The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 5.2 MKBHD Drama Getting Worse, Another Boeing WhistleBlower Dead, Monster Father Charged With Murder, &

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

PDS Debt is offering a free debt analysis. It only takes thirty seconds. Get yours at https://PDSDebt.com/defranco Go to http://zbiotics.com/DEFRANCO and use code DEFRANCO at checkout to get up to 15% off your first order. ==== ✩ TODAY’S STORIES ✩- – 00:00 - Father on Trial for Death of Six-year-Old Son He Forced to Run on a Treadmill 02:31 - MKBHD Negative Review Discourse Strikes Again 06:33 - Protests Continue at UCLA, UNC, & More 10:57 - Sponsored by PDS Debt 11:48 - Second Boeing Whistleblower Dies 14:08 - SCOTUS Refuses to Block Texas Law Requiring Age Verification for NSFW Sites 16:49 - Arizona Senate Repeals 1800s Abortion Ban, Governor Set to Sign 19:06 - Sponsored by Zbiotics 20:09 - United Methodist Church Allows LGBTQ+ People to Become Ministers 21:50 - Men Can Now Message Women First on Bumble 23:47 - Johnson & Johnson Agrees to $6 Billion Talc Settlement  25:53 - Iran Goes After Journalists and Activists Following BBC Report ——————————   Produced by: Cory Ray Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry Art Department: William Crespo Writing/Research: Philip DeFranco, Brian Espinoza, Lili Stenn, Maddie Crichton, Star Pralle, Chris Tolve, Jared Paolino ———————————— #DeFranco #MKBHD #AI ———————————— Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sup, you beautiful bastards. We got a lot of news to talk about today. We've got people trying to pile on MKBHD. Another Boeing whistleblower has died. Controversy around the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act. Campus crackdown updates. We break down the Supreme Court porn ban decision. We talk about this absolutely monster of a father.

And then there's even more. So just buckle up, hit that like button, and let YouTube know you love these big daily dives into the news, and let's jump into it. Starting with, there's a lot of competition for the Worst Dad Alive Award, but this guy might take the cake. So we're talking about Christopher Greger. And at the time, what we're talking about here happened, he was a late 20-something father in New Jersey, with his son being six-year-old Corey Michelot. And reportedly

in 2021, Greger took Corey to the Atlantic Heights Clubhouse Fitness Center because he believed the boy was too fat. So he has Corey get on a treadmill and start running. With surveillance video capturing what happened next, but I'm not going gonna show the video because he's basically torturing his son. Right first, Gregor raises the speed and incline of the track, with then the boy falling down and sliding off multiple times, with the boy's father, and I use that word very loosely here, just picking him back up and placing him back on the treadmill, causing his legs to fold backward,

at which point Gregor appears to bite his son's head. Then Corey gets on, falls off again, gets back on, and struggles to keep going until his father lowers his speed and incline. And as if this one instance wasn't horrifying enough, less than two weeks after that video, Corey died. With the cause reportedly being blunt force injuries with cardiac and liver contusions with acute inflammation and sepsis. And while his death does not appear to be directly related to this treadmill incident, a forensic pathologist determined that Corey suffered from chronic abuse. And reportedly, a doctor testified that he suffered an acute traumatic injury to the heart four to 12 hours before his death.

So now Gregor's standing trial for murder, and if convicted, he faces life in prison. With Corey's mother being the first witness to take the stand, and she gave this incredibly heartfelt testimony. He told me Corey wasn't feeling good. That night, he was with Marge, I get up. He was throwing up and his legs hurt. He was just sick. And yesterday, a pediatrician testified about a time that she examined Corey and noticed bruises all over his body.

When I pressed him further, he said he got more bruises when he fell from a treadmill. He said that he had to run fast because his father said he was too fat. And so we'll see what comes from this trial, but really, no matter what happens, nothing can bring this little boy back. Nothing can make this okay. This monster, in my opinion, deserves to be in the ground because that is all Gregor is, right?

