Parent's heartbroken over daughter's death, Michigan gas prices rising still, Pfizer vaccine for kids under 5
MONDAY NEWS HIT - The way Teresa Oldenburg sees it, her step-daughter "didn't event have a chance."
Parked at a stop light in Garden City, the Livonia woman was sitting in a blue sedan when two drivers speeding around traffic, believed to be involved in a road rage incident and firing shots at each other, reached the light.
One driver in a pickup truck crashed into Diana Oldenburg, killing her. Her parents got the phone call soon after.
"I got a call, I thought it was a prank. Then I called back the number," said Jim Oldenburg, Diana's dad. "Garden City ER called me and told me she was gone, she was in an accident."
The accident happened around 6:30 p.m. at a red light at Middlebelt and Maplewood.
The crash left debris across the roadway and disrupted traffic for hours. It's also shattered the lives of Diana's family, heartbroken by the loss of their loved one.
"She was just taken away from us so senselessly, it’s hard to absorb, really hard to absorb because you think ‘she’s gonna call me today,’ she’s always so cheerful and happy'," said Teresa.
The driver who struck Diana initially fled the scene before he was picked up by police. He was taken into custody for the incident. The other driver is still missing. Police said they got multiple calls about the road rage before more came in reporting a major wreck.
Witnesses say they heard about 10 gunshots before seeing the crash.
Police said the driver of the truck, which had bullet holes in it after crashing, initially fled the scene on foot. He was later found by police.
Diana Oldenburg.
"Why did he not try to miss her, it doesn’t appear that he even tried to stop. God knows how fast he was going and she's at a dead stop," said Teresa.
A gofundme for the family has been setup here.
Michigan gas prices hit $4.57 a gallon
Gas prices are still going up in Michigan, rising another 19 cents since last week. Amid rising costs in products everywhere, fuel increases have been some of the most dramatic to see change over the past few months. Drivers in Michigan are now paying $4.57 a gallon.
It's only a cent less than the $4.58 that was reported last Thursday and now holds the current record for gas costs in Michigan. Unfortunately for metro Detroit drivers, the region is on the high end of the price range and those travelers are paying $4.59 a gallon. A 15-gallon tank of gas would cost about $68 to fill up.
The figures couldn't come at a worse time with travel expected to rebound in a big way this summer. Despite high gas prices affecting more than half of travel plans next weekend, about 60% of America plans to go somewhere for Memorial Day Weekend - about 153 million people. That's according to a survey done by The Vacationer.
That's about a 118% increase from last year's survey. But COVID-19 surges inhibited that figure last year and the pandemic doesn't appear to be hampering travel to the same degree this year.
Driver arrested with loaded magazine, Glock pistol
A mid-Michigan man claiming he was "open carrying" when found with a loaded Glock magazine in his car was arrested Sunday morning. Michigan State Police pulled a car over after it was clocked driving 99 mph in a 70 mph zone on I-75.
A trooper from the state police's metro unit was near Hazel Park when they attempted the traffic stop. The driver in the car was identified as a 20-year-old man from Clinton Township.
In addition to the loaded magazine found in the glove box, a .40 caliber Glock pistol was found behind the passenger sight. Both were in "plain view" a tweet from MSP read. The driver did not have a concealed pistol license when they informed police he was "open carrying."
It was the man's third weapons arrest made by the same trooper this month. A report was filed with the prosecutor's office.
Nearly all power restored after Gaylord tornado
Nearly all of the power lost following a deadly tornado that killed two people and flattened parts of a northern Michigan community has been restored, state police said Sunday. Police also said that everyone has been accounted for in Gaylord where Friday afternoon’s EF3 also left more than 40 people injured. Authorities had said Saturday that they were not able to account for one person.
Cleanup continued Sunday in the town of 4,200 people about 230 miles (370 kilometers) northwest of Detroit. About 6,100 utility customers in Otsego County, where Gaylord is the county seat, lost power due to Friday’s storms, according to Jackson-based Consumers Energy. State police said Sunday that electricity has been restored to 99% of utility customers in Gaylord.
The tornado packed winds of 140 mph that tore roofs and walls from businesses and largely destroyed a mobile home park.
Such storms are uncommon in northern Michigan. State police Lt. Derrick Carroll has said the city doesn’t have tornado sirens, though anyone with a mobile phone got a "code red" warning from the weather service about 10 minutes before the tornado hit.
— Courtesy of the Associated Press
11-year-old girl missing after leaving Ypsilanti home Friday night
Police are looking for 11-year-old Kylie Wilson after she left her Ypsilanti home Friday night. Police said that Kylie left her home in the 100 block of South Grove in Ypsilanti while her mom was asleep. Her mom noticed she was missing around 11 p.m. on Friday.
She is a black female, about 5'0ft tall and weighing 100lbs. She has brown eyes, straight dark brown hair and a gap in her front teeth.
She was last seen wearing a pink tank top, blue jean shorts, and black sandals. She also has a pink Samsung tablet and a black Mickey Mouse purse with dolls in it.
Kylie suffers from high-functioning autism and does not have her medication with her according to officials. Anyone with information about her whereabouts should call the Ypsilanti Police Department at (734)483-9510.
What else we're watching
- The tornado that blew through Gaylord Friday afternoon was one of the deadliest in Michigan history, and one of the strangest. It's not a place where high winds usually reach tornado-level speeds.
- It was a busy news week in the Crumbley trials last week. More news is expected this week in regard to lawsuits directed toward the school.
- We've had fuel shortages, parts shortages, and baby formula shortages. But what about food shortages? The loss of wheat production due to Russia's invasion in Ukraine is causing the crop's prices to sore. That's putting pressure on local growers who can't keep up due to their own high costs.
- The first war trial of the invasion is coming to an end, with a Russian soldier getting sentenced to life in prison for killing a civilian.
- The White House is flying in baby formula to account for the shortage, shipping in 78,000 pounds in from the U.S. The first of several flights expected from Europe arrived Sunday night.
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COVID-19 vaccine for kids under 5: Pfizer says 3 small doses offer strong protection
Three doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine offer strong protection for children younger than 5, the company announced Monday. Pfizer plans to give the data to U.S. regulators later this week in a step toward letting the littlest kids get the shots.
The news comes after months of anxious waiting by parents desperate to vaccinate their babies, toddlers and preschoolers, especially as COVID-19 cases once again are rising. The 18 million tots under 5 are the only group in the U.S. not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccination.
The Food and Drug Administration has begun evaluating data from rival Moderna, which hopes to begin offering two kid-sized shots by summer.
Pfizer has had a bumpier time figuring out its approach. It aims to give tots an even lower dose — just one-tenth of the amount adults receive — but discovered during its trial that two shots didn’t seem quite strong enough for preschoolers. So researchers gave a third shot to more than 1,600 youngsters — from age 6 months to 4 years — during the winter surge of the omicron variant.