House Republicans launch investigations into Biden's classified documents

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast:

House Republicans have launched investigations into President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents.

The Treasury Department pushes Congress to raise the debt ceiling.

USA TODAY Sports Reporter Tom Schad looks at a catch-22 for minority coaching candidates in the NFL.

UFO reports are on the rise.

Psychologist Dr. Alfiee Breland-Noble talks about dealing with suicide.

If you or someone you know may be struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) any time day or night. Crisis Text Line also provides free, 24/7, confidential support via text message to people in crisis when they dial 741741.

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

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, Saturday the 14th of January 2023.

                                           Today, House Republicans are on the move to investigate President Joe Biden and classified documents, plus the Treasury Department's instructions for Congress on the debt ceiling, and new revelations about UFOs.

                                           House Republicans announced yesterday that they're investigating President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents. In a letter addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the House Judiciary Committee requested information related to the discovery of the classified documents found at Biden's private office and the garage of his Delaware home. The letter reads that the American people deserve transparency. Earlier yesterday, the House Oversight Committee began its own investigation into the documents they requested directly from the White House, specific details about the documents and any communication between the White House and the Department of Justice or the National Archives. The White House declined to comment.

                                           The Treasury Department has announced that it'll start taking extraordinary measures next week to prevent the US from defaulting on its debt obligations and potentially dipping the country into an economic crisis. In a letter addressed yesterday to House speaker Kevin McCarthy, treasury secretary Janet Yellen pushed Congress to raise the debt ceiling and said the government will reach its borrowing limit next week. To avoid a default, the department will reallocate federal funding to continue paying the government's debts. The letter is a preview of what'll likely be an intense showdown in Washington in the coming months. Congress has regularly voted to raise the debt limit to prevent the US from defaulting on its debt. But Republicans who captured the House said they don't want to approve another one without significant concessions.

                                           The more interviews that an NFL coach goes on without being hired, the more questions are raised, and that issue makes some minority coaching candidates more discerning about which interviews to take. With this year's NFL Coaching Carousel now in full swing, USA Today Sports set out to examine this issue and others by compiling data on head coaching hires in the last two decades since the 2003 implementation of the so-called Rooney Rule. Producer PJ Elliott spoke with USA Today Sports reporter Tom Schad to find out more.

PJ Elliott:                           Tom, thanks for joining 5 Things.

Tom Schad:                      Sure.

PJ Elliott:                           So you know this time of year the Rooney Rule always gets mentioned with teams required to interview minority head coaching candidates. And you had an interesting perspective on this that coaches like Eric Bieniemy and Kansas City for instance, always seem to get interviewed for head coaching jobs but never get them and it leaves this sort of stain on their reputation. Can you go more into that?

Tom Schad:                      Yeah. I think it really gets at the crux of the Rooney Rule. When the rule was implemented 20 years ago, the idea was basically if owners are required to interview a diverse pool of candidates, they will increase the chances that more diverse candidates will get hired. But what we found in doing the research and we went through news reports and team announcements of individual interviews and basically looked at how those interviews were split. We found that non-white coaches, minority coaches were getting a larger share of the interviews, but it wasn't translating into them getting hired.

                                           And then the second piece to that is what you alluded to, that when these coaches interview a bunch of times and don't get hired, it becomes a negative. And Eric Bieniemy is perfect example of this. He's interviewed from 2019 to 2022. He interviewed 15 times with 14 different teams. So almost half the league and there's become this kind of narrative that's grown out of that. Does he not interview well? Is there something wrong? Why isn't he getting hired? All these questions start to arise where if he had just interviewed for maybe three or four jobs over that same period of time, not gotten them, that narrative wouldn't have been that created.

PJ Elliott:                           The Rooney Rule clearly has good intentions, but how can the league improve on it?

Tom Schad:                      That's the million-dollar question. I think the issue with the NFL is that yes, it is a singular organization, the NFL, but each team operates as its own individual entity. So all the NFL can do from a league office standpoint is encourage teams, or this year they've implemented inclusive hiring training where if you're a team employee and you're going to be conducting interviews or part of the hiring process, you have to undergo this inclusive hiring training before all that happens. They can do stuff like that, but they can't tell teams who to hire.

                                           So in terms of fixing the Rooney Rule or adjusting the Rooney Rule, really there's only so much that the lead can do from a lead office standpoint. They've already dipped a toe into one potential avenue that they could go down, which is incentivizing.

PJ Elliott:                           So as of today, four of the 27 head coaches in the NFL are minorities. Obviously five teams have vacancies right now. Do we know roughly how many minority candidates throw their name in the ring when these jobs come up and how many don't even get the interview scheduled?

Tom Schad:                      That was one of the interesting things I think to me is when we went back historically over a 20-year period since the implementation of the Rooney Rule, there are only 57 non-white coaches who've gotten a single interview. It's a relatively small pool of candidates who are just interviewed over an extended period.

PJ Elliott:                           Tom, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it.

Tom Schad:                      Yeah, thank you.

