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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Monday, February 5th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, how prison labor may be connected to the food you're eating, the IRS cracks down on wealthy tax evaders, and the Grammy's biggest moments. But first, a quick look at a few major stories in the news.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The Senate has a bipartisan deal for a bill to fund border security and new aid to Ukraine and Israel. The $118 billion legislation is the result of weeks of negotiations, but it's not clear what can pass in the House.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Speaker Mike Johnson says this bill is dead on arrival. Many House Republicans say they want much tougher border measures in exchange for new military aid for Ukraine and Israel.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Meanwhile, the U.S. has plans to strike more targets in response to the attack that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan. Earlier retaliation hit dozens of targets in Iraq and Syria. Those targets were tied to militants backed by Iran.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CBS that the response to the killings is still underway. What happened on Friday was the beginning, not the end of our response, and that there will be more steps, some seen, some perhaps unseen, all in an effort to send a very clear message that when American forces are attacked, when Americans are killed, as three service members tragically were at Tower 22, we will respond and we will respond forcefully and we will respond in a sustained way.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the region as talks continue on a possible ceasefire in Gaza and release of hostages and prisoners.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In California, a severe storm is hitting the state, with residents bracing for days of heavy rain, snow, wind, flooding, and power outages. Northern California has already been feeling the impact of the severe weather, with more than half a million people without power at one point. The dangerous conditions have started to move south.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And in Chile, more than 100 people are dead in wildfires across the country. Today and tomorrow are declared days of national mourning for those killed. It's the country's worst disaster since the earthquake that killed hundreds of people nearly 15 years ago.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you ever bought food at McDonald, Whole Foods, Costco, or Walmart, it likely you've eaten food produced by U.S. prison labor. The Associated Press has an extensive investigation into the spiderweb of supply chains that link restaurants and grocery stores to incarcerated people who are often forced to work for little or no pay.
--:-- Margie Mason: I'm Margie Mason, an investigative reporter who worked on the piece for two years. We and our reporting partner traveled the country to observe this system at work with our own eyes.
--:-- Margie Mason: In one case, we followed a truckload of cattle raised at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola. We followed that cattle from the gates of the prison to an auction house. We watched those cattle be sold. We watched them getting loaded back onto another truck. And then we followed them another 600 miles from Louisiana to Texas to a meat processor. And from there, we were able to determine that that beef was going into the supply chains of really major companies.
--:-- Margie Mason: At Angola, they raised cattle, picked cotton and vegetables. One man who spent more than 50 years there said water was scarce, and he saw people pass out in triple-digit heat.
--:-- Margie Mason: In many cases, people in prison earn pennies an hour for their work, or sometimes nothing. And if they refuse to work, they might risk their chance of parole or get sent to solitary confinement.
--:-- Margie Mason: People we spoke with found it especially frustrating to be producing food for sale while their own meals in prison were poor quality. A lot of these big prison farms, they raise this beef and then they sell it on the open market. But then they end up buying like the cheaper stuff, you know, or the stuff that's filled with soy or whatever. And that's then what is fed to the prisoners.
--:-- Margie Mason: And they're saying, we're raising this and we're having to eat like this lesser quality meat or in some cases we're not getting much meat at all.
--:-- Margie Mason: Prisons say that the work is not all forced, that it helps build skills so that people can find work after their release, and that it saves taxpayer money because some of the food produced by incarcerated people is served in prisons.
--:-- Margie Mason: The AP contacted the food companies that it traced to prison labor. Most of the companies did not respond. Some, including McDonald's, said they're investigating. Whole Foods said it doesn't allow prison labor in products it sells.
--:-- Margie Mason: Companies that use prison labor are not breaking the law. The 13th Amendment banned slavery except as punishment for a crime. There are efforts to change this exception in state constitutions that could reach the ballot in roughly a dozen states this year.
--:-- Margie Mason: And so voters are going to have a chance to change it. And what then that would mean is if the language is changed then that opens up the possibility for legal action to be taken.
--:-- Margie Mason: In the meantime, some prisoners, like people at Angola, are working on the same fields where enslaved people were once forced to work.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The IRS says it's stepping up efforts to go after rich people who aren't paying their fair share of taxes. If you're high wealth with a tax issue, you will see more scrutiny. That's IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel speaking with NPR recently.
--:-- Danny Werfel: So we are absolutely ramping up efforts to figure out where we have wealthy filers. These are millionaires and billionaires, but also large corporations and complex partnerships who are increasingly shielding their income and not paying what they owe.
--:-- Danny Werfel: Money has been an issue for the agency. For years, the IRS said it's been chronically underfunded. Republicans have pushed to cut its funding and supported eliminating the agency altogether.
--:-- Danny Werfel: In 2022, the IRS got an $80 billion budget boost, but a quarter of that was taken back. Werfel told NPR how the IRS has been putting the money it did get to use.
--:-- Danny Werfel: So we, for example, created a high-risk list of 1,600 millionaires and billionaires who owe back taxes. And we've put in a laser-focused effort to collect that money. And we're working our way through that list.
--:-- Danny Werfel: In just several months, we've collected nearly $200 million in back taxes. And we're not even through the list yet.
--:-- Danny Werfel: The IRS says it's also doing a lot to improve service for the rest of us non-wealthy taxpayers. For example, it hired thousands of people to answer phones and taxpayer questions.
--:-- Danny Werfel: The IRS says it was able to reduce phone wait times to three minutes, down from nearly half an hour. It's also putting in new technology to deal more efficiently with all the filings that still get mailed in on paper.
--:-- Danny Werfel: And the IRS is piloting a new program that'll allow some people to file their taxes for free, directly through the IRS. The pilot's now limited to government employees with relatively simple taxes in a handful of states.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Bye women artists ruled the Grammys last night. The awards have often been criticized for overlooking the work of women, but women dominated nominations in the top categories and they swept the big three awards.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Miley Cyrus won Record of the Year with Flowers. Song of the Year was What Was I Made For, which Billie Eilish co-wrote for the Barbie soundtrack with her brother Phineas O'Connell.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And Taylor Swift made history, winning Album of the Year for Midnight's. All I want to do is keep doing this, so thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to do what I love so much.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: That win moved Swift ahead of legends like Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, and Frank Sinatra as the only artist to win Album of the Year four times.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: During the ceremony, she also revealed that her next album, The Tortured Poets Department, is coming out in April.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Iconic women artists also had some of the best performances of the night. Tracy Chapman made a rare public appearance to duet with Luke Combs.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Joni Mitchell also performed at the ceremony for the first time. She kept a long recovery from a brain aneurysm she had nine years ago, which left her unable to speak or walk.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: I look at life from both sides now. Mitchell won Best Folk Album more than 50 years after her first Grammy win.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And Jay-Z accepted an award for Global Impact. He talked about how the Grammys were slow to recognize rap. And he said it was frustrating that Beyonce has never won Album of the Year, even as the most awarded artist in Grammys history.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can find more Grammys coverage on the Apple News app, along with all the stories we talked about.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article from Vanity Fair playing for you next. The writer looks at Apple's New Vision Pro and talks with Tim Cook about making it and the future of spatial computing.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you're listening in the podcast's app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
