Final farewell to Queen Elizabeth II, US-Taliban prisoner swap: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: The world bids final farewell to Queen Elizabeth II

The queen has been laid to rest. What's next for King Charles III? Plus, national political correspondent David Jackson says investigations involving Donald Trump may help him politically, Adnan Syed has been freed from prison after his case grabbed attention on the 'Serial' podcast, education reporter Alia Wong looks at school book bans and the Biden administration makes a prisoner swap with the Taliban.

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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 20th of September, 2022. Today, a look at yesterday's funeral for Queen Elizabeth II. Plus, how ongoing investigations could help Donald Trump, and more.

Here are some of the top headlines:

1. Hurricane Fiona slammed Puerto Rico yesterday with relentless rain. Hundreds of thousands were without running water, and less than 10% of the island has regained electricity after an island-wide blackout.

2. Government helicopters have attacked a school and village in Northern Myanmar, killing at least 13 people, including seven children. Civilian casualties and attacks by the military government on pro-democracy insurgents and their allies have been common in the country since a 2021 coup.

3. And law enforcement authorities in Texas said yesterday that they're opening an investigation into how 48 Venezuelan migrants were brought last week from Texas to Massachusetts by Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis. A Texas Sheriff said they were lured into the trip under false pretenses.

Queen Elizabeth II has been laid to rest. The late queen was celebrated at a funeral at Westminster Abbey, the same church where her coronation took place in 1953. During the service, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby praised the queen's life of service.

Justin Welby:

Her late Majesty famously declared on a 21st birthday broadcast that her whole life would be dedicated to serving the nation and commonwealth. Rarely has such a promise been so well kept. Few leaders receive the outpouring of love that we have seen.

Taylor Wilson:

After the funeral, a private burial service was held and she was brought to her final place of rest at St. George's Cathedral on the grounds of Windsor Castle. She was laid together with her late husband, Prince Phillip, who died last year. St. George's is also the resting place of 10 other former British monarchs, including Henry VIII, who ruled in the early 1500s, and the beheaded Charles I, who ruled in the mid-1600s. A period of royal mourning has now begun and will last for seven days across Britain. King Charles III has already begun duties as monarch, but he's not been crowned yet. His coronation will likely take place at some point within the next year.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

Ongoing investigations against Donald Trump might actually help the former president politically, but that could hurt the Republican Party. National political correspondent, David Jackson has more with producer PJ Elliott.

David Jackson:

Well, it helps with his voters. It helps him with his voters, his solid political base that feels like the establishment is against them. And this is yet another excuse for Trump to say that, "The political establishment, all they want to do is get me and throw me in jail. And while they're at it, they want to try to reduce your political voice." Since the search at Mar-a-Lago in early August, he's been pounding this drum and there's plenty of poll evidence to suggest that a lot of his supporters believe it, and if anything, it's only intensified his support.

The problem is that a lot of the Trump-backed candidates for state and local offices, particularly candidates for the US Senate, are struggling and have seen their support decline since the Mar-a-Lago search. And the evidence there suggests that moderate Republicans and Independents are turning away from not only Trump, but Trump-backed candidates. So it's a weird cause and effect in the fact that all the investigations seem to be helping Trump with his voters, but they're hurting Republican candidates overall with all voters.

PJ Elliott:

So does this mean that the Democrats are most likely going to take control of the Senate this midterm?

David Jackson:

Well, they certainly have a better chance than they did maybe three or four months ago, no doubt. The primary season was very good for them. They have a much better chance to win the Senate now than they did when primary started back in March. And one of the reasons is because Trump's endorsement helped so many iffy Republican candidates win nominations. You've got guys like Herschel Walker in Georgia, Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, J.D. Vance in Ohio, and a guy named Blake Masters in Arizona. Those are all first-time candidates who've made more than their share of mistakes and they're very associated with Trump.

And the polls are suggesting that a lot of independent voters don't like that association with Trump and the Democrats and all of those races are either even or slightly ahead. So the feeling is that if they sweep those races, the Democrats will actually be able to control the Senate and actually expand their margin.

PJ Elliott:

So what about 2024? Is it a safe bet that if Trump decides to run again, that the nomination is his?

David Jackson:

Well, he's certainly got a good chance at it. If anything, the FBI search and the intensity of these investigations against him are encouraging him to run. I'm told he's definitely thinking more about running, if only to defend himself against all these investigations. He figures it will be harder to prosecute him in court if he's actually a candidate for president. So the fact is that the odds are much more likely that he will run, and given the increase in his support from his base, he goes into your average Republican primary with a solid support of maybe 25% to 30%, that'd be enough to win a lot of these primaries especially if it's a crowded field.

So the fact is that I think the investigations do make it more likely he will he run and also make it more likely that he will be able to capture the nomination.

