UNBIASED Politics (3/10/25): Trump's Comments on a Possible Recession, Newsom's Comments on Trans Athletes, House GOP's Attempt to Avoid Shutdown, First Firing Squad Execution in 15 Years, and More.
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Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis.

Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Monday, March 10th. Let's talk about some news. Starting with a, or I should say starting with some clarification to last week's congressional address fact check. So last week on Thursday, I fact checked a bunch of claims made by the president in his congressional address. And

Specifically, in fact-checking the claim that illegal border crossings last month were the lowest ever recorded, I said that February border crossings were the lowest since fiscal year 2000, not ever like the president had claimed. So here's some additional context. This is what I should have said originally.

The United States didn't start recording border apprehensions until fiscal year 2000. So we don't have any numbers dating back further than that.

However, since the United States started recording apprehensions in 2000, yes, February apprehensions, last month's apprehensions are the lowest numbers that we have seen. There were roughly 8,400 border apprehensions last month at the southern border. And the last time that we saw numbers even close to that was in April 2017. There were roughly 11,000 southern border apprehensions.

apprehensions at that point, April 2017. So the fact is when the president said the lowest number of illegal border crossings ever recorded, he was correct. That is true. 8,400 apprehensions is the lowest number on record at the southern border since we started recording these numbers in fiscal year 2000. I always want you guys to have the most factual information. I never want to mislead you. So it was important that I included that in the beginning of this episode.

For the first story of today's episode, though, we are going to go back to the show's roots. There was a time back in 2022 when I talked about a lot more than just politics. And I'll give you a little bit of a backstory here. When I was in law school, my favorite class was a class called Death Penalty in the Law. It was so interesting. And that was in large part because of my professor, Professor Sunbee. He was great.

But ever since then, I've just been fascinated by the death penalty and the legal issues that surround it, the history, just honestly everything. So when I first started this podcast, I used to talk a lot about the death penalty and true crime. In fact...

My original format, I was doing two days a week, and one day the week was like the law and politics. And then the other day of the week that I would release, I would just talk about true crime and the death penalty. And I got away from it just because obviously I started to focus more on politics. But there's a story from Friday that I think we should talk about. On Friday, South Carolina became the first state to execute a death row inmate via firing squad in the last 15 years. To

Typically, executions these days are carried out via the lethal injection, which is the most common form of execution, at least here in the States. But sometimes the electric chair too, even though that's pretty rare these days. And most recently, the newest available method of execution is nitrogen hypoxia. But that's actually only available in, I think, two states, maybe three, but definitely two.

The firing squad, though, hasn't been used since 2010, and a lot of people don't even know that the United States allows it. So let's talk about it.

This guy in particular, Brad Sigmund, he was sentenced to death in 2002 after he was convicted of murder and first-degree burglary. His girlfriend, Rebecca, had broken up with him in April of 2001, and on April 26th of that year, he was drinking and smoking crack with a friend when he told that friend that he was planning on when Rebecca went to drop off her kids the next day at school,

he was going to break into her parents' house, tie her parents up, and then kidnap Rebecca once she came back home. So the next morning, he broke into Rebecca's parents' house. He attacked the parents who were in two separate rooms at the time, but instead of just tying them up, he ended up killing them both. He

He stole a gun from the house. He waited for Rebecca to get back home. Once she did, he forced her into the car and drove off. During the ride, Rebecca fortunately managed to jump out and get away, despite being shot at by Sigmund in the process. Eleven days later, this manhunt ensues, and Sigmund is eventually caught by the police.

Since his conviction and death sentence, the South Carolina Supreme Court has denied two appeals, one in 2005, another in 2013. In 2018, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina dismissed Sigmund's first federal appeal. In 2020, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Sigmund's appeal of that district court dismissal. In 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States rejected Sigmund's final appeal.

Interestingly, though, one month after the Supreme Court of the United States rejected Sigmund's final appeal, the South Carolina Supreme Court actually issued an indefinite pause on his execution because the state didn't have the necessary drugs for the lethal injection at the time. At the time, that was the state's only legal method of execution.