Taylor Wilson:                 The NFL playoffs begin today when the Seattle Seahawks take on the San Francisco 49ers, followed by the Los Angeles Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars in the nightcap. You can find a full schedule of the opening round from USA Today Sports.

                                           The US government has now received more than 500 reports of UFOs. That's according to a declassified report from the Director of National Intelligence on Thursday, and reports skyrocketed last year. Government officials say there were 144 between November 2004 and March 2021. Since then, that number was 366 through last August. Officials said most reports came from military pilots and others in the Navy and Air Force. And of the 366 new incidents, nearly half are considered unexplained. Thursday's report also revealed that some demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities and require further analysis.

                                           We end today on a topic that many of us simply don't want to talk about but need to, suicide. A string of recent high profile suicides have highlighted our country's ongoing crisis with mental health. Producer Shannon Rae Green speaks with one mental health expert who explains how we can really help each other heal in the face of these tragedies.

Shannon Rae Green:       Here to talk more in depth on the topic, I'm now joined by Dr. Alfiee Breland-Noble, pioneering psychologist and founder of the mental health nonprofit, The AAKOMA Project. Dr. Alfiee, thank you so much for joining me.

Alfiee Breland-Noble:            It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Shannon Rae Green:       It's obvious that talking about suicide is important. So Dr. Alfiee, how can we normalize these conversations?

Alfiee Breland-Noble:            Exactly what we're doing right here today. I think it is taking and following the lead of our young people who are Gen Z, following the lead of millennials, many of our younger millennials who are always having these conversations. It is more than anything being willing to listen, being willing to not judge, being willing to just be present with people who are expressing their feelings, to discuss what we're struggling with, discuss what we're going through, and seek out culturally relevant and culturally appropriate resources for help.

Shannon Rae Green:       The challenges of the pandemic have helped all of us talk about mental health much more openly, but clearly not as openly as we need to be talking. How do we change that?

Alfiee Breland-Noble:            There's this wonderful project that I'm a part of called sounditouttogether.org that teaches parents how to engage with their kids, parents and caregivers. It has questions that parents can ask, all kinds of games they can play, but these are the kinds of tools we want to make use of to normalize these conversations and give everyone a chance to feel that they can talk about their mental health openly.

Shannon Rae Green:       When one person ends their life, they leave behind a lot of pain, confusion, and sometimes anger among their friends and families. How do you suggest those left behind talk about suicide in a way that's healing?

Alfiee Breland-Noble:            I think the idea is to be honest with ourselves about where we are in our healing process. We have to figure out what is our process of grieving? We have to recognize and understand everybody doesn't have the same process. We also have to understand that the process of healing is never linear. It is often cyclical. And so we have to be patient with ourselves and I think most importantly, we have to extend ourselves some grace.

                                           So all of the feelings that you describe, anger, sadness, frustration, guilt, we should allow ourselves to feel those feelings. And I always tell people you have a full range of emotions for a reason. So even in the aftermath of losing someone to suicide, experience all of your emotions because that's one of the healthiest ways to help you heal.

Shannon Rae Green:       I'd also like to talk about coworkers and people in the community who weren't necessarily part of the inner circle. What are some signs that people should look for to determine if a person may be suicidal, and what should we do to get them out of danger?

Alfiee Breland-Noble:            I love this question because when we think about signs and symptoms, one of the most important things I tell people is we have to know our own baseline. And what I mean by that is we have to know how we feel when things are neutral. So many people don't know what that feels like but we're used to being on the hamster wheel just running all the time. I think it's also important to observe in the people we care about and the people we're around, how are they behaving on a day-to-day basis? How are your coworkers showing up to work day in and day out? If you can get a sense of that, then you can look for signs and symptoms of when someone may not be doing well emotionally.

                                           Specifically if you want to pay attention to changes in eating habits, changes in sleeping habits, changes in general mood. When you're having conversations with the person, what are they talking about? Are they talking about things about looking forward to things in the future or are they talking more specific to today, "and I can't see into the future, I don't know what's going to happen next week. I don't know if I'll be here." So I think these are the kinds of things we want to be mindful of in terms of acknowledging and recognizing signs and symptoms.

                                           And then in terms of what we do, to ask a person how they're doing, sit and listen quietly and use active listening. Nodding your head, restating what the person said in your own words, using the mm-hmm, then I hear you, that kind of thing. And not interjecting to either fix. People don't need you to fix their problems, or interjecting to share your own story unless it's appropriate. So these are the kinds of things we want to do to acknowledge signs and symptoms and recognize when somebody might be struggling, and then the kinds of things we want to do to try to intervene.

Shannon Rae Green:       Thank you so much for your time today, Dr. Alfiee.

Alfiee Breland-Noble:            My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Taylor Wilson:                 If you or someone may be struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can call the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK. That's 800-273-8255, anytime, day or night. Crisis Text Line also provides free 24/7 confidential support via text message to people in crisis when they dial 741741. You can find this information also in today's show notes.

                                           And thanks for listening to 5 Things. We're here every morning wherever you get your audio. And James Brown will be back with the Sunday edition tomorrow. I'll see you on Monday with more of 5 Things from USA Today.