--:-- Shamitha Basu: Good morning. It's Thursday, May 19th. I'm Shamitha 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.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The U.S. military is now involved with the shortage of baby formula in America. President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to help manufacturers get the ingredients to make more formula. And he's telling the Pentagon to take to the sky. I'm also announcing Operation Fly Formula. I've directed the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services to send aircraft planes overseas to pick up infant formula that meets U.S. health and safety standards so we can get it on the store shelves faster.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Also, the House has passed a $28 million emergency funding bill, though its fate in the Senate is uncertain. The action in Washington is a sign of how big a deal the shortage is for American families. Maybe by now you've heard some people, many of them men, say the formula shortage doesn't have to be a big deal. Just breastfeed. It's free.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Vox takes that argument apart in an unusual way. This article is in graphic novel format, and it literally illustrates the facts around the cost of breastfeeding, both financially and emotionally. For one, we should say there are many situations where breastfeeding is not possible, including medical needs and allergies.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: In terms of the financial cost, breastfeeding can require bottles, pumps, milk storage. Not to mention a nursing parent has to eat a lot more per day and might need to keep taking certain vitamins. Vox cites research that says breastfeeding costs about $950 a year. That's not that much less than infant formula.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: If you feel like some of the commentary around these stories pits those who breastfeed and those who formula feed against each other, you might appreciate this Vox piece. It sticks to the facts, and it doesn't judge parents for making either choice. You can see it on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Anti campaigners often point to adoption as an alternative to ending a pregnancy which is why right now an extensive new investigation from USA Today about the American adoption system feels more urgent than ever. Their reporters pulled together data from every state and interviewed more than 100 people, painting the picture of an adoption system that's in more trouble than you might have realized.
--:-- Marissa Kwiatkowski: Our investigation found that while a majority of adoptions in the U.S. remain intact, tens of thousands of children suffer the collapse of not one but two families, their birth family and their adoptive family.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: That's Marissa Kwiatkowski. She's an investigative reporter with USA Today. And we found that those failures occur across the spectrum of adoption, affecting children adopted internationally, from foster care, through private agencies, and even by relatives.
--:-- Marissa Kwiatkowski: According to this reporting, conservatively, 12 adoptions fail every day. Kids end up back in foster care, sometimes homeless and hungry.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Kwiatkowski told us about one adoptee, Demetrius Napolitano. He was removed from his adoptive home, where he says he was physically and emotionally abused. His adoptive mother denies the allegations. But after the adoption failed, he reentered the foster care system and cycled through 25 foster placements and five high schools before ultimately aging out of the system.
--:-- Marissa Kwiatkowski: For families and adopted kids who are struggling, resources can be hard to come by. Billions of taxpayer dollars are allocated every year for adoption assistance programs. But USA Today found the federal government doesn't do much to track the outcome of adoptions or understand why they fail.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: A federal official told USA Today that adoption is largely a state issue, and this story finds issues at the state level as well. We found breakdowns at every point in the adoption process. In some cases, we found that there were faulty home studies. In others, we found that parents were struggling to access appropriate mental health services.
--:-- Marissa Kwiatkowski: We also found that in some cases, parents felt like they were pressured into moving forward with an adoption, even though they were hesitant to do so. Kwiatkowski says yes there are lots of good capable parents out there who want to offer kids a loving home And there lots of adoptions that go well But for many kids and families that just not the reality
--:-- Shamitha Basu: We interviewed families who loved the children that they adopted and wanted to do what was best for them. And they were frustrated by their efforts to seek appropriate mental health services or supports in order to keep the adoption intact, where they didn't want the adoption to fail. They wanted it to be that forever family concept, and they just needed a little bit of help.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: You can learn more about this reporting in USA Today's Five Things podcast, available on the Apple Podcasts app.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: When you're scrolling through the headlines today, you're going to come across a word that you don't see very often. Monkey pox. Now, if you read the wrong story, you might get a little freaked out. The pictures of the symptoms are kind of alarming. But if you read the right story, like the one that we like from NPR, you'll probably feel OK. And you might even learn something.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: We like what NPR did because it's not alarmist. It sticks to the facts. And one key fact is the so-called monkeypox outbreak that we're seeing right now is very small. Literally dozens of cases in Europe. There's one known case in America. It causes fever and aches and blisters. It's in the news because even though it's a tiny outbreak, and we can't emphasize that enough, there is something unusual. It may be spreading through sexual contact.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Now that's unusual because the typical way humans get monkeypox is from rodent bites. And please don't blame monkeys. It doesn't come from them. It's only called monkeypox because the first documented case of the illness hit a colony of monkeys. Scientists are working to understand what's going on now and keep it contained. There is a monkeypox vaccine if needed. If you want to know more, check out NPR's story on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Today marks the beginning of the PGA Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And this year, the defending champ is missing. Phil Mickelson is one of the most famous players in golf history along with Tiger Woods probably the most popular player of his generation That Mark Schlabaugh senior writer for ESPN
--:-- Mark Schlabaugh: You see Mickelson is skipping this year event after controversial comments he made in support of Live Golf That's a rival golf tour funded by Saudi Arabia. It was offering golfers some of the biggest prize money in history. Probably the most alarming thing was that he said they, even though that they had killed a Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal, Khashoggi and had a horrible human record on human rights when he knew that they executed people in Saudi Arabia for being gay, that he was still using the opportunity to play golf for the Saudi Arabians as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Mickelson was seen as greedy, trying to use a corrupt regime for leverage or both. The backlash was swift. Sponsors dropped him. Other golfers were critical. He stepped out of the public eye and off the golf course. He was absent at the Masters, and now he's missing this major tournament.
--:-- Mark Schlabaugh: On the eve of the PGA Tour, Tiger Woods spoke publicly about his frustration with Mickelson and the rift he's causing. I have not reached out to him. I've not spoken to him. A lot of it has not to do with, I think, personal issues. It was our viewpoints of how the tour should be run and could be run and what players are playing for and how we're playing for it. I have a completely different stance on that.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Ultimately, the uproar caused by Mickelson is the latest example of something we've talked about recently on this show, sports washing. In this case, by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It's really an attempt by the monarchy there to improve their tarnished reputation through hosting these sporting events and purchasing professional teams. to really just take the focus and the world's attention off of some of the alleged human rights violations and atrocities in that country. And, you know, by saying, look, all these famous, rich athletes are coming here to play sports, so it can't be that bad.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