In response to the lack of drugs, the South Carolina legislature passed a new law allowing the state to legalize the electric chair and firing squad as alternative methods of execution. Following that, Sigmund had a new execution date. He was scheduled to be executed via the electric chair, but the South Carolina Supreme Court again came in and said, no, no, no, you have to give the inmates a choice.

Long story short, Sigmund eventually chose the firing squad. According to his lawyer, he felt the electric chair might burn him alive, so he opted for the firing squad as the best option in light of the risks that are associated with the lethal injection, which we've talked about in the past. I won't get into that now.

So here's how the firing squad works in South Carolina. And by the way, this is the first time South Carolina has ever conducted an execution by firing squad. Prior to this, there had only been three other firing squad executions in the United States, and they all took place in Utah.

But anyway, the inmate in South Carolina is strapped to a metal chair. He wears a black jumpsuit with a hood over his head. The actual chair is surrounded by protective equipment and it faces a wall with a rectangular opening about 15 feet away from the chair.

Behind that wall is where the three firing squad members stand with their rifles facing the inmate through that opening. That opening, by the way, is not visible to the witnesses who are allowed to watch the execution from the witness room. So they can watch the execution, but they won't actually see the rifles shooting.

A physician places an aiming point over the inmate's heart and all three rifles are loaded with live rounds. Once the warden reads the execution order, that's when the team fires. After that initial round of shots, a doctor will check the inmate's vitals, make sure there's no detectable activity. If there is, another round will be fired. The inmate's vitals will be checked, so on and so forth.

And I know I've received questions in the past about who the people are who do the firing. So specifically in South Carolina, they are volunteer employees for the South Carolina Department of Corrections, and they have to meet certain qualifications to join the firing squad. Sigmund's final meal was from Kentucky Fried Chicken, and

He had four pieces of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy, biscuits, cheesecake, and sweet tea. He had originally asked for three buckets of chicken so that he could share with the other inmates, but his request was denied. Okay, now we can talk about some more political matters. Although, executions, the death penalty, that can be seen as political too, but you know what I mean. Over the weekend, the House GOP introduced a continuing resolution meant to keep the government funded into the fall.

Now, we've talked about continuing resolutions in the past, but just as a quick refresher, every fiscal year, Congress has to appropriate funds for the following fiscal year. Technically, there's no real deadline, but the goal is to have all of the funds appropriated to each department by the time the next fiscal year starts on October 1st.

If Congress is not able to get that done, the government will shut down because they don't have funds to operate. However, one thing Congress can do to avoid a shutdown is pass a continuing resolution, which essentially pushes the government shutdown deadline under the law. And within that continuing resolution, Congress will include various provisions and extensions. We've seen many, many continuing resolutions within the last few years.

This continuing resolution, it's 99 pages long, and it would keep the government funded through September 30th. Currently, the shutdown deadline is March 14th, so the House actually plans to put this up to or up for a vote tomorrow, which is the 11th, and then it would have to also pass the Senate and get the president's signature by midnight on the 14th to avoid a shutdown. Let's talk about some of the things included in this bill, and then we'll talk about the

So the bill increases defense spending from last year while decreasing non-defense spending. Democrat lawmakers oppose this because they want a budget that either sees both defense and non-defense spending go up or both defense and non-defense spending go down. Not defense spending up and non-defense spending down.

To put some numbers on this, the resolution calls for roughly $892 billion in defense spending, which would be an increase from last year's levels by about $6 billion, and $708 billion in non-defense spending, which is $13 billion less than last year.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development would get around $4.5 billion extra to maintain current services for low-income families that might otherwise lose rental assistance. The FAA would see higher funding to maintain air traffic control services. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, would get about $2.2 billion to replenish its disaster relief fund.

The Agriculture Department would get additional funds to prevent families that are in line for SNAP and Infants and Children Program aid from being waitlisted and more money for delivery of food packages to low-income seniors. A permanent pay increase for wildland firefighters is also included, as well as an extension of Community Health Center funding and the special diabetes programs for Native Americans.

The bill would also extend Medicare add-on payments for rural ambulance services through October 1st, extend telehealth flexibilities enacted through a COVID relief law, extend a program allowing hospitals to treat some patients from their homes, as well as more healthcare-related extensions. Unlike the December continuing resolution, this resolution does not include funding for lawmakers for their own hometown community projects. These projects are known as earmarks.