Someone who abuses their child is very likely responsible for their death. That is not a father. That is barely a human being. That is a worthless monster that deserves to be treated as such. But for now, we're going to have to wait to see if justice gets served here. And then Marques Brownlee, MKBHD is getting a bad rap right now. But this week, more than ever, a growing number of people calling him a hypocrite, saying that he is loving to rip apart these companies and products. But I just got to start off by saying, one, it is not Marquez's fault that several

horrible products have been released so close together, especially with these last two being in the same industry, right, focused on AI, which probably speaks to them being rushed out to market. He's just doing his job as a reviewer. He's a tech reviewer, not a tech laser. And specifically, this whole mess, right, involves that Humane AI pin that we talked about the other week and Rabbit R1 now. Because he put out a review this week of the Rabbit R1 and he called it barely reviewable. You know, it's this little box that you carry around in your pocket. You can ask it questions. You can navigate it with a scroll wheel.

Which was also one of his biggest complaints, right? He found the scroll to be frustrating and time-consuming that it would be faster with a touchscreen. And it actually is a touchscreen just with limited use. You could type on it as a touchscreen, but that's where the functionality started and ended. You know, a lot of the other criticisms he had about the R1 were similar to those of the Humane AI pen. It often got things wrong. It had a bad battery life.

It was missing basic features like alarms and calendars. It also only connected to a handful of popular apps. While more are coming down the line, it's already been botching the few that it uses now. Screwing up people's DoorDash orders or playing the wrong song on Spotify. With all this playing into a pattern in tech that he's found frustrating for consumers. A lot of these tech companies are developing tech

kind of backwards. Like they're delivering such unfinished products that it actually makes them nearly impossible to review. Like it feels like it used to just be make the thing and then put it on sale. Now it's like put it on sale and then deliver the half-baked thing and then iterate and make it better. And hopefully with enough updates, then it's ready. And it's what we promised way back when we first started selling it. MKBHD saying this happens with video games, with cars, but the AI assistant trend, it seems to be the apex of this problem. The thing that you get at the beginning is like borderline non-functional compared to all the promises and all the features and all the things that it's supposed to maybe someday be. And again, even though he was in no

way the only person or reviewer bringing up all these concerns, people still decided to slam Marquez specifically for his negative review. With one person saying if MKBHD decided his initial videos were quote, barely reviewable instead of posting and iterating, would he be where he is today? And including one of his very, very old videos, which I just have to say, this is one of the dumbest takes I've ever seen on the internet. Like I hope you feel shame, but I doubt that you will because you do not seem smart enough to even know how to spell the word shame. How are you comparing a guy or really a kid at the time he started posting videos for free to YouTube, to a company that is publicly selling a $200

product to consumers. A product that has almost been universally panned. These are not the same thing, you dumb donkey. Though a silver lining here is I am happy to see that I'm not the only one with this feeling. With plenty of people coming to Marquez's defense saying things like, consumers are sick of rushed half-baked products released early for the interest of investors. Good on him for consistently keeping it real. I mean, fuck. You even had people at Rabbit responding mostly very kindly to him, with one person saying his honest feedback is cool, but also defending the company by saying the industry is in the early stages and it has to move fast to keep things improving for customers. And the company's CEO thanking Marquez, saying they look forward to him potentially

revisiting the product someday. And as all of this was playing out, you also had a ton of people asking Rabbit why this device isn't just an app, arguing that it would just make more logistical and financial sense. And actually, with that, there are allegations that it functionally is. With a seeing Android authority claiming, Rabbit R1 seems to run Android under the hood, and the entire interface users interact with is powered by a single Android app. Also saying someone shared the device's launch or Android application package with the outlet,

and with some tinkering, they were able to install it on an Android phone. And saying they were even able to ask it a question as though they were using the real Rabbit R1 hardware. Though notably, the outlet also said it didn't test any other functions, and wouldn't be surprised if other tools didn't work. Though also with this, you had Rabbit shooting back to say the R1 is not an Android app, claiming this is just a misunderstanding, and that Rabbit runs on the cloud with a very bespoke Android open source project and lower level firmware modifications.

