Lawmakers pessimistic on gun law changes after Nashville, Pope hospitalized: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Lawmakers see no chance of major gun law changes after Nashville

Lawmakers are pessimistic about the possibility of major gun law changes after the Nashville shooting. Plus, Pope Francis is in the hospital after having trouble breathing, the Manhattan grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump's hush money payments takes a hiatus, a popular piping fix is making people sick, and Dr. Lee Wilke talks about a potential vaccine for cancer.

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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 Thursday, the 30th of March 2023. Today, what's next for gun legislation? Plus a popular piping fix is making people sick, and could vaccines be used for cancer?

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In the wake of this week's Nashville school shooting, lawmakers from both parties said this week that the prospects for major gun control legislation are slim. The nation's latest shooting massacre could turn into a familiar story with calls for change without action. President Joe Biden is pointing the finger toward Congress saying he's used the full extent of his executive authority on guns, but a ban on assault weapons doesn't have the votes in a Republican controlled House. Even House Republicans in Tennessee, where the shooting took place, remain opposed to tighter gun regulations. Congressman Tim Burchett told reporters earlier this week, "We're not going to fix it."

And an assault weapons ban even faces an uphill fight in the Democratic-led Senate. A bipartisan group of lawmakers last year did approve legislation after the Uvalde and Buffalo shootings, giving incentives for states to adopt red flag gun laws and stronger background checks on young buyers. Still, gun control advocates say more needs to be done. And Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told Punchbowl news that senate Democrats should consider forcing a vote on an assault weapons ban to see where senators stand. He said mass shootings dropped when the 1994 ban went into effect and then spiked when the ban expired.

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Pope Francis was hospitalized yesterday with a lung infection. According to the Vatican, he had trouble breathing this week and will remain in the hospital for several days of treatment. A spokesperson said the 86-year-old does not have COVID-19. It's the Pope's first hospitalization since part of his colon was removed in 2021. This week's incident has raised questions about Francis's overall health and his ability to celebrate the busy Holy Week events set to begin this weekend with Palm Sunday.

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The Manhattan grand jury investigating hush money paid on former President Donald Trump's behalf will consider other matters next week before taking a previously scheduled two-week hiatus. That means a vote on whether to indict Trump probably won't come until late April at the earliest. The break coincides with Passover, Easter, and Spring Break for the New York City public school system. The grand jury is investigating money paid during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign to two women who said they had extramarital affairs with him. That's something Trump has denied, but his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, has acknowledged that he paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 through a shell company. He was then reimbursed by Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses. Cohen also arranged for former Playboy model Karen McDougal to be paid $150,000 by the publisher of the National Enquirer tabloid.

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A popular piping fix is making people sick, and as USA TODAY Investigative Reporter Emily Le Coz tells me, it's all over America's sewers. Emily, thanks for hopping on the podcast.

Emily Le Coz:

Thanks so much for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So a type of piping fix is making people sick. What is the pipe lining that we're talking about here?

Emily Le Coz:

It's called cured-in-place pipe lining. It's a really popular method of replacing aged or damaged underground pipes like water pipes and storm water and sewer pipes. It's a lot more cost-effective and more convenient than a traditional pipe rehabilitation project, which typically involves digging up the street, taking out the old pipe, hauling it away, putting a new pipe in. So what this procedure does is they take a soft liner, almost like imagine a really soft garden hose, and they saturate it with this liquid - liquid chemicals, a chemical concoction - that then they drag this liner into the damaged pipe and they extend it through the length of the pipe that they're going to be replacing basically. They inflate it. So now it sort of takes the shape of the pipe and then they cure it with UV light or hot water or steam. Steam is sort of the most popular way of doing it. And then that hardens and what you've done is you've created a new pipe inside of an old pipe. So it's really like a brilliant method.

The issue is that during the curing process, the chemicals that they've used to coat that liner then become airborne. It's pretty noxious stuff, right? It's lots of volatile organic compounds, including styrene, which then once it becomes airborne, kind of travels out into the world and it's entered a lot of people's buildings and really sicken them.

Taylor Wilson:

What kinds of sickness specifically is it causing?

