Cutting-edge advances in cancer treatment, SpaceX Starship explodes: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Cutting-edge advances in cancer treatment

USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub talks through some major advancements in cancer treatment. Plus, House Republicans pass a bill blocking transgender girls and women from participating in school sports, USA TODAY Deputy Managing Editor for Money and Consumer News David Brinkerhoff says starting salaries are dropping in some sectors, the SpaceX Starship made a historic launch - then exploded, and charges have been dropped against Alec Baldwin in the fatal film set shooting of Halyna Hutchins.

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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 Friday, the 21st of April 2023. Today, a look at the latest revolutionary treatments for cancer, plus are wages cooling?, and charges have been dropped against Alec Baldwin in the Halyna Hutchins shooting.

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Cutting edge advancements in cancer treatment are here. Some of the big ideas were presented this week at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Conference. I spoke with USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub to hear about three of them. Hi, Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Hello.

Taylor Wilson:

So, you wrote about these three cutting edge cancer advances. Let's start with flash radiation. How is this different from the radiation we typically think of to treat cancer?

Karen Weintraub:

Right. So most patients get weeks to months of radiation therapy five days a week for three to eight, nine weeks. Each treatment only lasts about 15 minutes, but by the time they get in and out, it's at least an hour. So it's a huge hassle in addition to the side effects and the stress and all of that.

The idea behind flash radiation is you get literally the same amount of radiation in seconds, in 1, 2, 4 seconds depending on how many treatments they give you. Originally, radiation was broken up into these tiny pieces because they thought it caused less damage to healthy tissue while zapping the tumor. In this case, they think that by delivering as much radiation in a couple of seconds as they do in 15 minutes over weeks, that they can have the same benefit with fewer side effects.

This will not be widely available for a long time because the machine that needed to deliver it is this huge multi-story gigantic proton beam machine that's only in a few places right now, but they're developing it, hopefully improving it, and eventually it may be available near you.

Taylor Wilson:

So, what's the deal with this imaging technology that lights up cancer cells?

Karen Weintraub:

So, this researcher I spoke with has been trying since 2010 to get this approach approved. He cobbled it together on his own, but has figured out a way to add dye to cancer cells so that they light up when lit under a special device so he can see as he's operating, they fluoresce, they glow in the dark essentially, and he can see when he is looking at a tumor, he might be able to see a smaller tumor than he could with his naked eye.

A lot of times you might sample a baseball size tumor as he put it, and you take a small chunk of it to see if you've got enough healthy tissue around it to make sure you got all the cancer. But if you picked the wrong spot to sample, you might miss the cancer, might miss a dangerous spot. This will help surgeons make fewer mistakes essentially and have more confidence in what they're cutting out.

Taylor Wilson:

And I found this last one really interesting. There's this push toward focusing on the nervous system and its links to cancer.

Karen Weintraub:

So, the researcher I spoke with described cancer as like an organ. We know it has a blood supply, immune cells reach it. We also know now that the nervous system is involved in tumors and we may be able to, or he's hoping to be able to manipulate the nervous system to detect cancer, to understand, to identify cancer sooner, and maybe manipulate it through even electrical signaling, which would be cool if that can work. This is far out stuff, but I guess if it can be imagined, they can do it eventually.

Taylor Wilson:

Far out, but potentially promising. Karen Weintraub, thanks so much.

Karen Weintraub:

Thank you.

Taylor Wilson:

House Republicans passed a bill yesterday blocking transgender girls and women from participating in school athletic programs for females. The legislation called The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act would make it a violation of Title IX for federally funded education programs to allow people assigned male at birth to participate in athletic programs designated for women. It would also prohibit federal funding to institutions that allow people assigned male at birth to participate on women's sports teams or in events. The legislation comes at a time when a number of states are passing similar GOP led laws banning transgender students from participating on sports teams that align with their gender identity. This House bill is not expected to receive enough votes to pass in the Democratic controlled Senate.

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As the US job market begins to cool, starting salaries are dropping in some sectors. USA TODAY Deputy Managing Editor for Money and Consumer News David Brinkerhoff explains. Hello, David. Welcome to 5 Things.

David Brinkerhoff:

Thanks. It's great to be here.

