The Excerpt podcast: Grand jury to consider charging police in Uvalde school shooting

On Saturday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: A grand jury will consider charges against officers in the Uvalde school shooting. USA TODAY World Affairs Correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard looks at some of the big 2024 international storylines. Sports Illustrated faces major layoffs. Arizona Republic Indigenous Affairs Reporter Debra Krol has the latest from a fight over sacred Indigenous land and copper mining. Winter weather freezes much of the country.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. 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.

Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here

Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson. Today is Saturday, January 20th, 2024. This is the Excerpt. Today, a grand jury will consider criminal charges against officers in the Uvalde shooting. Plus, we look at some of the biggest international storylines of 2024, and a fight continues over sacred indigenous land in Arizona.

♦

A Texas judge seated a grand jury yesterday to consider possible criminal charges against law enforcement officers who failed to appropriately respond to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022. That's according to two people with direct knowledge who told the Austin American Statesman, part of the USA Today Network. The grand Jury is expected to consider much of the same evidence the US Department of Justice reviewed before its report out this week that cited widespread failures in how law enforcement reacted.

It's not clear what charges the grand jury might consider against the officers, but they possibly include child endangerment or injury to a child. Multiple agencies responded to the elementary school during the attack. The Justice Department reports cited widespread failures and named the former Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo for not treating the gunman as an active shooter instead of a barricaded subject. The report said he failed to assume command leading to multiple issues, including a 77-minute delay in reaching the victims. For more, you can go back and listen to yesterday's episode of the Excerpt where John C. Moritz from the Austin American Statesman breaks down the Justice Department report.

♦

From wars, to major elections. The year already figures to be busy with global news. I caught up with USA Today World Affairs correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard for a look at the international storylines likely to dominate 2024. Kim, thanks for making the time.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Thanks for having me, Taylor.

Taylor Wilson:

Kim, you wrote about some big international news stories to look out for in 2024. I think it's most natural to just start with the Middle East and this war in Gaza that seems to be spilling over to other parts of the region, Kim. What should we expect here in the coming months?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

We're trying to understand exactly what's going to happen to Gaza, when exactly the Israelis will or will not stop their military campaign there. We're trying to understand what all this means for the almost 2 million Palestinians in Gaza who have been displaced, many of whom are living down south near the border with Egypt. The Arab world over the last couple of weeks has come together a little bit and put some ideas forward to the Israelis about what they think should happen. They think there should be essentially a two-state solution and that they would fall behind Israel, this is the Arab states, if the Israelis would agree to that. The short answer is we don't really know. The war looks like it's going on for a while and certainly, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that signaled anyway that he thinks it could go on to 2025. We're all trying to read the tea leaves

Taylor Wilson:

Stateside Americans, Kim, are very focused right now on the upcoming election. You're right that there are also some key elections coming up around the world. What are you keeping an eye on there?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

There's dozens of elections every year, of course, around the world. This year, there's actually, there's quite a few, almost 70 that involve half the world's population. This is like 4 billion people. There's already been an interesting one in Taiwan just a couple of weeks ago. That was interesting to a lot of people because Taiwan as some listeners will know, is a self-governing island that China insists is part of mainland China, politically. China has vowed to reunify Taiwan with the mainland, politically. The Taiwanese have just voted in someone who is very much not of that mind. It's seen as a little bit of a prod to Beijing for now. Other elections around the world that are coming up in March.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is up for a vote. It's an authoritarian country. He's been prime minister or president for many, many years now. The votes there are not free and fair, I think we can say with some certitude. He's widely expected just to float back into the presidency. There's going to be an election in India, which is now the world's most populous country. There'll also be one in Mexico. Mexico, according to a couple of folks I spoke with think of as the country that really has more impact on American lives than any other, whether that's in terms of migrant flows or the illegal drugs trade or criminality or even just commercial trade.

Taylor Wilson:

Kim, you mentioned Russia. I think the West has really stopped hearing as much about Russia's war in Ukraine in recent months. What's the latest there and what's the expectation for 2024?

Kim Hjelmgaard:

From the outset, many of Ukraine's biggest ardent supporters and boosters have been saying Ukraine can win this war. Absolutely. They're more motivated, they're better trained. The Russian military is better equipped, but it's not very well put together and they have poor leadership and so on. I do think that there is an emerging sense that Russia has captured 18% of Ukraine's territory. That includes the Crimean Peninsula that it captured some years before the outset of this war. It may very well freeze there. You could end up with a divided Ukraine. That's something that we're going to watch over the next year and we'll see what happens with that weapon supply with Mr. Putin's reelection and of course, with the US election. Because if former President Trump is reelected, he has been very cool on the idea of supporting Ukraine. I think this is another factor that we'll be paying close attention to.

Taylor Wilson:

Kim Hjelmgaard, covers world affairs for USA Today. Kim, thanks so much.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

Be sure to stay tuned to The Excerpt tomorrow when Kim Hjelmgaard takes a look at whether we're at risk for a World War. You can find the episode right here on this feed.

