Russian coup threatened Moscow outskirts, Pelosi endorses SCOTUS term limits: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Russian coup could have reached Moscow outskirts without deal

Experts say a Russian coup could have reached the Moscow outskirts if this past weekend's deal didn't happen, Arizona Republic and USA TODAY Immigration Reporter Rafael Carranza explains lawsuits centered on family separations at the border, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorses term limits for the Supreme Court, can federal money help bring more mental health professionals to schools?, and USA TODAY National Columnist Suzette Hackney looks at the life of Elijah Lee Lewis.

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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 Monday, the 26th of June 2023. Today, what's next after an attempted coup in Russia. Plus, the latest on lawsuits relating to family separations at the border, and a prominent lawmaker calls for term limits on the Supreme Court.

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A relative sense of normalcy returned to Moscow yesterday as Russian troops who were deployed to protect the Capitol withdrew after the retreat of rebellious mercenary forces. And an assessment from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War found that the Wagner Mercenary Group could have reached the outskirts of Moscow if Wagner leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, ordered them to do so. Instead, the group's attempted rebellion ended 300 miles from the city on Saturday with a deal between Prigozhin and Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Still the Biden administration is monitoring fallout from the coup attempt. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday it could bring major consequences for Putin and the entire war in Ukraine.

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President Joe Biden promised to end family separations at the border, but the Department of Justice is now fighting relief claims in court. I spoke with Arizona Republic and USA TODAY Immigration Reporter Rafael Carranza for more. Thanks for hopping on 5 Things, Rafael.

Rafael Carranza:

Thank you for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So just starting here, what do these lawsuits argue?

Rafael Carranza:

You have the families that have sued the United States arguing that the government and that the employees essentially inflicted emotional distress and that they experienced trauma because of the actions that the government did. The government in response says that they were simply following policy and therefore they're immune from these claims.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. I want to get a little bit more of the government response here, Rafael. You write that the Biden administration is in court defending a policy that it continues to condemn. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Rafael Carranza:

Yeah, so this is a policy that I think pretty much uniformly was criticized whenever the family separations were happening back in 2018. That's when we had most of the attention. And as time went on and we started to understand the scope of the separations and just how many families have been impacted, you also had then candidate Joe Biden, who had criticized and labeled this policy as inhumane, and so took a very strong stance against it. So much so that when he took office after he won the presidency, he established a task force that would identify and help locate and bring those families back together. But now two years after he took office, he is now in court defending that very policy that he had criticized initially.

Taylor Wilson:

So going back to the suits themselves, Rafael, is there any sense of how much the families could receive if they win?

Rafael Carranza:

That would be up to the judges who are deciding these cases. There were settlement talks initially under the Biden administration to come up with a global settlement fund that all of these families would have access to, but the Biden administration walked away from that in 2021, and so it'll be up to the judges with these individual cases to determine how much each family will receive. But again, this is just for the families who are filing the lawsuits and there are many families who chose not to pursue these claims.

Taylor Wilson:

And what's next for these legal fights going forward?

Rafael Carranza:

They're making their way through the legal process, and that's going to take some time. Some of the cases that were first filed in 2019, those are the ones that have advanced the most, and so they're the ones that are closest to finding some type of resolution, but there's a lot of time still left for the government to make their arguments as to why these claims should not succeed and for the families to prove why they deserve this compensation. But a lot of steps, and there's also a lot of concern that while these cases are being litigated, that will mean that these families will be put under the microscope once again and that their experiences will be scrutinized in an effort to undermine their claims.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Rafael Carranza covers immigration for the Arizona Republic and USA TODAY. Thanks so much, Rafael.

Rafael Carranza:

Thank you for having me.

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Taylor Wilson:

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is endorsing term limits for Supreme Court justices after a series of ethics revelations about members of the high court. In an interview released yesterday on MSNBC, she told host Jen Psaki that it's shameful how justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have been so cavalier about their violations and what would be expected of a Supreme Court justice. Her comments come after Alito last week acknowledged he flew to Alaska for a fishing trip in 2008 on a private jet that belonged to a hedge fund manager who brought cases before the court. Reporting about him comes after a series of stories in ProPublica earlier this year that revealed trips accepted by Justice Clarence Thomas from GOP donor, Harlan Crow. Crow also purchased property from Thomas and his family, none of which was reported on disclosure forms. The process to implement term limits for Supreme Court justices would require a constitutional amendment or Congress could pass legislation requiring justices retire, take senior status with lesser duties, or move to an appeals court.

