Senate passes $1.7 trillion spending package, Arctic air is here: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Senate passes $1.7 trillion spending package

USA TODAY Reporter Sarah Elbeshbishi explains what made the cut, as a government shutdown is avoided. Plus, arctic air chills most of the country, USA TODAY Consumer Travel Reporter Zach Wichter looks at the weather's impact on holiday travel this weekend, there's a teacher shortage in parts of the country, and "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" hits streaming. Director Rian Johnson and star Janelle Monáe get you excited.

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 Friday, the 23rd of December 2022. Today the Senate passes a new spending package. We look at what made the cut. Plus Arctic air chills much of the country as holiday travel is feeling the impact.

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The Senate overwhelmingly passed a $1.7 trillion spending package yesterday that includes record amounts for domestic programs and defense priorities. But what exactly is in it? Producer PJ Elliott spoke with USA TODAY Reporter Sarah Elbeshbishi to find the answer.

PJ Elliott:

Sarah, first off, thanks for joining 5 Things.

Sarah Elbeshbishi:

Of course, happy to be here.

PJ Elliott:

So the Senate passed the $1.7 trillion spending bill on Thursday. It now heads to the House. Can you go into what made the cut?

Sarah Elbeshbishi:

Some of the things that we're looking at are the Electoral Count Act, which is legislation to reform the 1887 Electoral Count Act. It's to do things like reinforce and clearly state that the Vice President's role in overseeing the electoral count is purely ceremonial and that any appeals to the election or anything like that would be sent directly to the US Supreme Court. So this is kind of an effort to prevent anything from January 6th, 2021 from happening again.

The other thing we see is disaster aid. Lawmakers approved roughly $40 billion to help communities recovering from a range of national disasters, including Hurricanes Ian and Fiona. So they included, for example, $1.67 billion for wastewater treatment and drinking facilities damaged by those hurricanes.

PJ Elliott:

What about this ban on TikTok? Why is that an item in the Bill?

Sarah Elbeshbishi:

So the concern there is that the social media platform's parent company is Chinese-based. And so it's concerning and there's been warnings that the Chinese government could require this parent company to provide user data collected by the social media app. And so with tensions between the United States and China, lawmakers and state officials are just concerned about the possibility of the app collecting data off of government issued devices.

PJ Elliott:

So on the other side of things, the child tax credit was left out of this. What does that mean?

Sarah Elbeshbishi:

It was a top priority for Democrats to get in there, but it was a temporary measure when it first was instated and they wanted to revive it and expand it. And so essentially what it did in the American Rescue Plan, it lowered the eligibility requirements so that lower and some of the lowest income families could qualify for the full credit. This Bill was already a little contentious in the sense that there was some concern that they weren't even going to get it on the floor to be passed.

Both the Senate and the House last week had to pass continuing resolutions to fund the government an extra week so that they could bring the Bill to this week and vote on it by Friday. So they extended the deadline that they needed. And some top Republicans said that they were not going to vote on the Bill unless they got it done this week, or else they were only willing to do another temporary measure and fund it until the next year when they come back into session. So this Bill is a bipartisan effort and it was lawmakers from both sides of the aisle negotiating. And so that was one of the things that kind of got left off on the Democrat side.

PJ Elliott:

Sarah, really appreciate the time. Thanks so much.

Sarah Elbeshbishi:

Of course. Have a good day.

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Taylor Wilson:

A blast of Arctic air hit much of the US yesterday, dropping temperatures dramatically and bringing blizzard conditions to some areas. More than half of US states will see minimum wind chill temperatures in the negative double digits in the coming days. And near freezing temperatures this Christmas weekend in Florida could immobilize iguanas and cause them to fall out of trees. As for humans, hypothermia is the worry. That happens when the body loses heat faster than it can be produced, causing the body to use up energy and drop in temperature. Symptoms include lethargy, confusion, and ultimately unconsciousness.

But Dr. Deborah Diercks told USA TODAY that hypothermia deaths are not usually seen in people sheltering indoors. They're more common when someone has fallen outside and become unconscious, is under the influence of alcohol outside, or doesn't have access to shelter.

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Airlines are already starting to feel the impact of this week's cold front. Producer PJ Elliott talked with USA TODAY Consumer Travel Reporter Zach Wichter to find out how much it'll impact holiday travelers this weekend.

PJ Elliott:

Zach, thanks so much for jumping on 5 Things today.

Zach Wichter:

Yeah, happy to be here.

PJ Elliott:

So Winter Storm Elliott, which I want to just make sure everybody knows I have nothing to do with, it's obviously wreaking, so I don't want any tweets coming my way. It's wreaking havoc on travelers. What can those who haven't left town expect this weekend?

Zach Wichter:

Well, I guess it depends where they are now and where they're hoping to go. Today as we're recording this on Thursday, the storm is worst in the Midwest in kind of the Great Plains, the central part of the country. And so the most cancellations today have been focused on Denver and Chicago. And as of this evening, there are a little over 2000 flights in the US that have been canceled so far today, which is a big number.

Looking ahead to Friday, there are already over a thousand flights that have been preemptively canceled and the storm is moving east. So the East Coast is likely going to be more affected. And as with any big storm, it takes airlines some time to resuscitate their operations after they've had these kind of interruptions. Because when a flight gets canceled, that means that the plane that's scheduled to operate your flight might not be where it's supposed to be. So it can kind of take some time to build things back up.