And not only are those earmarks not included, but the leftover money would be cut out entirely rather than going back to the agencies to be distributed elsewhere.

Also, these annual funding bills typically come with specific directives on how agency leaders are to spend their allocated amount of money. But this proposal contains far less guidance, which gives officials more discretion in spending the money. And this has led to some Democrats to be cautious of the measure. So one of those lawmakers is Democrat Senator Slotkin, who said yesterday she would withhold her vote for this proposal until she sees, quote,

assurances that whatever we pass next week is going to ensure that money is spent the way Congress intends.

End quote. Senator Murray, another Democrat, similarly said the proposal would give Trump and Musk the power of the purse that is typically reserved for Congress and that instead Congress should pass a short-term measure to prevent a shutdown and work towards bipartisan funding bills to ensure constituents have a say in how federal funding is spent. Notably, if all Democrats vote against the bill, House Republicans can only afford to have one defector within the party and

And if the bill does pass the House and ends up going to the Senate, Senate Republicans will need support from seven Democratic senators along with unanimous support from Senate Republicans. And that's because of the filibuster. So the filibuster is this weird rule in the Senate that requires 60 votes to send a bill to a floor vote. So while it only takes a simple majority of 51 to actually pass a bill, it takes 60 votes to even get a bill to the point of a floor vote. If the

If the continuing resolution isn't able to pass Congress by midnight on the 14th, funding for certain federal agencies would run out and many employees would either be furloughed or have to continue going to work without pay. So let's take our first break here. And when I come back, we will talk about President Trump's student loan forgiveness order and much more.

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All right. On Friday, the president signed an executive order titled Restoring Public Service Loan Forgiveness. And this initially caught my eye because public service loan forgiveness is something that President Biden really utilized. So I wasn't sure what President Trump meant by restoring it. So let's talk about it.

PSLF or public service loan forgiveness is a federal program that guarantees student loan forgiveness specifically for public service workers after 10 years of work and 10 years of minimum payments. It was created in 2007 to encourage Americans to enter public service and, you know, potentially those lower paying jobs like firefighting, teaching, nursing, the military, etc.,

To qualify for this, you have to work full-time for a qualifying employer.

Over time, the program has undergone various policy changes, including temporary waivers and adjustments that expanded eligibility for some borrowers. So as an example, in 2021, during the Biden administration, the Department of Education announced a limited time PSLF waiver, which allowed borrowers to receive credit for past periods of repayment that would otherwise not have qualified for PSLF and allow

allowed all payments by student borrowers to count towards PSLF regardless of loan program or payment plan. So like I said, it extended eligibility, this waiver. But that waiver ended in October 2022. And

Two months before that, so in August of 2022, the Biden administration announced a follow-up to this PSLF waiver called the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan, otherwise known as the SAVE Plan. And the SAVE Plan was meant to make federal student loan repayment more affordable.

This save plan was just temporarily blocked by a judge last month after the judge found that the plan likely goes beyond the scope of the administration's authority. And you might remember me talking about that in an episode because it was just within the last few weeks that I did a story on that. But when that court decision was issued, the education department went ahead and took down both online and paper applications for all income-driven repayment plans. Income's

Friday's executive order. So the order says in part that the previous administration abused the PSLF program through the waiver process, using taxpayer funds to pay off loans for employees, despite those employees being years away from the statutorily required number of payments.

The order says instead of alleviating worker shortages in necessary occupations, the PSLF program has misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations that not only fail to serve the public interest, but actually harm our national security and American values, sometimes through criminal means. And the order cites to subsidization of illegal immigration, human smuggling, child trafficking, and disruption of public order.

So the order says that it is the policy of the Trump administration that individuals employed by organizations whose activities have a substantial illegal purpose shall not be eligible for public service loan forgiveness. And remember, along with every policy or purpose set forth in an executive order, there's typically at least one directive for a federal official to carry out that purpose or policy.

In this case, the order directs the Secretary of Education to propose revisions to federal law that would ensure that the definition of public service for purposes of the PSLF program

excludes organizations that are engaged in illegal immigration, support for terrorism, child abuse, illegal discrimination, and violations of state tort laws, including trespassing, disorderly conduct, public nuisance, vandalism, and obstruction of highways.

