--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, May 22nd. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, how artificial intelligence is causing chaos on college campuses, the positive impact of more women out earning their husbands, plus a sound in nature that has powerful health benefits. But first, let's take a brief look at some major stories in the news.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today, President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy meet to talk about the debt ceiling. Both sides recently signaled they were far apart on key issues. But following a phone conversation between McCarthy and Biden yesterday, many in Washington thought the speaker sounded more optimistic than before.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I believe it was a productive phone call. And so at the end of the phone call, what we agreed to do is we're going to have Congressman Garrett Graves and Patrick McHenry get back together with, he's going to ask his team, get back together so we can walk them through literally what we've been talking about.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The clock is ticking to make a deal and avoid default, which could happen as early as next week. Biden was dealing with this while at the G7 summit in Japan, where he also endorsed training Ukrainian pilots to fly American-made F-16 fighter jets.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ukraine has wanted F-16s for a long time, but the U.S. has been reluctant. Part of that is concern that giving these planes to Ukraine could provoke Russia. Ukraine agreed not to fly the planes into Russian territory.
--:-- Shamita Basu: After Biden changed his position on pilot training, the Kremlin warned of, quote, enormous risks to Western countries if they transfer the jets to Ukraine.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Turning to border policy, there's new information about the eight-year-old migrant girl who died in U.S. Border Patrol custody. U Customs and Border Protection says she was treated for flu symptoms for several days before she died at a Texas hospital.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She came from Honduras with her family. Her parents have been released from custody and will be living with family in America while seeking asylum.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Her death comes a week after a 17-year-old boy from Honduras died in a Florida detention center. There are growing concerns about crowded conditions at these facilities.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We are still figuring out how rapidly advancing artificial intelligence is going to affect our lives, for better or worse. One place where AI questions are front and center is college.
--:-- Shamita Basu: An Atlantic writer who also teaches at Washington University talks to students and professors and comes to this stark conclusion. The last year in universities was a mess because of AI.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Students aren't sure what they can and can't do with artificial intelligence. Professors aren't sure how to catch cheating that uses AI, or even how to define what cheating is in this new landscape.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some students at Texas A&M University faced possible delayed graduations this month after a professor accused them of using ChatGPT to cheat.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The professor says he came to that conclusion after he pasted the students' essays into ChatGPT and asked the software whether AI wrote them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ChatGPT's maker says it doesn't yet have a fully reliable tool to tell the difference between human and AI writing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A student at Pomona College told The Atlantic he uses AI to test his ideas. He writes his own thesis and then asks ChatGPT to generate counter-arguments and recommend additional sources.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He says the chatbot ultimately helped him write a stronger paper. The Atlantic author says that seems like a smart and ethical use of the technology.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The challenge is that AI detection software may flag a paper like that, which could lead to accusations of cheating.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The same thing can happen for papers that use spelling and grammar checkers or automated translators. So when a paper is flagged professors aren't sure what to do with that information.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that's frustrating for the people doing the educating who say their jobs are getting harder. One English teacher tells The Atlantic that he was demoralized by grading AI-created papers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He's decided to leave education for good. But he's no Luddite. His next career move? Software designer.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's a major shift underway in American marriages in the last 50 years. The number of women out-earning their husbands has tripled.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I thought, OK, wow, like tripled from 1% to 3%, but it actually tripled from 5% to 16%, which is pretty significant.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Wall Street Journal personal finance reporter Julia Carpenter. Data also shows that these marriages are far less likely to end in divorce.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In the 1960s and 70s, couples were 70% more likely to get divorced if the wife earned the same or more than her husband.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In the 90s, that number dropped to 4%. Now, part of this is more career opportunities for women.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Another driver, Carpenter says, is the higher cost of living. Men know that they can't have the quote-unquote ideal, quote-unquote traditional male breadwinner model that maybe their grandparents had.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can't raise a family like that now. You have to have both partners maximizing their income potential to even attain the basics of what your grandparents had.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Women are still paid significantly less than men overall, on average, 82 cents on the dollar.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Those who have passed their husbands in income told Carpenter societal pressure made them initially feel kind of nervous to tell their partners about getting a raise.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They would acknowledge to their husband or their partner, hey, this really great thing happened. How are you feeling about this?
--:-- Shamita Basu: You know, honestly, I feel silly, but I'm a little nervous to tell you. And the husbands or the partners always reacted with like, oh, my God, this is great.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Like, what are you talking about? Like, now we can go on the honeymoon. You know, now we can get married.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Personal finance reporting sometimes means covering difficult realities about inflation and home buying challenges Carpenter says this data on marriages is refreshing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Writing a story like this where the coda on the end is sort of like, progress, it's happening and it's actually good for you, was really refreshing. It was really nice.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Spending time in nature is good for mental and physical health, according to the research. It's one of those things that you just kind of know is right, even if you don't have the data.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We were intrigued by the Washington Post story about studies showing that a particular sound from nature has special benefits. Birdsong.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Research shows that seeing birds or hearing them sing is good for us. So we're going to let these birds hang out with us while I tell you about the data.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In one of the studies, people reported higher mental well-being after bird encounters, often for hours afterwards.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In other research, listening to about six minutes of bird song was associated with people feeling less anxious, depressed, and paranoid.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And this study was done with recorded audio. So if you're living in a place where it's hard to hear the sound of birds, you can try this too.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post piece has lots of embedded bird songs. Scientists aren't sure exactly why bird songs affect us the way they do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One hypothesis is the sounds of nature helps us engage in what's called soft fascination. That's where something holds our attention but doesn't demand all of it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that frees up some mental space for reflection. The full post story is in the Apple News app, including some tips on how to get the most out of bird watching and bird listening.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already hearing this in the news app right now, stick around. We've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Wall Street Journal looks at the journey to find a downed American plane from World War II. The story of that extraordinary underwater mission is queued up to play for you next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow. Thank you.
