--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In a couple of weeks, we'll be marking one year since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. And so we want to hear from you. Tell us about something you'll never look at the same way again.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For me, it's about parenthood. All the advice I got before the pandemic just didn't seem to apply when I was stuck at home with my kids every day.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Yeah. OK, you went big with your example. I have a really small one. And you know that thing where you're out with a friend, you both order something to drink, and they say, here, take a sip of mine. I don't think I'll ever look at that the same way again.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We want you to weigh in. Send a voice memo to AppleNewsToday at Apple.com. That's AppleNewsToday at Apple.com. And make sure to include your name, where you're from, and try to keep it to under a minute. We may use your voice and story in an upcoming show. And thanks.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Monday, February 22nd. 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 coronavirus entered the United States just over a year ago. Remember when officials were telling us we'd be facing virtually no COVID-19 cases, let alone deaths?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: I think we can say for a lot of countries, for all countries, hopefully, it goes away. It's going away. We want it to go away with very, very few deaths.
--:-- Shamita Basu: From very, very few deaths, the predictions just went up and up. Minimal numbers were going to be 100,000 people and we're going to be hopefully far below that. We could get in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 fatalities.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You know, we're now at over 250,000 deaths, a quarter of a million deaths. And now, close to a half million people have died in the U.S. from COVID-19.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's Dr. Anthony Fauci yesterday. It's nothing like we've ever been through in the last 102 years since the 1918 influenza pandemic.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Like people decades from now, Dana, are going to be talking about this as a terribly historic milestone, you know, in the history of this country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Our country has had more deaths from COVID-19 than any other in the world. And we're quickly approaching the death toll from the 1918 flu, which was approximately 675,000 people.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This crisis has exposed some of the deepest flaws in our health care system. Not to mention what happens when misinformation runs rampant, when there isn't strong faith in our elected officials.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Politico executive health care editor Joanne Keenan recently wrote about how maybe this is the moment when Americans start thinking about health and health care differently.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: COVID showed us what happens when we focus on diagnostic care over preventative care.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Public health experts at the forefront of this crisis tell Keenan, now is a time to re-examine our value systems. Public health shouldn't be a government department alone. It should be a long-term strategy.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Keenan also argues, while funding from Congress and a strong CDC are important on the federal level, it's ultimately at the state level where public health plans become reality.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And this includes hiring enough public health workers, closing the racial gap that exists in healthcare, and here's a critically important one. Devoting resources to systems which are needed to collect data that can be used to predict the next crisis rather than just chasing it.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And one crisis I keep thinking about is what this reporter describes as a mental healthcare tsunami. She says states need to prepare for that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And what she's hinting at is the long-term trauma suffered by so many people, even if you didn't get COVID yourself. But she says before we can think about reforming anything, we need to reflect on this moment and see it as an opportunity to restore public trust.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Trust in science and facts. Trust that our elected officials are telling us the truth. The distribution of the vaccine, if it's done right, could be a first step. in turning that corner.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The freezing conditions that left millions of Texans without electricity and safe drinking water, they also impacted migrants at the border.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: One eight-year-old boy from Honduras died trying to cross the Rio Grande with his family. A Venezuelan woman died in the same brutally cold waters.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And according to The Guardian, border patrol agents detained more than 200 migrants who were suffering from cold-related injuries.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Yeah, officials are saying there is a surge of migrants who are trying to get into the United States. And they're coming from Central and South America and the Caribbean.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Many of them are fleeing extreme poverty and violence. And for the Biden administration, this will be the first defining moment for him as president on immigration.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Washington Post has some detailed reporting on Biden's immigration plans so far. He's already sending a clear message to migrants at the border. Just because there's a new president, don't expect the U.S. to roll out the welcome mat.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's right. I mean, Biden has made some changes to Trump-era policies already. For one, he is moving to limit ICE enforcement capabilities.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: See under Trump a lot of the undocumented immigrants who were deported by ICE had minor offenses like DUIs or traffic crimes. Biden new guidelines are telling ICE agents to focus on people who are felony offenders.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But his administration also trying to make it clear the border is not just open. Under the Biden plan, anyone who recently entered the U.S. illegally will still be a priority for arrest and removal.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There are signs the Biden administration is starting to undo a Trump-era policy for asylum seekers. The Remain in Mexico program requires Central American migrants to wait in Mexico for their cases to be heard.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And on Friday, the Biden administration started letting in a small number of the 25,000 people who have active Remain in Mexico cases.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Biden is trying to walk a thin line here, rolling back Trump-era policies while still stemming illegal immigration at the border.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Alan Burson, who was commissioner of Customs and Border Protection under President Obama, tells The Washington Post it's difficult to pull off such conflicting messages.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: He says, quote, people will hear what they want to hear.
