On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: Trump team says DOJ search ‘unsupported’
His lawyers continue to push for a document master. Plus, reporter Sarah Elbeshbishi explains how spanking in schools is still legal in some states, the FDA authorizes new boosters, wellness reporter Sars Moniuszko looks at the trend of ‘quiet quitting’ and Serena Williams rolls on at the US Open.
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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:
Buenos dias. I’m Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Thursday, the 1st of September, 2022. Today, the latest from Trump’s legal team surrounding the Mar-a-Lago search. Plus spanking in schools and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
- President Joe Biden tonight will address the nation with a prime time speech in Philadelphia. He’s increasingly making strategic trips around the country ahead of this fall’s midterm elections.
- Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election for Alaska’s only US House seat yesterday, beating out a field that included Republican Sarah Palin.
- And the International Monetary Fund has announced its reached a preliminary agreement to give Sri Lanka 2.9 billion over the next four years to help the country recover from its worst economic crisis.
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Donald Trump’s legal team continued to press for the appointment of a special master to review documents seized in the government search of his Mar-a-Lago estate. He claims that the move by law enforcement was aimed at criminalizing a former president. Before today’s scheduled hearing to consider that appointment, Trump’s lawyers argued that the search was legally unsupported. They’ve suggested that Trump had a privilege to possess the documents even after leaving office. But there’s no evidence that Trump had an executive privilege to hold onto the documents. Trump’s attorneys also continued to say they’ve been cooperative with the National Archives and Records Administration in a months’ long effort to retrieve classified documents. That’s despite the justice department’s rejection of that argument.
Trump’s lawyer’s response came just hours after the Justice Department said in a court filing of its own, that the Trump team had likely concealed and moved government records to obstruct the government’s investigation into the handling of classified documents. Trump’s lawyers yesterday did not specifically address those obstruction allegations or explain why the former president held onto the documents at an unsecure beach resort.
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A school district in Missouri has made headlines for bringing back spanking, but the practice is still legal in over a dozen states. Reporter Sarah Elbishbishi has more with producer PJ Elliott.
Sarah Elbishbishi:
Spanking is legal in about 19 states and this is because back in, I believe 1977, there was a Supreme Court case, Ingraham v. Wright, and that ultimately, the decision was the states can determine whether or not they want to allow corporal punishment, spanking, any physical punishment in public schools, or in schools in general.
PJ Elliott:
So, spanking in schools isn’t something that we hear a lot about anymore. Can you talk about how often corporal punishment is being used in schools?
Sarah Elbishbishi:
It’s kind of hard to be able to say how common it is because we are relying on federal data, in some sense, to collect this on a national scale. And there have been reports, and advocacy groups have said, that the federal data has not been completely accurate. It doesn’t paint the most accurate picture and in fact, in some cases, under-accounts for some of the instances and the data that it collects.
So, I believe during the 2017, 2018 school year, according to that US federal reporting data, it says that about 70,000 students had faced corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure, but there is a chance that that is greatly underestimated. So, it’s occurring. It’s difficult to gain national attention or speak out about it when it’s legal for these schools and these administrations to use it. So, it has declined over the years using that data. While yes, quite possibly it’s underestimating the amount of instances, it has decreased since 2000. You’d have a couple hundred thousand reported cases and now, we’ve come under a hundred thousand cases to roughly 70,000 during the most recent school year that we have data for.
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Taylor Wilson:
The FDA yesterday authorized a new COVID-19 booster that could be available within days. The vaccine will target the original virus and the BA.4 and BA.5 variants that now dominate the world. FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf.
Dr Robert Califf:
We have been planning for and gathering input on our approach to updated boosters since earlier this year. The FDA has extensive experience with evaluating strain changes for influenza vaccines and it’s confident in the data supporting these latest booster authorizations. And importantly, the approach we’re taking with the updated COVID-19 booster vaccines mirrors how we have historically addressed changes for the influenza vaccine. Today, the FDA authorized updated boosters of both the Moderna and Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines. These formulations of the vaccines are authorized for use as a single booster dose, at least two months following primary or booster vaccination. These updated boosters are known as bivalent vaccines because they contain two messenger RNA components of SARS-CoV-2 virus, one for the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, and the other one in common between the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variant lineages of SARS-CoV-2.
