Video shows Ukrainian soldier's apparent execution, Biden's budget proposal: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Outrage over video showing Ukrainian soldier's apparent execution

There's outrage this week over a video showing a Ukrainian soldier's apparent execution. Plus, President Joe Biden prepares to send a new budget proposal to Congress, USA TODAY National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise talks about a new treaty for the world's oceans, Chalkbeat National Reporter Matt Barnum looks at why so many teachers are quitting, and Yosemite National Park remains closed amid heavy snow.

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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 Tuesday, the 7th of March 2023. Today, outrage over a potential war crime in Ukraine. Plus, how a historic treaty could protect the world's oceans, and a record number of teachers are quitting.

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There's outrage this week in the war in Ukraine after a video appeared showing a Ukrainian soldier's apparent execution. The apparent killing of the Ukrainian prisoner of war by Russian forces is not confirmed, but it prompted Ukraine's chief prosecutor to launch a criminal investigation. And in his nightly address, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the video saying that they will find the killers. Meanwhile, the Russian military is suffering heavy vehicle losses, and the British Defense Ministry said yesterday that it's responding to those losses by deploying 60 year old battle techs. You can follow along with all the latest using the live Ukraine Updates page on USATODAY.com.

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President Joe Biden will send a new proposed budget to Congress on Thursday this week. And one of the biggest headline grabbing aspects will be a new billionaires tax. Biden hasn't offered specifics, but it'll likely mirror a proposal he offered last year. That plan called for a 20% minimum income tax on multimillionaires and billionaires. The tax would apply to the 700 richest Americans. Biden may also try to raise the corporate tax rate. And during his State of the Union address last month, he called to quadruple the new tax on corporate stock buybacks.

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A historic treaty aims to protect the world's oceans and marine life, and the so-called High Seas treaty is years in the making. I learned more from USA TODAY National Correspondent Elizabeth Weise. Beth, welcome back to the show.

Elizabeth Weise:

"Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So starting with the basics, what exactly is this treaty?

Elizabeth Weise:

It just makes you want to do a pirate voice. It really does. It is called the High Seas Treaty, and it hasn't been ratified yet, but at least the 193 nations of the world or thereabouts have agreed on language. So they've agreed to what it would say. It's going to take a couple more years to actually get it ratified, but it is the first update we've had to treaties that govern two thirds of the world's oceans since 1980.

Taylor Wilson:

And so, what are the barriers, if there are any, to actually getting this ratified then?

Elizabeth Weise:

Oh gosh, this is such a long... Anything having to do with multiple countries, I really pity diplomats. I mean, this one took 19 years of negotiations and now they've agreed on language and now it's going to take a couple of more years to ratify. But basically what this is, so back in 1980, the UN created what was called the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. And that was basically a global treaty defining what the high seas were, which is any international waters that aren't owned by any one country. And we know what isn't owned by any one country because of the 200-mile limits. So if you're a coastal nation, you get 200 miles off your coast, but there's a lot of ocean out there. And so the rest of it is covered by the law of the sea.

Now in 1980, things were a whole lot different than they were today. There were a lot fewer people, there was less fishing. Climate change was not as big an issue, and we hadn't started dredging in deep ocean mining at that point. And so they're realizing, and they have realized for a lot of years now, that we needed something that was a little more thorough going, and it took 19 years to put it together.

Taylor Wilson:

So Beth, what's in this treaty?

Elizabeth Weise:

What this treaty would do, it would take about 30% of the world's high seas, this open ocean that belongs to everybody on the planet, and put it into reserves where marine life would have a chance, it'd be kind of a refuge. So at least the marine life there wouldn't get overfished and there wouldn't be deep sea mining there. I mean, we still aren't even sure what all the deep sea mining is going to look like. The previous treaty, it preserved just a little under 2% of the open ocean. This is going to preserve a lot more, but we're also at the point where an inordinate amount of marine, fish, mammals, everything is now endangered. Because the whales, the dolphins, the sharks, the rays, the tuna, they have been so overfished. And so the idea is we have to create some places where they have a chance to regenerate or they're going to go away for everybody.

Taylor Wilson:

So is there any pushback on this from either fishing communities around the world or companies that do underwater mining, for example?

Elizabeth Weise:

There will be. There has been. Yeah, that's why it took 19 years because a lot of countries, I mean China in particular, does a ton of open water fishing in the high seas.

Taylor Wilson:

Why is it so important to protect the world's oceans?

Elizabeth Weise:

If you remember back to geography class in grade school, water covers about 70% of the world's surface. It is not barren. Half of our oxygen comes from that because of the small little animals and plants that live in the oceans. So half of our oxygen, 95% of global wildlife, which includes things underwater. It's also a huge carbon dioxide sink, which is important especially as we pump more carbon dioxide into it. 90% of global trade is conducted by sea routes. And one of the things that this treaty would do is put a little more order into where those ships go, which would hopefully reduce the number of whale strikes.

