--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Friday, January 19th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shemita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: On today's show, the fight over ultra-processed foods that could be in your fridge right now, what the government knows about UFOs, and hearing from the man who survived one execution and now faces another. But first, let's take a quick look at some other major stories that are in the news.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he does not support the creation of a Palestinian state in any post-war scenario. That puts him at odds with the Biden administration. The White House says it'll continue to work toward the goal of an independent Palestinian state.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In the U.S., Congress is going to avoid a damaging government shutdown just ahead of today's deadline. Yesterday, the Senate and House passed a short-term funding extension to keep the government running for the next few weeks.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The stopgap will buy time for lawmakers to put together the big, complicated appropriations bills that will provide money for the full year. Elsewhere, a new Justice Department report finds a series of failures by law enforcement in the 2022 elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: 19 children and two teachers were killed. It's the latest investigation to criticize the slow response from law enforcement. The Justice Department says the biggest problem was that officers didn't treat the incident as an active shooter situation, failing to immediately enter the classrooms and confront the gunman.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Attorney General Merrick Garland met with the community ahead of the report's release. I told the families gathered last night what I hope is clear among the hundreds of pages and thousands of details in this report. Their loved ones deserve better.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In Miami, a Boeing 747 cargo jet had to make an emergency landing due to an engine malfunction shortly after departure. Social media videos appear to show flames shooting out of the plane in flight.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Oh my God, it's on fire. Oh my God. The airport says there were no injuries reported. Boeing declined to comment, and GE, the engine maker, initially responded to Reuters' request for comment.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: This latest incident comes as Boeing and its partners are under scrutiny for a panel falling off a 737 MAX while in flight. And in science news, researchers have discovered the world's largest deep-sea coral reef.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's just off the east coast, stretching from waters in Miami all the way up to around Charleston. The reef is a whopping 6.4 acres, bigger than the state of Vermont.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Scientists previously thought that the area was barely inhabited, but it turns out there's an extensive underwater habitat there. The discovery of the reef could help future conservation.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Next week, Alabama plans to execute Kenneth Smith using nitrogen gas. This would be the first time this has been done in the United States. The United Nations says this untested method could be cruel, inhuman, and possibly torture.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The convicted murderer already survived a botched lethal injection in 2022. Workers tried for an hour to place a needle in his veins before the execution was called off.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: NPR recently got a rare interview with Smith over the phone from death row. I was strapped down, couldn't catch my breath. I was shaking like a leaf. I was absolutely alone in a room full of people, and not one of them tried to help me at all.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: and I was crying out for that. It was a month or so before I really started to come back to myself. Only one other incarcerated person alive today has survived an execution.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Smith told NPR that the day still haunts him. I'm still carrying trauma from the last time. I'm being treated for PTSD and I struggle daily.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So when I got this date, my level of anxiety this time was not even close to what I faced by time. Everybody is telling me that I'm going to suffer. So I'm absolutely terrified.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Alabama plans for the nitrogen to be delivered through a mask over Smith's nose and mouth. But if any of the gas leaks, it could pose a risk for others in the chamber.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: His spiritual advisor had to sign a waiver acknowledging that he could be exposed in order to be in the room with Smith. Smith has filed a legal challenge to block Alabama from moving forward with the execution.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: His lawyers argue it would be unconstitutional to execute him. That a second attempt would be cruel and unusual punishment. A federal appeals court hears arguments in the case today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Today, nutrition and public health experts meet to discuss big upcoming decisions that could shape the way Americans eat for years. It's part of the Health and Agriculture Department's moves to update federal dietary guidelines.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Wall Street Journal food and agriculture reporter Jesse Newman told us that one of the hot topics in that world right now is consumption of ultra-processed foods.
--:-- Jesse Newman: That's because there's sort of growing evidence that has linked diets that are high in ultra-processed foods to all sorts of problems. This would include increased risks of obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, even depression.
--:-- Jesse Newman: So there's all this new evidence that suggests that ultra-processed foods are really unhealthy for you on a lot of different levels. There's not a universal definition for ultra-processed foods, but nutrition experts say a simple way to think about it is this.
--:-- Jesse Newman: If something has ingredients you wouldn't find in a normal home kitchen, consider it ultra-processed. So if you look at the label and you see stuff like high-fructose corn syrup, soy protein isolate, or guar gum, it's ultra-processed.
--:-- Jesse Newman: And those are in a lot of things on grocery store shelves. Big food companies worry that if these products are labeled as unhealthy, that could hurt profits.
--:-- Jesse Newman: So they're lobbying to fight possible recommendations against ultra-processed foods in the coming dietary guidelines. Really, it's a concern that this new sort of dirty word in the food industry's dictionary will scare off consumers and that it will deter consumers from picking up these foods in the grocery stores, which then is of course linked to sales and to profits for food companies.
--:-- Jesse Newman: These corporations argue that processing can make food safer, more accessible, and more affordable. And the term ultra-processed is being used too broadly.
--:-- Jesse Newman: They also worry that this terminology, ultra-processed foods, could sort of infiltrate U.S. food policy. So, for example, things like what foods can be served in schools.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you are trying to better understand what ultra-processed foods might be on your shelf, check out the Journal's guide to spotting them. You can find it in the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Between Congress demanding answers about UFOs to rising public opinion that alien spacecraft have visited Earth, we are in the middle of a modern-day UFO craze.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And it's renewing questions about what exactly the U.S. military and spy agencies do know. There is a government cover-up around UFOs. It's just not the one that you think it is.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Garrett Graff is a national security journalist and author of a new book on what the government knows about UFOs. He spoke with Shamita before her maternity leave for this week's episode of Apple News in Conversation.
--:-- Garrett Graff: What they are trying to cover up is actually their ignorance. And that's a really uncomfortable answer for a bureaucracy to give when we have a bureaucracy that spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on national defense and intelligence and homeland security.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening in the Apple News app, Shamita's full conversation with Garrett Graff is queued up to play for you next. And if you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News in Conversation to find the episode.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Enjoy that listen. Have a great weekend. And I'll be back with the news on Monday.