So what's really changing here? Well, under this new order, PSLF eligibility is limited to those individuals that are employed by organizations not involved in what the administration considers to be illegal activities.

The order focuses on protecting national security and redirecting taxpayer funds away from organizations that quote-unquote harm public order. Notably, like most actions from a president, this order will likely face challenges because those that oppose the order say that it unfairly targets nonprofits that are involved in immigration services and argue that the order could harm essential services and limit opportunities for borrowers seeking loan forgiveness.

And among those that oppose the order are borrower advocates who say the order violates the First Amendment by penalizing nonprofit employees based on their organization's activities and political views. However, on the other side of the issue, those that support the order, you know, they generally oppose student loan cancellation and they argue that loan forgiveness unfairly passes the cost to taxpayers who either already pay their loans or didn't go to college.

Speaking of the president though, I want to talk about his recession comments over the weekend. This is something that's getting a decent amount of attention, so I do just want to give you some context and then play the full clip for, or not the full clip, but the relevant clip for you. This is one of those things where we see the headlines and we wonder what's beneath the surface, but some of us don't have the time to actually go beneath the surface to figure out what happened, so I would like to

provide the under-the-surface information for you. So he sat down with Maria Bartiromo from Fox News for an interview that aired yesterday, and they talked about a bunch of stuff, but the part standing out to most people is when Bartiromo asked Trump if he is expecting a recession this year in light of the tariffs that he is imposing or plans to impose.

Here is the relevant portion of that conversation. Let me stay on the economy for a moment because there are rising worries about a slowdown. You've got the Atlanta Federal Reserve saying we're going to have a contraction in the first quarter. Look, I know that you inherited a mess and you said that the other night. I've already been here. But are you expecting a recession this year? I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing.

And there are always periods of it takes a little time. It takes a little time. But I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great. It's going to be great ultimately for the farmer. You know, don't forget, I made the deal with China on a farmer's where they had to buy $50 billion worth of product. $50 billion from 15 to 50. Did they follow up and do it?

They did it when I was president. What happened is when Biden was president, they didn't buy any longer. Yeah, because there was nobody to call him. I used to call President Xi. I said, you got to do me a favor. You got to, you know, live up to that agreement. And he was great. He did.

Before you came into the Oval Office the first time, you were a very successful businessman, very successful real estate executive. And a lot of people said, oh, this is the business president. This is it. He's watching the stock market. He knows all about, you know, he doesn't want the market to go down. And now we've got tariffs and the market has been going down. Well, not much. I mean, in all fairness. You said, look, we're going to have a disruption, but we're OK with that.

Is that what you meant? The stock market going down was the disruption? What other disruption were you alluding to? Look, what I have to do is build a strong country. You can't really watch the stock market. If you look at China, they have a hundred year perspective. We have a quarter. We go by quarters. That's true. And you can't go by that. You have to do what's right.

What we're doing is we're building a tremendous foundation for the future. Tremendous foundation. Everything's been taken away. We don't make ships anymore. We don't, you know, you just saw one of the biggest shipbuilders in the world, one of the biggest shipping people in the whole world. In the Oval Office with you. In the Oval Office. He's announcing a $20 billion investment in the United States, which he would have never done except for this. But look at this.

Honda, Toyota, they're all coming in. You take a look at what's happened. The chip maker, the greatest chip maker, Mr. Wei, the biggest in the world by far.

It's going to spend $200 billion on making a massive plant to make chips. So that's your message? Build it here? Build it here. There's no tariff. So that was his response. That's why a lot of the headlines you're seeing say something to the effect of Trump's not ruling out a recession. But I wanted to give you the full snippet so that you had the full story. And also, I wanted to give you the definition of a recession just because I think

It's something a lot of us talk about. Maybe we don't know what a recession, you know, actually is by definition. So a recession is defined by two consecutive negative quarters of GDP growth. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, a recession involves a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months.

Today, one day after that interview aired, all three major stocking indexes were down and the tech stocks were leading this. The Dow was down by 1.9% in midday trading, the S&P 500 dropped by 2.7% and the NASDAQ was down 4.2%.