--:-- Shamita Basu: To a lot of Democrats, Merrick Garland is the one that got away. He was famously blocked for a Supreme Court seat by Senate Republicans, but today he's finally getting a confirmation hearing, not for the Supreme Court, but for the role of attorney general.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Here's Garland speaking after the insurrection at the Capitol. As everyone who watched yesterday's events in Washington now understands, if they did not understand before, the rule of law is not just some lawyer's turn of phrase.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It is the very foundation of our democracy.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Leading the Justice Department is not going to be easy. The Guardian looks at all the challenges that he's going to be inheriting.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Under the Trump administration, the department's independence was compromised. Attorney General Bill Barr was willing to intervene in cases to help Trump allies, including Roger Stone and Michael Flynn.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Yeah, morale is reportedly low at the Justice Department. That's according to Marquette Law professor Ed Fallone.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He points out a lot of people quit during the Trump years, and it's going to be up to Garland to turn things around.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You can add to his to-do list overseeing politically sensitive work. Before he left office, Barr appointed a special counsel to examine an investigation that was conducted by FBI agents into possible Trump campaign ties to Russian election meddling.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, there's also an ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden's taxes.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And don't forget domestic extremism is a growing threat. You heard Garland reference this. He's going to be overseeing an investigation into the attack on the Capitol by that pro-Trump mob.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But Garland has dealt with big challenges before. I mean, this is a judge with a decades-long career.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: NPR points out in the early stages of his career he worked as an advisor in the Justice Department under Jimmy Carter.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now this was in the years after Watergate when the department was trying to establish a reputation for itself as being apart from politics.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Years later, after the Oklahoma City bombing, Merrick Garland was part of the team that convicted two Americans for their role in the most deadly domestic terror plot in our history.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's a headline for you. Students are cheating. No. Okay, just kidding. That's like very old news.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Students have been cheating since the beginning of time, writing things on their hand. It's just that students now that they're doing online learning are finding new ways to cheat.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And there's this one app that makes it pretty easy to do called Chegg.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Forbes explains how it's become a pretty huge moneymaker.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Students subscribe to this service, and on its face, Chegg is supposed to be an above-board academic tool designed to help you become a better writer or understand how to put together a bibliography.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But there's one part in particular that some college students are using to cheat. It's called Chegg Study.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, this company has about 70,000 experts in India who can provide answers to any question you have, and often in just a few minutes, fast enough for someone taking an online test to get those answers in real time.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Forbes interviewed dozens of students who use Chegg Study, and almost all of them said that they are using this service to cheat.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And a lot of schools are trying to get ahead of this. Some even use a remote proctoring service.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This is a thing where schools hire a company that essentially surveils students' web browsers while they're taking an exam.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the students that Forbes spoke with say they know how to get around those proctoring services.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Professors and other university officials also told Forbes trying to prevent cheating is becoming just a losing battle.
--:-- Shamita Basu: An official at Texas A&M says it was obvious hundreds of test answers came from Chegg because they came in faster than it would have taken for students to read the questions.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Chegg told Forbes that it knows cheating is a problem and it's working with schools to try and address it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: See, the company created a new program where universities can submit exams to the service ahead of time so that the freelancers who work at Chegg know that those questions are off limits.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But even with that, the people quoted in this article say as long as students are taking exams online at home, cheating is going to be pretty hard to crack down on.
--:-- Shamita Basu: 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. We'll talk to you again tomorrow.
