--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, February 27th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, Biden's student loan forgiveness plan heads to the Supreme Court, lessons from a different toxic train derailment, and the key to curing the hiccups. But first, let's take a quick look at a few big developing stories as our week gets started.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At least 61 people are dead after a wooden sailboat carrying migrants crashed off Italy's southern coast. The victims include 12 children. Dozens have been rescued and searches continue for missing passengers. Police are making arrests of suspected human smugglers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In the U.S., lots of severe weather. Tornadoes and hailstorms hit the Great Plains over the weekend. Heavy storms are in store in the West, from California to Washington State. The Great Lakes region is bracing for more ice and snow. And severe winter weather is making its way to the Northeast, where heavy snow is in the forecast.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And hundreds of newspapers are dropping the comic strip Dilbert after racist comments from its creator Scott Adams. In later remarks, he's been unapologetic, saying people misunderstood the context. The Dilbert comic strip debuted in 1989, poking fun at office culture. In recent years, Adams has been repeatedly criticized for controversial comments he made outside of the comic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Supreme Court hears arguments tomorrow in two cases challenging President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. More than 40 million Americans are eligible for forgiveness up to a certain amount per borrower. And while the program has been stuck in legal limbo, they've been wondering what will happen to their debt. And in just a few months, a pandemic moratorium on student loan repayments is scheduled to end.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bloomberg's Mackenzie Hawkins explains what's happening in the Supreme Court this week.
--:-- Mackenzie Hawkins: Now we have two court cases coming on Tuesday, one led by six Republican attorneys general and the other by two student loan borrowers who say that they are being unfairly excluded from the program. And it's up to the Supreme Court to decide whether this massive debt relief package, which is estimated to forgive over $400 billion in student debt, is actually going to reach American families.
--:-- Mackenzie Hawkins: Part of this comes down to what justices think about how the Biden administration put this program in place. It's using a post-9-11 law called the HEROES Act, which says an administration can waive or modify student loans during national emergencies. The Biden administration argues that the pandemic qualifies.
--:-- Mackenzie Hawkins: Now, the Supreme Court, which we know has a conservative majority, has been unwilling so far to see COVID as empowering government agencies to adopt new and innovative rules. The Biden administration and lots of student debt advocates and attorneys say that they're on solid legal footing, but it really is up to the Supreme Court to decide whether that is a valid legal justification.
--:-- Mackenzie Hawkins: When federal student loan payments resume, more than four million Americans are expected to fall behind on their debt. Bloomberg spoke to a 30-year-old working in public health who owes about $80,000. She'll be on the hook for around $400 a month. And she said, it's tough to wrap my head around having to pay that much a month pretty soon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before this month, maybe you didn't think much about what trains were carrying when you saw them pass by. But the derailment and environmental disaster in East Palestine, Ohio is a reminder of the dangers. Hazardous material spills are rare, but they can have a major impact when they do happen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Just before the site, we could see all the cars burning. The fire was so hot that we could actually feel the heat through the windows of the car. And all of a sudden, if something like this happens, it just shows you how fragile we are.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Those aren't voices from East Palestine, Ohio. They're from Livingston, Louisiana, talking to a local ABC station about a toxic derailment that happened in 1982. The train cars were carrying some of the same hazardous materials as the one in Ohio, and officials had a similar reaction. They decided to vent and burn some of the chemicals to prevent larger explosions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NBC looks into what this 40-year-old disaster tells us about what might be in store for East Palestine.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's likely going to be a long haul. In Livingston, health and water monitoring went on for at least three decades. Engineers had to dig out 50 feet of soil and replace it. They pumped out contaminated water, and there were also years of legal battles. A class action suit against Illinois' Central Gulf Railroad led to a multi-million dollar settlement that paid residents and set aside money to cover long-term damage.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some of that money funded a clinic where people could get annual testing for contaminants. It's still there today. Livingston's current mayor was only one year old when the disaster happened. But four decades on, locals remember it well. A business owner talked about the lasting emotional scars for residents. He said every time they heard a train go through, they'd think about it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Okay, here is my weirdest personal fun fact. From the age of around 7 to maybe 17, I used to get the hiccups multiple times a day every day. It was a little bit funny, but it was also frustrating. This means that I have tried all of the moves. I've tried holding my breath, drinking water, asking my brother to scare me. And I can't say that I landed on a magic method. Somehow they just stopped on their own.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But I've always wondered why hiccups can be so tricky to stop. It's why this story in Texas Monthly about a potential hiccup cure is really interesting. UT San Antonio neurology professor Ali Saifi has a product called Hickaway. It's a special kind of straw, and the claim is when you sip water through it, your hiccups stop.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Dr. Saifi explained how it works when he and his colleagues pitched it on Shark Tank. Hiccups are a repeated cycle of spasms in the diaphragm, and drinking through the hiccups generates enough pressure that can stop those spasms in the diaphragm.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, the hiccups are a lot of spasms in the diaphragm. Now, the hiccups are a lot of spasms in the diaphragm. The hiccups are a lot of spasms in the diaphragm. The hiccups are a lot of spasms in the diaphragm.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And maybe you'd pay anything for your hiccups to stop. But if you want to try a totally free method, The Atlantic recently wrote about one from the surgeon Dr. Luke Morris. And I'll walk you through it really quickly. First, you exhale completely. Then you take a deep breath, hold it for 10 seconds, then inhale just a little more. Wait another five seconds and take another little sip of air, hold it, and then you exhale.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hopefully, that stops your hiccups. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, stick around. We've got a narrated article coming up next from Harper's Bazaar, profiling women who blew the whistle on big tech in recent years and paid a price for speaking out. That's coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
