The fight around banning books, NBA trade deadline arrives: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Book banning
USA TODAY books editor Barbara VanDenburgh reports on America's latest culture war. Plus, the Biden administration urges Americans to leave Ukraine, health reporter Adrianna Rodriguez breaks down data that shows the U.S. is worse than other high-income countries on COVID deaths, the NBA trade deadline is here and the Labor Department releases the latest inflation data.
Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here.
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 Thursday, the 10th of February 2022. Today, the fight around banning books. Plus, the NBA trade deadline is here and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
A teen boy was stabbed multiple times and a security guard shot outside a high school in Buffalo yesterday. The incident came during a dispute after classes ended for the day.
The Philippines is reopening to tourists for the first time in nearly two years. Foreign travelers will no longer be required to quarantine if they've been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and arrive with a negative test.
And Team USA's Chloe Kim has made Olympic history. Last night, she became the first woman to win two halfpipe snowboarding gold medals in her career.
By now, you've probably seen all kinds of headlines about school boards and libraries taking books off their shelves, but are books actually being banned at a staggering rate? Between September and November last year, the American Library Association received reports of more than 330 unique book banning cases in the US. Challenge totals in 2021 more than doubled the number from 2020. USA TODAY books editor Barbara VanDenburgh reports.
Barbara VanDenburgh:
There's been a dramatic uptick in challenged and banned books in the recent months. I spoke to the president of the American Library Association, which tracks banned books and challenged books, and spoke to President Patty Wong. And she confirmed that it is a dramatic striking uptick.
There's been a lot of headlines in the news recently about challenged books in, for example, Tennessee. A school board bans the book, Maus by Art Spiegelman. It is a Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel that documents Art Spiegelman's parents' experience of the Holocaust. In other school districts around the country, they have tried to ban books by Toni Morrison who wrote extensively about Black experiences and racism in her books, The Bluest Eye and Beloved. And this is a problem outside of schools as well. A mayor of Mississippi is withholding $110,000 from his city's library because LGBTQ books are on the shelves and he is opposed to the LGBTQ content. So a lot of Republican, a lot of conservative school boards and legislators and officials really ramping up attacks on books with content that they disagree with.
I spoke to a constitutional scholar about this to really understand better what our First Amendment rights entail. It's dangerous because it is a violation of our First Amendment rights to restrict access to books because you don't like the content or because you're trying to restrict a point of view. So to limit children's access to a point of view, to an experience in a book that you object to is a First Amendment violation. The Supreme Court has ruled on this in the past, although it was a split decision, so it wasn't super definitive. But in 1982, there was a case where a group of school children in New York filed a lawsuit against their school district for banning books by the advanced Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, which is a very famous anti-war book. And they banned Black Boy by Richard Wright. And they took that to the Supreme Court. And the plurality of the Supreme Court voted that it was a violation of their First Amendment rights.
Taylor Wilson:
You can find all kinds of books coverage in our entertainment section on usatoday.com. That includes USA TODAY's best selling books list every week. You can also head to usatoday.com/entertainment/books.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will meet with leaders from the Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia today. The move comes as Germany will reportedly send more troops to Lithuania amid continued tensions in Europe surrounding Russia and Ukraine. And Scholz will travel to those countries next week. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has deployed some 1700 troops to Poland in preparations for a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine. And his administration is urging Americans to leave Ukraine if possible. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
Jen Psaki:
I think what we're encouraging American citizens to do is depart now. Obviously, there hasn't been an invasion, and we don't know that there has been a decision to invade. Obviously, we have a range of diplomatic presences, not only in Ukraine, but in neighboring countries that are always available for US citizens should they need assistance. Back in October, the State Department estimated there were at the time, so months ago, about 6,600 US citizens residing in Ukraine, not much larger than that. What people should understand is that the United States does not typically do mass evacuations. Of course, the situation in Afghanistan was unique for many reasons, including that it was the end of a 20 year war. We were bringing a war to an end. We were not trying to prevent a war, as we are certainly in this case. There are a range of means that individuals and Americans can depart from Ukraine, and we've been encouraging them to do exactly that.
