--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, August 6th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, what caused yesterday's stock market drama, why many Americans who go to the doctor don't end up seeing a doctor, and an already iconic Olympic moment with three Black women on the podium. But first, Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He'll be on stage with Harris tonight at a rally in Philadelphia. That'll kick off a campaign tour through a number of battleground states. Walz got the call over a number of high-profile finalists, including Arizona Senator Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post took a look at Walz's biography, calling him a former public school teacher with a love of history who's now about to become part of history. He grew up in Nebraska, enrolled in the Army National Guard at the age of 17 and served for 24 years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He later moved to Minnesota for a teaching gig. Former students say he was energetic and effective, though not especially ideological. Some were surprised when he ran for office. He won a congressional seat in 2006 and the governor's mansion in 2018.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Early in his congressional career, Walls was seen as a moderate Democrat and a strong supporter of gun rights. The NRA gave him an A rating, but later he shifted. After the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, he said he donated all the money he'd previously received from the NRA to charity. And he pushed for tougher gun laws.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He's credited his, at the time, 17-year-old daughter with pushing him to change his stance. Saying basic gun safety isn't a threat to gun rights. In his first race for governor, Walls defeated his Republican opponent by more than 10 percentage points, and he easily won re-election in 2022.
--:-- Shamita Basu: During his tenure leading Minnesota, the state has enshrined the right to abortion, legalized marijuana, and offered protection for people seeking gender-affirming health care. Allies have pointed to his ability to win over red-leaning voters in rural parts of his state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A lot of his supporters say one of his greatest assets is his authenticity, that he knows how to talk to normal people. His regular guy videos have their fans. In this one, he mixed car repair tips with his get out the vote message.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Hey, everybody, Tim here. 11 days till the election, but that's my pro tip of the day out on the road. I got to show you this. This right here is the headlight harness on a 2014 Ford Edge. Ford, this is unacceptable. It burned out hot on the connector.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A former Minnesota Republican Party leader told The Guardian Walls is right out of central casting, the way you'd think a Minnesota governor would be like. A former Democrat from Ohio called him, quote, just a freaking down-home guy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Walls is considered by many to be the strongest VP pick, and he has for weeks now been helping Democrats push a message that the Trump ticket is, quote, weird. He explained why recently on MSNBC.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We do not like what has happened where we can even go to Thanksgiving dinner with our uncle because you end up in some weird fight that is unnecessary. And I think bringing back people together, well, it's true. These guys are just weird. And, you know, they're running for He-Man Women Haters Club or something. That's what they go at. That's not what people are interested in.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Democrats hope that Walls can be a good communicator for much-needed Midwest voters, while also energizing young and progressive voters impressed by his record. Let's turn now to the state of the economy, after one of the most volatile days global markets have seen in years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Markets around the world have dropped amid fears that the U.S. economy is heading for a slowdown. A tumultuous day for markets across the globe. European markets plummeted when trading began this morning.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Following the reactions from Asia and Europe, U.S. markets opened with a significant sell-off. At points today, the Dow was down more than 1,000 points. That's what it sounded like in the moment, but it's important to have perspective.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As lousy a day as it was for U.S. stocks, they're still up for the year. And it's true, yesterday, Japan's Nikkei had its largest losses since the Black Monday crash of 1987. But today, it closed up more than 10%, wiping out most of those losses.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Put everything together and we have signs that some investors are worried, but plenty are still confident. Right now, many market pros, financial advisors, and economists say it's not a time to panic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As for the pessimists, there are several potential reasons that they sold off yesterday. There were some big developments in Japan's economy that had global ripple effects. Also, some big tech stocks were hit hard, as some investors think they've been overinflated by artificial intelligence hype.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Washington Post economics reporter Rachel Siegel talked to us about some concerns involving the American economy. It has to do with a pileup of disappointing economic news in the U.S. that's giving concerns all around the world as to whether or not the U.S. economy is slowing too much.
--:-- Rachel Siegel: That includes Friday's jobs report that showed the U.S. unemployment rate hit 4.3 percent, a nearly three-year high. It was sort of this first sign that actually maybe the job market is slowing much more rapidly and in more worrisome ways than we thought.
--:-- Rachel Siegel: And if you add that with some disappointing reports from the tech sector and other signs that people are just sort of starting to pull back under the continued weight of inflation, under high interest rates, it just sort of starts to create a picture of an economy that was looking really good but could really start to slow quite quickly.
--:-- Rachel Siegel: And it's when that shift happens that bad things can go on from there. Goldman Sachs now says there's a 25 percent chance of a U.S. recession, up from 15 percent.
--:-- Rachel Siegel: All of these concerns are putting more pressure on the Fed. Critics say it should have cut interest rates by now to help prevent the economy from sputtering. Chicago Fed President Austin Goolsbee told CNBC yesterday that the bank is watching what happens and will take action when it's needed.
