US announces new sanctions on Russia, economic impact of El Niño: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: US puts new sanctions on Russia

USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers talks through the latest U.S. sanctions on Russia. Plus, the Supreme Court dismisses an appeal challenging the end of Title 42, USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze looks at a high court decision on Big Tech, an 8-year-old dies while in U.S. Border Patrol custody, and a study finds El Niño can cost trillions.

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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.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need to know Friday, the 19th of May 2023. Today, new sanctions for Russia. Plus, we look at a pair of Supreme Court decisions that separately impact the border and Big Tech.

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President Joe Biden is meeting with G7 leaders in Japan this week, and they've already slapped a new round of sanctions on Russia. I spoke with USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers to learn more. Hi Francesca.

Francesca Chambers:

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So the US has announced new sanctions for Russia. What are they?

Francesca Chambers:

Well, the Biden administration says it will blacklist 70 entities from receiving US exports, and it's also introducing more than 300 new sanctions on individuals, entities, vessels, and aircraft. An administration official said that these would target financial facilitators and also other actors in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Taylor Wilson:

And we know that these have been unveiled at the G7 meetings. Are any other countries following the US lead here?

Francesca Chambers:

So the US is doing this alongside its Group of 7 economic allies. Those include the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and the UK, as well as Japan where the G7 Summit is taking place.

Taylor Wilson:

And Francesca, have sanctions worked so far to deter Russia in this invasion? I mean, what's the White House say about that?

Francesca Chambers:

Well, the White House says that the sanctions it's putting in place are to punish Russia and also to try and make it hard for it to get the goods that it needs to be able to continue its war. It's also trying to keep Russia from evading the sanctions that are already in place and make it harder for it to gain access to the international financial markets.

Taylor Wilson:

And what else is being discussed at these G7 meetings?

Francesca Chambers:

One key thing about President Biden being in Hiroshima is it's the first time since World War II that the leaders of all these nations, some of which used to be on opposing sides of the war, have come together at this Peace Memorial, and we don't expect President Biden to make any sort of a statement while he's there, but of course anything could happen. But it is a very important symbolic moment as these nations come together in unison against Russia and in an attempt to prevent World War III.

Taylor Wilson:

Francesca Chambers, thanks so much.

Francesca Chambers:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

The Supreme Court yesterday dismissed an appeal challenging the end of Title 42, the pandemic era policy allowing border officials to expel migrants seeking asylum. The move was widely expected, but it serves as a coda to arguments over the policy that has worked its way through courts for months. The Supreme Court in December initially agreed to hear the challenge from conservative states that wanted to intervene to defend Title 42 after a federal judge ordered the Biden administration to shut it down. But the underlying case seemed to evaporate when the administration lifted the public health emergency that authorized the program.

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The Supreme Court yesterday dodged a debate over whether big tech companies can be sued for their recommendations. I spoke with USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze for more. Hi there John.

John Fritze:

Hey.

Taylor Wilson:

Google versus Section 230. What's at issue here, John, and how did the high court decide?

John Fritze:

I mean, it's a really complicated case with really important consequences, although what the court did here was kind of dodge on the big questions, and that's really a win for Google, Facebook, Twitter. What these guys were looking for was not to change the status quo, and that's pretty much what the high court did. You know, Section 230 is this pretty controversial part of a 1996 law that basically says you can't sue for third party content on these sites. So when you and I tweet, if we tweet something that could cause a lawsuit, you can't sue Twitter for it. Same thing with Facebook. And the issue here in this case was, all right, does that shield from liability - that blocking of lawsuits against Twitter and Facebook and others - does that come into play when it's not you and I tweeting, but it's Google recommending a website or YouTube recommending the next video? In other words, that act of recommending something, does that also get shielded from liability?

What the court basically said was, look, we're not going to go there. The people who brought these, filed these lawsuits were the families of victims of terrorist attacks, one in Paris and one in Istanbul. And what they argued was that these recommendations that we've been talking about, that they radicalize people, that they basically aided and abetted ISIS because people saw these videos, they decided they wanted to sign up and maybe they carried out a terrorist attack. That was their claim. And what the court did, just to get into the technical stuff here for a minute, is that the court said, look, you can't sue Twitter and Facebook and YouTube for that under this particular statute, this anti-terrorism federal law. Because look, Twitter didn't have a conscious effort here to have anything to do with this attack. And the connection between the people who did the attack and the videos that were being recommended is attenuated. It's not a strong clear connection. So the court said, look, you can't bring claims like this. That was the unanimous decision.

