Queen Elizabeth II dies at 96, DOJ appeals Mar-a-Lago special master: 5 Things podcast

On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: Queen Elizabeth II dies at 96

Reporter Maria Puente outlines what happens next. Plus, we look back on Queen Elizabeth II's life and leaders around the world react to her death. Plus, the Justice Department appeals the appointment of a special master in former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago case and the U.S. prepares to send more money to Ukraine.

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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 9th of September, 2022. Today, a look at what's next for Britain and the world after Queen Elizabeth II's death, plus more money is on its way to Ukraine and more.

Here are some of the top headlines:

1. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said yesterday that his country will never give up the nuclear weapons it needs to counter the US. He also accused the States of trying to weaken the North's defenses and eventually collapse as government.

2. There are new investigations into how the last suspect in Canada's mass stabbings died. One official initially said he died from self-inflicted injuries, while other officials declined to comment. Myles Sanderson and his brother Damien Sanderson died this week after allegedly massacring 10 people on Sunday in and around a Canadian Indigenous reserve.

3. And the Buffalo Bills routed the defending champion Los Angeles Rams last night, 31 to 10, to kick off the NFL season. Opening games continue on Sunday.

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Queen Elizabeth II has died. She's the only monarch many of her subjects have ever known and passed away yesterday at Balmoral Castle, her estate in Scotland. Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was 96. She was healthy for much of her life, but mobility issues affected her in recent months. She also increasingly missed public events.

This week she did preside over the transition of one prime minister to another, but she was then unable to attend by Zoom the meeting of a committee of senior governmental advisors on doctor's orders to rest. She also missed major appearances in June during her Platinum Jubilee celebration marking 70 years on the throne.

Her death comes after Prince Philip died last year, her husband of 73 years. Her oldest son and heir Prince Charles now takes over, immediately becoming King Charles III and his wife becomes Queen Consort Camilla. As for what happens next, reporter Maria Puente has more.

Maria Puente:

A coronation will not happen for months. When Queen Elizabeth became queen, she became queen in February 1952. She was not crowned until, like, July of 1953. These things take time so forget about the coronation.

The next thing that's going to happen is the funeral, a big elaborate ceremonial flourishes for the next 10 days. Immediately what's going to happen is apparently because she's in Scotland and not in either London or Windsor, the body's going to lie in state in Scotland for some period of time at the Royal Palace in Scotland and then it will be transported to London. Ordinarily, it would be by royal train, but apparently that might be by royal flight and then there's this long and elaborate set of ceremonies. She'll be lying in state. People will be able to go file past her coffin. Eventually, there will be a funeral service in Westminster Abbey and then, eventually, she will be taken to Windsor to be interred in the chapel where her father, her mother and her sister and her husband are already buried below the floor of St. George's Chapel in Windsor.

There is a whole separate set of rituals and ceremonies having to do with the new king, which will be going on at the same time. Charles apparently is going to address the nation at some point, but this is sort of normal.

The other thing that will happen is it will be his ascension day ceremonies. I mean, it'll be some elaborate thing that's at St. James' Palace and there will be heralds declaiming from balconies and all kinds of things like that. Then eventually Charles will take off to visit each of the kingdoms in the United Kingdom. That's England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

He's already king and he will start doing king things, like he's going to start getting the red boxes of documents from the government that the queen was signing all the way up to the end. That's what happens with the transition.

Taylor Wilson:

Elizabeth was born in London on April 21, 1926. Though she wasn't born to be queen, her father's older brother Prince Edward was, before abdicating in 1936 to marry American Wallace Simpson. Her father then became King George VI. Queen Elizabeth II began her reign in February of 1952, when her father died. She was just 25 at the time.

1952 Announcer:

The moment of the Queen's crowning has come. Holding high St. Edward's crown, the archbishop lowers the five-pound symbol of might and power. As he places it upon the Queen's head and removes his hands, the assemblage in one voice cries, "God save the Queen."

