tennessee; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Louisville, Kentucky.

The heat index — what temperature it feels like with humidity — is forecast to soar to 100 degrees in Washington, D.C., and Charleston, South Carolina; 102 degrees in Nashville; Richmond, Virginia; Birmingham, Alabama; and Charlotte, North Carolina; 103 in Raleigh and Charleston, West Virginia; and a scorching 105 in Jackson, Mississippi.

Friday will bring one more day of record heat. By the weekend, cooler air will move in.

There are hundreds of deaths each year in the U.S. due to excessive heat, according to CDC WONDER, an online database, and scientists caution that the actual number of heat-related deaths is likely higher.

Last year marked the most heat-related deaths in the U.S. on record, according to JAMA, a peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Medical Association.

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(EAST LANSING, Mich.) Researchers from Michigan State University and Rutgers University say they will lead the first nationally funded study on the effects of structural racism on housing, aging and health.

The research – funded by an expected $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and National Institute on Aging – will examine the impact that “racist and discriminatory” policies over the last 100 years have had on a cohort of 800 Black and white Baltimore-based adults.

Most past research has had an “almost singular focus” on either residential segregation or historic redlining. This report will look at how factors such as redlining, gentrification, predatory lending, urban renewal, freeway construction, segregation and more have shaped the neighborhoods, homes, schools and stores Black residents engage with and how it has contributed to racial inequities, according to researcher Dick Sadler, an associate professor at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.

The lead researchers say that lifelong exposure to structural racism — the policies and processes causing race-based inequities — are key drivers behind disparities in health and accelerated aging for Black people.

Past research has found that Black residents are more likely to experience earlier onset and greater rates of aging-related cognitive, physical function decline, and frailty compared to other racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.

Researchers say they will also look at how systemic racism impacts other racial and ethnic groups who live in these disinvested environments.

Understanding how divestment and discrimination happens “is critical to the development of strategies to disrupt racial inequities in communities,” according to the study announcement.

“We need to comprehensively document what the full constellation of tools, tactics and strategies look like in our urban landscapes to better contextualize why racial inequities emerge and persist across numerous health endpoints, for which all Americans ultimately suffer but for which Black Americans consistently take the largest hits,” said Sadler and Danielle Beatty Moody, associate professor at the Rutgers University School of Social Work, in the announcement.

Researchers hope the study can support advocacy and policy efforts to address such inequities.

The study comes as the majority of Americans — 65% — say that racism perpetrated by individual people is a bigger problem than racism in laws when it comes to discrimination against Black people in the U.S. today, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey. About a quarter — 23% — say that racism in U.S. laws is the larger problem.

However, Pew found that more than half of Black adults — 52% — say racism in U.S. laws is the bigger problem, with 43% arguing that racism by individuals is the larger problem.

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Two suspects have been arrested in a mass shooting that left one person dead and nine injured near a Tennessee State University homecoming football game event over the weekend, including one alleged shooter who was carrying a high-powered assault-type rifle when he was caught, authorities said.

Both men were arrested on charges of murder, according to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

The suspects in the shooting near the Nashville, Tennessee, college were identified as Marquez Davis and DeAnthony Brown, both 24 years old, according to police, which released photos of the pair following their arrests.

Davis and Brown were taken into custody Monday night at a short-term rental property close to where Saturday’s shooting erupted, according to police. Davis was allegedly carrying an assault-style rifle with a loaded extended magazine at the time of his arrest, authorities said.

In April, Davis was convicted of robbery, felony gun possession and felony drug possession charges, according to police. He received a 10-year probated sentence to the Community Corrections Program, according to the Nashville police.

“The shooters had no regard for human life and put a crowd of innocent persons, including children, in extreme danger. The entire criminal justice system must treat violent gun crime with the seriousness it demands with resulting incarceration for those convicted,” Police Chief John Drake said in a statement following the arrests.

The shooting unfolded around 5 p.m. local time at an off-campus homecoming celebration event, several blocks east of the Tennessee State campus.

The shooting left a 24-year-old man dead, police said. Of the nine people injured, three were juveniles ranging in age from 12-14 years old, police said.

An exchange of gunfire erupted between two groups of people, according to police.

Five victims were taken to local hospitals via ambulance. Five others were transported by private vehicle, according to police.

Officials believe that some of those injured and hospitalized are suspected of being involved in the gunfire, but most were innocent bystanders, police said.

Injuries range from minor to critical, with some victims sustaining graze wounds, according to police.

A handgun was recovered at the scene, officials said.

The investigation is ongoing and police said more arrests are expected.

The shooting broke out about an hour before the kickoff of the homecoming game between Tennessee State and Eastern Illinois University at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium, several miles from the university.

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