Notably, though, we saw these indexes fall last week, too. And that was, of course, before Trump's recession comments, but while the tariff talk was happening. Some investment strategists have said that the talk of the tariffs is almost worse than the actual implementation of the tariffs because the talk of the tariffs creates this sense of speculation and uncertainty, and that uncertainty is what causes the market to drop.

This next story is about a conversation Governor Newsom had on his podcast recently, because like the last story about Trump, I want to give you the full context because I, along with this one, I saw a ton of headlines about this story late last week into the weekend. So I just think full context is warranted. And, you know, I don't know how many of us are tuning into an hour and a half long podcast besides mine, of course. So I figured I would

play the relevant clip from the podcast so that, again, you have that full context. Governor Newsom of California said on his podcast at the end of last week that the issue of fairness when it comes to trans athletes in sports is, quote unquote, completely legit. And I'll play the clip for you, like I said in a minute, but again,

Just want to give you the context because a lot of people were surprised to hear him say this as a Democratic governor. So Governor Newsom has a podcast called This is Gavin Newsom. And on it, he brings on a bunch of different guests for the purpose of having these constructive conversations. And for this episode, he brought on Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, which is a conservative organization.

The conversation regarding trans athletes started when Newsom asked Kirk for advice on how to improve the Democratic message going forward. So I will start the clip there. It's about two and a half minutes long. What do you do? But what do you do? Seriously, Charlie Kirk, give us some better ideas, Governor. I mean, like if

You want to like you have an opportunity to like, you know, run to the middle and see this man. So obviously you're talking to me about people. So like you right now should come out and be like, you know what? The young man who's about to win the state championship in the long jump in female sports. That's that that shouldn't happen. You as the governor should step out and say no. No, and I appreciate it. But like, would you do something like that? Would you say no men in female sports? Well, I think it's an issue of fairness. I completely agree with you on that.

It is an issue of fairness. It's deeply unfair. Would you speak out against this young man, A.B. Hernandez, who right now is going to win the state championship in the long run? I can see you wrestling with it. No, I'm not wrestling. I'm not wrestling with the fairness issue. I totally agree with you. By the way, as someone with four kids, you've got two daughters, right? Two daughters. And I have a daughter too. And a wife that went, God forbid, to Stanford and played on the junior national soccer team and a guy who got into college only because I was left-handed and could throw a baseball a little bit or hit the...

hit the ball for a little bit. So I revere sports. And so the issue of fairness is completely legit. And I saw that the last couple of years. Boy, did I saw how you guys were able to weaponize that issue at another level. Not weaponize. Weaponize may be pejorative. You're right. But you were able to- Shine a light on? Highlight it in a way that frankly, I-

there are not that many we're talking about i think the nd nc2a what 510 000. no no but i just didn't realize it's 890 medals and trophies that we know of in the last five years that's a lot no so i'm gonna let me step back say completely fair on the issue of fairness i completely agree so that's easy to call out the unfairness of that there's also a humility and grace

that these poor people are more likely to commit suicide, have anxiety and depression. And the way that people talk down to vulnerable communities is an issue that I have a hard time with as well. So both things I can hold in my hand. How can we address this issue with the kind of decency that I think

you know, is inherent in you, but not always expressed on the issue. No, I get it. At the same time, deal with the unfairness. So you're asked, you asked a good faith question. Like, how do we Democrats get out of the wilderness? Yeah. This one is an 80-20 issue. New York Times poll, right? No, I agree with you. We're getting crushed on it. Crushed. And you have an opportunity in the state to be like, look, I have a heart for A.B. Hernandez. I have a heart for the San Jose volleyball player. Yeah. Let's give them compassion. What's not fair is just for like a woman's, entire woman's sports. I agree. You know. By the way, I agree with you.

Now, that was only part of the conversation. I was actually really engaged for this conversation, and I highly recommend tuning in if you have time. The full episode is about an hour and a half, like I said, but it was just really nice and refreshing to hear two people on completely opposite ends of the political spectrum engaging in this respectful, healthy conversation.

and really calm conversation and debate. The reality is the bar is so low for conversations like this because they never happen. So it's nice when they do happen, no matter how low the bar is. I do have the full episode linked for you in video format in the sources section of this episode if you're interested in watching it on YouTube. All right, we'll take our second and final break here. When we come back, we have a ton of quick hitters to cover some good news for once and some critical thinking.