--:-- Rachel Siegel: The Post's Siegel summed up the general sense from Wall Street to Washington, don't jump to conclusions over a bad day of trading. We definitely don't seem to be in a recession already. There are so many other real signs of strength in the economy.
--:-- Rachel Siegel: So even though we're looking specifically at some indicators that have turned a little bit in the last couple of days, the economy is doing really quite well in these sort of macro ways. It's still growing. The job market itself is still growing. Inflation is easing. Wages are still healthy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to a story about a health care shortage that impacts all of us. Most of us have probably, at one point or another, visited our doctor and been seen by a nurse practitioner.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Nurse practitioners have advanced degrees, are often trained in specialty medicine, and are more readily available than doctors, which makes them a huge asset in our overstretched system.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In fact, it's the fastest growing profession in the country. But Bloomberg Businessweek reports the pool of nurse practitioners might be growing so fast that it's starting to come with some risks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Take the case of 60-year-old Fred Bedell, who went to an emergency room in Florida complaining of abdominal pain. A test showed that his blood glucose level was dangerously elevated.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So this is the sort of thing that you could kind of consider healthcare 101. You get a blood test back. It shows elevated blood sugar, significantly elevated blood sugar. This is not some esoteric or exotic weird disease or ailment. It's something that a lot of Americans deal with every day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Caleb Melby is a reporter with Bloomberg News. He told us that the nurse practitioner who treated Bedell had just gotten his license a few months earlier after completing a mostly online course.
--:-- Caleb Melby: They sent Bedell home. He died days later of diabetic ketoacidosis. And the Florida Department of Health would later say that the nurse practitioner should have treated him by admitting him to the hospital and administering fluids to him to lower that blood sugar level.
--:-- Caleb Melby: Neither one of those things happened, and it resulted in Fred Bedell dying. The problem, Bloomberg says, is in some of the new training that's emerging.
--:-- Caleb Melby: There's so many people eager to become nurse practitioners. It's a lot cheaper and easier to do than going to medical school and becoming a doctor, and it pays pretty well.
--:-- Caleb Melby: But while the training for people going to med school is pretty uniform across the board, that's not the case for nurse practitioners. They could go to an excellent school attached to a teaching hospital where they take the responsibility of training these students very seriously.
--:-- Caleb Melby: But a growing number of them attend online schools run by for-profit companies. Melby dug into what these schools are like. He found that some of the recorded lectures can be years old and that interactions with professors are often limited to emails and message boards.
--:-- Caleb Melby: The clinical portion of training done is typically in a medical facility, but those stints are brief and the quality varies widely, according to students.
--:-- Caleb Melby: Melby told us the story of another patient, Tiffany Dunbar, a mother of three, who went to a busy OBGYN clinic in D.C. for some pain she was experiencing. During the appointment a nurse practitioner informed Dunbar that she was pregnant but failed to notify Tiffany that she was encountering an ectopic pregnancy.
--:-- Caleb Melby: A pregnancy that was occurring outside of the uterus. And Tiffany died. As Bloomberg points out, mistakes happen in the medical field, even deadly ones, even among the most experienced clinicians.
--:-- Caleb Melby: But the common route to becoming a nurse practitioner in this country puts them at greater risk of failure. And that's frustrating and upsetting to many nurse practitioners themselves who want to do their best work and help people.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories that'll stick with you in the Apple News app. First, a major verdict rocking Silicon Valley. A federal judge ruled that Google engaged in illegal practices to monopolize search.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's a big win for the Justice Department. More court hearings will come in the months ahead on what changes Google may be ordered to make. Google argued that more people use its search engine because it's the best. It plans to appeal the verdict.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In education news, the San Francisco Chronicle looks at the artificial intelligence companies that want to transform college applications.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Currently, rich kids have an edge getting into elite schools. That's in part because their parents can afford to hire expensive admissions counselors, consultants who can edit their applications and essays, advise them on building resumes and keep track of deadlines.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But now several companies say they can use AI to replicate much of what these admissions coaches do, and they're giving away some of their services for free.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The companies are new, but if they deliver, they might help level the playing field for smart students who don't have the money to pay for college coaching.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, a special moment in Olympic gymnastics yesterday. In the floor competition, Brazil's Rebecca Andrade won gold. Simone Biles stepped out of bounds twice, leaving her with a silver medal, and American Jordan Childs got the bronze.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When they were on the podium getting their medals, the Americans both bowed down to Andrade, literally. Biles talked about the moment afterwards.
--:-- Simone Biles: She's so amazing. She's queen. And first, it was an all-black podium, so that was super exciting for us. But then Jordan was like, should we bow to her? And I was like, absolutely.
--:-- Simone Biles: So we're like, are we going to do it now? And then that's why we did it. But she's such an excitement to watch. And then all the fans in the crowd always cheering for her.
--:-- Simone Biles: So it just, it was just the right thing to do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can see the image of that Olympic moment on the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. The full story from Bloomberg Businessweek on nurse practitioners that we mentioned earlier.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