Whereas TechRadar tried to translate, the R1's real juice is in the cloud with a very bespoke Android open source project and lower level firmware modifications. Whereas TechRadar tried to translate, R1's real juice is in the cloud rather than an on-device app. But you know, with all this, I gotta pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts here? And then, so let's talk about what's become our daily update on the situation with pro-Palestine protests across the country. Especially because there's just still so much to talk about. We'll start right here in Los Angeles. Because this morning, police officers in riot gear cleared out the encampment at UCLA, reportedly tearing through barricades, pulling up tents, leading protesters away with their wrists zip-tied. California Highway Patrol ultimately saying that at least 132 people had been arrested. Right, and notably this after we

saw violence break out on the campus yesterday when a masked pro-Israeli group assaulted a pro-Palestinian student camp, reportedly throwing objects including fireworks, a scooter, water bottles, and tear gas, as well as attacking four reporters for the school's newspaper. With that, it should also be noted that Jewish Federation Los Angeles condemned the violence and said in a statement, the abhorrent actions of a few counter protesters last night do not represent the Jewish community or our values, and saying that they believe in peaceful civic discourse. But to that point, we have many people saying that's exactly what's happening on the other side, right? With some critics of the protests pointing to the words or actions of a few

individuals or groups to paint the whole movement in a bad light, or otherwise showcasing peaceful civic discourse as anti-Semitic if it's critical of Israel. Right, and that second point is basically what's at the heart of this debate over the proposed anti-Semitism awareness bill, which was actually just passed by the House of Representatives today. Though, of course, it would need to be passed by the Senate to become law. And if it does, it would require the Department of Education to use the definition of anti-Semitism put forward by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance when enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws. But this is many have concerns over that definition, especially because of the examples

it provides that some say conflate Judaism with Zionism, with some even claiming that the definition was being weaponized against Israel's critics. Basically, that's what the 70 Democrats who voted against the bill said. For example, you had Jerry Nadler acknowledging that criticism of Israel does sometimes take the form of antisemitism. With that, also arguing that the bill would make even legitimate criticism of Israel classifiable as antisemitic.

Notably, with that, 20 Republicans also voted against the bill. Their concerns were a bit different, with Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, opposing it because they say that some excerpts of the Bible would meet this bill's definition of antisemitism. Making that argument by referring to a common antisemitic trope about Jews being responsible for the death of Jesus.

And then, to just add his own style to it, you had Gates reiterating his claim that he wants to just abolish the Department of Education outright. With that said, let's jump back to the broader context. Because obviously, this bill being voted on in this precise moment, it's not a coincidence. It is a response to these protests. And in fact, you have the ACLU, which has opposed this bill, explicitly criticizing it for the fact that it will, quote, likely chill free speech of students on college campuses.

And this is 1,800 people have been arrested on college and university campuses since April 18th. Which also, I mean, we talked about the number two days ago. It was around 900 then, so it's doubled. With a big part of the increase there being attributable to the crackdown at Columbia. But what a lot of people are talking about today is what's going on at UNC. Because apparently there is going to be a rager to end all ragers sometime soon. With now more than $400,000 being raised in just a couple of days to throw a party for a bunch of guys who were said to have defended a U.S. flag during pro-Palestine protests at the campus on Tuesday. Right, and so what happened is that protesters lowered the American flag and replaced it with a Palestinian one.

With this leading to police coming in, taking it down, and hoisting up another American flag while onlookers chanted USA. But soon enough, protesters tried to take that flag down too, and then these frat guys stepped in to hold the flag up and keep it from touching the ground, all while protesters were screaming and throwing water at them. And this whole situation leading to a guy by the name of John Noonan, who isn't affiliated with the fraternity or the university, being so inspired by these guys that he started a GoFundMe page, with him writing, quote,

Commie losers across the country have invaded college campuses to make dumb demands of weak university administrators. Help us raise funds to throw this frat the party they deserve, a party worthy of the boat-shoed proletariat who did their country proud. The wall of this playing out is a lot of people have taken issue with how much attention that specific story has gotten, right, with some sharing this video seeming to show a cop spitting on the Palestinian flag after it was taken down. And people writing things like, if you're more offended by a US flag being taken down at UNC than you are by a US-backed genocide, you aren't a serious person.