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All right, let's finish with some quick hitters, some good news, and some critical thinking. Quick hitters first. On Friday, a federal judge affirmed Doge's access to the Treasury Department payment system responsible for processing tax refunds, Social Security payments, Medicare spending, and federal salaries. Remember, this is something that Doge had been sued over. But last week, a judge ruled that the parties that brought the lawsuit failed.

failed to meet the burden of demonstrating that, quote, such a breach or improper disclosure is likely, end quote. While acknowledging the, quote, unquote, understandable concerns of many, the judge said she wasn't presented with sufficient evidence showing that private data was being compromised.

The Trump administration has reopened family detention centers in Texas for migrant families facing deportation orders. The reopening of these facilities, which were originally opened under President Obama, reverses a Biden-era policy that discontinued long-term migrant detention for families. When Biden took office, he transitioned these centers from housing families to housing single adults and then eventually ended their operation.

ICE sent the first group of parents and children to one of the detention centers last Thursday, and a DHS spokesperson said the move to expand the centers aligns with the administration's efforts to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. We will likely see a lawsuit filed against the operation of these centers, so I will keep you posted if we do.

And last week on Thursday, President Trump held a cabinet meeting where he told agency heads or department heads, I should say, that it is them who is in charge of the agencies and departments they oversee. Trump explained to the officials that Musk's role, who was also in the room for this meeting, is to make recommendations, not unilateral decisions regarding staffing or policy matters. The president also promised to hold similar cabinet meetings every two weeks.

On Friday, the president threatened new sanctions and tariffs on Russia to pressure a ceasefire peace deal with Ukraine. Trump posted on True Social, quote, based on the fact that Russia is absolutely pounding Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large-scale banking sanctions, sanctions and tariffs on Russia until a ceasefire and final settlement agreement on peace is reached. To Russia and Ukraine, get to the table right now before it is too late. Thank you. End quote.

Earlier that day, Russia had launched an attack on Ukraine that deployed 261 missiles and drones, and Trump's post followed that attack.

Notably, sanctions on Russia already exist. The Biden administration issued them following Russia's attack on Ukraine in 2022. However, now it's reported that the new sanctions could potentially include additional entities and individuals, including Russian oligarchs. As for the tariffs portion of that threat, if tariffs were imposed, they likely wouldn't have much of an impact on U.S. goods, considering the U.S. only imported $3 billion in goods from Russia in the last year.

The Supreme Court said today it'll hear a challenge to a Colorado state law that bans mental health professionals from practicing conversion therapy for minors. Under the law, the practice of conversion therapy on minors, which attempts to convert people who identify as LGBTQ into straight or cisgender people, can result in the revocation of a professional license. In 2023, the Supreme Court declined to get involved in a very similar case out of Washington state.

But now that they have agreed to hear this case, the court will have to determine if a law like this one violates the First Amendment. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today the administration will be canceling 83 percent of programs at USAID and folding the remaining programs under the State Department. As we've talked about before, prior to the creation of USAID, the State Department handled humanitarian aid.

Marco's statement on X says, quote,

End quote.

ICE agents arrested and revoked the green card of a former Columbia University student, Mahmoud Khalil, for his efforts in leading pro-Palestinian protests and student encampments on Columbia's campus last year. Khalil's arrest comes a little more than a month after President Trump signed an executive order aimed at combating perceived anti-Semitism on college campuses, and that order specifically targeted non-U.S. citizens living in the U.S. on green cards or visas.

Khalil's attorney said she hasn't been able to get any further details about why he's been detained, but that this is a quote-unquote clear escalation and that the administration is following through on its threats. And speaking of federal agents, the Secret Service shot a man near the White House just after midnight on Sunday after what the Secret Service is calling an armed confrontation.

On Saturday, local police reported a suicidal individual possibly traveling to Washington from Indiana, and Secret Service personnel found the person's car and a person traveling on foot who matched the description. As the officers approached the person, the person showed their weapon, an armed confrontation took place, and shots were fired by Secret Service. The man was taken to the hospital, but his condition is unknown and an investigation is ongoing.

