--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Thursday, June 27th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamit Abesu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Coming up on today's show, how tonight's presidential debate could shape the way Americans vet the candidates. AI is exhausting the power grid and we're paying the price. And new research on a good kind of brainwashing. But first, let's take a quick look at some other stories that are in the news.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Supreme Court ruled that abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho can be temporarily allowed. The decision does not address the merits of the case, instead sending it back to the lower courts. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent that this is, quote, not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Biden administration had argued that Idaho's law conflicts with a federal law requiring hospitals to perform abortions if the health of a pregnant patient is at stake. The court's decision today matches a draft copy that had been inadvertently posted online yesterday.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Meanwhile, in a 5-4 decision, conservative justices blocked enforcement of the EPA's plan to limit downwind pollution from power plants, something known as the Good Neighbor Rule.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The court also struck down a multi-billion dollar settlement with Purdue Pharma that would have shielded members of the Sackler family from civil claims while channeling billions of dollars in aid to address the nation's opioid crisis.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And in a case about the power of regulatory agencies, the court dealt a win for conservatives who have been long seeking to limit the power of the so-called administrative state.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In international news, in Bolivia, a general is under arrest accused of leading a coup. Yesterday, military units stormed the presidential palace.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: At one point, an armored vehicle rammed the doors, with soldiers rushing in. Later, troops withdrew and police took control of the area.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The government has appointed a new military commander.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And in sports, the Olympic roster for the U.S. women's soccer team is now set. The group that's playing in Paris is a mix of young players and experienced hands, but one veteran was notably not on the list, Alex Morgan.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: She's one of the U.S. team's greatest scorers, but new coach Emma Hayes opted for a squad that didn't include Morgan, who's now 34 years old.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Morgan says she's disappointed to not get another Olympics, but she looks forward to cheering on the team.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Tonight is the first of two presidential debates. It's much earlier this year, and there are some format differences. But once again, the nation will see President Biden and former President Trump behind the podiums.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I called up New Yorker staff writer and the author of a book on Biden, Evan Osnos, to talk about the potential impact of the changes we'll see tonight.
--:-- Evan Osnos: It's huge, actually. I mean, the format of a debate matters a great deal. There no live studio audience which is very unusual First time we had that in generations
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And then also microphones will be silenced when somebody is not asked a question That intended to try to cut down on interruptions and to try to get them to give more substantive answers.
--:-- Evan Osnos: In 2020, as people will remember, the first Biden-Trump debate was a mess. In fact, Trump interrupted more than a hundred times over the course of that session, and it made it really hard for people either to get a sense of what the two candidates thought, but it also just left a bad taste in people's mouths.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There was polling that was done that showed that people don't like it. People want to hear people on that stage make a compelling and responsible and mature case for what it means to be president.
--:-- Evan Osnos: Right. And you wrote that this one is a debate of specifically great consequence. Can you explain why you think that?
--:-- Evan Osnos: For one thing, it's happening very early in the election season. This is even before the candidates have been formally nominated by their parties.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In theory, that means that if there was a catastrophic performance by one or the other, that the Democrats or the Republicans could replace their candidate.
--:-- Evan Osnos: But more likely, we're going to get as an electorate this very clear and stark and almost unique opportunity to see these two candidates side by side, assess the, let's be frank, the age, the acuity, the sharpness, the responsibility, the calmness, the poise, the maturity, all the things that go into what we expect of a president.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And this probably will be the only opportunity to see it like that.
--:-- Evan Osnos: Yeah. And yet you have this interesting dynamic where the American public also knows these two men and in a lot of polling seems to not like them all that much, at least as presidential options.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So given that, how can we understand the impacts of debates like this?
--:-- Evan Osnos: Typically, historically, it's about 5% of the people who watch a debate for whom the event actually changes their position, either changes who they support or it motivates them to vote at all.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In some ways, that last bit is the most important thing. And that could be decisive.
--:-- Evan Osnos: In 2020, we had seven states that were decided by less than 3% of the popular vote. And in this case, if there are, in fact, as many as 5% of voters who are affected by what happens on that stage, that could turn the tide to one candidate or the other.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You know, in a lot of ways, in a year where I think a lot of people are tuning out politics, they don't want to watch, they don't want to read about it. It gives the debate added importance because it's the one moment that could have an impact on the outcome.
--:-- Evan Osnos: And for the incumbent, for President Biden, for just a second here, you've spent time with him. You detailed earlier this year how he and his campaign arm feel a level of confidence that, in a sense, a lot of the American public doesn't exactly or doesn't seem to.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Do they still feel that way about this election?
--:-- Evan Osnos: One of the things that was really striking Gideon about spending some time with him earlier this year was that as he said to me if you were presented with a moment when you thought that you could stop somebody from fundamentally altering or damaging this country what would you do?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And in his mind, the answer to that was run again.
