0:04

Welcome to the Daily Dive Weekend Edition.

0:07

I'm Oscar Ramirez, and every week I explored

0:09

the top stories making waves in the news

0:11

and some that are just playing interesting. I'll

0:14

connect you with the journalists and the people who know the

0:16

story and bring you news without the noise

0:18

so you can make an informed decision. You

0:20

can catch a new episode of The Daily Dive every Monday

0:23

through Friday, and it's ready when you wake up.

0:26

On the weekend edition, I'll be bringing you some of the best

0:28

stories from the week. This

0:32

week, the Biden administration struck a deal

0:34

with Russia to free w NBA star

0:36

Britney Grinder. In exchange for her freedom,

0:39

the US released arms dealer Victor Bout

0:41

was known as the Merchant of Debt. This

0:43

caps a ten month or deal for Grinder after

0:46

she was arrested for possession of hash oil cartridges

0:48

in Russia. For more on what's to know about

0:51

Grinder's release and what happens to Paul

0:53

Wheeling, another American and Russian custody

0:55

for espionage charges, will speak to Alex

0:57

Ward, national security reporter at

0:59

Politic So. As you regularly noted, this has been

1:01

really going on, these negotiations

1:04

since Griner was detained in February

1:06

for having you know, hash oil in her

1:08

bag at a Moscow airport. And what

1:11

they've been really trying to do, they being the Biden administration,

1:13

was trade effectively

1:16

two Americans, Grinder and Paul Wheeland,

1:18

a former marine who has been detained in Russia

1:20

for four years unproven charges

1:22

of espionage, in exchange for Victor Bout,

1:25

who, as you said, was a merchant of death, and he has been

1:27

charged in the US with trying to kill

1:29

Americans as well as hating the Taliban

1:31

Afghanistan, recruiting child

1:33

soldiers, mutilation, et

1:35

cetera. I mean, not not a great but the

1:37

Russians pushed back on this too for one

1:40

deal, saying it really needed to be Grinder

1:44

for Boots. The decision basically

1:46

came to Biden the last couple of weeks saying, look,

1:48

with the Russian this is where the Russians are. They will not budge

1:50

from this. It's basically either Grinder come home

1:53

or no one comes home. And Biden decided

1:55

to make the decision to do

1:57

the one for one deal, grant clemency

2:00

to Boot, who was going to be in prison

2:02

until and make

2:04

this deal in the UAE where

2:07

they were exchanged at an Abu

2:09

Dhabi. So that's sort of what happened here,

2:11

and that's why Britney Grinders, as we speak at this moment,

2:13

flying back to the United States. And there's always

2:15

already been some video that surface showing that

2:17

prisoner exchange, you know about and Grinder

2:20

kind of walking past each other as they go to their

2:22

respective sides. All very interesting

2:24

and you know, the stuff of movies even and

2:27

the difficult decision that went into this. Right,

2:29

what are people saying, you know, is this a lopsided

2:32

deal? Because as you mentioned, you you

2:34

detailed about and all the stuff that he

2:36

was done, known as the Merchant of Death. You

2:38

know, Brittney Grinder obviously a basketball

2:40

star, but we had this whole thing that happened

2:42

with Russia and Ukraine. There was you

2:44

know, saying that she was a political pond. You

2:47

know, what are people saying about

2:49

the deal that was made? Well,

2:51

I mean there's a bit of concern

2:53

because look, I mean there are many people who are saying

2:56

it is a basketball star in exchange for

2:58

an extremely prominent and

3:00

likely dangerous man. They

3:02

are not equivalent, right, and so because

3:05

of that, there is concerned that maybe the US

3:07

gave up too much an exchange for Grinder as

3:09

just as our cause. Maybe, And of course it

3:12

is not on the Biden administration, but any administration's

3:14

policy to work as diligently and

3:16

as hard as possible to bring any American rockidly

3:18

detained abroad home. And so

3:21

you have to imagine the Biden administration had a

3:23

tough decision to me to try to call Russia's bluffs

3:25

as it possible. You know that if we

3:28

decided to keep Brittany in Russia,

3:30

could we get Grinder and we land

3:32

for Bood down the line. The administration decided

3:35

not to take that risk. They decided to do the eel

3:37

on the table, which was one for one. But now

3:39

you see the administration not really

3:42

speaking to legitimate questions

3:44

about what are the security concerns now that

3:46

food is freed. All you really heard Karine

3:49

Jean Pierre, the White House Press Secretary, say is

3:51

Biden considered the security

3:53

risks and did not take the decision lightly,

3:55

indicating that there are some security risks

3:58

now that Buddhist street, but we're just not clear what those may right.