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The US faces a mental health crisis amid a shortage of school counselors. Nationwide, there was just one school psychologist for every approximately 1100 K-12 students in the 2020/2021 school year. And the Surgeon General has called kids' declining health the "defining public health crisis of our time." But now spurred by an influx of federal funds, schools and colleges are taking on an unprecedented effort to recruit and retain more mental health providers. Since December, the US Department of Education has awarded $286 million to hundreds of grantees in nearly every state to boost the training and hiring of school mental health professionals. Schools also spent billions in pandemic aid money to increase the number of social workers by nearly 50% and the number of school counselors and psychologists by 10%. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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His friends believed he could have been the next Martin Luther King Jr., but then a bullet took Elijah Lee Lewis' life this past April. The 23 year old was remembered as a vital community organizer in Seattle and a loyal friend and family member. USA TODAY National Columnist Suzette Hackney traveled to Seattle to learn more about a life cut short. Thanks for coming on 5 Things, Suzette.

Suzette Hackney:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

Can you start by telling us a bit about Elijah's childhood?

Suzette Hackney:

Yes, so Elijah grew up in Seattle. He is the youngest of four siblings. He was raised basically by a single mother. His father died when his mother was pregnant, and so he never got to know his father. That's been a bit of a difficult journey for Elijah. He kind of spent a lot of his childhood searching and upset about the fact that he didn't have a father in his life, and that played a big role in a lot of things. The poverty that they lived. His mother really turned to the church for support, and so as children, they grew up pretty much in the church in a service role of always helping around Seattle.

Taylor Wilson:

You also spent time with one of Elijah's good friends in Seattle. What can you tell us about him and what he showed you in, as you put it, Elijah's Seattle.

Suzette Hackney:

Yes, his name is Edd Hampton Parks. He's a little bit older than Elijah. He met Elijah when Elijah was a student in high school. And he said he just from the beginning was just like awestruck by this kid in high school who was wearing a suit and tie. He was like, "Who is this guy?" They connected, but they didn't really become close until George Floyd was killed. They were out protesting and doing a lot of things like that, community activism. They called each other brothers.

Edd spent a big majority of the day with me taking me around Seattle and showing me where Elijah lived when he was able to rent his first apartment and where he hosted these open air markets for particularly entrepreneurs of color, where he helped people in this renovated apartment complex called Liberty Bank Building, where he was a community organizer, where he protested social injustices. Ultimately, we ended the journey together where Elijah was killed and that was very emotional.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, can you tell us a little bit about the day that he was killed?

Suzette Hackney:

Based on what I've seen from police reports and prosecutor reports is Elijah was picking up his nine-year-old nephew to go to a monster truck rally on Capitol Hill, which is a neighborhood in Seattle. There was a man on a scooter and there was some sort of altercation between the two of them. The guy, according to police reports, drops his scooter, pulls out a gun and shoots into the car. He hits the nine-year-old, Elijah's nephew, in the leg, and then Elijah takes off driving. The guy on the scooter chases him down. His name is Patrick Cooney. He's 35 years old. He's also from Seattle. So Cooney chases down Elijah, and the boy in the car continues shooting and Elijah's hit and Elijah dies.

Taylor Wilson:

Suzette, a really powerful part of this piece was about Elijah's relationship with his nephew and his niece. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Suzette Hackney:

Of all his siblings, only his sister Quincy has children. So King had just turned nine years old the day before the shooting, and his niece is 11 years old, Cody is her name. Elijah was like a very dedicated uncle to them. He loved hanging out with them. They were like mini community organizers themselves. He made them set up a lemonade stand. He made them do back to school supplies, come help set up this theater that we're doing. He just made them a part of his life, and so they watched him and they learned from him. He wanted them to get in the game. He always said, "I want you to be a part of this. I want you to know what it's like to serve your community," which is a really special gift to give kids at that age.

Taylor Wilson:

Elijah and his peers created a pact called The Covenant. What are some of its principles?

Suzette Hackney:

It's a very anti-violence pact. It's we talk things through, we respect each other. If we can't accept each other as individuals, how are we ever going to come together as a community? And so it's really a promise of how the next generation should function so that we don't have shootings over simple traffic incidences, right? So we don't have people on scooters pulling out guns. They were sharing The Covenant as they had Juneteenth celebrations and community celebrations. They were actually preaching like, this is how we need to start living our lives. This is how we make Seattle a more peaceful place. This is how we make beyond Seattle a more peaceful place.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Suzette Hackney, thanks for your work on this and for coming on the podcast to talk about Elijah. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Suzette Hackney:

Absolutely. Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. If you like the show, you can subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. And if you have any comments, you can reach us at podcasts@usatoday.com. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Russian coup threatened Moscow, family separation lawsuits: 5 Things podcast