--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Thursday, June 22nd. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: On today's show, another Supreme Court Justice, Samuel Alito, faces questions about ethics. What happens when AI disagrees with nurses about patient care? And the big reveal of who's going to represent U.S. women's soccer at the World Cup. But first, we want to quickly look at some major stories that are in the news.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The search for an underwater tourist vessel near the Titanic is in a crucial phase now. Sometime this morning, the submersible is expected to run out of oxygen. It left Sunday carrying five people and a four-day air supply. How long that actually lasts depends on whether the sub still has power and whether the passengers are able to stay calm and to control their breathing.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick says the search is not stopping. When you're in the middle of a search and rescue case, you always have hope. That's why we're doing what we do.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Remote-controlled underwater search vehicles are focusing on an area where sound was detected, but there is still no sign of the sub yet, and it's not clear if the sounds actually came from that vessel.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: In northwest Texas, at least three people are dead after a tornado strike yesterday. It was one of several tornadoes reported across multiple states. Texas is also dealing with severe and unrelenting heat. And over the last few weeks, roughly half the U.S. population has also dealt with some kind of extreme weather, including storms, flooding, wildfires, and scorching temperatures.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And today, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting with President Biden and addressing Congress. Modi will also attend a state dinner in his honor. And this is only the third state dinner of the Biden administration.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby says the visit marks a deep and close partnership. The visit will strengthen our two countries' shared commitment to a free, open, prosperous, and secure Indo-Pacific and our shared resolve to elevate our strategic technology partnership, including a defense, clean energy, and space.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There are critics in the U and India of this red carpet treatment for Modi They cite a problematic human rights record under his leadership Biden is expected to raise concerns about eroding democratic values in India though his national security advisor says it's not going to be done in a way that is lecturing.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: Let's stay in D.C., where the Supreme Court is expected to issue major rulings in the days ahead on affirmative action and Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. There are also ethical questions involving Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.
--:-- Joshua Kaplan: A new ProPublica investigation finds that he accepted a luxury fishing vacation with a wealthy Republican hedge fund manager who later had multiple cases before the court.
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--:-- Joshua Kaplan: Not only did they vacation together, but the billionaire named Paul Singer flew Alito across the country to Alaska on a private jet. And we're told that chartering that flight could have cost more than $100,000 one way.
--:-- Joshua Kaplan: What's more, Kaplan found that Alito did not report the trip in his financial disclosures. Experts told us that he appears to have violated a federal law that requires justices to disclose most gifts.
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--:-- Joshua Kaplan: But perhaps even more noteworthy, when this same billionaire had case after case before the court, Alito didn't recuse himself in any of them. Experts told us that they couldn't identify any other example of this ever happening, of a Supreme Court justice sitting on a case after receiving an expensive gift from one of the parties.
--:-- Joshua Kaplan: The fishing trip in question was in 2008. In 2014, Alito was part of a 7-1 majority ruling in Singer's favor. ProPublica asked Alito why he did not recuse himself or disclose the fishing trip. He didn't respond directly and instead took the unusual step of writing an op-ed in the conservative opinion page of the Wall Street Journal.
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--:-- Joshua Kaplan: Alito says there he wasn't aware that the billionaire was connected to the cases because his name wasn't in the filings. And Alito says he didn't disclose the trip because the disclosure instructions did not require reporting, quote, personal hospitality.
--:-- Joshua Kaplan: Earlier, ProPublica reported that Justice Clarence Thomas accepted decades of luxury travel from a different GOP megadonor Thomas defended the trips and said that he was advised that he didn have to disclose them
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--:-- Joshua Kaplan: And it shows that there a broader pattern of major political donors getting direct access to Supreme Court justices by paying for their luxury vacations And it also, I think, speaks to the lack of oversight and transparency at the Supreme Court, a lack that really is in stark contrast to just about every other part of the federal government.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: After ProPublica's story on Alito came out, Senate Democrats announced a plan to vote on ethics legislation for the Supreme Court next month. Senate Republicans promised to oppose it, and it has little chance of passing in the House.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: It seems like everywhere you look these days, there is AI. And now even hospitals are rolling out artificial intelligence tools. But some nurses worry that AI systems may be going too far, that they could, in fact, be overruling the better judgment of experienced healthcare professionals.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Wall Street Journal reports on how this is playing out in hospitals. So here's one example. An experienced oncology nurse at UC Davis Medical Center talked about the time an algorithm alerted her that one of her patients could have sepsis.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, it's not clear why, but it might have been because the AI thought that the high white blood cell count was a sign of sepsis. But the nurse doubted this. She knew that the patient's leukemia was probably the cause here.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Still, she says she risked facing disciplinary action if she didn't go along with the AI recommendation. So the nurse drew blood from the patient. The results proved that the human nurse was right.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: And doing all of this didn't come without a cost. The additional tests she did could have exposed the patient to infection while also running up the medical bill, all because an algorithm said so.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The hospital told the journal that disagreeing with an algorithm's recommendation is not grounds for punishment on its own, and that AI technology is meant to be a starting point with nurses and doctors still making final decisions using their clinical judgment.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: But nurses and experts told the journal that there's often heavy pressure to follow what these AI tools say about care, even though some tools are flawed or rolled out without enough training Nurses were overwhelmed during the pandemic They have dealt with being understaffed and overworked while operating in high environments for years Some of this new AI tech is supposed to ease their burden, helping with tedious tasks like patient charts, medication verification, and patient monitoring.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But nurses worry here about giving too much power to AI. As one nursing professor told the journal, AI should help support clinical decisions, not replace the human experts.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: We're going to close today with some exciting sports news. The 2023 Women's World Cup is coming up fast. There is less than a month to go. And yesterday, we finally got the roster for the U.S. Women's National Team. They are the reigning champs and they're expected to go far this year.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There was a big online reveal of the players that made the national soccer team. It featured President Biden and various celebrities, including Taylor Swift, who announced one major name.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: It is my honor to announce to you, number 13, Alex Morgan, someone who I consider a friend, someone I'm a massive fan of. Along with Morgan, some notable greats are also back in the mix here, like Megan Rapinoe and Kelly O'Hara, who are going to be competing in their fourth World Cup.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But for 14 of the players on the squad, it's actually going to be their first time. ESPN takes a closer look at some of the surprises who made the cut.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: Two of the biggest ESPN says are Savannah DeMello, making her first appearance at the international level. Also, there's Aubrey Kingsbury, who has represented the U.S. just once before an international play. The squad also has the second youngest World Cup player in team history, an 18-year-old, Alyssa Thompson.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The excitement all kicks off next month, with the U.S. women playing to make history by winning the World Cup three times in a row.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can find all the stories we talked about today and more in the Apple News app, including coverage of tonight's NBA draft. And if you're listening to the News app right now, go ahead and stick around. Season two of the Sex and the City reboot called And Just Like That is out now.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So we've got a narrated article from The New Yorker that profiles star Sarah Jessica Parker. She talks about why she's still playing Carrie Bradshaw after all these years.
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--:-- Gideon Resnick: So sit back, enjoy listening to that. And Shamita will be back with the news tomorrow.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