PJ Elliott:

Are travelers entitled to anything if their flight gets delayed or is canceled altogether?

Zach Wichter:

That's a great question. So yes and kind of. If your flight is canceled, the Department of Transportation requires airlines to provide you with a full cash refund even if you purchased a non-refundable ticket. Now, you don't necessarily have to take the refund. Let's say you want to get rebooked and the airline offers you an option to rebook that you're happy with, or they offer you a voucher and you know you're planning to travel with them again, you can do that as well.

When it comes to delays, that's a little more complicated. There's no hard and fast rule from the DOT about what airlines need to do. There's this sort of amorphous language in their regulations that says something like, "In the case of a significant delay, airlines need to provide some kind of accommodation." But it really varies by airline. Actually, plug for us, USA TODAY has a bunch of reporting on this, including an airline by airline list of policies. So they're out there, but in the event of a delay, it's a little more complicated and you may not be entitled to as much and almost certainly won't be entitled to a refund.

PJ Elliott:

Zach, I appreciate all the information. Thanks for your time.

Zach Wichter:

Yeah, happy to help out.

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Taylor Wilson:

There's a shortage of teachers around the country. While not true everywhere, the latest October data from the National Center for Education Statistics found that 45% of public schools have at least one vacant teaching position. That's about the same rate as this past January. There are all kinds of reasons for teacher shortages, including in particular, low pay and morale, growing political and academic pressures, and health and safety concerns.

A separate NCES survey also showed teachers and principals work 52 hours and 58 hours a week on average, respectively. Well, that same survey showed 17% of teachers work somewhere else at another job. It's hard to say which states are experiencing the worst teacher shortages right now, but several working papers found particular gaps in Florida, Illinois, Arizona, and Tennessee. You can read this full story with a link in today's show notes.

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Who done it? That was the big question when "Knives Out" hit theaters in 2019, enjoying massive success, including more than $300 million at the box office and an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay for writer and director Rian Johnson. And he now returns with a sequel, "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" on Netflix today.

Clip from "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery"

Taylor Wilson:

USA TODAY Movie Critic Brian Truitt caught up with Rian Johnson about some of his process preparing a mystery sequel.

Brian Truitt:

Here you have a whole cast of characters who we see on a normal basis on our TV screens. The tech billionaire, the politician with morally questionable actions, the influencers. Is that one of the things that you wanted to do is bring the audience, in a way, on this journey with obviously Benoit as, he's solving the case and everything, but also showcase people archetypes that we kind of know, these kind of new 21st century story archetype?

Rian Johnson:

A hundred percent. And being a whodunit junkie - and this was a part of the marching orders I gave myself for the first movie, and it continues in this one - I grew up watching and loving all these whodunits, but all of them were period pieces that were set in England or set in kind of a nostalgic version of England that probably never even existed. And realizing that's not what Agatha Christie was doing back in the... She wasn't writing period pieces, she was writing to her moment in time, she was writing to society. Not like she was an incredibly political writer, but she was always engaging with the present moment and the culture in her books.

And thinking this genre is so specifically suited to doing that, it's so good. It's such a beautifully formed machine for creating a little microcosm of a society and examining it in depth, all while encased in this candy shell of a fun murder mystery. Such a potent weapon in that regard, and it feels like it hadn't been used for that for a little bit.

Taylor Wilson:

There's mostly a new cast this time around, though Daniel Craig returns as a lead. One newcomer is Janelle Monáe, who Brian chatted with ahead of the release.

Brian Truitt:

So you actually host murder mystery dinner parties. That's a thing for you. What inspired that?

Janelle Monáe:

Just my love of characters and solving mysteries. Who did it? Was it my auntie who did it? Was it my mom? Nobody's safe. It's so fun and a good way to just understand people. Because once they get that card, you don't know if they're the murderer or the villager or the doctor. You see their body language before the card and you see it after. So it's a good way to just kind of understand people a little bit more with those games. And it is fun, obviously. You get to dress up as characters, whoever you want to become.

Brian Truitt:

Rian seems like, I mean, so much creativity just kind of buzzes out of him just in terms of what he's put on the screen and just talking to him, he seems like kind of the whirling dervish of just stuff. I can't imagine just working with him on a daily basis. Do you feed off of that? What about him really kind of revs you up?

Janelle Monáe:

Rian is my brother. I love Rian so much. We're both Sagittarians, too. And we geek out about our love of music and film and TV and just ideas. And he's inspired me. I will be directing. And when that moment comes, I will say I really want to model how I direct after him. I mean, I showed up on set as an actor and I felt so taken care of. He was so at ease and peaceful.

Brian Truitt:

Do you think you'd ever want to write a murder mystery?

Janelle Monáe:

Yes, that is absolutely what I want to do. I'm just trying to crack where it should be centered on. That's why I said yes to this film, was to act, but also to gain some knowledge on what it takes to make a great murder mystery film. And Rian Johnson is the guy for that. He's doing something innovative in this space. You're going to watch it a second and third time and be like, "Wow, did he really just put these clues in front of my face but I didn't see them the first time?" But the way he crafted this film is to be studied.

Taylor Wilson:

For more, head to the Entertainment section on USATODAY.com, and you can see "Glass Onion" on Netflix today. And as always, you can find new episodes of 5 Things every morning right here, wherever you're listening right now. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Senate passes funding bill, 'Glass Onion' hits Netflix: 5 Things podcast