Which actually, on that note, yes, this week there's been a lot of focus on the protests. But we should also make sure that we talk about what they are protesting, right? The war in Gaza. And on that front, we're seeing things like, for example, Secretary of State Antony Blinken being in Israel yesterday for what was described as one of the most serious rounds of negotiations between Israel and Hamas since the war began. But at the same time, you're seeing Netanyahu vowing to invade Rafah with or without a deal. And this is there are also reports that the International Criminal Court is preparing to issue arrest warrants for

Netanyahu and other high-ranking Israeli officials for war crimes. With the Israeli government there reportedly asking for Biden's help and some making threats at the retaliate against the Palestinian Authority if the warrants are issued. And this coming as there are reports of mass graves being found in Gaza. With all that said, I know that we hit on a lot of different things that are happening here. And of course, as always, I'd love to hear from you. And then those of you who are feeling the stress of mounting debt, I understand I was there. That weight is not a joke. I know that pressure and that feeling of, well, helplessness. And if you're feeling that way, or you're feeling like your actions are reducing your debt, they're just not working. Today's sponsor, PDS Debt, has a program that

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And this, even though he was only 45 years old and was in good health and reportedly led a healthy lifestyle. And while you have a lot of people saying, this feels a little bit like when Russian oligarchs like slip and fall out of windows, or, you know, they drink the wrong tea, it should 100% be noted that so far

there is no evidence of any foul play here. With Dean's aunt telling the Seattle Times he became ill and went to the hospital because he was having trouble breathing just over two weeks ago. And while there, he was intubated, developed pneumonia, and then had an antibiotic-resistant staph infection known as MRSA. So his condition deteriorated rapidly after that, with him going on an ECMO machine, which circulates and oxygenates a patient's blood outside the body, taking over heart and lung function when organs don't work on their own. Next, he went on dialysis and a CT scan indicated that he had suffered a stroke, according to his mom. And it got so bad that doctors were considering amputating both hands and feet. But obviously before that could happen, he passed away. And to go back as far as what he blew the whistle on, it actually all started in October of 2022,

with Dean saying that he found mechanics improperly drilling holes in an important part of the MAX, and saying that when he raised the issue with management, nothing was done, with him then finding another flaw in the fittings that attached the vertical tail fin to the fuselage. But after that discovery, Spirit fired him last year. And so he filed a complaint

with the Department of Labor alleging retaliation, and another complaint with the FAA alleging safety complaints, with him then giving a deposition in the shareholder lawsuit alleging that Spirit management concealed the quality issues. And now his death comes not long after the first whistleblower, former Boeing quality control engineer John Barnett,

apparently took his own life in March. Right in that, after he told the BBC in 2019 that Boeing would rush to get its 787 Dreamliner jets off the production line, compromising safety. And also telling TMZ this year that he thought the company was returning its jets to the sky too quickly after the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout, with him suing his former employer for retaliating against him after he raised concerns to management. And it was him

missing a deposition for that lawsuit, which prompted his lawyers to look for him and eventually find his body. With a friend later telling ABC News, It won't take long to tell you Neutrals ingredients. Vodka. Soda. Natural flavors. So, what should we talk about? No sugar added? Neutral. Refreshingly simple. What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? Refreshingly simple. for. Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your

first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over deliver. He wasn't concerned about safety because I asked him, I said, aren't you scared? And his voice and the way he

would talk, uh-uh, no, I ain't scared. He said, but if anything happens to me, it's not the way he would talk. Uh-uh, no, I ain't scared. He said, but if anything happens to me, it's not suicide. And then... So just a big shout out to the Supreme Court for making sure, I guess, that I have VPN sponsors for pretty much the rest of my career.

That's one way I can introduce this story. Because this week, the Supreme Court refused to block a Texas law from taking effect that requires porn sites to verify users' age by requiring them to submit personal information like government IDs. right, with supporters of the law saying that it's aimed at preventing minors from accessing those platforms. Though adult websites have largely just responded by blocking their content in states where they have laws like this. Now,

notably here, the decision to let the law stay in place may be temporary, or with the court just saying that the law can stand while they consider whether to take up the case, which, you know, was appealed to the high court after a ton of legal back and forth. Because after the age verification law was first passed, a group of challengers sued, arguing that it violated the First Amendment rights of adults while also raising serious privacy and security concerns, saying that requiring users to provide government ID

opens them up to identity theft or possibly extortion, and arguing that the law won't be that effective because it doesn't restrict access to porn on search engines or social media. Which, yeah, I don't know your experience, but on platforms like X, for example, there could be a very popular post. You know, there's nothing sexual about it. You go into the replies and it's just, it's a lot of content I can't be looking at while I'm in line at the grocery store. But notably in this situation, in a lower court decision earlier, Judge Davin