In some stateside news, Utah is about to become the first state to ban fluoride in public water systems. Utah's governor said half the state already doesn't have fluoride added to the water. And that dentist he had spoken to said there haven't been dramatic differences between the counties that have it and those that don't. He said it would have to be a really high bar for him if the state was going to require people to be medicated by the government.

The law, once signed, would take effect in May, and Utah would be the first state with such a ban. As far as the fluoride debate goes, health agencies and doctors say fluoride-treated water prevents cavities, reduces tooth decay, and boosts oral health.

Whereas critics say high fluoride exposure is linked to neurodevelopmental issues and that even though there isn't a high concentration in water, given fluoride's availability in toothpaste and other dental products, it doesn't need to be in the water supply too.

And in New York, the New York State Corrections Officers Union has reached a deal with the State Corrections Department to end its strike that caused disruption in the prison system since the end of last month. The strike started when officers began leaving their posts at two facilities on February 17th.

over concerns about staffing and safety, but that soon expanded to more than 25 facilities across the state, which led to New York's governor deploying the National Guard. So under this new agreement, officers will return to work,

or otherwise face discipline termination and potentially criminal charges. Once 85% of the thousands of striking officers are back on duty, shifts would be limited to 12 hours until staffing returned to pre-strike levels. Striking employees would have their health insurance reinstated and backdated, and a committee with an independent specialist would be created to review staffing procedures at each prison to improve work conditions."

Okay, I'm actually going to move some things around and do the critical thinking segment now and I'll save the good news for last. I usually like to do critical thinking at the very end so you're left with the questions and, you know, they're top of mind. But I think it's important to end on a positive note. So we'll do critical thinking now and then good news. You can always rewind the episode to revisit the critical thinking questions.

For today's critical thinking segment, let's go back to the firing squad story. Remember that this critical thinking segment is not meant to be too complex. It's just an opportunity to remind ourselves to one, check in with our own belief system and to challenge that belief system. So per usual, my first question for you is what are your initial thoughts on the use of the firing squad for executions here in the United States? Are you okay with it? Are you not okay with it? And why? Always important to ask ourselves why.

If you support firing squad executions, I want you to imagine the hypothetical situation where all executions in your state shift to firing squad. That's the sole method of execution in your state.

How might that shift affect public perceptions of the death penalty as well as our society's commitment to humane treatment? And what I mean by that is the Eighth Amendment, cruel and unusual punishment, regardless of whether you feel that we should be committed to humane treatment, we do have the Eighth Amendment for that reason. So if your state shifted solely to firing squad executions,

Would this change anything for you? Now, if you oppose the firing squad, consider the situation where alternative methods like lethal injection can lead to prolonged suffering or failed execution attempts. There's a long history of this, which I have gone over in the past, but, you know, I'm not going to go over it now. Just take my word for it. You know, there's issues with the lethal injection. Would that scenario make you reconsider your stance and why or why not?

Okay, let's talk about some good news. It's been a minute since we did this. I used to do it weekly and then it got away from me, but I figured why not today? That's the beauty of running the show. I can, you know, pick and choose when I want to do things. So today we're going to talk about some good news, starting with the first story. Using a new form of stem cell therapy, people who suffered blinding eye injuries have had their sight restored. Surgeons here in the United States were able to take stem cells from the patient's healthy eye and transplant them into the intraocular

to repair what was previously considered irreversible damage. The research team explained that the procedure consists of removing stem cells from a healthy eye with a biopsy, expanding them in a cellular tissue graft in a new manufacturing process that takes two to three weeks,

and then surgically transplanting the graft into the eye with the damaged cornea. One limitation of the approach, though, is that it's necessary for the patient to have only one involved eye in order to get the biopsy from the healthy eye, though study team members said that an allogenic manufacturing method would in the future allow for the procedure to be possible in patients who

with two damaged eyes rather than just one. So far, the procedure has safely restored corneal surfaces in 14 patients who were followed for 18 months. That is what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here on this beautiful Monday. Have a fantastic next couple of days, and I will talk to you again on Thursday.

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