Roberts tried to persuade SCOTUS to keep Roe v. Wade, proposed Griner deal: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Roberts tried to persuade rest of Supreme Court to keep Roe v. Wade in place

Supreme Court correspondent John Fritze has the latest. Plus, the U.S. makes a prisoner swap proposal for Brittney Griner, patient safety reporter Karen Weintraub has more on obesity in America, slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh's family wants a full investigation into her death and a dinosaur skeleton will be auctioned off for millions of dollars.

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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 Thursday, the 28th of July, 2022. Today, how the Chief Justice tried to persuade the rest of the Supreme Court to keep Roe vs. Wade in place. Plus, a prisoner swap proposal for Brittney Griner, and more.

Here are some of the top headlines:

1. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears to be moving forward with her controversial trip to Taiwan next month. Her office has not confirmed the trip, but she invited several Republican members of Congress to go with her. That's despite potentially fierce pushback from China.

2. The Pacific Northwest continues to feel an unusually long heat wave. Seattle hit 94° this week, while Portland hit 100. It follows a historic heat wave in the region last summer.

3. And Jeopardy has announced former champion, Ken Jennings, and actress Mayim Bialik, as permanent hosts of the quiz show. Jennings will host main episodes while Bialik will host Celebrity Jeopardy and other tournaments.

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According to a report, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wanted to move slowly in the landmark abortion case. Supreme Court correspondent, John Fritze, and producer, PJ Elliot, talk about how hard he was working to persuade the rest of the justices to keep Roe vs. Wade in place.

John Fritze:

Yeah, the important thing to, I think, think about here is that there's this battle for the ideological center of the Supreme Court. And last year there was a thought that maybe there would be this 3-3-3 court where you'd have a lot of decisions that were more centrist with Roberts striking these maybe more middle ground positions. And that really hasn't turned out.

But I think that doesn't mean Roberts isn't still trying. And he's had some success in some cases at being able to maybe swing one of the conservatives over to his position. And if he can do that, then he can join up with the three liberals, and that's five votes, and that's the majority. So, there have been times where he's been able to do that, although I think this term they were increasingly rare.

And underlying all this is a report that came out from CNN citing some unnamed sources suggesting that Roberts was pushing pretty hard behind the scenes right up until the end to try to find that fifth vote to keep Roe in place. It's a good story. I think in some ways it's not a huge surprise. I mean Roberts, during oral argument, was staking out this position and was publicly, I think, using the argument to try to pressure his colleagues. And certainly, we know how he feels about it because he wrote an opinion, a concurrence where he said, "Look, I would have upheld the Mississippi ban on most abortions, but I wouldn't have overturned Roe." For Roberts, that was a step too far.

PJ Elliott:

What, if anything, does this say about Roberts' role as Chief Justice?

John Fritze:

I think that's a great question. And I guess the question is, was this an isolated thing because it was abortion and abortion is such a touchy and difficult issue and has been a campaign for decades on the right, or does it say something about Roberts losing his grip on the court? I think a little bit there remains to be seen. It seems to me this term there were not a whole lot of, for lack of a better word, centrist positions. In other words, the court, in case after case, not only sided with a conservative cause, but did so in a way that was pretty sweeping and expansive, and set new standards for how these cases will be reviewed. So, Roberts is an institutionalist, he doesn't like these big sweeping rulings, he likes to move a little more slowly. There's no indication that any of his colleagues are on board with that right now.

Taylor Wilson:

For more, find a link in today's episode description.

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The US has made a proposal to Russia to bring home detained WNBA star, Britney Griner, and Paul Whelan, who is also serving a prison sentence in Russia. CNN reported that the US offered Victor Bout, a Russian arms dealer nicknamed "The Merchant of Death", for the prisoner swap. Secretary of State Antony Blinken added that he would engage with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. It was the first public acknowledgement of a deal that could involve a prisoner swap or addressing the sanctions placed on the country after it invaded Ukraine.

Antony Blinken:

We have two objectives. We of course want to see those who are wrongfully detained be released and be able to return home. At the same time it's important that we work to reinforce the global norm against these arbitrary detentions, against what is truly a horrific practice. So, we're working conservatively on both.

We've demonstrated with Trevor Reed, who came home a few months ago, that the president is prepared to make tough decisions if it means the safe return of Americans. At the same time, we are working with partners around the world to use all of the relevant tools at our disposal, including some that were announced just recently in the executive order that the president released, to respond to and impose costs on those who engage in this practice. And I believe we can actually fulfill both imperatives.

Taylor Wilson:

A prisoner swap previously freed former US Marine Trevor Reed from a Russian penal colony in April. Griner appeared in court yesterday for the sixth time since her trial began on July 1st. She also testified for the first time. She's been detained on drug charges since February.

Paul Whelan has been in custody since 2018, serving a 16-year sentence on espionage charges that the US disputes. Victor Bout, the Russian arms dealer, was handed a 25-year sentence in 2012 for conspiring to sell weapons to people who plan to kill Americans.

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You heard yesterday from Patient Safety reporter, Karen Weintraub, here on 5 Things about her series on obesity in America. Today, part two, including treatment developments to fight the epidemic.

PJ Elliott:

What did the experts suggest happen in order for us to change how obesity is treated in the US?