Taylor Wilson:
Elsewhere, Britain's top diplomat flew to Moscow yesterday and warned Russian officials that an invasion would bring severe consequences for every one involved.
You're more likely to die in the United States from COVID-19 than in other high income countries according to new data. Health Reporter Adrianna Rodriguez has more.
Adrianna Rodriguez:
The US case fatality rate, which is the number, which is the ratio between confirmed deaths and confirmed cases, ranks lower than many other high income countries. So if we take a look at the data, the US is above countries like Canada, Germany, the UK, Sweden, South Korea, and Japan. And this wasn't the case during the delta wave, which is interesting. This has only been the case recently during the omicron wave. And the omicron variant isn't supposed to cause as much severe disease as previous variants. But for some reason, we rank higher in the case fatality ratio compared to high income countries, which wasn't the case in the delta wave when delta was actually supposed to be more severe.
Basically what experts say the reason is why we might be outpacing other countries at this point, and not previously, is sort of where we are in the progress of the pandemic. So health experts say that it's because of the comparatively low vaccination rate. We don't have much of our population vaccinated and boosted. So fully vaccinated and boosted compared to other populations in other high income countries. 64% of Americans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. And that trails behind countries like Canada, which boasts the vaccination rate of nearly 80%.
Another reason why health experts say that the US might be outpacing other high income countries is because of testing, lack of testing. We don't test as much as other countries. And if we do test, they're likely to be at home rapid tests, which many consumers don't report to federal agencies like the CDC. So if we had more confirmed cases, that would sort of affect the results of the case fatality ratio. And that case fatality ratio would be lower if we had more confirmed cases, but because we're not confirming those cases, it tends to be a little higher.
And then lastly, health experts say the American health system in general puts us behind a lot of high income countries because most other countries have sort of this universally accessed healthcare. Whereas the US, a lot of people are reluctant to get early treatment or to go and access the healthcare system mostly because of payment, because of bills and whatnot.
Taylor Wilson:
You can find this full story in today's episode description.
The NBA trade deadline is here. Teams have until 3:00 PM Eastern time to make their last moves for the stretch run of the season. And much of the attention this morning is on whether the Brooklyn Nets send James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers in a deal for Ben Simmons. One agent is telling USA TODAY Sports that half the league thinks a Harden-Simmons deal will happen and half don't. Ben Simmons has been holding out from playing this year, citing his mental health. He previously struggled on court as the Atlanta Hawks knocked the Sixers out of the playoffs in the second round last year. As for Harden, he reportedly wants out of Brooklyn. They've lost nine games in a row in an already weird season. Another of the Nets stars, Kyrie Irving, has not been allowed to play home games in New York because he's unvaccinated against COVID-19.
Elsewhere, around the league, the Los Angeles Lakers are also spiraling. They have LeBron James and Anthony Davis, but the rest of the roster is looking bleak for the post-season. And the Washington Wizards could be looking to offload key players after star Bradley Beal went down for the season needing wrist surgery. You can follow along throughout the day on usatoday.com/sports.
The Labor Department today will release its report on inflation for January. Economists expect that the report will show inflation rose to a four decade high of 7.3%. If prices continue to surge in that direction, pressure could ramp up on the federal reserve to speed up plans to raise interest rates. But if the fed raises rates too quickly, it could cause a recession and higher unemployment. Meanwhile, US employers added nearly half a million jobs last month, way more than were projected. AP Economy Reporter Chris Rugaber said the retail sector helped that gain.
Chris Rugaber:
The report was surprisingly good. The economy added 467,000 jobs, which is a good number in almost any situation. In fact, it's above pre-pandemic levels. Retail did show a big gain in jobs, which I think the way the government does the numbers, it suggests that a lot of retailers didn't cut their holiday workers, which usually happens in January. And so that's a sign of how companies really want to hold on to any workers they get.
Taylor Wilson:
On the inflation front, economists expect overall inflation to ease in the coming months as gasoline and other energy prices continue to pull back. But core inflation, which does not include food and energy, is expected to drift higher before coming back down.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us seven mornings a week wherever you're listening right now. Thanks to PJ Elliott for his great work on the show. And I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Book banning, NBA trade deadline, new inflation data: 5 Things podcast