Allen Ezra of the Federal District Court in Austin ruled in the plaintiff's favor, blocking the law at the time and arguing that it would have a chilling effect on speech, writing, by verifying information through government identification, the law will allow the government to peer into the most intimate and personal aspects of people's lives. It runs the risk that the state can monitor when an adult views sexually explicit materials and what kind of websites they visit. In effect, the law risks forcing individuals to divulge specific details of their sexuality to the state government to gain access to certain speech. But then we saw a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit disagreeing, striking down Ezra's ruling and saying that the law is rationally related to the government's legitimate interest

in preventing minors' access to pornography. Though very notably here, that panel was divided, with the dissenting judge arguing that not only does the law undermine free speech, it could also limit access to other content deemed pornographic, like popular shows and films or, you know, a lot of HBO content, whether it be Cersei, Lannister, Bangin' Her Brother, or whatever else. And the judge also arguing that his colleagues ruling conflicts with Supreme Court precedent, right? And actually, to that point, it'll be very interesting to see if the Supreme Court takes up this case in full because there are

some overlapping precedents here. For example, in 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of limiting the distribution of certain sexual materials to minors. But then, in 1968, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of limiting the distribution of certain sexual materials to minors. But then, in 2004, the justices at the time actually blocked a law very similar to the one in Texas by finding that it did indeed interfere with the First Amendment rights of adults. And what's more, the court's decision on whether to take up this case is also massively consequential because any decision could reach far beyond Texas. Right, in recent years, similar age verification laws have been passed in nearly 10 other states, and there are others considering to do the same. But for now, we're just going to have to wait to see what these nine forever judges decide to do. And then, in huge reproductive

healthcare news, Arizona has repealed their Civil War-era abortion ban. That law was put in place in 1864, before Arizona was even a state, before women could vote. And that ban prohibiting all abortions from the moment of conception, with exceptions only for the mother's life being in danger. And while that law was dormant for decades under Roe v. Wade, last month, the Republican-appointed state Supreme Court ruled four to two to reinstate it. With then previous votes

in the Republican-controlled state Senate failing two times to repeal the law, this time, two Republicans joined Democrats, voting 16 to 14 in favor of this move. And kind of a fun little thing here, I'm using that word fun pretty loosely. One of those two Republicans is state Senator Shauna Bollick, who notably is married to literally one of the state Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold the 1864 law. And oh my God, I would love to be at that dinner table. Because in addition to her vote,

she delivered a passionate 20-minute speech on the floor where she talked about how she had to get an abortion during one of her pregnancies because the fetus wasn't viable. But the big thing is this was really the final hurdle needed to repeal the law. Because the House already passed the repeal last week after three Republicans joined all Democrats in that vote. And the state's Democratic governor has said that she will sign the legislation as soon as today. In fact, it might already be done by the time you're watching this. Which then brings us to, well, what happens next? Well, once that old law is fully repealed, a more recent law that was passed in 2022 after Roe was reversed, that'll go into effect. And that one bans abortions in the state at 15 weeks. Though also here that the timing is important because it's actually possible that for

a little bit, the 1864 ban will actually go into effect. And that's because of procedural timing issues, right? Because even once the governor signs this, the law won't take effect until 90 days after the current legislative session ends. But that isn't expected until this summer. And last year, the legislature didn't adjourn until July 31st. While Arizona's Democratic Attorney General has done some legal maneuvering to try to stall the old ban, with that including issuing a legal stay, her office said that her actions just stop it from being implemented before June 27th.

