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On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: Another train derails in Ohio
Another train derailed in Ohio Saturday. Plus, President Joe Biden visits Selma, USA TODAY Investigative Reporter Gina Barton looks at what determines how hard police look for missing children, USA TODAY Personal Finance & Markets Reporter Elisabeth Buchwald explains why Americans are in more credit card debt than ever, and 13 people are dead after severe weather.
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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 6th of March 2023. Today, another train derails in Ohio. Plus, how police decide how they search for missing children, and Americans go into record credit card debt.
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A second train derailed in Ohio over the weekend. Saturday’s derailment involved around 20 cars of a cargo train owned by Norfolk Southern, the same company that had another one of its trains derail in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3rd. The February derailment led to toxic chemicals spewing into the town, though there’s no evidence this weekend’s derailment leaked any hazardous materials. Still, it’s renewed a push from lawmakers calling for additional freight safety rules, and it appears there’s some bipartisan support. Last week, Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, and a Republican senator, J.D. Vance, from the same state, teamed up with other senators to introduce a bill aimed at establishing additional safety rules. It would raise fines for safety violations, increase safety inspections, and require companies to tell states when trains with hazardous materials pass through their borders.
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President Joe Biden visited Selma, Alabama yesterday, marking the 58th anniversary of the civil rights march there.
President Joe Biden:
Selma is a reckoning. The right to vote, to have your vote counted, is the threshold of democracy and liberty.
Taylor Wilson:
Bloody Sunday began as a march for voting rights for Black Americans who faced barriers to the right to vote across much of the segregated South. Civil rights leaders planned to take their cause directly to Alabama Governor George Wallace by marching 54 miles from Selma to the State Capitol of Montgomery. Some 600 marchers set out on March 7th, 1965, but when they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River, they found a line of state troops waiting for them. When the peaceful protestors refused law enforcement’s orders to disperse, the officers attacked. Attendance at the bridge crossing anniversary has become a tradition for presidents and other politicians. Biden’s visit yesterday marks the third time he’s participated in the commemoration.
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When children go missing, how hard do police search for them? As USA TODAY Investigative Reporter Gina Barton told me, it depends how old they are. Gina, thanks for coming on the show.
Gina Barton:
Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So, you found in your reporting that a child’s age can play a big role in how hard police look for them. Tell me more about what you found here, Gina.
Gina Barton:
So, my colleague, Tami Abdollah, and I, looked at more than 50 rule books for different police departments around the country, and we found that some of these agencies set a maximum age at which the police will really do an all out search for a child. The surprising thing to me was that in some jurisdictions that age is as young as 10.
