--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Tuesday, April 13th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. And I'm Shamita Basu. 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: The FDA and CDC both recommend pausing distribution of Johnson & Johnson's COVID vaccine. The agencies say they're looking into six reported cases of people developing a rare but serious blood clot after getting the J&J shot.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In a press conference, officials from both agencies said the pause was being recommended out of an abundance of caution to allow time to review safety data and advise health care providers on how to look out for adverse side effects.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So far, more than 6.8 million doses of the J&J shot have been administered in the U.S. CDC Deputy Director Anne Schuchat had this advice. [pause] and seek medical treatment.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: We'll keep an eye on how this story develops. And as always, you can check the Apple News app for the latest.
--:-- Shamita Basu: After losing the White House, Republicans vowed to change the way some states conduct their elections. But they may not have expected what would happen next. After Georgia passed new voting laws last month, businesses like Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola pushed back against efforts they say will limit access to the polls.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Major League Baseball also put on the pressure. It moved its All-Star game and all the revenue that comes with it out of Georgia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And as more states seek to follow Georgia's lead when it comes to voting, businesses are fighting back even harder, even in the face of threats from Republicans like Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Washington Post reports more than 100 top executives recently got together on a conference call to talk about leveraging their influence. Some of the biggest companies in the country were represented on this call. Starbucks, Target, United Airlines.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The goal was to harness their energy and unify their message Republicans were hoping putting pressure on these firms was going to quiet their criticism. But as The Post explains the tone of that call was defiant.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: CEOs spoke about continuing to fight what they see as discriminatory voting laws. People on the line told The Post a few companies are considering withholding investments in states where voting is being restricted and also cutting off campaign donations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NPR takes a longer view and puts what's happening in Georgia in a larger history of political boycotts. And what's interesting that they point out is that up until recently, corporations have usually been the target of boycotts, not the instigators.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: NPR says recent efforts from the business community to push back against unwanted legislation have been pretty successful.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In 2016, North Carolina was under fire for a law limiting LGBTQ rights, including restrictions on which bathrooms people could use. The NCAA boycotted the state, and the law was repealed the next year.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This NPR article also explains where the word boycott came from. Back in 1880, some Irish businesses came together to pressure a land manager. They didn't like how we treated farmers. They won the fight, and they brought a new word into our language.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some of the most important gatekeepers of medical breakthroughs are the editors of medical journals. They decide which research gets a wide audience. They also decide whose voice influences millions of doctors and how they treat us.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And now there's a call to diversify those gatekeepers. This all started when the Journal of the American Heart Association retracted an article. That article was widely criticized for containing racist implications and errors.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Cardiologist Dr. Raymond Givens, he went a step further. He looked into how the article got published in the first place. He reviewed staff lists and found there's a dangerous lack of racial and ethnic diversity among editors of top medical journals.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The medical publication Stat spoke with Dr. Givens, who said as a black man, a lot of things bubble to the surface in the last year. Between COVID and George Floyd's death, he felt pushed to speak out about racism in his field.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When he crunched the numbers he found that out of 51 editors at the New England Journal of Medicine only one was black and one was Hispanic. At the Journal of the American Medical Association out of 49 editors two were Black and two were Hispanic.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And when the gatekeepers don't reflect the patient population, there are significant ripple effects. Dr. Gibbons and other experts say the fact that these big deal journals have so few editors of color may be one reason that health inequities, which often lead to shorter lives for people of color, haven't been studied as extensively.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Stat reports both of these journals have increased the number of editors of color on their staffs since Dr. Given's analysis. One recently hired its first ever Black deputy editor.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But Dr. Given says his focus isn't just on medical journals. He wants to raise awareness among practitioners about the issue of systemic racism in medicine.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Carbon credits are supposed to help keep greenhouse gas emissions in check. The credits work like permits. A company that generates a lot of CO2 can offset their environmental damage by buying credits that reduce emissions elsewhere.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But according to a Bloomberg investigation, there are serious problems with how these credits are being calculated. And this shady math could undermine the whole system.
--:-- Shamita Basu: To understand how serious this problem is, let this fact sink in. The concentration of carbon dioxide trapped in the Earth's atmosphere is higher than it's ever been in recorded history.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The planet is warming at a level that can substantially increase droughts and make hurricanes deadlier. And those are just some of the problems.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Major corporations like Disney, J.P. Morgan and BlackRock have all committed to reducing their carbon footprint over the coming years by purchasing carbon credits from environmental organizations.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: These are the groups that work to conserve land. The idea is they can offset the damage being done by companies that pollute.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But Bloomberg's investigation shows that the Nature Conservancy, which is the world's largest environmental group, may be selling credit to protect forests that aren't actually in any danger of being destroyed.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And what's even more concerning is that this practice may be widespread. Red. This report cites an example involving another group, the National Audubon Society.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It sold credits to protect an old forest in South Carolina, but Bloomberg found there was never any plan to cut down those thousand-year-old cypress trees.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The way Bloomberg puts it, these flawed credits that claim to prevent harm to the environment aren't always based on likely scenarios. And so the minuscule climate benefits they provide are outweighed by the harm done by the polluting companies that buy these credits.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the market for carbon credits has exploded as these companies are trying to show environmental responsibility.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The worry here is if it turns out carbon credits are not actually providing the environmental benefits they promise, this whole market could collapse.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If the benefits are not real, this tool for combating climate change may end up in the useless pile.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: For its part, the Nature Conservancy announced it's now conducting an internal review of its carbon offset projects.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There is a food craze taking over France. And it's not flambe, sauté, cassoulet. It turns out French people are really into their own version of tacos.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The New Yorker took a deep dive into the rise of French tacos and tries to answer the question, what's happening here?
--:-- Shamita Basu: It doesn't look like a taco, doesn't taste like a taco, and yet it's a thing. New Yorker writer Lauren Collins confirms French tacos are not really tacos at all.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And if you love genuine Mexican cuisine, you're going to see this as more of a sandwich made out of a flour tortilla. It's filled with condiments, meat, cheese sauce and some other stuff, often French fries.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yes, French fries. And then it's toasted on a grill.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But the thing is, no one knows exactly how this food came into existence.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The New Yorker did some research and explained some generally agreed upon facts. It is thought that French tacos originated outside the city of Lyon.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And it seems likely that the earliest creators of French tacos were probably of North African descent and maybe ran one of those small takeout places that sell things like kebabs and pizzas.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, French tacos. You know, fast food that you can eat with your hands. And, you know, despite their perplexing origins and form, The New Yorker predicts French tacos are here to stay and are likely going to be a part of mainstream French cuisine for a long time to come.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're there, check out some of our audio stories, including the full version of that New Yorker story about the French tacos.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We'll talk with you again tomorrow. Thank you.