The sea also provides a ton of food for people. It's 17% of the global production of animal protein. So it's really important. And the thing is, there is this old concept of the tragedy of the commons that if you have a common space that belongs to everyone, then no one takes care of it. It's just every man for himself. And everybody tries to take as much as they possibly can because at a certain level that makes the most sense. And what this treaty would aim to do is say, this is this global commons that we all have access to and that every nation on the planet should be able to profit from, but we have to set some limits or it'll just be destroyed.

Taylor Wilson:

Elizabeth Weise covers climate change and the energy transition for USA TODAY. Thanks, Beth.

Elizabeth Weise:

You're so welcome. Take care.

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Taylor Wilson:

A record number of teachers are quitting. So what's behind this? I spoke with Matt Barnum, a national reporter with Chalkbeat, a publishing partner of USA TODAY, to find out. Thanks for coming on the show, Matt.

Matt Barnum:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So what do the numbers say about this wave of teachers quitting?

Matt Barnum:

So it is happening, and I know that may not surprise a lot of your listeners, but I am a data guy and I wanted to wait until the data was actually in to confirm what a lot of people assumed. Because in the last couple of years, we actually didn't see this huge uptick in teachers leaving. But most recently, based on data through the summer of 2022, we do in fact see this pretty sizable increase in the share of teachers leaving the classroom. And so that's based on data from eight different states that I was able to essentially beg, borrow and steal through a lot of different channels. It's not easy to get this data, but we saw this pretty sizable increase. And so that meant it was an increase of two percentage points. So seeing any sort of increase was really notable. And so that means in a fairly large school of 50 teachers, one more teacher than usual left after last school year.

Taylor Wilson:

Is the pandemic the main cause here or is there all kinds of stuff going on?

Matt Barnum:

My first response is, I don't know 100% but I have some theories. I think in a broad sense, the pandemic and its consequences have a lot to do with it. Teachers appeared to be a lot more stressed out during the pandemic. They had to change their lesson plans overnight. They had to switch from in-person to virtual and back again and hybrid. And many of them were afraid of getting sick and did get sick, or saw family members fall ill. So it's been a stressful time for all of us, but teachers included. There's also been a lot of anecdotal evidence. Again, not super hard data, but a lot of anecdotal evidence that students are coming back to school with heightened needs, with more behavioral issues. They're struggling to pay attention as much in class. And so that is trickling down to teachers and they're really struggling with that to maintain order.

And I've heard from teachers who left who were like this lesson that used to really engage my kids, they just were not into it. I want to be careful. We don't have super firm data and sometimes a narrative can take hold. And teachers I talked to were saying look, we're not trying to blame the kids, but I do think that could be part of what's going on. Education has also been a political football recently, and what that looks like is going to vary from state to state. But certainly some teachers I talked to said, "I felt like as a teacher, I was really in the political spotlight, and not in a good way."

Taylor Wilson:

Wow. So can you go into more detail on why this turnover is so concerning?

Matt Barnum:

Schools are communities and when teachers leave, that disrupts a community, that disrupts a relationship that teachers might have with past or future students. And it also can be hard to find a replacement or it can be hard to find a really good replacement. There's a lot of evidence that teachers get better with experience, especially after their first few years in the classroom. So if you have a veteran teacher who's leaving, or even a teacher who's been around just for a few years, and you're replacing them with a novice first year teacher, your teacher quality is going to decline on average in many cases.

I think this is the exception, but in some cases, schools are just not able to find a replacement. They have to stick a long-term sub in the classroom. So there are all these downstream effects. And I should add, when there is a long-term sub in one teacher's classroom, that affects the whole school. I mean, that's bad for the kids in that classroom, but that affects the whole school because those kids are not as ready to learn when they're leaving that class or more. They're not as ready to learn when they move on in a grade. So schools are this sort of intricate web of parts and you pull one part apart and that's trouble.

Taylor Wilson:

So you've outlined the numbers, you've outlined some of the causes. Are you hearing about any possible solutions here? Is it as simple as paying teachers more?

Matt Barnum:

So yeah, that would be the first place that I would start thinking about. Do we need to pay teachers more? There's debates about exactly how to do that and how strong the case for that is, but it's certainly the case that teachers make less in take-home pay than the typical college-educated worker. And there's a good chance that that is contributing to certain teachers who choose to leave the classroom. Obviously, working conditions are also very important. Some teachers I talked to mentioned class size. They mentioned the issues with student behavior as discussed. Now, some of those working conditions are not super easy to fix, to say the student behavioral issue. There's no quick fix that you can do. You could talk about adding counselors or social workers. That's something some teachers will say. Obviously an effective principal, a principal who works with teachers is going to help. Again, that's not a quick fix for policymakers, but all those things I think should be in the discussion.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. Matt Barnum, fantastic insight here. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Matt Barnum:

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

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Taylor Wilson:

Yosemite National Park will remain closed through at least Sunday due to heavy snowfall and dangerous conditions. In some areas, snow is as deep as 15 feet. Officials at the California National Park had initially hoped to reopen on March 2nd, but then it snowed again on March 1st. Snow is forecast for parts of the country today, including areas in California that could get another three feet by tomorrow morning, and much of Montana and the Dakotas will get up to nine inches. Find out more about your neck of the woods on USATODAY.com.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every day of the week 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: Biden proposes new budget, why so many teachers are quitting: 5 Things podcast