4:00

And things had escalated on Brittan Grinder's

4:02

side, of things. She had been sentenced to this

4:04

penal colony for nine years. We

4:07

were hearing kind of the descriptions of

4:09

daily life there, and you know how hard it

4:11

was going to be for her, and she had just

4:13

gotten shipped out there. So I mean, you

4:16

know, they had said all all along they wanted at least

4:18

get a deal done by Christmas, but that kind of

4:20

escalated things so obviously to the

4:22

point of the whole conversation, right, they had to weigh

4:24

all the options and figured, you know, we have to

4:26

get her out. As far as Paul Wheel

4:28

and what we're hearing, you know, his family did speak

4:30

out. They said it sucks that he couldn't

4:32

come home too, but it still was the right decision.

4:35

Yes, but you also haven't heard from Paul Whelan himself

4:38

say you know, why am I still sitting here? So

4:40

he is anger. And I talked to Elizabeth Wheel

4:42

and his sister, who said, look, he's just trying

4:44

to be remembered, you know, who wouldn't be upset. And

4:46

we have to remember that in April, the US was

4:48

able to release Trevor Read, another

4:51

former marine, but did not bring Paul

4:53

Whelan Holmes. So US now twice this year that

4:55

another American hostage in Russia has come home,

4:57

but Paul Whelan has stayed in prison,

5:00

and so he's he's naturally asking, you know, why not

5:02

me? You know, why am I still

5:04

here? And so yes, you know, when you talk to the Whelan

5:06

family, they will say, of course, you

5:08

know, are we happy about Britney reading returned? Of course,

5:10

every you know, every American should be returned home. But

5:13

they are understandably upset and as is

5:15

Paul understandably upset um that

5:17

Paul Whelan still remains in a Russian prison. Stuff.

5:19

The situations were obviously different. Brittney Grinder

5:21

had drugs on her, she the these hash

5:24

oil cartridges. Paul Whelan's

5:26

in there for espionage, that's what they

5:28

they got him on. And obviously he you know, he's saying,

5:30

hey, how was this is completely untrue? All that?

5:33

So obviously the situations are different. Do

5:35

we have any indication of what

5:37

Russia wants for Paul Wheeland? Now,

5:40

well, we've heard that they would like a

5:42

Russian who is currently detained in Germany,

5:44

who is they're charged with killing

5:47

a Georgian citizen in twenty nineteen. There's

5:50

also been talking that the Russians would like the US

5:52

to hand over a Russian

5:54

spy to them, but the US that says

5:57

that it is not and she does not detain one.

5:59

There's not one to give. So, you

6:01

know, it's unclear if maybe the U S was talking to Germany

6:04

and the Germans didn't want to give up that Russian or

6:06

the U S isn't being forthright, or

6:09

there really isn't someone to trade. But

6:11

this is sort of complicating the issue, right because

6:13

there were a lot of people that were saying the price should

6:15

be very high for Bood, it should be Grinder and Wheeland.

6:18

The fact that Grinder's you know, no longer on the table, that she's

6:20

you know, gratefully and rightfully coming

6:22

home, you know that that makes it harder,

6:24

very likely to bring Paul Wheeland home. It's

6:27

unclear what else the US could give

6:29

at this point. There may be some other

6:31

deal they're working on. I mean, Paul Whelan's lawyer

6:33

in in Russia seems pretty optimistic

6:36

that there might be a deal down the line. Elizabeth Wheeland

6:39

again all sister told me that the way

6:41

that the Russians were providing paula phone

6:43

to call the family in the morning, which is a rare

6:45

time. The access to US officials

6:48

gave her the sense that maybe the Russians

6:50

are trying to loosen up a little bit on Paul, but

6:53

that of course remains to be seen. It is completely

6:55

unclear. They could just be more open now

6:57

because of course there's there was a big deal just made.

