Students hospitalized after military ball; overdose suspected
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Six Northeast High School students were hospitalized Thursday night because of what could be overdoses at an Air Force JROTC Military Ball at the Signature Grand in Davie, Florida, according to Broward County Public Schools.
Two students are still in the hospital. School staff is also at the hospital to assist, according to a statement from the Broward County school district.
“The safety of our students is always our top priority,” the statement said. “The District and Northeast High School administration are concerned and closely following the Davie Police investigation into what caused six students to become ill Thursday night while attending the Air Force JROTC Military Ball at the Signature Grand in Davie.”
One person described what they saw at the scene.
“I saw everybody crying and grieving and I think I saw one having a seizure,” Lorenzo Toafa told CBS-Ch. 6.
The ball included students from Coral Springs and Northeast High Schools.
Some students speculated drinking water might have been spiked.
“The water at one of our tables, it had drugs in them. People started putting drugs in them,” Earl Cayo, a student, told WPLG-Ch. 10. “We don’t know exactly who or how many people did it, but for the kids who drank it ... they got high and everything.”
—South Florida Sun Sentinel
Taxes too high? A lot of Californians think so
With April 15, the traditional tax day, upon us, a new California poll shows that the share of state voters who believe they pay too much has grown.
Nearly two-thirds of California voters say the state and federal income taxes they pay are too high, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.
That share is up 10 percentage points compared with a similar statewide poll taken six years ago.
The discontent about taxes comes at a time when many Californians feel economic stress. Roughly 4 in 10 voters said in the poll that their finances were worse than a year ago, compared with 2 in 10 who said they were better off.
But the growing number of voters who say they pay too much doesn't necessarily herald another big tax revolt of the sort the state spawned in the late 1970s and again in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Given a list of major issues facing the state and asked to name two that were most urgent, only 15% of voters picked taxes, putting the topic in the middle of the pack. Housing affordability topped the list, cited by 31% of voters, followed by homelessness; crime and public safety; gasoline prices; and climate change and the environment.
—Los Angeles Times
Herschel Walker raises $5.5 million for Senate bid
ATLANTA — Republican Senate front-runner Herschel Walker said his campaign committees amassed $5.5 million the first three months of the year for his bid to unseat Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock.
The campaign's haul lags behind Warnock, who collected $13.6 million during the first quarter. But Walker might wind up with one of the highest fundraising totals of any Republican U.S. Senate candidate — and is expected to far outpace his GOP Senate rivals in Georgia.
Walker's campaign Friday said he received donations from more than 50,000 donors from all 50 states. He didn't immediately disclose how much cash he had on hand.
"If there's one thing I'm good at, it's putting my head down and going to work," Walker said in a statement, adding: "The Republican nominee against Warnock will have to raise money and bring new voters to the table."
A former football player, Walker has led his GOP primary opponents in every poll since he entered the race with former President Donald Trump's endorsement. Since then, he's also landed support from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and key Georgia figures.
Walker's sky-high name recognition has helped him remain atop the GOP polls despite new scrutiny into his past, including reports that have detailed violence incidents against women, a pattern of exaggerating his business record and falsehoods about his academic experience.
His GOP opponents had yet to disclose their latest fundraising figures.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Victim is trespassing, 911 caller from DaBaby’s house says
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In a nearly six-minute 911 call from Charlotte rapper DaBaby’s home on Wednesday night, an unidentified person tells dispatch they shot a trespasser.
“I shot him in his leg,” the unidentified 911 caller says as a person can be heard wailing in the background. “He’s trespassing on my property.”
The call, which was obtained by The Charlotte Observer’s news partner WSOC-TV, led Troutman Police officers to the home on Stillwater Road around 7:45 p.m. There, officers found a person with a gunshot wound to their “lower extremities” that was not life-threatening, Chief Josh Watson said.
DaBaby, whose name is Jonathan Kirk, and another unidentified person were home at the time of the shooting, Watson said. The 911 caller told the dispatcher that the trespasser was “neutralized.” It wasn’t clear Friday morning whether DaBaby was the person who shot the trespasser. The 911 call-taker refers to the caller as “sir,” but the voices in the audio are distorted so it’s unclear whether it’s DaBaby on the line.
“I don’t know what he’s here for. I don’t know what he’s here to do, but he’s shot,” the 911 caller said.
The trespasser was shot on the football field and may have jumped over a fence to get onto the property, the caller told the dispatcher.
“He had to trespass on somebody else’s property to even get to my property,” the caller said.
The exterior of the property is surrounded by a tall concrete wall. An Iredell County building permit also shows five guard towers were built at the house in 2021.
—The Charlotte Observer