Taylor Wilson:

You can find a link to David's full story in today's episode description.

♦

Adnan Syed has been released from prison. He was sentenced to life in prison, plus 30 years after being convicted of the Maryland murder of 18-year-old Hae Min Lee in 1999. Syed has maintained his innocence since he was 17. Now 41 years old, he walked out yesterday.

Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn ruled that his conviction be vacated because the state violated its legal obligation to share exculpatory evidence with Syed's defense. She ordered him released from custody and placed on home detention. The state now has 30 days to decide whether to seek a new trial against Syed or dismiss the case entirely.

Syed's case became the focus of the hit podcast, Serial's first season in 2014. Legal experts have credited the hit show with bringing Syed's case national attention. The podcast explored problems with both Syed's defense and the prosecution's case. Host Sarah Koenig explored shoddy cell phone data, inconsistent timelines, ignored witnesses, and other possible suspects. Deirdra Enright, founder of the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia School of Law also credited a recent 2021 Maryland law allowing for people convicted of crimes as juveniles to seek new sentences after 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors recently said that a year-long investigation into Syed's case revealed two alternate suspects and major reliability issues with evidence used to convict him. Prosecutors asked for a new trial at minimum. The state is waiting for DNA analysis to decide whether they want to pursue a new trial or drop the case entirely.

♦

Dozens of so-called parents rights groups, including a number of national organizations with hundreds of local chapters, are helping to drive book bans across the country. Producer PJ Elliott and Alia Wong have more.

Alia Wong:

Between July 1st, 2021 and June 30th, 2022 - so last school year, in addition to a few months surrounding them - there were more than 2,500 book bands enacted, and that affected more than 1,600 unique titles. So there were more than 2,500 decisions to ban a book and this bulk book banning, it spanned more than 30 states and more than 130 school districts.

So these statistics really mark an escalation of a trend that traces back at least a year, and the people who are behind these bans are really getting more sophisticated in their tactics. Parents' rights activist groups are responsible or have played a role in roughly half of the bans that were enacted in the past school year. And these activist groups have really been successful in mobilizing supporters. A lot of these groups, or a handful of these groups rather, they have hundreds of chapters nationwide and are publishing lists of books that they want banned and distributing these lists.

PJ Elliott:

So what about the rest of this school year and even going forward? Are more books going to be banned?

Alia Wong:

Researchers anticipate that this trend will only pick up momentum as we wade into this school year. These activists, along with legislators who are in support of them and pushing for legislation that would also restrict access to books, they're getting a lot more savvy in their strategizing and their messaging is really resonating with parents. They're really taking up the mantle of being representatives or even warriors of parents who feel like their children are being indoctrinated, are being exposed to inappropriate material.

These activists are really kind of channeling and leaning into these really visceral fears, and especially with the upcoming midterm elections, their strategies are proving to be quite effective.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

The Biden administration has made a prisoner swap with the Taliban. An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years is coming home. The AP's Eric Tucker has more.

Eric Tucker:

The Biden administration has announced a prisoner swap involving the release of Mark Frerichs, who is a civilian contractor detained by the Taliban in Afghanistan for the last two years. He's been released in exchange for a convicted Taliban drug Lord named Bashir Noorzai, who has been in jail in the United States for 17 years. Mark Frerichs was abducted in January 2020 in Kabul. He was a civilian contractor. He'd actually been living in Afghanistan for more than a decade doing civil engineering projects. The background and circumstances of his abduction and kidnapping have never been quite clear, but we understand that he was in Kabul and then driven away to another part of the country and held there by the Taliban.

There had been negotiations for more than two years across successive presidential administrations to get Mark Frerichs home. The Taliban had made clear for a long time that the only way to do that was to release Bashir Noorzai. And it was not clear to people who were following this from the outside that that was a deal that was ultimately going to be palatable. Bashir Noorzai is a significant drug trafficker, that's what he was convicted of in the United States. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. And so this was a significant decision by the Biden administration to release someone in that position. However, the administration has said that it determined that the release of Noorzai is not likely to cause any security risk for Americans or deepen the drug trade in Afghanistan, and so it decided to make this deal.

It's not clear what exactly about this moment led to the deal. We do know that President Biden in June decided to grant clemency to Noorzai, which really paved the way for this to happen. And then the administration has described to reporters what they say was this very narrow window of opportunity that opened this month to make this deal happen. We're still trying to sort out details as to what they're talking about and what that means and what this narrow window of opportunity was, but there was apparently something that happened within the last several weeks that really facilitated this to happen.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us on whatever your favorite podcast app is, where we ask for a five-star rating and review if you have a chance. 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: Queen Elizabeth laid to rest, Adnan Syed freed: 5 Things podcast