Biden's secret trip to Ukraine, Turkey rocked by another earthquake: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Biden's secret trip to Ukraine

President Joe Biden made an unannounced trip to Ukraine on Monday. Plus, another major earthquake hits Turkey and Syria, USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze looks at the new term, USA TODAY Wellness Reporter David Oliver criticizes the New York Times' coverage of transgender issues, and beaches in Florida could get record seaweed.

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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:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Tuesday, the 21st of February 2023. Today, President Joe Biden's secret trip to Ukraine. Plus what to look out for as the Supreme Court begins a new term and what the New York Times got wrong in its coverage of transgender issues.

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President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Ukraine yesterday. It was his first visit to the country since Russia launched its war there a year ago this week.

President Joe Biden:

One year later, Kyiv stands and Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you and the world stands with you.

Taylor Wilson:

The visit was kept secret because of security concerns, but the White House says it was planned for months. It also comes as Ukraine continues to lobby the US for more weapons. During the visit, Biden announced a half billion dollars in additional security aid and said more details are coming in the next few days, but that it would include more military equipment. In Kyiv, Biden met with Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukraine has warned that Russia may be planning a new military offensive around the war's anniversary. President Biden has since left Ukraine for Poland.

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A 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit Turkey just two weeks after the same region was slammed by quakes, killing at least 41,000. This time, at least three people have been killed and more than 200 injured. One building collapsed as movers were helping people remove furniture and other belongings after the building was damaged in the previous earthquake. In Syria, an aid group working to help recovery efforts after the last damage said most injuries this time came when panicked people jumped out of buildings. Many structures that didn't collapse last time have been teetering on the brink. But with nowhere else to go, people have been camping outside their former homes or sleeping in cars to stay warm amid below freezing temperatures.

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The Supreme Court is back for another term. To find out what the justices are considering, I spoke with USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze. John, thanks for hopping on the pod.

John Fritze:

Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

So a busy Supreme Court calendar is coming up. I want to start with President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. What's the latest on this?

John Fritze:

I mean, this is really the biggest case, the one I think that everybody has been watching for a while and will be watching probably most closely this month. This, of course, is President Biden's $400 billion plan to forgive student loan debt. Something like 40 million Americans are estimated to be eligible for this debt relief. But there's been a lot of questions and a lot of legal questions about how the administration went about this plan and a number of states and a number of regular folks have sued over how it was implemented. And so that case has been winding its way through lower courts for some time now. It finally gets its day at the Supreme Court.

Taylor Wilson:

John, the high court will hear arguments this week about the internet. So what's happening here specifically?

John Fritze:

Yeah, I mean this case is a little more technical and it's been a little hard to explain to readers sometimes, but I think it's super important, even though it's flown under the radar screen a little bit. Google or YouTube or Amazon or any of these companies that Americans access on a daily basis, when these internet platforms make recommendations to them - say for the next product or the next video, or even for like when you Google, "What's the best pizza place in my neighborhood," what Google recommends when you do that - those things could really be an issue depending on how the court rules in this case. This is about a longstanding controversial law known as Section 230 that shields these big tech companies like Google from lawsuits when content provided by a third party, so say when you tweet, who can be sued over that? Twitter or the person who tweeted? And that's really what's at stake in this case.

There's been a lot of partisan discord over this law for a long time, although there's Republicans and Democrats that are unhappy with it and think it needs to be changed for different reasons. So the court's wading into a pretty technical legal issue here, but really I think it's a case that could affect a lot of people in the country.

Taylor Wilson:

We've been waiting for several decisions across the courts on the issues of the border and immigration. Are those priorities for the Supreme Court?

John Fritze:

Well, we're going to keep waiting for those decisions. There was a big case that had been scheduled from March 1st on what's known as Title 42. This is a section of the law that the administration, two administrations, Biden and Trump have used for rapid removal of certain migrants. These are people that come to the border and seek asylum. Normally under the law they're required to some review. Under Title 42 they're not. They're immediately expelled. And the ostensible justification for that was the COVID-19 pandemic. And so the idea here was that, look, we can remove people from the country very quickly out of a public health concern. But of course, the pandemic is in a different phase than it was several years ago, and the Biden administration has avowed to end the emergency that was the authority that this law was invoked under. He's going to do that in May, the administration says.

And so what the Supreme Court did without really any explanation last week, was it pulled Title 42 off its argument calendar. We don't know exactly what that means, although what I suspect it means is that they are eventually going to dismiss this case. Title 42 will almost certainly go away when the emergency goes away, but it may go away without really the Supreme Court doing much on it.

Taylor Wilson:

John, what other cases are you eyeing as this new term starts?

John Fritze:

Well, there's a lot that's already been argued. Of course, the biggest case this term deals with affirmative action. You've got two cases - one from Harvard, one from the University of North Carolina - that deal with under what circumstances or whether at all universities may consider race when they consider their applicants. So that's a really big case that is pending. That one's already been argued. We'll probably get a decision in that case in June. There's some really important election cases, including one dealing with redistricting and what states have to do when they redraw their lines for Congress every 10 years, how much they're allowed to consider race, and how careful they have to be to make sure that they're not disadvantaging minority voters when they draw those lines.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. John Fritze, always great coverage of the Supreme Court. Thanks so much.

