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On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: Lindsey Graham’s ‘Russians are dying’ comments draw strong Moscow rebuke
Ukraine and Russia both allege drone attacks, as Moscow calls for Sen. Lindsey Graham’s arrest. Plus, USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub looks at a shortage of cancer drugs, USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers talks about the new French Ambassador to the U.S., Reality Winner’s story hits the screen, and Catholic worshippers flock to Missouri to see the remains of an exhumed nun.
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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 30th of May 2023. Today, the latest from Russia and Ukraine’s drone exchanges. Plus, there’s a shortage of cancer drugs, and the story of Reality Winner hits the screen.
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Russia says that drones damaged buildings in Moscow early this morning, blaming Ukraine for the attack. The Russian Defense Ministry said other drones were shot down and called the incident a terrorist attack carried out by Kyiv. Moscow’s mayor said the attack caused insignificant damage and two people were injured. For its part, Russia has continued to bombard Ukraine’s capital in a wave of drone attacks since Monday. Meanwhile, Russia has issued an arrest warrant for Sen. Lindsey Graham after he said during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “The Russians are dying.”
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A short supply of cancer drugs has both doctors and patients worried. USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub, explains. Hello, Karen.
Karen Weintraub:
Hi.
Taylor Wilson:
So, tell me about this shortage of critical drugs for cancer patients.
Karen Weintraub:
Yeah, it’s really stunning, about 14 drugs are in shortage. Several of them are really crucial for a number of cancers. Two in particular that I take a look at, cisplatin and carboplatin, they’re platinum-based drugs and they’re used for a wide variety of cancers. A researcher told me, at least 100,000 patients in America are affected by the shortage of all these drugs, but particularly these two. And they’re also especially used for cancers that affect women disproportionately, reproductive cancers, gynecologic cancers.
Taylor Wilson:
And why is this shortage happening?
Karen Weintraub:
So, it’s a variety of reasons, but basically our drug supply system is very challenged at the moment. So, the very expensive drugs, there’s a lot of reason to have redundancy in the supply chain because you’re making a lot of money on these drugs. Cisplatin and carboplatin are $15 and $23 each a vial, very cheap drugs. They’ve been around forever. They are the backbone of cancer therapy for a lot of treatments, as I said. And because they’re so inexpensive, there’s very little incentive for the companies to have backup plans if they run short and to have alternative suppliers, that sort of thing.
So, there are five companies that make cisplatin, for instance, all over in Europe and in India, but they had a common supplier of raw materials and that supplier was shut down for a time in India over the winter, and that set everybody back and they’re trying to catch up now.
But one of the other issues apparently is communication. So, the hospitals don’t know when the manufacturers are running short and they don’t really know when the raw material suppliers are running short. So, nobody can prepare. And that that’s one of the things that cancer advocates would like Congress to help them fix, to create a more open, more communicative supply chain system, so that each arm of the supply chain knows what’s going on in the other and can prepare if there’s a shortage.
Taylor Wilson:
Karen, does this shortage have a tangible effect on the outlook and the prognosis for some of these types of cancers?
Karen Weintraub:
So, it’s not entirely clear. Right now, hopefully, it’s mostly just making people nervous. Right now, people are rounding down or giving patients the minimum amount of drug that’s been shown effective rather than the amount that they typically give or that they want to give. So, a patient I spoke with got five bags of carboplatin yesterday instead of six, because they wanted to conserve the drug. Will that affect her lifespan? Nobody knows. Again, the studies have shown in general that five is okay, but she would sure rather have six.
Taylor Wilson:
And Karen, what are the solutions here?
Karen Weintraub:
So, short term, there are people working on trying to solve this immediate problem. One company made supply of carboplatin … A little bit more became available as of last week, which will hopefully help resolve at least this immediate crisis. Longer term, we really need to address the supply chain issue, the information gap that people have in the supply chain issue. The cancer folks I spoke with said they would really like an emergency supply kept in this country and some more manufacturing in this country, rather than relying on an international supply chain.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, Karen Weintraub, thanks as always.
Karen Weintraub:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
Liberté, egalité, fraternité. Liberty, equality, fraternity. Born out of the French Revolution, those values are shared in the US, too, and help define the close relationship between the two countries. But relations have gotten a bit more complicated over the past year. And amid that, a new French ambassador, Laurent Bili, has emerged. I spoke with USA TODAY White House Correspondent Francesca Chambers to learn more. Hi, Francesca.
Francesca Chambers:
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for hopping back on the podcast. So, you wrote about France’s new ambassador to the US. Interesting guy. What can you tell us about his background, Francesca?
Francesca Chambers:
Well, prior to being the French Ambassador to the United States, he was actually France’s Ambassador to China. And it is very interesting, he got there just a few months before the COVID-19 pandemic began. So, he spent a lot of his time in China in the lockdown, and then he wasn’t even looking to be ambassador to the United States. In fact, he thought that he’d be in China for at least another six months when he got the call to come to the United States.
Taylor Wilson:
And I’m curious, what does he say about how being ambassador to the US compares to some of the other countries where he’s worked? You mentioned China.
Francesca Chambers:
He’s also been ambassador to Turkey, as well as the ambassador to Brazil. I think coming out of lockdown in China to a vibrant city like Washington, D.C., where the French ambassador has typically in the past put on a number of parties and events, was a little bit overwhelming for him in the beginning. He was only here for just a few days and he was already hosting a stream of events. So, what he wants to do now is have parties with a purpose, where they focus on something really specific. For instance, one event that he did was focused on the First Amendment and another on International Women’s Day.
Taylor Wilson:
US-France relations are in a complicated place right now, Francesca. Where do things stand for US-France relations as he takes over this job?
Francesca Chambers:
So, they’ve certainly improved from where they were after President Joe Biden convinced Australia to get out of a nuclear-powered submarine deal with France and instead partner with the United States. Partly, that is because of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine and France has been a major ally of the United States, and of course, the G7 has stuck together on that. And so, the relationship between the US and France has absolutely improved over the last year, but President Joe Biden held a state visit and a fancy dinner for President Macron of France as well, at the end of last year. So, he certainly comes into a much better situation.
Taylor Wilson:
Francesca Chambers, thanks so much.
Francesca Chambers:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
The story of Reality Winner is hitting the screen.
Trailer:
You’ve had a good career. I don’t think you’re a big, bad master spy. I think you just messed up.
Taylor Wilson:
In HBO’s new thriller, Reality, Sydney Sweeney of Euphoria and White Lotus fame plays former Air Force linguist and National Security Agency contractor, Reality Winner. She was arrested in 2017 on suspicion of leaking a confidential document to nonprofit news site, The Intercept. She was found guilty and spent more than five years in prison for the data breach, which helped expose Russian interference in the election of former President Donald Trump.
The movie is adapted from Tina Satter’s Broadway play, Is This A Room, which itself is scripted word for word from the FBI transcript of Reality Winner’s interrogation and arrest. Reality is streaming now on Max.
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Hundreds of people have descended on a rural Missouri town to a convent that recently exhumed the remains of its founder. Four years after the death and burial of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster at age 95, the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, made a surprising discovery when sisters exhumed her coffin and found her remains mostly intact. In Catholicism, a body that resists normal decay is considered incorrupt. The Catholic Church may raise the late nun’s title to that of a saint, but an area bishop said that process has not been initiated yet.
And before we go, on this day in history, the British Royal Air Force dispatched more than 1,000 bombers in Cologne, Germany during World War II, 81 years ago today.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every day of the week, right here, wherever you get your audio. 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.
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