7:00

Well, Brittney Grinder coming home. Hopefully

7:03

a deal can be made for Paul Wheel and will keep an eye

7:05

out for all of that. Alex Ward, national

7:07

security reporter at Politico, thank you very

7:09

much for joining us absolutely this

7:15

week. We also kicked off the chip manufacturing

7:18

boom in the US. President

7:20

Biden towards a Taiwan semiconductor

7:22

manufacturing company plant in Arizona

7:25

that is tripling its investments to build new

7:27

semiconductive chips. As the relationship

7:29

between China, Taiwan and the US continues

7:31

to be strained, we're rushing to build our

7:34

own local supply. For more

7:36

on how the U S semi conductor industry is just

7:38

getting started, we'll speak to Matt Phillips,

7:40

markets correspondent at Axios. There's

7:42

kind of two separate things that we're seeing. We all

7:44

remember the shortages of chips

7:47

that we saw after the COVID

7:49

reopening began and it became so expensive

7:52

to try to find cars and spiraled

7:54

into a whole bunch of other products. So that's

7:56

one thing that's a bit more of an inconvenience

7:58

type issue. What's going on in Arizona

8:00

is really interesting because that's a bit

8:02

more strategic. It's a bit less about

8:04

having an easy, steady supply

8:07

of relatively low value

8:10

chips to put in things like cars. It's more

8:12

about the really high end,

8:14

cutting edge chips that we

8:16

rely on for technologies

8:19

that are really important for cell

8:21

phones but also for national security

8:24

applications. So what's

8:26

happening now is a bit more concern

8:29

less about sort of access to any chips

8:32

and more concern about specifically

8:34

relying on a small country

8:36

like Taiwan that is increasingly

8:38

imperiled by China. Like that's kind

8:40

of what's going on with this one. Yeah, and tell us

8:42

a little bit more about that front right now, because

8:45

we do get a lot of chips from Taiwan, but

8:47

we're seeing the tensions that are happening between

8:49

China and Taiwan even and uh,

8:51

you know, we don't want to get kind of lost in

8:53

the shuffle. There, that's right. You know,

8:56

we're living in an interesting time where, really,

8:59

since the end of the Cold War, the

9:02

assumptions that global business

9:04

leaders operated with were

9:07

that goods, people, capital

9:10

could all largely flow across borders

9:13

relatively easily. War was

9:15

kind of a thing of the past of the twentieth

9:17

century, and we could basically

9:20

all put that behind us and focus

9:22

on building these really sprawling networks

9:24

of supply chains all around

9:26

the world that could deliver really really high

9:29

end products at a really low price. That

9:31

kind of era is increasingly

9:33

looking like it's over between

9:35

the war and Ukraine, with Russia's

9:38

invasion and the really

9:41

extreme response that we saw to Nancy

9:43

Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, where

9:46

China was really for the first time doing exercises

9:49

about how to enforce a blockade

9:51

of Taiwan. It's really not lost on

9:53

business leaders and political leaders that we really need

9:55

to have access to some of these super high end chips,

9:58

you know, within the United States, within

10:00

our own control, because as we're

10:02

seeing, like Germany built its entire

10:05

economy around having a relatively

10:07

steady flow of access to Russian

10:09

natural gas. Now that's over, you

10:12

know, and they can then the economy is really

10:14

struggling to figure out how to adjust to

10:16

that. So we're trying to not to make those kind

10:18

of strategic missteps, and

10:21

that's a big part of what's going on. And it was interesting

10:23

when we saw President Biden traveling to Arizona

10:25

earlier in the week. They said, hey, why are you traveling to

10:27

a border state without actually visiting

10:29

the border, and he said something, you know, we got other big

10:32

things to do there, and so this was what

10:34

that trip was tell us a little bit about what

10:36

they're gonna be doing there in Arizona.

10:38

They're gonna be creating a lot of jobs, and then obviously

10:40

what we're talking about, you know, hopefully uh

10:43

creating a lot of these high value chips that we

10:45

need. The actual plant that he was visiting

10:47

is being opened by Taiwan

10:50

Semi Conductor. They're arguably

10:52

the biggest producer of chips in the world

10:54

and have about fifty percent of

10:57

the share of what's called foundry business

11:00

that's essentially contract chip making for

11:02

other companies, and they produced

11:04

some of the world's most sophisticated chips. And

11:07

previously we relied on their operations

11:09

in Taiwan, and as we said before,

11:11

that's looking like that island of twenty

11:14

three million people next to this one

11:16

point four billion population,

11:18

Behee myth is looking increasingly imperiled.