John Fritze:

Hey, thank you so much.

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Taylor Wilson:

The New York Times is facing criticism for how it covers transgender issues. And as USA TODAY Wellness Reporter David Oliver told me, it's about time. David, thanks for coming on the podcast.

David Oliver:

Yes, thank you so much for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So the New York Times has been under fire for a while for its coverage of transgender issues, but David, you wrote that criticisms of the Times coverage reached a fever pitch last week. What sparked this?

David Oliver:

There were a couple of open letters that went out to the New York Times last week. One of them was from a group of organizations like GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign, a group of over a hundred New York Times contributors, kind of both calling out the Times's transphobic coverage not totally based in science. And they sort of, I guess, both came at the same time. And the New York Times then released a statement that was doubling down and trying to defend itself of its coverage when this really has been going on for a much longer period besides these two letters. This has been building for a while. The last few years, the Times has been criticized by many different groups, by journalists, I guess by me personally, which is part of why I wrote this opinion piece about it. It really rubbed me the wrong way, how they responded.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. So let's get into some of those criticisms, David. I want to hear, what were your issues with this coverage

David Oliver:

In general for me, I think that it just, it's trying to paint a false narrative of what a transgender youth experience is and what transitioning really looks like. I think that it is ignoring the opinions of large medical organizations and using these fringe medical opinions about how children and teens, I guess, should be transitioning. I should say teens in terms of that's who's actually using, I guess the puberty blocker type of stuff that's being talked about. I think that they just presented it in a way that's really doing a disservice to what's actually going on, and sort of using the opinions of people who are not affiliated or otherwise not prominent within these organizations. And it's, I think, a really dangerous precedent to set in terms of how we cover these issues.

I think that as journalists, there's been a traditional way of viewing things of like trying to include all sides of an issue. I would say that does not mean giving all sides equal weight. I think it's fine to certainly talk about other opinions that people have, but when you're using that as a way to highlight those or magnifying them the way that I feel the New York Times has, you're ignoring what's agreed upon by many in the medical profession, by many trans people themselves, by many advocates. I think it's just sort of trying to add some equal weight to something that doesn't deserve equal weight.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. You mentioned in your piece that there are some facts on this that sometimes get re-litigated. So I'm curious about one of those, especially when it comes to trans healthcare. What do we know, David, about gender-affirming care?

David Oliver:

We know that gender-affirming care really does save lives. If you look at statistics from organizations like The Trevor Project, gender-affirming care is endorsed by the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics. We know that it saved lives of transgender youth that are at much higher risk, I guess, for killing themselves, and this type of care can really make sure that they are on a better path that way.

I will say that gender-affirming care does not always necessarily mean gender-affirming surgery. It may not even mean certain puberty blockers, things like that. It could mean seeing a therapist and getting the right type of care that way, making sure they're in the best mental health space. So it starts off by seeing a medical practitioner and figuring out the best way to have care for this child or this teen, whomever, in the best situation possible. And I think that's just something we need to really keep in mind. Is that gender-affirming care does not necessarily mean everything all at once. It can mean a lot of different things, and I think that depending on the age of the child, the teenager, that's when you sort of get into more of the other more complicated discussions that are happening now. But I think that it all gets lumped together in a really unfortunate way.

Taylor Wilson:

And so as journalists, as we think about how to cover some of these issues, why is it so important, David, for those of us in journalism to amplify transgender joy?

David Oliver:

I think that it's just we need to be listening to transgender people. First and foremost, I know that I wrote this from an opinion side of things, and I'm not transgender myself, but I like to think of myself and do my best to be an ally to these people. And I think people that I've spoken with have emphasized the need for joy amid times of trauma because like any group of people, you can't be upset, sad, frustrated, hurt all the time, you're going to want to celebrate wins. Transgender people have done incredible work in this world and are fighting for their rights to be seen as human beings. They're more prominent in media. Kim Petras, a transgender woman, just won a Grammy, for instance. These people are humans. They want to be treated as such. It's important for us to celebrate their joy. It's important to acknowledge when trauma has happened, when killings have happened, things like that. But I think it's just all part of the human experience that we need to make sure we're highlighting. But that doesn't always mean only covering this community when they're in a time of crisis. It means also recognizing when transgender people do amazing things, and not just because they're transgender, just because they're people.

Taylor Wilson:

David Oliver covers wellness for USA TODAY. Great perspective and insight in all of this, David. Really appreciate it.

David Oliver:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking your time.

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Taylor Wilson:

Beaches in Florida could be covered in record seaweed this summer. A massive forest of Sargassum is growing in the Atlantic. Scientists at the University of South Florida said that January was the second consecutive month that the amount of seaweed doubled to a size large enough to fill 3,000 Olympic size pools. The seaweed is good for fish nurseries, hungry birds, and sea turtle hatchlings, but it can be a nuisance for humans, clogging boat propellers and emitting hydrogen sulfide as it decomposes.

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Happy Mardi Gras! Fat Tuesday will be celebrated today in New Orleans and a number of other places marking the celebration of Carnival. It comes before many Christians tomorrow will celebrate Ash Wednesday.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every morning right here, wherever you're listening right now. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden's visit to Ukraine, another earthquake hits Turkey: 5 Things podcast