Taylor Wilson:

John, I mean, some experts have warned this could fundamentally change the way the internet works. Can you just go into what they mean specifically? Those are strong words.

John Fritze:

Right. I mean, so this is the point that Google and Facebook is making on these recommendations. So if they're held liable for what their algorithms recommend, you go to Google and you type in, "Give me a pizza place in town." And it spits back a bunch of results that are ordered by an algorithm. And what Google is saying is, look, if we could be held liable, if we could be sued for how our algorithm orders and recommends that content, then that's going to change what we're going to recommend, right? It's going to change a lot of things. We're going to be way more careful in order to avoid lawsuits. And it could basically make things unworkable, not just for Google, but also for Amazon.

When you go on Amazon, you click, "I want to see products." What happens if Amazon could be sued for recommending X, Y, Z product that turns out to be defective? That's not directly on point, but it gives you sort of the flavor of the idea here. All of these websites, they aggregate information, they order it and they present it. And so what these companies were arguing is that if you start potentially making us liable for these recommendations, that's going to change how and what we recommend.

Taylor Wilson:

And John, you mentioned both ideological sides have issues here. Can you just go into a little bit about how Republicans and Democrats feel on this issue?

John Fritze:

Yes. So most people in America right now are probably aware of Section 230 because of President Donald Trump, who frequently and roundly threatened to revoke Section 230, although he couldn't do that on his own. But he wanted Congress to get rid of Section 230 because he felt that social media companies were throttling or limiting conservative use. So he talked a lot about it. So there is a sort of movement on the right, among Republicans, to sort of stick it to the big tech firms. Democrats don't like it for different reasons. Democrats are not convinced that these companies are doing enough to regulate content on their sites to ensure that hate speech and so forth is not showing up. And so a lot of them have problems with Section 230 as well. So what you see here, I think, is the court, I think, being very careful about the potential implications for a decision. Some of these things we talked about earlier about sort of sweeping impact on the internet. I think you saw court sort of hesitant to go too far down tinkering with how this law works.

Taylor Wilson:

What's next for Section 230 and rules around user-generated content after the high court left it in place?

John Fritze:

What the court said was like, look, because you can't sue under this law, because this connection was so thin, we don't have to get to Section 230. We're not going to deal with that. We don't know yet on Section 230, it's not like this has been resolved or solved. There's a good chance that some other case comes up through the courts where that connection is more clear and strong, and Facebook or Google raises Section 230 and now we're deciding the issue again. I think that is likely to happen. How soon is hard to say, and what that case is, I don't know.

Taylor Wilson:

USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze, thanks as always.

John Fritze:

Okay, thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

An eight-year-old girl died yesterday after what officials say was a medical emergency while she and her family were in US border patrol custody in Texas. Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, who's from Panama, was traveling with her parents who are from Honduras and two older siblings, according to the Honduran consul, who spoke to the AP. Her father said she was born with heart problems and had an operation in Panama three years ago. Her death comes a week after a 17 year old unaccompanied Honduran migrant died in US Department of Health and Human Services custody after being found unconscious at a shelter in Florida.

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El Niño is a natural climate pattern where seawater in the central and eastern tropical Pacific is warmer than average. El Niño and its counterpart La Nina can influence storms and weather patterns around the world, including hurricanes. And scientists reported yesterday that El Niño can have a devastating impact on the world economy. According to a study published in the Journal Science, in the years El Niño forms, it triggers wide ranging changes in weather and climate patterns that result in all kinds of disasters, from floods to crop killing droughts, And the economic impact can reach the trillions. The 1982 to '83 El Niño led to $4.1 trillion in global income losses, and the 1997/'98 El Niño cost about $5.7 trillion, according to the study. Those numbers come close to the total economic cost of the Great Recession in 2007 and 2008. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Special thanks to Cherie Saunders and Alexis Gustin. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with another episode of 5 Things.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: SCOTUS tosses Title 42 suit, El Nino can cost trillions: 5 Things podcast