11:21

So the government passed this act

11:24

in August. Biden signed it into

11:26

law. It's called the Chips and Science Act,

11:28

and that includes about fifty billion dollars

11:31

in subsidies to try to coax these

11:33

chip manufacturing plants to

11:35

build new plants all around the US. And that's

11:37

really been happening. A couple in Arizona,

11:39

actually, Taiwan Semiconductor basically

11:42

tripled the size of their original investment

11:45

that they announced, um yesterday, so

11:47

they're gonna be spending about forty billion dollars

11:49

there. Samsung, which is a big Korean

11:51

chip maker they're talking about, may be spending

11:54

two billion dollars building out there basically

11:56

chip making enterprise in near

11:59

in and around US in Texas area. So,

12:01

I mean, it's really a huge amount of business

12:03

that it could, you know, go into

12:06

the U. S. Economy. It's great news, it's jobs

12:08

that will stay here. But uh, and

12:10

you made the mention at the end of the article too, it's

12:12

still going to take a long time to kind of ramp

12:14

that up. So while it's great that we're doing it now,

12:17

really that shift and balance is going to happen for

12:19

some time as you need to build out these

12:21

things really get things rolling, yeah,

12:24

for sure, and it could. It requires a lot of highly

12:26

trained people, So people have to be trained up.

12:28

I mean literally, we make zero of these kinds

12:30

of chips and needed seats right now, so they're going to have

12:32

to bring in a lot of people from Taiwan to train

12:35

Americans on how to make these things,

12:37

how to operate the machinery, how to install the machinery.

12:39

So it's a huge long term investment,

12:42

but hopefully one that will result

12:44

in steady jobs and

12:47

economic and national security totally.

12:49

And and you know maybe as we do start

12:51

getting into the game more, maybe some more innovation

12:54

might even be occurring. So it's an exciting time

12:56

for the US to really start finally getting into

12:58

all of it, and we could tinue to watch

13:00

out. Matt Phillips, markets correspondent

13:03

at Axios, thank you very much for joining

13:05

us. Thanks so much for having me this

13:11

week. We're also continuing to hear more about the

13:13

hot weight loss drug we go Vi. It's

13:15

in short supply and very high demand.

13:18

The drug has proven to help people lose as much as of

13:21

their weight by suppressing appetite, but

13:23

the company expected more of a gradual adoption

13:25

of the drug and has lost out on a ton

13:27

of potential cash, selling only

13:29

seven million dollars to date. Analysts

13:31

had projected two billion in sales for two

13:36

For more and why you can't find we go Vi, will

13:38

speak to Peter loftus farmer reporter

13:40

at the Wall Street Journal. One of their early factors

13:43

was that before Novo Nordis

13:45

came out with we go Vi, which was in the middle,

13:49

they had one view of what kind

13:51

of a market it was going to be, and that

13:53

view was more conservative. They

13:56

thought, you know that eventually it could

13:58

be a big selling drug and that there

14:00

could be a lot of prescriptions written, but

14:02

that that would take time. And this was

14:04

sort of based on their experience

14:06

with an older weight lost drug, sex

14:08

and as well as other older

14:10

weight loss drugs. Those older drugs

14:13

had more modest weight

14:15

loss effects and a

14:17

lot of insurers didn't cover them, and

14:19

so Novo Nordis went into

14:21

this thinking, Okay, we we like what

14:23

we have with vigovi. We know it can help people

14:26

lose up to of their body

14:28

weight, but just based on our

14:30

experience with this market, we think it's

14:32

going to take some time for it to grow. And

14:34

so as a result, they set up a certain

14:37

level of manufacturing capacity that

14:39

was in line with that more conservative

14:42

view of how quickly this market

14:44

would grow. And then what happened

14:46

was once it came on the market, the demand

14:49

was was huge. It was really above

14:51

what they had expected. And I think I

14:53

think that was a combination of that,

14:56

it did have a better benefit

14:58

for weight loss than most drugs before,

15:01

and I think social media had

15:03

become so much more established since

15:06

the last time a weight loss drug came out

15:08

that the words started to spread

15:10

virally, really with no

15:13

help from Novo Norths. They weren't actually

15:15

necessarily promoting it. It just kind of spread

15:18

on its own, and so that that really led to

15:20

an increase in demand. And so let's

15:22

talk a little bit about the money, because that's always

15:24

such an important part, right So the market for anti

15:27

obesity drugs right now is worth two

15:29

point four billion dollars worldwide.

