Cornell's president is

isIt's, it's a man, and, and, uh, and the- what, what I know is that from, from their communication with me, is that Cornell's leadership has agreed to, uh, at least a somewhat independent investigation.

We're really waiting to see who will run that, how it will be structured, how independent it will actually be.

Um, and those questions will be sweeping.

It will not just be what happened that night, it will also be, is the campus culture safe? How does Greek life fit into, you know, the wider, uh, social life here, the safety of the cultural life? I've spoken to so many people here, and this is really interesting, who say they value Greek life.

Um, it's a big part of campus, uh, culture here.

Um, but at the same time, I've spoken to people who say that they often do not feel safe.

Where do you think the, the bystander effect fits into all of this? And are, on campus, are they talking about that, the culpability of those that perhaps weren't physically involved but were aware?

Cornell's president is...

It's, it's a man and, and, uh, and the, the...

What, what I know is that, from, from their communication with me, is that Cornell's leadership has agreed to, uh, at least a somewhat independent investigation.

We're really waiting to see who, uh- Will run that, how it will be structured, how independent it will actually be.

Um, and those questions will be sweeping.

It will not just be what happened that night, it will also be, is the campus culture safe? How does Greek life fit into, you know, the wider, uh, social life here, the safety of the cultural life? I've spoken to so many people here, and this is really interesting, who say they value Greek life.

Um, it's a big part of campus, uh, culture here.

[pensive music] Where do you think the, the bystander effect fits into all of this? And are, on campus are they talking about that, the culpability of those that perhaps weren't physically involved but were aware?

Do we know how quickly that's gonna move forward?

We don't know the timing, and honestly, we don't know what the outcome will be.

I've been speaking with, uh, people on campus, but I've also been speaking with the defense attorney for at least one of these men, who says he does not actually believe that criminal charges will follow.

One of the things that's raising concern here, and, and, in fact, a lot of criticism here, is that this, uh, alleged gang rape was only investigated by Cornell campus police.

It was never brought to the attention by... to, of Ithaca Police or of state police investigators.

Uh, the mayor of Ithaca, the city, has, uh, called that handling irresponsible.

Uh, he says this was a miscarriage of justice.

And as we noted there, Brian, the university said they did take disciplinary actions back when the incident was first reported, but what is happening now on the university? How are they responding to this latest step?

Do we know how quickly that's going to move forward?

We don't know the timing and honestly, we don't know what the outcome will be.

I've been speaking with people on campus, but I've also been speaking with the defense attorney for at least one of these men who says he does not actually believe that criminal charges will follow.

One of the things that's raising concern here, and in fact, a lot of criticism here, is that this alleged gang rape was only investigated by Cornell campus police.

It was never brought to the attention of Ithaca police or of state police investigators.

The mayor of Ithaca, the city, has called that handling irresponsible.

He says this was a miscarriage of justice.

But what is happening now on the university? How are they responding to this latest step?

Mm-hmm.

Uh, there were Republicans who were working the administration.

There were Democrats working the administration.

Um, grassroots organizations all over the country were reaching out to the White House, to members of Congress, saying, "This is gonna get people killed." And, um, and so quickly, my sources tell me that inside HHS, inside the White House, there were high-level meetings, people saying, "How did we get here? What do we do?" Um, and uh, so late last night, a source, uh, from the administration called me and told me anonymously, "We're reversing this.

We're gonna fund these grants.

The money will flow."

But is there still an impact? Is it like it never happened?

Oh, no.

His dislike and distrust of Nicole boiled over.

She is a cruel person.

She was not happy with the fact that Hannah seemed happy being with me.

[pensive music]

They had to send me away from the hospital.

I immediately started thinking, "This is Nicole.

Th- this has to be Nicole pointing fingers." I didn't really think it would get anywhere, because I thought it was, again, just Nicole making waves to make waves.

Hannah's mom just caused so many problems, and not so much directly at me, but she was just awful to Hannah.

Do you think law enforcement and those people who kind of respond to those on the street are more effectively... interacting with these individuals than in previous years?

I think law enforcement generally nationwide has gotten better and better at this.

Sometimes it's an overwhelming job for law enforcement, right? In the U.S., uniquely, we pile things on police from mental health to addiction, often other kinds of public health.

It's a complicated task.

And sometimes it doesn't work well you know after interactions with the criminal justice system people in severe addiction can actually be much more vulnerable to overdose and death and so again in the us we're always wrestling with how to get the role of police figured out so they're playing the right role other kinds of frontline care providers you know vans and other services that are available on the streets and so i do think ohio has many of the most innovative programs people have really tried to experiment with ways to communicate between law enforcement and you know first responders and people doing harm reduction um but it's it's a really difficult and complicated thing and i think that uh you know other countries around the world i spent time in portugal with law enforcement where they're even better trained and there's a much more nuanced role there so i think this is still something we're wrestling with in the us you know the drug war was a very blunt instrument it was often uh had a very strong racial dimension about who was arrested versus who got treatment And so we're still, I think, digging our way out of a lot of those complicated ideas, not quite getting it right.

One thing I'll just say, an important piece that's been talked about a little bit here is making sure that people who are incarcerated, who do make it.

into a jail or prison cell, that they get treatment and that they also have treatment when they're transitioning back to communities.

Yes, Brian, sorry.

Why is this one different?

There's a huge change here.

The deal that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court last summer had a- a provision that forced everyone to give up lawsuits directed at members of the Sackler family, who currently own this company.

Uh, there are a lot of people suing members of the family who want their day in court, people who've said they don't want to give up their lawsuits.

That last deal included a really powerful legal provision that would've struck down all of those cases.

Supreme Court said bankruptcy courts and- and deal makers didn't have that authority.

That sent everybody back to the negotiating table.

You've spoken to some families that don't like this deal, um, what is the criticism?

Do drug policy experts know what is helping young people survive?

Some of the families and activists I've been talking to believe teens and 20-somethings are finally getting the message that drug experimentation is far riskier in the age of fentanyl.

Studies suggest many high school students, for example, are more cautious now than they used to be when it comes to drug use.

But researchers point to lots of other possible factors.

There's a lot more Narcan, also known as naloxone, being distributed.

There's more and better addiction care.

Uh, researchers are also seeing evidence that the supply of fentanyl into US communities is being disrupted.

Now that President Trump is in office, is the national response to fentanyl changing?

Are there concerns? The people you talk to, the experts you talk to, are they concerned that this, uh, this trend may be reversed?

I think there's real fear.

I talk to researchers, I talk to frontline physicians, people who are trying to save lives, and they point to Medicaid, the source of the largest single stream of funding for insurance for people struggling with addiction, programs that have been trying to research addiction and what the new deadly drugs are that are appearing on the streets, right? There are these new synthetic drugs popping up all the time.

Fentanyl is kind of almost old news now, and if we lose the ability to track these new drugs, we could be flying blind.

There's also just kind of discussion of chaos.

You know, the same thing that we sometimes hear around tariffs, like are they on, are they off? Well, the magnitude of cuts that are being proposed here, they're really sending shockwaves.

People don't know how to start new programs, whether they should continue programs.

Uh, what are the, some of the other public health changes that, that are responsible for this, do you think?