FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested, breakthrough in nuclear fusion: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested in Bahamas, indicted in New York

Specific charges were not immediately revealed, but Sam Bankman-Fried is now not expected to testify before Congress Tuesday. Plus, Arizona Republic Investigative Reporter Joseph Darius Jaafari explains how private companies use immigrant labor, with the help of prisons, FBI hate crime data is flawed, Health Reporter Karen Weintraub looks at new treatments for diabetes, and the Department of Energy will announce a nuclear fusion breakthrough.

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 Tuesday, the 13th of December 2022. Today, the founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, has been arrested. Plus how Arizona prisons sell undocumented workers to private companies. And we'll hear about a major update to diabetes care.

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The founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, has been arrested in the Bahamas and indicted in the US. Specific charges surrounding Samuel Bankman-Fried were not revealed, but the Royal Bahamas Police Force said in a news release that he was arrested for various financial offenses against the United States. He'll appear in local court later today. FTX was a global company with more than 130 affiliates that allowed individual investors to trade cryptocurrencies. It eventually grew to be the third largest exchange by volume. But Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO last month. And the company filed for bankruptcy when it was unable to pay all of the customers on the exchange who wanted their money back. The company said in bankruptcy filings that more than a million people may have been affected. Sam Bankman-Fried was also scheduled to testify remotely today before the House Committee on Financial Services, but that now won't happen. And chair of that committee, Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, said the arrest was curiously timed and goes against the public interest.

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Laws require that private companies verify that their employees are legally allowed to work in the United States. But despite that, an Arizona Republic investigation found that some companies in that state have exploited a loophole, hiring undocumented workers with the help of prisons. For more, I'm now joined by Arizona Republic Investigative Reporter Joseph Darius Jaafari. Joseph, thanks for being here.

Joseph Darius Jaafari:

Thank you for inviting me.

Taylor Wilson:

So your investigation found that some companies in Arizona are hiring prisoners who have ICE detainers and are not eligible to work legally in the US. Let's start with the basics, Joseph, what is an ICE detainer, and how do these companies get around this with the help of prisons?

Joseph Darius Jaafari:

So I think to first answer that we have to understand how prison labor in Arizona, and really across America, works. So in Arizona, it is in law that if you are a prisoner of any kind, you are required to work. So we house at any given moment, around 2,000 to 3,000 people who are here without work authorization, meaning they are here - either they came on a tourist visa or they crossed the border illegally or they have a residency, but then they committed some crime where they have lost their work authorization.

When that happens, what typically is supposed to happen is when you go into prison and you have this detainer put on you by ICE, that essentially means that at the end of your term, or sometimes in the middle of your prison sentence, you will be given to ICE custody to be deported. That's what's supposed to happen, but we know that doesn't always happen. We see that on the end of people's sentences, ICE comes in and says, "Oh, these people are eligible for deportation, put a detainer on them." And then they take them maybe sometimes days before the end of their sentence or the middle of their sentence.

There is a small select group of people who work for a for-profit state-run company called Arizona Correctional Industries, and that agency, which is a part of the Department of Corrections, has one edict, which is to lease out prisoners to private companies and to make sure that private companies can also get products made for their stores, for their bars, for their houses, their dormitories. Whatever you can think of, these prisoners can make them for the private sector.

Out of the years of data that we have - it's a very small sliver, but it's still a sliver - there is about 26 people who had ICE detainers placed on them at some point during their incarceration and were placed to work with private companies despite the fact that Arizona has incredibly strict laws that if you are a private company or really any company, even state organizations, you are not allowed to hire people who are not allowed to be here legally.

Taylor Wilson:

So obviously, the focus here is on Arizona, but could you shed some light on the national scope of this story?

Joseph Darius Jaafari:

It's a national story because, so the US Constitution, through the 13th Amendment, abolished slavery except in the instances of imprisonment. So we do have a legal mechanism for states to use prisoners as slaves, essentially. Arizona is unique in a couple of different ways in the fact that surprisingly, where a number of these correctional industries that exist across the nation, they are losing money. Arizona has been an outlier in the fact that they've been gaining money over the use of their prison labor, and that's because of this mechanism that they've been able to use to essentially lease out prisoners to private companies and sell them to private companies.

But this issue is not unique to Arizona. That's why we've seen four different states in the past midterms abolish the use of prison labor. That's why we've also seen a number of stories across the US talking about how many states don't pay their prisoners at all. And it's slowly becoming news a bit above the folder, at least on the front page, of the cost of living inside of prisons, that it's not free. We charge our prisoners room and board as well. So you, obviously, have to pay for that. So it's not unique to Arizona, but we do have a few unique things here that make it a bit, I won't say nefarious, but a bit more strategic.

Taylor Wilson:

Arizona Republic Investigative Reporter Joseph Darius Jaafari, thanks so much for making the time.