15:31

They say it could be fifty billion. So

15:34

when they were talking about we go Vi, they've

15:36

made around seven hundred million dollars

15:38

in sales to date, but what they were projecting

15:41

just for we go Vie sales for two

15:44

was two billion dollars. So they

15:46

kind of blew it on that front, just a miss

15:48

opportunity when it comes to making boatloads

15:51

of cash. Analysts were predicting

15:53

that that figure two billion, and

15:56

yes they've fallen short. And I should

15:58

say that another factor year that

16:00

came up later was that a contract

16:03

manufacturer that Novo Nordis was

16:05

working with help with one step

16:07

of the production process had some

16:09

issues where they were having basically

16:12

quality problems at their plan and they

16:14

had to scale back manufacturing.

16:16

And so that was something that that made

16:19

it an even worse situation than might

16:21

have been the case even with Novo's conservative

16:24

outlook for how quickly this market

16:26

would grow. So it was really kind of one

16:29

factor was planning for a more

16:31

cautious outlook, a more conservative

16:33

growth pattern, but then this totally

16:36

unplanned manufacturing

16:38

snaff who that that also kind of compounded

16:40

the matter. And as you mentioned, you know, social media

16:43

played a huge part in and people were seeing it all over

16:45

the place on TikTok and YouTube and they

16:47

said, hey, I want to get in on this

16:49

weight loss drug. You mentioned that other um

16:51

that other drug Sex and death right. So in

16:54

five weeks it took doctors to

16:56

write new prescriptions for Rigo vi added the

16:58

same weekly volume that it took other drug

17:00

sex and that four years to reach. That's

17:02

how quick this thing is shot up. And so

17:04

what is Novo nordis doing

17:07

now. They're saying that they're going to kind of

17:09

do a relaunch early next

17:11

year. They will have enough supply

17:14

to meet that demand. They say they've

17:16

taken steps to build an inventory

17:19

of you know that this drug comes in a

17:21

range of doses, and so they've

17:23

they've had to make sure that they've got an equal

17:25

amount of all doses out there, and

17:27

they're lining up more manufacturing capacity

17:30

both internally and externally,

17:33

so that at some point I think

17:35

they think by early they

17:38

should be able to say, Okay,

17:40

really any new patient can get this, because

17:43

that's really been the net effect so far

17:45

as that patients who had

17:47

started on we Go by a certain point,

17:50

many of them were able to continue on sort

17:52

of the maintenance dose. But for

17:55

many people, if they hadn't started on it by a

17:57

certain point, they just weren't going to start on it at

17:59

all. So that's what Novo is expecting

18:01

soon to be able to say, like anyone

18:03

can can start to get this drug and

18:06

we should have a sufficient supply. And what

18:08

a happy I mean happy side

18:10

effect, I guess you can call it right for unexpected

18:13

for what was supposed to be diabetes

18:15

drug. That's why you know people are looking

18:18

to the week of either looking to ozempic, they

18:20

were looking to another one as alternatives

18:24

too we go because they couldn't get it. But these are

18:26

diabetes drugs, which is kind of one of the

18:28

most interesting parts of it. Yeah,

18:31

it's like it's kind of like

18:33

drugs for for two diseases in one

18:36

drug. And these companies,

18:38

Novo and their competitors, they

18:40

did find in the past that studying

18:43

these types of drugs for diabetes, they

18:45

did see this effect of weight loss.

18:48

But I think it's really just in the past few years

18:50

where the magnetis by by sort

18:52

of refining these drugs and coming

18:55

up with better versions of them, they've

18:57

seen that the magnitude of the weight loss

18:59

has become really striking, to the point

19:01

where it's not just the happy

19:03

side effects for people with diabetes to

19:05

lose weight, but it's a drug specifically

19:08

to lose weight, including for people who

19:10

don't even have diabetes. And so that's where

19:12

there's been the real shift, and I think why

19:15

there's such a big market opportunity for these

19:17

drugs. Well, if you're looking for we go

19:19

vie, maybe next year. Peter

19:21

loftus farmer, reporter the Wall

19:23

Street Journal, thank you very much for joining us.

19:26

Thanks thanks for having me. Don't

19:29

forget to join us on social media at

19:31

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19:45

and this is the Daily Dive Weekend edition