--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, June 14th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, an Olympian's death highlights how childbirth is so dangerous for Black women in America. The surprising impact of giving a kindergartner $50 for college, plus AI makes a brand new Beatles song. But first, let's take a quick look at some major stories in the news.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 felonies in federal court yesterday. Among other things, he's accused of keeping highly secret documents and lying to investigators about them. After his court appearance, he went into campaign mode. He visited a Miami restaurant that's a popular stop for Republican candidates seeking votes from conservative Cuban-Americans. The crowd sang happy birthday to him.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This afternoon, the Fed will make its latest policy announcement. Nearly everybody on Wall Street expects it to hold interest rates steady. There's lots of data showing inflation slowing down from its pandemic highs, so central bankers seem to think they can cool it on the rate hikes for a bit.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today, European lawmakers approved landmark legislation on artificial intelligence. There are still some steps ahead before it's finalized, but if it is, it would ban systems considered too risky, like predictive policing tools. And it would set limits on certain AI systems that could influence elections or harm people's health.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And in sports, the NHL has a new Stanley Cup champion. The silver trophy to the Golden Knights! Las Vegas dominated the Florida Panthers last night. It's the first hockey championship for the Vegas team, and it's just the latest in sports wins for the city. The Aces are the reigning WNBA champs, the NFL's Raiders moved there a few years ago, and Nevada lawmakers just approved a stadium bill that could pave the way for Major League Baseball Oakland Athletics franchise to move there.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For years the big leagues kept Vegas at arm's length because of the link with sports gambling. But now the city has major teams winning major trophies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We are learning more about the death of Tori Bowie, a three-time Olympic track medalist. A new autopsy report says her death a few weeks ago happened while she was at home in labor. She was 32 years old. Possible complications listed were respiratory distress and eclampsia, a severe pregnancy complication that can lead to seizures or comas.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We don't know everything about Bowie's death, but we do know that Black women in America are up to three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. In fact, one of Bowie's gold medal-winning relay teammates, Allison Felix, nearly died while pregnant.
--:-- Kat Stafford: For Black people in America, giving birth is absolutely dangerous, depending on where you live, where your zip code is. And regardless of social standing, regardless of the wealth you have, none of that matters. Being Black in America means you're more likely to suffer from chronic conditions like asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, and Alzheimer's.
--:-- Kat Stafford: Discriminatory housing policies and the longtime segregation of the health care system played a major role in making health care less accessible for Black people. And I say some health providers still hold false beliefs that Black people are biologically different than white people, which impacts the kind of care they receive. Their pain is less likely to be acknowledged and treated.
--:-- Kat Stafford: This kind of discrimination and bias can lead to devastating outcomes for patients. People say that we need actual change starting from the top going all the way down to address the bias that exists in the medical systems and to honestly root out and deal with the structural racism because you could throw all the money at this issue that you want.
--:-- Kat Stafford: But if you still have providers that are going into these medical encounters who are biased or who are exhibiting racist thoughts or practices, we will continue to see these poor outcomes for Black Americans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but supporters of a program in San Francisco to help students go to college say it can make a huge difference. The San Francisco Chronicle took a look at the long-term impact of a program that started putting money into accounts for young kids from low-income families.
--:-- Jill Tucker: Education reporter Jill Tucker talked to a girl named Tiara. When she was five, back in 2010, she got one of those accounts. She said the small amount wasn't the point. It was all about the hope that she could someday go to college.
--:-- Tiara: They want me to go to college. They believe in me. And it was just like, oh, wow, that's kind of a big deal. And that's what the politicians said they wanted. They wanted these children to believe in themselves and to know that the city believed in them.
--:-- Jill Tucker: Tiara is headed to Grambling State University in Louisiana this fall, the first in her family to attend college. San Francisco was the first city to start a program like this, which expanded over the years. There are now 52,000 accounts in students' names.
--:-- Jill Tucker: More research is underway on the long-term impact. Past data shows that children with a college fund are more likely to get better high school grades and to pursue higher education. This account seems to provide them a little bit of that light to shine in the direction of that goal.
--:-- Jill Tucker: San Francisco's experience is inspiring other communities to launch similar programs. It really is something that has caught on like wildfire across the country where they are thinking, oh wow, for relatively little investment we could put thousands or hundreds of thousands of kids on a path to a higher education or career pathway.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The last album the Beatles recorded together was Abbey Road. One of the tracks was simply called The End. But now a new Beatles song is on the way, and it's made possible by artificial intelligence, though in a very different way than we talked about earlier.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, just to be clear, this is not one of those AI songs that you've heard online where somebody used artificial intelligence to write music or clone voices. It's a real song from the real band with John Lennon's real voice.
--:-- Paul McCartney: We were able to take John's voice and get it pure through this AI so that then we could mix the record as you would normally do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The new Beatles song is coming out later this year. 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. We've got a narrated article coming up next from Scientific American. And it might make you think twice before you try to squash a bug this summer.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Researchers are learning more about how bees and other insects experience pain, and they're finding that the inner lives of these tiny creatures are far more complex than we originally thought. So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and we'll be back with the news tomorrow. Thank you.