Taylor Wilson:
An advisory committee to the CDC is scheduled to meet today to discuss who should receive boosters. The CDC director will then need to sign off before the boosters become available. The Pfizer BioNTech booster was authorized for anyone aged 12 and up, while Moderna’s vaccine is authorized for adults only. The company said they are ready to ship the modified boosters this month.
Scientists say the new shots are not likely to give a huge benefit over the original vaccine, but government officials say any boost in protection is worthwhile. At their news yesterday, FDA officials emphasized the importance of vaccination and boosting conference, particularly for those who have not yet received any shots. They say that the new, more targeted boosters, should update protection for the most vulnerable, potentially prevent new infections for a time, and also reduce the risk for long COVID, which includes symptoms like exhaustion and brain fog, that can last for months or longer after an infection. The FDA commissioner said long COVID is particularly likely to hit young people. COVID-19 still accounts for about 80,000 cases, 5,000 hospitalizations and 400 deaths a day in the US. It’s expected to arise again this fall and winter, as it has in the previous two years of the pandemic.
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If you’re feeling burned out after logging excessive hours during the pandemic, you’re not alone. Quiet quitting is on the rise. PJ Elliot spoke with wellness reporter, Sara Moniuszko, to find out what that means for mental health.
Sara Moniuszko:
Quiet quitting is the idea of taking a step back from going above and beyond at work. It’s not actually quitting your job, but reevaluating how much work you’re putting into it and bringing it back down to a bare minimum of what your role requires.
PJ Elliott:
So, what does that say about people’s mental health and how they’re potentially being overworked?
Sara Moniuszko:
yeah. Quiet quitting really highlights the impact of pandemic fatigue and burnout. During the pandemic, a lot of people worked from home and continue to work from home now, and the lines between work and home were really blurred. So, it didn’t feel like a big deal to stay on for a few more hours to finish a project, or to answer work emails on the weekend. But after a while, if you’re putting in 80 hours a week when you’re really only supposed to be putting in 40, it really has the power to take a toll on your body and your mental health.
PJ Elliott:
So, how can people do a better job at balancing their mental health with the work that they need to put in?
Sara Moniuszko:
If you feel the urge to quiet quit, and you feel like you’re not balancing work with mental health, there are multiple things you can do, such as implementing self-care strategies, for example, all of which I go over in my story. But one thing I heard from experts in particular that I want to highlight, is to remember it’s okay to set boundaries. A psychotherapist I spoke with actually said quiet quitting should be viewed as a good thing from a worker’s perspective, because it really forces you to reevaluate those boundaries you have or want to have with work and make them the healthiest you can. And it ultimately benefits the employer as well because if your employees have better mental health and aren’t burning themselves out, they’re going to be able to perform better.
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Taylor Wilson:
Serena Williams is moving on. She took down Anett Kontaveit in a second round matchup at the US Open last night in three sets, winning the first on a tiebreaker seven, six before losing the second set and winning the third six to two. She’ll next take on Australian Ajla Tomljanovic tomorrow in the round of 32 in the women’s singles bracket. But first, she and her sister Venus Williams will compete tonight in the round of 64 for women’s doubles. You can tune in at 7:00 PM Eastern on the ESPN networks. Serena is playing in what might be her last Grand Slam tournament ever, at the age of 40.
Meanwhile on the men’s single side, top seed Daniel Medvedev held off Arthur Rinderknech last night to move on. Two seed Rafael Nadal will play his second round matchup tonight versus Italian Fabio Fognini. You can stay up with all the action with USA TODAY Sports.
And you can find 5 Things on whatever your favorite podcast app is. Thanks to PJ Elliot for his great work on the show, and I’m back to tomorrow with more than 5 Things from USA TODAY.
www.usatoday.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism