5 Things podcast: Israel expands ground operation into Gaza, Matthew Perry found dead

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast:  Israel expands ground operation into Gaza as large aid shipment arrives

Gaza received its largest aid shipment of the war so far on Sunday, before Israel expanded a ground incursion on Monday. Plus, USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent John Fritze breaks down a case over an emoji and public officials, the Maine shooting devastated the deaf community, we remember Matthew Perry, who died over the weekend, and USA TODAY Personal Finance Reporter Medora Lee has some tips for Medicare open enrollment.

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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, Monday the 30th of October 2023. Today, the latest from the Israel-Hamas war as Israeli troops reportedly push deeper into Gaza. Plus, how a fight over an emoji ended up at the Supreme Court. And we have some tips for Medicare Open Enrollment.

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Israeli troops pushed deeper into the Gaza Strip earlier today. Forces appeared to move into Gaza from the North. Video released earlier today by the Israeli military showed armored vehicles moving near buildings and soldiers taking position inside a house. Their exact location was unknown. Military footage on Saturday had shown troops moving through empty sandy areas along Gaza's northern border. Increased Israeli ground operations today come a day after 33 trucks carrying crucial humanitarian supplies entered Gaza from Egypt. It was the largest shipment of humanitarian aid to Gaza since this month's Israel-Hamas war began.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said a hospital in Gaza City that's providing refuge to some 14,000 people during bombardment was damaged yesterday by Israeli airstrikes. Gaza's Health Ministry says more than 8,000 Palestinians have been killed in this month's war, including mostly women and children. The Gaza agency is under Hamas rule, and its numbers were questioned by President Joe Biden last week, but the Associated Press reports that they've held up to independent scrutiny in previous wars. More than 1400 people have been killed in Israel, mostly civilians in a Hamas attack on October 7th. During that attack, Hamas also took more than 220 hostages. The vast majority of whom are still being held. Hamas says it is ready to release the remaining hostages if Israel releases thousands of Palestinians held in its prisons. Israel's Defense Minister said yesterday that if Hamas "does not feel military pressure, nothing will move forward."

Elsewhere, a plane from Israel was greeted yesterday by an angry crowd in the mainly Muslim Dagestan region of Russia. News reports there said protestors shouted antisemitic slogans and tried to storm the plane. Stateside, President Joe Biden held a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday morning. They discussed the need to release hostages from Hamas, while also protecting civilians in Gaza. US officials have not called for a ceasefire, though have called for periodic humanitarian pauses in Israel's attack on Gaza. In his weekly address yesterday, Pope Francis called for a ceasefire and for hostages to be released.

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A fight over an emoji and public officials has ended up at the Supreme Court, and the case could have major consequences for how government officials interact with the public online. I spoke with USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent, John Fritze, to learn more. John, thanks for hopping on.

John Fritze:

Hey, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

What is that issue here, John?

John Fritze:

This case involves a city in Michigan, Port Huron, and the city manager there who has had a Facebook page since college, like a lot of people, but at some point converted that page to a public page, and at some point became the city manager of the city. Now, a lot of his posts deal with personal stuff, pictures of the kids and so forth, but every now and again, he posts about city business. And as part of that process, a constituent of his was posting criticism on the page, including some emojis. And the city manager, a guy named James Freed, got fed up with it and blocked him. And the question is whether that blocking is permitted under the First Amendment or whether these pages that have some personal use and some public use are really a public forum.

Taylor Wilson:

This question has been raised at the Supreme Court before, surrounding former President Donald Trump. John, what did that case center on and what was the result there?

John Fritze:

Yeah, similar issue. So Trump, of course, had his Twitter account for most of his presidency, and at one point had blocked critics. And back in 2017, I believe, this lawsuit started, slowly made its way up to the Supreme Court. The people blocked claim that he had basically limited their speech. Social media has become a place of public forum. It's become a place where we talk about politics. And not only that, but where we talk to politicians sometimes. It went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court more or less sidestepped the issue back in 2021, because by the time they got to it, Trump had left office. Biden was in power. And so, the court never really got to the issue.

That case was more directly on the First Amendment. These cases now that are pending before the court and will be argued on Tuesday are a little more indirect. It's really about whether it's a state action when the city manager blocked this poster or whether that was a private action. If it's a state action, that triggers all sorts of First Amendment scrutiny. If it's not, then it doesn't.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. And John, can you just outline some of these other cases the court is weighing at this point that deal with this intersection of social media and the government?

John Fritze:

The First Amendment is a huge theme at the Supreme Court this term, and almost all of those cases are dealing with social media. In addition to this case out of Port Huron, there's a very similar case out of California. It involves a school board where some school board members blocked parents who were criticizing the school's policy. Interestingly, in that case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the parents. In the case of the Michigan City, the Appeals Court went the other way. So there's sort of a split on this issue among the courts.

The big one outside of this context is the laws passed by Texas and Florida that basically banned these platforms like Facebook and X from moderating content. That is a series of laws born directly out of the conservative complaints that these platforms were throttling their views. That was a view, of course, very popular during the Trump administration. Trump said it himself many times. And then there's this case they just hooked dealing with jawboning, which is this situation where you had the White House and the FBI and other federal agencies leaning on X and Facebook to take down posts. The administration says they were doing that because it was disinformation or it was foreign actors posting, but several conservative states and some of these users say, no, that was government censorship and it can't stand.

Taylor Wilson:

USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent, John Fritze. Always a treat to have you on, John. Thanks so much.

John Fritze:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

The shooting deaths of four deaf people in Maine during the gunman's rampage last week that killed 18 people appears to be the worst ever mass shooting affecting the deaf community, according to advocates. Among the dead are Steve Vozzella, Bryan MacFarlane, Billy Brackett, and Joshua Seal. They were playing in a weekly cornhole tournament for deaf and hard of hearing people at a bar in Lewiston, Maine. Experts say the shooting was likely particularly traumatic for deaf and hard of hearing survivors because they may not have known to take cover when the shooting started, and would've struggled to know when gunshots came to an end or even whether nearby friends were alive. One of those killed, Joshua Seal, was a well-known sign language interpreter. He gained recognition in particular as an interpreter for critical information during the COVID Pandemic. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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Matthew Perry was found dead on Saturday in his Los Angeles home, according to an initial report from TMZ. The actor was best known as wisecracking Chandler Bing on the smash hit series, Friends, which ran from 1994 to 2004. He co-starred for its entire 10 season run of what was television's number one comedy for a decade, appearing in all 234 episodes. He followed his Friends' career on TV with a number of short-run series, including Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Mr. Sunshine. He also starred in movies like Fools Rush In and 17 Again, though it was his role as Chandler on Friends that defined much of his career. His real life was not a comedy with a happy ending. Perry released a memoir last year, opening up about his struggles with alcohol and drugs. He wrote in the prologue, "There is light in the darkness. You just have to look hard enough to find it." Matthew Perry was 54.

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Medicare Open Enrollment has begun, running from October 15th through December 7th. I caught up with USA Today Personal Finance Reporter, Medora Lee, for some tips and tricks for picking a healthcare plan and more. Medora, thanks for hopping on.

Medora Lee:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So, Medicare Open Enrollment season is here. Let's start with this. What are the different parts of Medicare, and how do they differ?

Medora Lee:

Medicare is so complicated. First, there is traditional original Medicare, which includes Part A and Part B when you pay the Part B premium, which everybody pays anyway. Separate from that, you can also buy a Part D supplement to cover drug costs. And even aside from that, there's one more supplemental coverage you can also buy, they call Medigap, which covers amounts that the original Medicare Part A and B do not include.

Taylor Wilson:

So what is Medicare Advantage?

Medora Lee:

So, Medicare Advantage is the other choice you can make. That is run by private insurers, and that's a bundled plan that includes Part A, B, and usually D, which is the drug plan. And so you have to pay the monthly Part B premium plus any plan premium, but it also sometimes includes services like eyecare, dental care, hearing aids, and gym services. The difference is that with Medicare original, you can see any doctor, but with Medicare Advantage, you have to see doctors within the plans network or get special referrals for doctors outside of your network, and you might end up paying more for out-of-network services.

Taylor Wilson:

When it comes to choosing plans during Open Enrollment, what are the factors people should be considering, Medora?

Medora Lee:

The top three factors that people say focus on are, number one, your drugs. If you take prescription drugs, you must, every single year, go and look up in the medicare.gov site, create your self account, put in all the drugs that you take and what dosages and which pharmacies you might go to and click Go, and then list all of the drug costs for you for different pharmacies, different plans, whatever, so you can compare the prices.

And then the other thing that you want to make sure of, if you're enrolled in Medicare Advantage, you must make sure that your doctors are in that plan, because that might change from year to year. Some doctors will drop out and if you don't check, you might be out of luck. And then the last thing is just the cost, comparing the costs. Like I said, everyone has to pay the Medicare Part B premium, and so the differences will be what supplemental programs you pick up in your original Medicare, like part D or Medigap, those will be extra costs. And then you can compare that with the Advantage plans.

After you finish choosing your Medicare plan, which you need to do by December 7th, and the sooner you do it, the better, because if you wait too long, experts warn that you could be on hold for maybe half a day. So, the sooner, the better, number one. And number two, after you've taken a look at your Medicare plan and you've chosen your Medicare plan, it also is a good idea to look at your long-term healthcare plans, because Medicare will not really cover any skilled nursing facility or rehab for a month or something because you had a fall. It will only cover part of that.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. All great advice, but for folks who maybe want a little more help with their Medicare decisions, where can they turn to?

Medora Lee:

Yeah, that's probably most people, but you can contact the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But a lot of people recommend, every state has a State Health Insurance Assistant Program. The abbreviation is SHIP, and they are trained experts. It doesn't cost you anything, and you come with your list of doctors and your list of drugs and they will help you find the best plans that might be available or work for your budget. Or you can also find a broker.

Taylor Wilson:

Medora Lee covers money markets and personal finance for USA TODAY. Thanks as always, Medora.

Medora Lee:

Thank you for having me. Have a great day.

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Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us seven mornings a week on Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your audio. If you have any comments, you can reach us at [email protected]. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.