Taylor Wilson:

In the nearly three quarters of a century that followed, she went through 15 prime ministers, from Winston Churchill to this week's new PM, Liz Truss. She reigned over Britain rebuilding from World War II and the loss of an empire, with colonies around the world fighting for and declaring independence. Britain has a complex relationship with its former colonies today, but she was still respected and remained head of state of more than a dozen countries from Canada to Tuvalu. She also headed the 54-country Commonwealth built around Britain and its former colonies.

Still, the monarchy remains a symbol of oppression in some former colonies. On a trip to the Caribbean in March to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's 70th year, Prince William and his wife Catherine were met with protests and calls for reparations.

Under Elizabeth's reign, Britain also joined the European Union and then left it. In Britain's constitutional monarchy, the Queen is head of state, but has little direct power. She does what the government orders in her official actions, but she still had political influence and met weekly with the prime minister.

Through public events, she may have met more people than anyone in history. Her image on stamps and money was also one of the most reproduced pictures in the world.

But her inner life was often hidden away from the public. She was a horse owner and then was often with her beloved Welsh corgi dogs, but there were scandals inside the family. Her son Prince Andrew was friends with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and accused of sexually abusing a teenager who said she was trafficked by Epstein. He's denied those accusations.

But Queen Elizabeth was mostly a reassuring presence at home in Britain and abroad, she was a symbol of the country. She attended the 2012 London Olympics alongside James Bond while appearing to parachute into the Olympic stadium. In 2015, she overtook her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria's reign of 63 years, seven months and two days to become the longest-serving monarch in British history.

♦

Leaders around the world are reacting to the Queen's death. President Joe Biden called her a, "stateswoman of unmatched dignity and constancy who deepened the bedrock alliance between the United Kingdom and the United States." He and First Lady Jill Biden visited the British embassy where they wrote in a book of condolences.

President Joe Biden:

Good morning for all of you. She was a great lady. We're so delighted we got to meet her.

Taylor Wilson:

Biden also ordered flags at half-staff. In Canada, where the British monarch is the country's head of state, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised her, "wisdom, compassion and warmth." And in India, once part of the British empire, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, "She personified dignity and decency in public life. Pained by her demise."

In London, mourners continue to gather outside Buckingham Palace. Producer PJ Elliott caught up with international correspondent Kim Hjelmgaard to get the reaction from outside the palace.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

This had been sort of brewing for a long while. The Queen had not been well for some months, really, and gradually a lot of her official duties had been kind of delayed or she decided not to do them. She normally spends her summers up in Scotland at Balmoral Castle, but normally they would've made plans for her to come back down here to London by now and she didn't, that didn't happen.

When Liz Truss became prime minister on Tuesday, normally the Queen in London would sort of preside over a kind of handing-over ceremony and that would take place in London. But because of the Queen's health, Liz Truss went up to Scotland for the Queen to participate in that.

So all of those things, and then a series of statements from the palace over the last few months saying that the Queen was having what they called mobility issues, but really not giving much more detail. All of those things were sort of signaling that her health had not been very well for some time.

But I think that given all that, it's still kind of come as a bit of a shock to the UK. The Queen has been doing her thing for 70 years. She's seen 15 prime ministers. She met 13 out of 14 US presidents. The first US president she met was Harry Truman in 1951. And so she's kind of been the wallpaper for generations here. So I think for British people in particular, I'm not sure they know what to feel at this point. A few of the people I've spoken to in the crowds outside of Buckingham Palace kind of put that sentiment to me and they know that it's sort of this step, marks, is a significant marker for a kind of cultural moment and change and that the country will not feel the same again. But perhaps over the coming days, there'll be a bit more clarity on that, on those feelings and thoughts. Because, in fact, her death is going to be kind of over the next 10 days or so, there's going to be a lot of different sort of official ceremonies and processions and leading up to her funeral. So I think people are going to have time to kind of process and think about what it means for the country.