Karen Weintraub:

So, there are a couple of things going on simultaneously right now. One is major advances in medication treatment. There's one medication approved, and another that just had a very successful clinical trial, that showed dramatically more weight loss than previous medications have ever shown before.

Unfortunately, the medication I just mentioned, it's called Wegovy, W-E-G-O-V-Y, for weight loss, and it has been in very short supply since it was approved last year. And it's also extremely expensive. Most of the places I saw it available for charged $1,600 a month. I found one that charged $6,000 a month. And insurance, generally, doesn't cover it for weight loss specifically.

The second drug is not yet approved. It's called Mounjaro for diabetes, but it's not yet approved for weight loss. That one's about a $1,000 a month for diabetes. Again, insurance companies have not generally been very generous at covering weight loss. You have to wait until you have severe medical problems like diabetes in order to get insurance coverage. That may change now that we have successful medications, but it's very difficult today to get those medications.

And the other challenge with those medications is that, in addition to the costs, they have to be taken, at this point, we think they have to be taken indefinitely. So, it's like high blood pressure, it's not like taking a Tylenol to get rid of a headache, it's a chronic condition that you have to keep taking the medication for indefinitely.

Other advances in science recently include really this understanding that, biologically, it's extremely hard for people to lose weight on their own just through diet and exercise. I've seen stats as much as 95% of people don't successfully lose weight through diet and exercise. Very easy today with our food supply to gain weight, and very, very hard to lose it.

Part of that issue is also ultra processed foods which seem to either just encourage overeating because they don't fill you up as fast or because they actually turn so quickly into fat that they don't provide the nutrients or the energy that you need to function, and so you overeat in order to get enough energy.

PJ Elliott:

So, you write about weight stigma being a public health issue. Can you expand on that? What does that mean?

Karen Weintraub:

Right. So, stigma, and that's everything from people have told me about going to the doctor's office and finding chairs that they're afraid to sit in because they're afraid to break the chair, and so they don't feel comfortable going into a doctor's office. Even that can be considered stigma. And there's fat shaming in public situations, social media, and that sort of thing.

So, people can become afraid to go see the doctor, to be public about their weight challenges. And actually, studies have shown that the more people feel stigmatized, feel uncomfortable about their weight, the more likely they are to gain weight, potentially. I guess the stress of those situations can make them eat even more or struggle even more to lose extra pounds. So, it becomes a vicious cycle.

Taylor Wilson:

For all six parts of Karen's series, find a link in today's show description.

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A relative of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh said yesterday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken refused her face-to-face appeal to push for a full US investigation into Shireen's killing. A July 4th statement from the State Department found that Israeli forces likely fired the shot that killed her in May, though there was no indication that Israelis intentionally shot the veteran Al Jezeera correspondent. The 51-year-old American citizen was highly respected in the Arab world for her decades covering Palestinians and other Arab communities. Her niece, Lena Abu Akleh, said that Blinken and other US officials declined, in meetings with her this week, to give any more information than they've already made public about how Americans came to their findings about the killing.

Lena Akleh:

Well, we initially wanted to see President Biden back home, back in Palestine, where he visited a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, we never received a response regarding that request. We wanted to meet him there, one, because it's where Shireen was born. She's the daughter of Jerusalem. She was born and raised there, and unfortunately that's where she was killed.

It would've meant a lot for our family for him to sit and talk with us and for us to share our demands and concerns. But we will still be pushing towards an investigation, towards accountability. I think it's important, not just for Shireen but also to prevent other American citizens being killed abroad. This is important. There needs to be accountability, and perpetrators need to be held responsible.

We spoke to Secretary of State Blinken about this yesterday, and we asked him how did they conclude that. He said, "Well, there was no one qualified to say if it was intentional or not." Then, why would they release a statement as such that is very damaging to the truth.

You cannot determine the intent from just examining the bullet. There are so many other evidences that need to be examined and investigated to conclude intent. And unfortunately, stating that there was no one qualified to reach that conclusion is damaging, and it's also very unprofessional, to say the least.

Taylor Wilson:

Abu Akleh was shot and killed while covering an Israeli military raid on May 11th in the Jenin Refugee Camp in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian eye witnesses say Israeli troops killed her and that there were no militants in her vicinity or any exchange of gunfire when she was shot.

Israel has denied it deliberately targeted her, but says an Israeli soldier may have hit her by mistake during an exchange of fire with a militant, a different account from eyewitnesses. US security officials have examined the results of separate Palestinian and Israeli investigations.

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Sotheby's has announced that a 76 million-year-old dinosaur skeleton will be auctioned off in New York City today. It's the only specimen of its kind available for private ownership. The Gorgosaurus skeleton, a type of Tyrannosaurid, measures 10 feet tall and 22 feet long, and was found in the Judith River formation in Montana in 2018. That type of dinosaur lived in Western North America, some 76 to 75 million years ago. But according to Sotheby's, Gorgosaurus material is extremely rare to find. The presale estimate for the fossil is five to $8 million.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every day of the year on whatever your favorite podcast app is, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your smart speaker device. Thanks to PJ Elliott for his great work on the show, and I'm back to tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Proposed swap for Griner, dinosaur fossil for sale: 5 Things podcast