Fire at Ukrainian nuclear plant after Russian attacks, Oath Keepers hearing: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Fire extinguished at Ukrainian nuclear plant after Russian attacks
The plant is Europe's largest. Plus, personal finance and market reporter Elizabeth Buchwald talks through President Joe Biden's plan for inflation, reporter Joel Shannon relays what experts are saying about looming disasters for the West Coast, another Oath Keepers hearing is set and a Chinese rocket will crash into the moon.
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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 Friday, the 4th of March 2022. Today fears after Russia shelled Europe's largest nuclear power plant. Plus a closer look at Biden's comments on inflation and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
- At least 19 children and an employee were sent to the hospital with injuries after an SUV crashed into a daycare center near Redding in Northern California. It's not clear why the crash happened, but the driver was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
- A California woman has been arrested and charged with making up her headline grabbing supposed kidnapping in 2016. Authorities say Sherri Papini hurt herself to make her story more believable.
- And the second day of the NFL Scouting Combine begins today. Running backs, offensive linemen, and special teams players are up today showing off their skills in Indianapolis before next month's NFL Draft.
♦ Taylor Wilson:
Ukrainian officials say the fire at Europe's largest nuclear power plant has been extinguished after being sparked by Russian shelling last night. Ukraine's State Nuclear Regulator also said that no changes in radiation levels have been recorded so far after the Zaporizhzhya plant came under attack and no casualties were reported. The shelling came as Russian military advanced on the strategic city of Enerhodar as they continue to try and cut the country off from the sea, which would devastate Ukraine's economy. They also announced they have taken over the Southern city of Kherson, a major Black Sea port of 280,000 people. Ukrainian officials confirm the takeover of government headquarters there. It's the first major city to fall in the country since the invasion began.
But as Russia's invasion of Ukraine enters its second week, another round of talks between the two countries has led to a new tentative agreement. The move would set up safe corridors to evacuate citizens and bring humanitarian aid into the country. The UN confirmed yesterday that more than a million people or about 2% of Ukraine's population have fled. And UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, expects that number to keep rising.
Filippo Grandi:
Hour by hour, minute by minute, more people are fleeing the terrifying reality of violence. Countless have been displaced inside the country. And unless there is an immediate end to the conflict, millions more are likely to be forced to free Ukraine.
Taylor Wilson:
The Department of Homeland Security yesterday announced temporary protected status for Ukrainians living in the United States, shielding them from deportation for the next 18 months. The move applies to about 30,000 Ukrainian nationals, but does not apply for anyone trying to travel to the US after March 1st.
♦ Inflation is at a 40 year high and a top concern for Americans across the political spectrum. It also played a major role in president Joe Biden's State of the Union Address earlier this week.
President Joe Biden:
Too many families are struggling to keep up with their bills. Inflation is robbing them of gains they thought otherwise they would be able to feel. I get it. That's why my top priority is getting prices under control.
Taylor Wilson:
Among the main remedies Biden proposed, making more goods in the United States to lower their production costs, which are then passed on to American shoppers. But will that plan actually work? Personal Finance and Market Reporter Elisabeth Buchwald, has some insight.
Elisabeth Buchwald:
The most effective way and the most traditional way is leaving it in the hands of the feds. So part of their main goals are to control inflation and to promote low unemployment. So they're able to use raising interest rates as a form of controlling inflation that just slows down economic growth. There are other things that are out of the feds' control, like the supply chain bottlenecks that are going on, and, in general, just what's going on with shortages throughout the pandemic. That's out of their control, but some people say that it's going to go away as time goes on. And again, it's going to go back to the fed with the keys to control inflation with those interest rates.