--:-- Evan Osnos: Look, a lot of people, a lot of Democrats are very worried. They look at polls that show that at best this race is tied.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But within the Biden world, among his closest advisors, his family, the people who really know him best, there is a level of confidence that I think might surprise people in the outside.
--:-- Evan Osnos: And that comes from the fact that their view is that Donald Trump has in some ways been off the stage of American life.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: He posts mostly on his own homebrew social media site. He has been in a courtroom a lot.
--:-- Evan Osnos: And so people in some ways have forgotten what it's like to see him every day and to feel him worming his way into our lives and our minds.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And their view is that as we get closer to the election, people will be reminded of that. And will turn away from that.
--:-- Evan Osnos: But it is a big, big bet.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Any other takeaways or things that you're going to watch in this debate?
--:-- Evan Osnos: Yeah, I'm interested to see how Trump talks about some of these questions. Would he, in fact, go ahead and pardon people who used violence on January 6th, something he's talked about doing?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Will he double down on gutting the Justice Department?
--:-- Evan Osnos: And he's made promises to his base that he's going to do these things. Now the question is, when he's facing a national audience, does he say it again?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, a big 90 minutes ahead for these two candidates and frankly, the country and the campaign.
--:-- Evan Osnos: Evan Osnos, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: My pleasure. Great to be with you.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now to reporting from the Washington Post about the artificial intelligence revolution and its concerning implications for our power grid.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We first started to notice many months back when we were looking at all of these regions around the country, we're running short of power.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's reporter Evan Halper.
--:-- Evan Halper: He told us about how AI models and chatbots require significantly more energy for simple tasks.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: A search on ChatGPT, for example, requires 10 times the amount of power as a standard Google search.
--:-- Evan Halper: And what we're seeing is the data centers that once, you know, would have been sort of the size of, use the amount of power maybe we'd use for a few thousand homes.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, some of them are using the amount of power like a large nuclear reactor would put out that would actually power 500,000 or a million homes.
--:-- Evan Halper: And that's really new.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In other words, some data centers require as much power as a small city.
--:-- Evan Halper: And by some estimates, power demand is expected to grow by 40% here in the United States over the next two decades.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Halper says it puts some of the most prominent tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta at odds with the environmental pledges that they've made.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's also worth acknowledging that Apple also recently announced its own plans around AI.
--:-- Evan Halper: though the company is not specifically named in this piece.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Big tech companies they were sort of the drivers of the clean energy transition They had made all these commitments that they would be net zero that they would be creating any emissions after 2030
--:-- Evan Halper: Tech companies argue advancing AI now could lead to breakthroughs that may curb energy consumption down the road
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And they claim they buy enough clean energy to offset the impact of these power-guzzling data centers.
--:-- Evan Halper: But what's happening is that the utilities are then saying, you know, we're out of energy for everyone else after these tech firms have bought up all of this energy.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And so even though the tech firms can say, well, we're zero emissions and we've done all this clean.
--:-- Evan Halper: If they haven't left clean energy left for anybody else to use, the utilities then come behind them and backfill the need with gas plants.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In some cases, they're delaying retirements of coal plants.
--:-- Evan Halper: And it's driving up energy rates for consumers.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Meanwhile, the White House has a goal for the power grid to be emissions-free by 2035.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I've been in discussions with really high-level people in the federal government and utility executives and tech company executives.
--:-- Evan Halper: And it just seems like they're kind of trying to figure this out as we go along.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The AI companies are developing their technology much faster than our infrastructure can keep up and government can keep up.
--:-- Evan Halper: Everyone I talk to in the power sector just says there's no way that goal is going to be met.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It was looking tenuous before, but now with all these AI needs, I speak to very few people who feel like we're going to get there.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Right this very moment, as you're listening to this show, you have roughly 170 billion cells in your brain that are hard at work.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And they produce waste that needs to be cleared out.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But for a long time, scientists didn't totally understand how our brains did this.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now new research is offering the best evidence to date about how brains clear out waste.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And it could offer some crucial clues about diseases like Alzheimer's.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: One of the researchers, Jonathan Kipnis on NPR, says our bodies work kind of like the plumbing in our homes.
--:-- Evan Halper: You have the water pipes and the sewage pipes.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And so water comes in clean and then you wash your hands and then the dirty water goes down.
--:-- Evan Halper: But the plumbing in our brain has been harder to explain.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And this new research builds on previous knowledge.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Researchers found that while we're sleeping, electrical waves seem to help pump fluid around our brain cells, flushing out waste.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Some of what our brains push out is linked to Alzheimer's disease.
--:-- Evan Halper: So a breakdown in the brain's cleanup system might be a reason it develops.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: This new research could help scientists better understand Alzheimer's, maybe even someday leading to a way to prevent it.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And if you're already listening to the News app right now, we have a narrated article that's coming up next.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Ahead of that first debate, New York Magazine takes a look at the relationship between President Biden and former President Obama and how Obama's role in Biden's campaign has changed between 2020 and today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening to the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
