--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, July 21st. I'm Shamita Basu. Duarte Geraldino is off. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: New numbers show U.S. life expectancy dropped about a year and a half in 2020. The average American is now expected to live to age 77.3. The CDC numbers mark the largest one-year decline since World War II. There was some earlier reporting on this trend, but now we have a more complete picture, and it shows a substantially larger drop in life expectancy than previous data. COVID deaths accounted for nearly three-quarters of this drop. Hispanic and Black Americans are seeing the sharpest declines, with life expectancy in those groups down by around three years.
--:-- Nicholas Wu: I spoke with a congressional reporter at Politico about the thinking behind today's somewhat arbitrary deadline. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is caught between progressive Democrats who want to push ahead alone and moderates negotiating with Republicans. But those talks were dragging, and what Democratic leaders in the Senate are trying to do is basically force them to start bringing these talks to an end.
--:-- Nicholas Wu: Key Republicans are not on board. They say they want to hammer out details on how the bill would be funded. Democrats worry their counterparts are deliberately trying to run out the clock. There's still not a lot of clarity on whether or not they'll have a deal. Some senators said that they could have a deal on some of the remaining provisions on Wednesday. Others said it could be later in the week. So there's still a lot that we don't know here.
--:-- Nicholas Wu: Even with a failed vote, it's possible that the two parties could continue negotiating into next week. And that's making Democrats on the left impatient. This dispute over infrastructure could also complicate the future of the $3.5 trillion overall budget. If all Democratic senators back it, it can pass without Republican support. But I explain that if centrist Dems don't get what they want out of the infrastructure bill, the larger budget could be in danger.
--:-- Nicholas Wu: The whole way that this plan has been sold to centrists all along is that they'll be able to do this bipartisan one as well. And if any part of that whole process falls out, then the entire bottom falls out of this.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The NBA Finals are over with a win decades in the making. The long wait has ended after a half century. The Milwaukee Bucks are NBA champions once again. The Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns in game six. The last time the team brought the trophy home was 1971, the era of Kareem Abdul and Oscar Robertson. Giannis Antetokounmpo led the way with a 50-point performance. He was chosen as the NBA Finals MVP. The Greek superstar is only the fifth international player to win that award.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This year, at least a dozen athletes competing for Team USA in Tokyo are mothers. The Washington Post is out with a story about what it's like to compete at the highest level of your sport while pregnant, breastfeeding, being a mother. And they talk to so many different athletes for this piece. Some of the things they talk about will sound familiar to any mother, but there are also special challenges for Olympians.
--:-- Allison Felix: It was really about just bringing awareness to something that was happening in our industry. There was so much silence surrounding women becoming pregnant, starting families, and how sponsorship was reflected by that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Nike eventually changed its policy to guarantee full pay around a pregnancy, and many other companies followed suit. Fast forward to today and athletes who are moms are still advocating for what they need. The Tokyo Games initially banned all foreign spectators because of the pandemic and this included the young babies of breastfeeding mothers. It was only in late June that officials reversed course and said Olympians would be allowed to bring their nursing babies. The Washington Post calls this another win in the larger fight for rights for women athletes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Lots of prestigious awards get doled out at the Cannes Film Festival. Filmmakers go in dreaming of winning the Palme d'Or. There's acting awards, too. But there's also an award for the best performance by a four-legged friend. W Magazine reports on Tilda Swinton's dogs, who won the Palm Dog Prize. Her three Springer Spaniels, Rosie, Dora, and Snowbear, were recognized for their performance alongside Swinton in The Souvenir Part 2.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Spaniels play her pets in a movie that follows the life of a film student coming of age in the 80s. While the Palm Dog Award isn't officially part of the Cannes Festival, it's become a popular tradition in the last 20 years. Swinton says this award may actually be the best prize to get, and she predicts her dogs will now be in demand for future gigs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners. We'll talk with you again tomorrow. Bye.