So Biden, during his State of the Union Address on Tuesday, brought up inflation and he acknowledged that it's hurting Americans' wallets. People are struggling to pay bills and he hinted at making more goods in the US as a way to lower inflation. There are certainly a lot of good reasons why you would want to produce more goods in the US. But the economist I spoke to for the story walked me through why inflation is not necessarily going to be a benefit there. And the reason for that being is it costs more to produce goods in the US as opposed to China, where a lot of goods that we get are produced. Wages are a lot lower for workers abroad. In the US, they're paid about six times as much in manufacturing roles than in China. There's also labor regulations. But there is some benefits that could help inflation. The problem is it just takes a lot of time to reap those benefits. It's not the type of thing where you could just turn on a light switch and inflation's gone and you could produce more goods in the US. It takes a while to build up factories, to get workers. There are still huge labor shortages. The industry and manufacturing is struggling to hire enough workers as is so moving production to the US has more issues than it would probably solve, I would say at this point.
♦ Taylor Wilson:
Experts say that all kinds of disasters could loom on the horizon for the US West Coast, but can anything be done about it? Producer PJ Elliot and reporter Joel Shannon consider.
Joel Shannon:
You kind of found out that really all along the West Coast, there's dangers everywhere, especially on the coastal cities. Primarily it's earthquakes. There's been a lot of work done on these disaster scenarios around earthquakes because they're predictable. We know that an earthquake is going to happen at some point, we know how big it could be. And so those are the kind of disasters that experts can kind of get together and kind of plan out what's probably going to happen. And when they do that, they kind of find that basically all up and down the major population centers of the West Coast there's the potential for really devastating earthquakes from the Pacific Northwest down to California, which is well known that San Francisco and Los Angeles especially.
What also, I found was that inland there's also a big risk of flood in California every couple hundred years. Ish. There's just a really massive flood in California typically. And we haven't had one since around the time of the civil war. So people inland too, if you're maybe aren't near a fault line, there's also that. So there's just a lot of risks out there along the West Coast that are pretty well known. And that's kind of what these scenarios that kind of go through and kind of game plan and think about what these disasters would look like are all about. Kind of trying to help mitigate that and find things that can be done better. A lot of those are kind of at the societal level, things like building codes and infrastructure improvements, and that's kind of what some of these experts often focus on. But individuals have stuff they can do too, for sure. And that's kind of one of the reasons we wanted to highlight this.
Interestingly, while there are things you can do to prepare yourself and your family, that I kind of get into in the story, one thing the experts really stress a lot is that it's primarily about community response. So if you're in a disaster and it's every person for themselves, that's not going to be good. It's not going to help us get out of that. So they really stress a lot of knowing your neighbors, joining things like Mutual Aid Networks, kind of groups where community members are already networked. So they kind of help each other in need. And then there's some things you can do as an individual to prepare for many kinds of disasters. Kind of an easy one is having something to charge your cell phone, like a hand crank or a solar powered thing. Those are pretty cheap and can work when the power goes out for other reasons as well. So there's stuff like that you can do too that'll help kind of mitigate the disaster when one does happen.
Taylor Wilson:
Subscribers can find Joel's full story in today's episode description. And if you haven't yet subscribed, you can do so today to get your first two months free.
♦ Another hearing is set for today in the criminal case involving Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes. The hearing comes days after Joshua James, a co-defendant, pled guilty to charges of seditious conspiracy, and obstruction related to the US Capitol riot. He was the first person involved in the deadly attack to be convicted of that rarely used charge. And a guilty plea could be problematic for the 10 other co-defendants in the case accused of using force to prevent, hinder, or delay laws related to the transfer of presidential power. As part of his plea, James agreed to cooperate with law enforcement.
♦ A Chinese rocket been in space for seven years is expected to smash into the far side of the moon today. It was previously reported as American SpaceX debris, but some experts have since said they actually believe it to be Chinese. Though Chinese officials are pretty sure it's not theirs. No matter what, it'll crash into the moon at 5,800 miles an hour, making a crater in the process. It's not expected to hit any lunar heritage sites where American spacecraft have landed or any orbiting satellites taking pictures of the lunar surface. It'll also avoid the Chinese Rover that's currently exploring craters.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us wherever you're listening right now, seven mornings a week. Thanks to PJ Elliott for his great work on the show, and I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from Paste BN.