Which is also why we've seen Planned Parenthood filing a motion asking the state Supreme Court to hold off enforcing the 1864 ban in this weird interim. But if that request is denied, this very restrictive ban would go into effect 45 days later. And then even after that, the whole situation is not done because even once the 15 week ban, it takes effect. The state's currently on track to vote on a ballot measure this November, one that would enshrine abortion rights in the constitution and allow the procedure until fetal viability, which is about 24 weeks. Right. And this after organizers said last month, they already have enough votes to get the question on the ballot. So as if the

election this year in Arizona wasn't big enough, it just got bigger. And then, you know, when done responsibly, who doesn't love indulging in some drinks from time to time? But also, who's able to bounce back like they used to? And if you really did raise your hand or even thought about it, I bet a lot of those hands stayed up.

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cheering and singing on the conference center floor and two pastors telling 10 Tampa Bay. We can be welcomed instead of hidden and celebrated instead of criticized or shunned. This way of doing church where love's at the center is really what it's all about. But there are two big caveats with this news. First, this was only possible

because about a quarter of the most conservative U.S. congregations broke away from the church in the past few years, with some forming the alternative global Methodist church and others going independent, which is also one of the big reasons why the tone at the United Methodist Church's general conference this week

that has been described as decidedly upbeat, right? There wasn't even a floor debate on the repeals, which was just so drastically different than the 2019 conference, right? Because after extremely heated debates there, the church actually tightened the bans on gay clergy and weddings, with that vote coming down to a 53 to 47% split. But even though they won then, they still defected in the years afterward, accusing the church of not enforcing the bans after some local congregations defied them. Even before this new vote, there were actually numerous openly gay clergy and two gay bishops. But they're now also likely that this is going to be the last straw

for some conservative holdouts who leave the church after this conference. But that also brings us to the second big caveat, which is that last week, the church granted some flexibility to specific regions such as North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia, with leaders in those areas able to make their own rules about gay clergy and weddings, which would make it easier for more conservative parts of the world to stomach the more progressive changes coming out of the United States. But still, without a doubt, this is a massive change for the second largest Protestant denomination in the US

after Southern Baptists. And then, you know, whenever a friend tells me about online dating, 99% of the time, it just sounds like a nightmare. All the bots, the lies, the misrepresenting, the ghosting, it's just, ugh. But also, we just saw some big online dating news this week that we should talk about,

with it specifically being about the platform Bumble. Because since 2014, Bumble has set a rule where only women can send the first message. And if she doesn't say anything, within 24 hours, the match that you two had, it expires. And so that was meant to give women more control over the process. But this week, we saw Bumble remove that feature entirely. And instead, replacing it with another one called Opening Moves. So now men can message first, but they're encouraged to respond to a prompt on the woman's profile, like what's your dream vacation? And for non-binary and same gender matches, both sides can use those prompts. And reportedly this change

actually came in response to feedback from women, with many women complaining that making the first move was quote, a lot of work or quote, a burden. So this new idea is that they can still dictate how the conversation starts without having to open it themselves every single time. And Bumble also did this as they added a bunch of new features to the profile setup. So now you can put your dating intentions, character traits that you're looking for, causes they support. With all of this also being a part of Bumble's effort

to reinvent itself after a rough few years for the industry as a whole. I mean, just speaking about money, since it went public in 2021, the company's stock has lost over 80% of its value. And in January, its founder, Whitney Wolf Hurd, stepped down as CEO, handing over the reins to Lydianne Jones, the former chief executive at Slack, which was then quickly followed with a shakeup the next month with the company laying off about a third of its staff, or 350 people. And so it'll be very

interesting to see if this does turn the ship around for Bumble. Though it also brings up an interesting topic in the tech world. How much does it actually benefit you to be unique? Because women messaging first, that was a core defining differentiating feature. It essentially separated Bumble from pretty much every other dating app in the market. But this is also happening at a time where pretty much every app is trying to be every other app, whether it be Instagram introducing stories because of Snapchat or YouTube introducing shorts because of TikTok. With that said, if you're in this current dating world, and even better, if you've used or you use Bumble, what are your thoughts on this specifically? But also what are your thoughts on the landscape that is the dating world right now in general?