Then some of the other people that I've speaking to in the crowd, there's a lot of tourists down here who just happen to be in the UK on vacation and so on and, of course, the royal family is always a source of fascination for tourists in the UK. But I think that this moment that they can feel has brought them down outside Buckingham Palace in sizable numbers.

Taylor Wilson:

One of the people Kim spoke with, Michael, reflected on the Queen who's been around his whole life.

Michael:

Because I've known the Queen since I was a child.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Okay.

Michael:

I was born in 1946. The Queen was born in 1926. She's just the same age as my uncle.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Oh really?

Michael:

And today just feels like the day my mother died.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Today?

Michael:

I'm telling you, I was crying when I heard, because I'd been listening to the radio about our children being asked to come out now and visit. I didn't realize it was going to be this serious.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

You mean going up to Scotland or...

Michael:

Yeah, to Balmoral.

Kim Hjelmgaard:

Yeah.

Michael:

The thing is she only saw the new prime minister, it was a couple of day ago so we didn't realize that it was that serious.

Taylor Wilson:

Stateside, in Washington, DC, Americans also gathered outside the British embassy yesterday to pay their respects. Nebraskan Lynn Tate said the Queen was worth emulating.

Lynn Tate:

Really a shock to have her gone. We're going to miss her. We will miss her dreadfully. But she lived a life that is really, really a life that we should all remember and it's worth emulating, I think, very much.

Taylor Wilson:

And she said she remembers Queen Elizabeth's coronation in the 1950s.

Lynn Tate:

When I was a little girl growing up, one of my earliest memories was, or one of the earliest things I did was for her coronation in 1952, I made a big scrapbook of all the clippings and everything that I could find, which in 1952 was all newspapers, and I'm going to go home and find it now. I hope that I've still got it in the basement because I feel like she's been with me. I feel like I've been with her my whole life.

Taylor Wilson:

For more coverage of the Queen's death and what's next for Britain and the world, stay with USATODAY.com.

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The Justice Department will appeal the appointment of a special master to review thousands of documents seized during last month's search of former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property. That ruling has limited the criminal investigation into the Trump team's handling of classified government records. In court documents filed yesterday the government also asked US District Judge Aileen Cannon to suspend at least part of the ruling barring the use of the seized documents in the investigation pending the appeal. The judge had signaled in her ruling that a special master could screen records that could be covered by claims of executive privilege. Justice lawyers argued that the investigation would be seriously interrupted by banning investigators from accessing the documents. But Cannon did authorize the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to look at the classified documents for potential impact on national security while ordering the Justice Department to stop its criminal review temporarily. Justice lawyers, though, said the classification review and criminal inquiry are related and cannot be separated. Trump railed against the justice filing, saying the appeal would cost millions of dollars while applauding the judge and her previous ruling.

♦

The US is sending more money to Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unannounced trip to Kyiv yesterday as the Biden administration added another $2.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine and other European countries threatened by Russia. Blinken said the administration was sending $2.2 billion in long-term military financing to Ukraine and 18 of its neighbors, who are potentially at risk of future Russian aggression. That's on top of $675 million in weaponry, ammunition and supplies for the country.

Anthony Blinken:

This will allow the purchase of systems that you need and others will need over the longer term to deter and defend against any future aggressions from Russia. It will be the kind of assistance that is durable and enduring. Across all of these measures, our support, the pressure on Russia, the humanitarian and economic assistance, I think together have proven very effective and we will keep at. You have our word and our track record.

Taylor Wilson:

Just two weeks ago, the administration announced a $3 billion package of support for Ukraine. Total US support for the country is now at more than $15 billion since President Joe Biden took office. Blinken will visit Brussels today to continue emphasizing coordinated support for Ukraine's fight against Russia's invasion.

Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us every morning right here wherever you're listening right now. Thanks to our entire 5 Things team, including PJ Elliott, James Brown, Cherie Saunders and Shannon Green for their great work on the show. I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from USA TODAY.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Queen Elizabeth dies, DOJ appeals Trump special master: 5 Things podcast