Joseph Darius Jaafari:

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Taylor Wilson:

You can read the full story with a link in today's show notes.

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Data on hate crimes is flawed. Despite growing domestic terrorism in the US and concerns around bias motivated crimes, even fewer law enforcement agencies reported data on hate crimes to the FBI last year. An annual FBI report out yesterday found that there were more than 7,000 hate crimes last year. But according to experts, that's just a fraction of the true number. Brian Levin is the director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. He said, "The FBI's hate crime data release is so severely hampered by a decline in participating agencies. It is simply not representative of the actual hate crime trend, which is up." It's not mandatory for state, local, and tribal agencies to report data on hate crimes. And while 93% of agencies nationwide participated in 2020, that number dropped to 65% last year. The FBI said this week, that means it's currently impossible to draw meaningful conclusions about hate crime trends year to year. According to FBI reporting, the country's two largest cities, New York and Los Angeles, did not provide data.

Meanwhile, other groups have reported record levels of hate crimes. The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism found that hate crimes rose 21% to the highest levels since 2001. That data found a particular spike in anti-Asian crimes. The Anti-Defamation League said anti-Semitic incidents reached their highest number since the group began tracking in 1979.

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The American Diabetes Association released new disease management standards yesterday. Producer, PJ Elliott, spoke to USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub to find out what that means for those suffering with the disease.

PJ Elliott:

Karen, thanks so much for joining 5 Things today.

Karen Weintraub:

Thanks for having me.

PJ Elliott:

Over the past few weeks, and probably months at this point, you and I have talked a lot about diabetes and weight loss. But now you have a story about diabetes care getting a major update. What's the latest?

Karen Weintraub:

Right, so the American Diabetes Association issues guidelines for treatment every year or so, and they've just issued a new version with about 100 different changes, mostly designed to improve the quality of life for people with diabetes. And among the things they're recommending is more aggressive weight management. So using some of those medications we've talked about to help reduce somebody's weight by 15%. Before, the guideline was 5%, but these medications are so effective that they think they can go down to 15%. Also recommending more aggressive treatment for blood pressure, lowering that to 130 over 80 and lowering LDL cholesterol, which is the bad kind, down to 70 for people with heart disease. It had been 155 for those with established heart disease.

So being more aggressive about those chronic illnesses that can compound the problems of diabetes. Also, things like kidney disease and amputations. So particularly, among African Americans, amputations are a huge issue for people with diabetes. Black Americans are three to four times more likely to suffer amputations than a white person with diabetes, and the rate is getting worse rather than better, unfortunately. So the new guidelines call for more careful screening for things like foot ulcers and peripheral arterial disease, which can lead to amputations.

PJ Elliott:

Karen, in your story, you mention addressing social issues, what can be done there?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah. So there are a lot of social issues that get in the way of somebody living a healthy lifestyle. If you live in a neighborhood that's not safe, it's going to be hard for you to go for a walk. If you live in a food swamp where there's only junk food available, it's going to be very hard for you to eat healthy. So this American Diabetes Association guidelines now talk about that and tell the care professionals to ask patients about these issues.

Things like sleep and diet and exercise and what's going on in their lives, did they just lose their job? What other issues are happening in their lives that might affect their diabetes care? And also the value of community health workers, somebody who could go out and check on you every week or two weeks and say, "Hey, what are you facing this week? What can I do to help?" kind of thing.

PJ Elliott:

Are the changes that you mentioned enough?

Karen Weintraub:

So I spoke with one gentleman who founded the African American Diabetes Association. He said in response, he didn't feel the ADA, American Diabetes Association, was doing enough for African Americans. Diabetes is a tremendous problem among African Americans, and he says we all need to be doing more. So this is a step in the right direction, but not enough.

PJ Elliott:

Karen, thanks so much. Appreciate it as always.

Karen Weintraub:

Anytime.

Taylor Wilson:

You can follow along with more of Karen's great work on Twitter at KWeintraub.

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Scientists have made a major breakthrough on nuclear fusion. The long-sought energy system could make clean, carbon-free and non-radioactive electricity production in the decades to come. A Department of Energy news conference is set for this morning with details on new developments to the science. The Financial Times and Washington Post reported that the agency will announce that scientists have, for the first time, created a nuclear fusion reaction that produced more energy than it took to create. That reportedly happened at the federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Fusion is the opposite of the fission process that powers nuclear plants. Fusion creates power by fusing two atoms together, while fission power comes from splitting them apart. Researchers are able to create fusion reactions, but so far, they've always taken more energy to create than is released by fusing the atoms, making it a net energy loss. Using fusion, only a few pounds of matter would be enough to power entire countries for years.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every morning wherever you get your audio. I'll be back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried arrested, new diabetes treatments: 5 Things podcast