Emily Le Coz:

Well, people experience different symptoms. We all react to things in our own individual ways, but there are some common symptoms that people have described to me. Really bad headaches, their eyes water. Some people have experienced nose bleeds, nausea, dizziness. A woman told me she felt like she was intoxicated. Definitely affects animals as well. The same woman who said she felt intoxicated, she said her house cat was having balance issues, was trying to leap and kept falling, which is really rare for her cat. And it's really scary for people, especially if they're not making the connection like, "Oh, hey, this is coming from this project on the street." And again, even if they're making the connection, very few people that I've talked to ever anticipated experiencing that kind of constellation of really irritating symptoms.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, scary stuff for sure. So how big is the industry surrounding these liners?

Emily Le Coz:

It's huge. The industry started in 1971, sort of with the invention of this technique in the UK, and it since has spread pretty rapidly across the globe, but the United States is the biggest market. Obviously, we're a huge country and we've got a ton of underground infrastructure that is now sort of reaching the end of its lifespan. A lot of these pipes that we put in the ground decades ago are breaking, they're cracking. They need to be replaced. Globally, the industry had an estimated value of about $2 billion in 2020, and it's expected to reach $3 billion by the end of the century.

Taylor Wilson:

Emily, is there any push for more oversight regarding this?

Emily Le Coz:

Yes, there is. Many of the people I've spoken to who have been affected by this have asked for more oversight. Unfortunately, the EPA at this point does not appear willing to look into or consider regulating or overseeing this industry. It's really hard, I guess, for them to do that because of the nature of it, right? This isn't sort of these fixed place operations where it's the same building every day, you can kind of show up at an address and see how they're doing things. This is sort of like a traveling operation. They're at different sites every day using different sort of resins and different liners in different weather conditions. It's really like each job site is its own unique situation and it's very temporary.

Taylor Wilson:

USA TODAY Investigative Reporter Emily Le Coz with some great info for us. Thanks so much.

Emily Le Coz:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

We typically think of vaccines as ways to help prevent the serious effects of viruses, but could they also be used to help prevent cancer? 5 Things Sunday host James Brown spoke with Dr. Lee Wilke from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health to learn more.

James Brown:

Dr. Lee Wilke, welcome to 5 Things.

Dr. Lee Wilke:

Thank you so much for having me.

James Brown:

You're running a breast cancer trial. Can you tell us why it's historic?

Dr. Lee Wilke:

Vaccines have not been commonly used for cancer. We've seen vaccines emerge during this pandemic that we've experienced over the last three years. But cancers are unique to the human that have them, unlike a virus which can be similar across humans. So it's historic in the sense that we're starting to see an interest in development of vaccines to teach an immune system to fight the cancer cells, but leave the normal cells alone.

James Brown:

So how does it work?

Dr. Lee Wilke:

It's a DNA plasma vaccine that targets some unique features of triple-negative breast cancer that a lot of patients seem to have. Triple-negative breast cancers seem to be able to augment the immune system while some other types of breast cancers don't. So we're creating a vaccine for a cancer that we hope we can trick the patient's immune system into fighting the cancer cells. But remember, we want to try and leave normal cells alone.

James Brown:

What have you learned so far? Is it too soon to tell or do you have-

Dr. Lee Wilke:

Too soon to tell.

James Brown:

Definitely too soon to tell?

Dr. Lee Wilke:

Too soon to tell.

James Brown:

How long before you have a sense?

Dr. Lee Wilke:

In this phase II trial, we're looking to see does the patient's blood rev up in their immune system to fight the cancer cells. So it's a lot of blood testing. We will look long-term to see how the patients do, but we're hoping to get some short-term answers within two years, I would hope. I won't guarantee that.

James Brown:

I want to speak a bit more macro in terms of scientific discoveries. There's been some scuttlebutt that they may be slowing down. What's your take on that?

Dr. Lee Wilke:

There were a lot of discoveries in the '70s, '80s, '90s for cancer treatment. But now we're getting to the point that since we made big improvements, now we want the last 5%, the last 10%, the last 20%, depending on the type of cancer. I'll give you a good example. Pancreas cancer is a very difficult cancer to treat because we usually find it later. So now we're starting to see blood tests for cancer. So maybe we can find these hard to treat cancers sooner.

James Brown:

Dr. Lee Wilke, thank you for joining me.

Dr. Lee Wilke:

Thank you so much. We appreciate your interest.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every day of the week right here wherever you get your podcast. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Gun law changes doubtful after Nashville, Pope hospitalized: 5 Things podcast