--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, June 2nd. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, the debt ceiling bill now heads to Biden's desk for his signature, a more comprehensive buyer's guide for electric vehicles, and why you might not remember that amazing concert you went to. But first, being Black in America means you're more likely to have health problems that are out of your control.
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--:-- Kat Stafford: The Associated Press is out with a year-long investigation that looks at how structural racism is responsible for health disparities that have made it harder for generations of Black Americans to live healthy lives. They experience higher rates of chronic ailments like diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer's, and COVID-19.
--:-- Kat Stafford: They have higher maternal mortality rates and lower life expectancies. And I found that Black children are more likely to have asthma and be exposed to certain triggers like air pollution.
--:-- Kat Stafford: Research shows that the same communities that were segregated or redlined decades and decades ago today, those same communities are the ones that lack adequate access to healthy foods. They are also the same communities that are more likely to have close proximity to these plants and other pollutants that we see.
--:-- Kat Stafford: Today, four in 10 Black kids live in areas with poor environmental and health conditions. I went to Connecticut, which has some of the highest asthma rates in the country. That's where I met five-year-old Carter and his nine-year-old sister Cadence, who both suffer from severe asthma.
--:-- Kat Stafford: They were forced to miss a lot of school, two weeks, I believe, at once at one point. So this has a huge impact on the children, right? As one doctor noted in the story, when you start to miss school, you start to become behind in your studies, and that could lead to an entire trickle-down effect that could frankly impact you for the rest of your life.
--:-- Kat Stafford: Their mom has asthma, too, and she told me she believes mold in their old rental apartment is partly to blame. Rentals are more likely to have health threats and asthma triggers, like mold, mice, and cockroaches. And Black families are more likely to live in rentals because of discriminatory housing policies.
--:-- Kat Stafford: They also less likely to have easy access to health care for the same reasons. Every single story that we wrote really was about connecting the dots and just making clear how something you experience even before you take your first breath of life as an African American can literally set the stage and foundation for what you experience throughout every single stage of your life.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's now turn to a few other big headlines in the news. We have a Senate-passed debt ceiling bill. Senators voted last night to send the bill to Biden's desk for his signature and narrowly avert what would have been a disastrous default.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The passage came after hours of negotiations and efforts to pass some amendments to the legislation that didn't pan out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In other news, Bill Cosby faces a new civil lawsuit from a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her in the 1960s. The suit is now allowable because California lawmakers have created a temporary look-back window law, which creates an exception for sexual abuse lawsuits in cases that exceed the 10-year statute of limitations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A spokesperson for Cosby said the accuser has no merit. Similar look-back window laws passed in other states allowed more women to come forward with lawsuits against Cosby. He was convicted of aggravated assault in 2018 and was released from state prison in 2021 when a court overturned his conviction.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On to what forecasters are saying about this year's hurricane season in the Atlantic, which is just starting. Meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center predict this season will be fairly typical. They're forecasting up to four major hurricanes. That's Category 3 or higher.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The climate pattern known as El Nino is developing quickly, though, and making some forecasters nervous. El Ninos bring unusually warm waters to the Atlantic. And the warmer the water, the greater the potential for extremely strong hurricanes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If El Nino arrives later than expected, forecasters say a more damaging and active hurricane season could come with it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And lastly, a new spelling bee champion has been crowned. Dave Shaw, an eighth grader from Florida, won with this word. Samophile. P-S-A-M-M-O-P-H-I-L-E. Samophile? That is correct!
--:-- Shamita Basu: In case you wondering, a samophile is an organism that thrives in sandy areas according to Merriam But I'm sure you knew that already Shaw walks away with a $50,000 prize.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Electric vehicles are having a moment. Tax incentives are making them more affordable. Charging stations are popping up across the country. And companies are rolling out new models with significantly lower carbon footprints, costs, and maintenance needs than traditional gas-powered cars.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But building this next generation of cars and trucks requires a huge amount of minerals up front. And this shift is happening so fast that some are concerned the industry is repeating mistakes that harm people and ecosystems.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The supply chain for what goes into these batteries is spread out across the world, right? And it's so far away from the consumer in California that the kind of rights violations, the kind of environmental externality is, I think, are still not very well understood.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Rebecca Tan, the Washington Post Southeast Asia Bureau chief and one of my guests this week on our interview show, Apple News in Conversation. She's part of a team of reporters who are trying to better understand what's happening in the remote parts of the world that have the minerals needed for the roughly 1,000 pound batteries that power these new cars.
--:-- Rebecca Tan: I traveled to Indonesia to check out one of the first refineries built to help the world transition away from fossil fuels. There, I spoke to a farmer named Leus, whose family has lived off the land nearby for four generations.
--:-- Rebecca Tan: And since the refining facility was built, and since the mine started to expand its operations, a lot of those natural resources have gone away. They no longer are able to use the rivers that go by their village. You know, there's fewer and fewer fish in the coastline that's just surrounding them.
--:-- Rebecca Tan: And meaningfully, you know, it's hard for them to get around. He used to be able to walk from A to B, basically, and now it's kind of fenced off and guarded.
--:-- Rebecca Tan: At the same time, climate scientists say making the switch from a gas-powered car to an EV is one of the best ways to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet. So what's a conscientious car buyer to do?
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Post put together a buyer's guide. But what makes this one stand out is it factors in all the environmental and human harm in the supply chain. And it recommends companies that commit to more ethical practices.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you thinking about making the switch to an electric vehicle, this episode is for you. You can find it in Apple Podcasts or if you listening in the News app we queue it up to play for you right after this show ends.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If your social media feeds these days look anything like mine, you know that people are losing their minds, going to concerts to see two of the biggest titans in music, Beyonce and Taylor Swift. Fans have been shelling out hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars for tickets to attend the Renaissance and Eras tours.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But some concertgoers are experiencing a strange phenomenon. They're having a tough time remembering the hours-long show that they just saw. As Taylor Swift might say, their memories are a total blank space.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, it turns out there is a scientific explanation for their memory loss. Time magazine talked to a few psychologists, and they say because fans are so excited, their neurons are firing off at rates that make it really hard to form new memories.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It turns out there is a moderate level of excitement that's just right for forming new memories, and big life events, whether it's a wedding or watching Beyonce fly around on a glittery horse, can sometimes push us too far over the edge.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Adding caffeine or alcohol to the mix doesn't help either. Now, it looks like Beyonce must have read this Time article because recently, at one of her shows, she took a moment to remind the audience to be present and take it all in.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I want you guys to remember this second right now. I want you to remember what you're wearing when you're staring at me.
--:-- Shamita Basu: What she's saying is really good grounding advice. And in fact, it's in line with the advice of some psychologists who spoke to time. They said, just try to stay calm, be present, and focus on the great time you're having.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And keep this in mind. We simply aren't designed to remember everything. So think of your mind like a camera, capable of taking snapshots, but not full recordings.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the apple news app and if you're already listening in the news app right now, stick around our weekend interview show in conversation is coming up next. It has the rest of my conversation with the Washington Post reporters about their electric vehicle buyer's guide. So enjoy listening to that. Have a great weekend and I'll be back with the news on Monday. Thank you.