♦

Sports Illustrated is laying off staff after a licensing deal fell through. The publications union said the layoff could involve possibly all of the News Guild members represented, though SI Senior Writer Pat Forti disputed earlier reports that the entire staff was laid off. In an email sent to staff yesterday morning, the Arena Group, which operates the Sports Illustrated brands, said that Authentic Brands Group has revoked its marketing license. An email sent to staff said that some employees would be terminated as a result.

SI has struggled in the past laying off 30% of its staff in 2019 when Meredith sold the property shortly after acquiring it. Sports Illustrated's first issue was published in 1954 and it was a weekly publication until 2018 when Meredith acquired it. It was long considered a sports journalism institution, famous for its writing and iconic covers. You can read more about what's next for SI with a link in today's show notes.

♦

Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs met yesterday with tribal members as the fight continues over sacred indigenous land that sits on one of the largest undeveloped copper reserves in the world. I spoke with Arizona Republic Indigenous Affairs reporter Deborah Krol for more. Deborah, thanks so much for hopping on the Excerpt today.

Deborah Krol:

Well, thanks for having me on the Excerpt today.

Taylor Wilson:

Deborah, let's start with some of the basics here at the top. What is Oak Flat and what are the tensions around this mining project?

Deborah Krol:

It's currently a campground in the Tonto National Forest about 60 miles east of Phoenix. It's one of the Apache people's most sacred sites. It's also one of Arizona's remaining riparian zones. Arizona never had many to start with and there's fewer now. It's a habitat for a lot of the Central Arizona wildlife. It's also because it's a riparian zone, the waters underneath, the groundwaters are part of basically an underground river that runs through aquifers and eventually, supplies several springs that eventually, water lawns and golf courses and provide drinking water to a lot of Central Arizona communities.

Taylor Wilson:

Deborah, can you help us better understand the spiritual significance of this area for the Apache?

Deborah Krol:

Well, native religions are what we call land-based religions. Certain sites are deemed to have great spiritual value. It's not like native people can pick up their churches and move them. If somebody decides they want to put a six-lane super highway through a Catholic Church, for example, they can simply build a new church somewhere. If they do that to a native sacred site, that site is gone forever.

Taylor Wilson:

Can you help us understand how this fight might influence religious freedom really around the country?

Deborah Krol:

Their argument all along has been, this is a violation of our First Amendment religious rights, and we would like to have this bill overturned and the land returned back to the forest service so that Apache people can continue their religious practices. Now, here's the implication for the rest of the country, is that when this first went to the Arizona District Court for decision, they had decided against Apache Stronghold. They were basing it on another case in the San Francisco Peaks, which is in northern Arizona, where they basically said that putting partially treated wastewater on top of one of their sacred mountains to make artificial snow would not impact their religious practice.

The argument on the Apache stronghold side when they went to appeal is that these are two different cases in the San Francisco Peaks case, only a small part of that mountain has treated effluent on it, whereas the entirety of Oak Flat is going to be destroyed. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard the case March 27th of 2023. We've been waiting all this time to see what they decide. What we are figuring is that almost immediately after whatever decision the Ninth Circuit comes up with, whether they rule in favor or against Apache Stronghold, there will be an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Taylor Wilson:

It's some interesting insights. Arizona's governor Katie Hobbs met with tribes at Oak Flat yesterday. What did these meetings aim to accomplish and how did they go?

Deborah Krol:

What they aim to accomplish is to raise awareness with various elected officials and policymakers about what's really at stake here from the tribes and the Apache medicine people's point of view. There's been at least one major hydrology study that says that the way that the mine is going to work is going to severely impact groundwater throughout that Central Arizona region. Naturally, Resolution Copper had done its own hydrology studies and disputes that.

Taylor Wilson:

Deborah Krol covers indigenous affairs for the Arizona Republic, part of the USA Today Network. Deborah, really interesting insight here. Thanks so much for hopping on.

Deborah Krol:

Thanks for having me.

♦

Taylor Wilson:

More than 115 million people from Iowa to New Jersey we're in the path of a winter storm as of yesterday afternoon, bringing snow, freezing temperatures and dangerous travel conditions. The winter weather has been blamed for at least 45 deaths over the past two weeks as a series of storms moved across the country. Behind the latest storm is a surge of Arctic air that will spread across most of the country by today with sub-zero temperatures in Missouri and Kansas this morning according to the National Weather Service.

Windchill temperatures could be as low as minus 30 across the Plains and Midwest through tomorrow. Things are expected to largely warm up next week. AccuWeather meteorologist Paul Pastelok told USA Today that about 90% of the country should see normal to above normal temperatures by the middle of next week.

♦

Thanks for listening to the Excerpt. A reminder, the Excerpt is now on YouTube. All of our episodes, podcasts and vodcasts are now being posted to our playlist on the site. We have a link in today's show notes. Dana Taylor is in tomorrow for the Sunday edition of the Excerpt. I'll be back Monday with more of the Excerpt from USA Today.