And then, so this is good news or bad news, depending on your opinion here. Because Johnson and Johnson just announced that they're moving forward with a $6.5 billion offer to settle tens of thousands of lawsuits over its allegedly cancerous talc baby powder. And while the company still maintains that the powder was safe, even though it had the well-known carcinogen asbestos in it and it discontinued making it back in 2022. They want to get this deal done, which is definitely what you would do when you are not guilty, I guess. But the big thing is if the claimants agree to this deal, payments will be done over 25 years. And the company says that $6.5 billion will cover 99.75% of the pending talc lawsuits that they're facing. And notably,

this is the third time J&J has actually tried to settle this, with their past two attempts involving them trying to offload their liabilities to its LTL subsidiary, which is something that critics said was a move to limit how much J&J would actually need to pay, with courts then rejecting those plans and saying J&J would still be on the hook. And now this time, it looks like they're trying to do the same move in structuring the deal as part of a bankruptcy filing for LTO. Though also, there's a major difference. 75% of the claimants would need to agree to this deal over the course of the next three months. And so Johnson & Johnson, they hope

that this voting will help persuade the courts to let the deal go through rather than have a lengthy and expensive trial. With them arguing that it is a, quote, far better recovery than the claimants stand to recover at trial. And that might even be true considering a majority of the plaintiff's lawyers agree with the plan. Although take that last part maybe with a grain of salt, because Johnson & Johnson is facing accusations that they're trying to manipulate the vote, and doing so by getting lawyers who either haven't sued yet or have cancers not clearly linked to Talc to agree to the plan. With one attorney even claiming that the company is, quote, covertly soliciting law firms to accept their deal, promising a swift payday for some opportunistic lawyers. Right,

and all of this is Johnson & Johnson wants to close this book. Right, if this deal's accepted, that's pretty much it. It'll prevent future claims against them for the same issue. It'll also essentially mean the end of this entire Talc-cancer saga for the company. Which notably, they have set aside $11 billion in total to pay out various claims relating to not only ovarian cancer, but also mesothelioma. And as far as on a person-to-person level, our reports say that it's unclear exactly how many claimants there are right now. We do know that there are at least 54,000. And so if that was the number, a $6.5 billion deal would mean $120,000 per person over 25 years, which depending on how you look at it is a lot or not a lot of money, especially as I

doubt that all the money in the world would make up for all the cancer that this company has allegedly caused. And then in the least shocking international news you'll ever hear, Iran's government has some fucked up priorities. Because currently we're seeing that instead of them going after security forces who sexually assaulted and killed a 16-year-old by the name of Nika Shakarami, which is something they've had plenty of time to do because it happened at the Women, Life, Freedom protest two years ago. Instead of that, they are charging the journalists who talked about the details. Right with this, coming after the BBC published a report about the incident this Monday. Although you have the Iranian government and its media describing the report as, quote, fake, incorrect,

and full of mistakes. Though this also as Sh Shakerami is hardly the only person to have died during those protests. But her death was an especially big deal because she had become somewhat of a symbol for the movement for setting her headscarf on fire. Though later that night, she texted a friend saying she was being chased by security forces and then just disappeared. But then not until a week later that her family finally found her body at a local mortuary. And while you had officials claiming that she had taken her own life, her family was adamant that she was clearly beaten to death. With then the BBC relying on a leaked document from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to get more details about her death.

And the details, which are horrific, show that an undercover paramilitary group had infiltrated the protest and targeted her for her actions. With her then being detained in an unmarked van before being sexually assaulted, she then tried to fight them off with her attackers and getting angry and beating her to death with batons before an IRGC officer told them to dump her body on the street. So you have the Iranian government trying to hide behind the fact that fake documents from its regime apparently circulate all the time. You have the BBC adamant that they properly vetted this one and they're confident that it is legit and truthfully details Shakerami's last moments. And with this, you had two journalists in the country who tweeted about the BBC's report

having since been picked up themselves in charge. One of the big things is they're not even really sure what they've been charged with, only that they've been summoned for commenting on, quote, the article about Nika Shakarami and the details of her murder. And so to no one's surprise, it seems like the regime there is more concerned about claiming that they've never done anything wrong rather than try to take some accountability, with it really feeling like it's only a matter of time before another large-scale protest breaks out. And hey, hopefully, eventually, one of them will work. But that is where this show is going to end. Thank you for watching and being a part of these daily dives into the news. And I'll see you soon, because my name's Philip DeFranco,

you've just been filled in, I love your faces, and I'll see you right back here on Monday.