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Taylor Wilson:

Starting salaries are dropping in some sectors. Which sectors in particular are we seeing this in, David?

David Brinkerhoff:

What's going on actually is that new hires are still getting higher pay. It's just lower than it was a year ago when the labor market was super hot. While it's still really helpful to change a job and you can get a big bump in pay if you do that, it's not quite as lucrative as it was last year. We are seeing wages slowing down in areas like tech, the housing area, and finance.

Taylor Wilson:

And what are the economic factors behind some of these slowdowns.

David Brinkerhoff:

Those industries that I just mentioned are all feeling the effects of the Federal Reserve hiking its interest rates to very aggressive levels. These are companies that make their money on lending, in the case of finance, or selling houses to people, in the case of real estate, and technology firms, which really rely on borrowing to expand and start new businesses. And for all those reasons with those Fed rate increases, those industries are taking a hit. And although they're hiring, they can't quite match the high level of pay packages they were offering last year.

Another factor that's going on is we had the big pandemic and we're coming out of it, but during the worst of it, a lot of people stayed on the sidelines. They were worried about going back to the office. They were worried about working around other people, and they had other obligations like children at home they had to take care of.

At the same time, they also got a lot of help from the government in terms of stimulus checks, things like that. As the savings they built up from the stimulus checks dwindle and as concerns about safety at work ease as the pandemic slows down, more people are looking and finding jobs, which means there's more candidates, more competition, and employers don't have to offer quite as high salaries as they did a year ago.

Taylor Wilson:

David, there are some industries that are doling out these even higher salaries than a year ago. What are those?

David Brinkerhoff:

So, those industries include restaurants, retail, hotel, and some construction. You're seeing that those pay packages still doing very well and higher for people. And part of that is during the pandemic, people were staying at home, they weren't traveling, they weren't shopping, they weren't going out to eat. And when we came out of the pandemic, people were at first buying a lot of goods. Now, they're shifting their spending to entertainment and to getting out of the house. And so, those industries are still able to pay higher salaries than even a year ago.

Taylor Wilson:

What do all these numbers tell us about what we can maybe expect the rest of the year from the economy?

David Brinkerhoff:

Well, there's a lot of uncertainty in the economy. That's probably the most certain thing we can say. Interest rates have been really going up sharply for a while now. That, of course, means it's harder to borrow money, which a lot of consumers and businesses do, and that could slow the economy.

Interest rates are going up. It's hard on the consumer. It's hard on borrowers. It's hard on businesses. Yet, at the same time, inflation's also really been hard on everyone's pockets. So, the Fed is trying to get a handle on that. The big looming question is, will that dance between the Fed raising rates and inflation possibly tip us into a recession? And the job market continues to grow, so it's really hard to predict what could happen next.

Taylor Wilson:

David Brinkerhoff with some great insight for us. Thanks so much.

David Brinkerhoff:

Thank you. It's great to be here.

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Taylor Wilson:

The SpaceX Starship launched yesterday from Texas. It was its first integrated test, and the rocket became the most powerful in history. But just three minutes into the flight over the Gulf of Mexico, it met a fiery end when the Starship vehicle and booster were not able to separate as planned. SpaceX said the rocket's termination system was activated to destroy the vehicle for safety reasons. It also appeared that three of the rocket's 33 raptor engines failed to ignite on liftoff. Despite all that, Elon Musk's company largely considered the mission a success. Musk has pointed to the Starship as the vehicle that'll eventually launch massive payloads to Earth's orbit, take humans to the moon, and possibly settle on Mars.

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Charges against Alec Baldwin in the 2021 shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins have been dropped. Prosecutors are dropping an involuntary manslaughter charge against the actor who is holding the prop gun that killed her on the New Mexico set of the movie Rust.

Prosecutors added that their decision to drop the charges does not absolve Baldwin of criminal fault, and that charges may be refiled in the future. Charges against the film's weapon supervisor Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, have not been dropped. Meanwhile, preparations have begun for the movie to resume filming at a new location in Montana.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Special thanks to Cherie Saunders and Alexis Gustin. I'm Taylor Wilson back tomorrow with another episode of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Alec Baldwin charges dropped, SpaceX Starship explodes: 5 Things podcast