--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, November 10th. I'm Shamita Basu. And I'm Duarte Giraldino. 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.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Voting starts today for workers at three Starbucks coffee shops in Buffalo, New York, who are deciding whether to form a union. Only about 100 employees are voting, but there's a lot of eyes on what's happening here.
--:-- Josh Idelson: If workers at even one of these stores vote to unionize and win collective bargaining rights, that would be one of the most noteworthy and high-profile Labor Board election wins for the U.S. labor movement in years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Worker frustration peaked over the past two years, that pro-union employees want more of a say in issues like staffing, scheduling, seniority pay and safety. Some employees say that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed them to additional risks and hazards, such as harassment from customers about masks, and that after working as essential workers in the pandemic, it became that much more important that they have a voice in their working conditions.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Starbucks is not an obvious target for collective action. It's got a reputation as a generally good employer. Starbucks has a more progressive brand than many of its peers. The company has announced it will have a $15 minimum wage in the U.S. It's pledged carbon neutral coffee. It offers health benefits to part-time workers. It closed stores for training about racial bias. And Idelson says Starbucks is emphasizing these perks as it tries to persuade its employees to vote against forming a union.
--:-- Josh Idelson: The company has sent officials to western New York warning workers there that they could actually lose their benefits if they go ahead with unionizing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Idelson points out what happens in these three stores could have national ramifications because, as he explains it, if they win, they will have scored a victory in an industry that has very little collective bargaining. If workers win a vote to unionize at Starbucks that a potential watershed for U union organizing It would be the first foothold for organized labor among the thousands of corporate Starbucks stores And it would extend this clout and this militancy that we've seen recently from U.S. workers into a different arena.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Amid the gunshots and bomb blasts, hundreds of students ran for their lives, stalked in their own school by two of their own classmates who went on a rampage. The Columbine High School massacre in Colorado is etched in America's psyche. It was 1999. Two teens gunned down 12 of their classmates and a teacher before taking their own lives. This mass shooting left more than 20 others injured.
--:-- Shamita Basu: These are the facts few people can forget. What's less prominent in our memory was that just 10 days after this mass gun murder, the National Rifle Association was scheduled to hold its annual convention in Denver. And it was facing a tough choice. Cancel the meeting out of respect for the victims of the mass shooting or move forward with the event.
--:-- Tim Mack: This reporting gets at what a defining moment this was for America's conversations about gun violence. You might remember at the time, former President George H.W. Bush publicly resigned from the NRA in protest. NPR's new reporting shows that led to more than half a million NRA members leaving the association.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This is where the NRA found itself just days before their scheduled conference. Tim Mack is an investigative reporter with NPR and the author of Misfire, Inside the Downfall of the NRA. He told us how NRA senior officials gathered on a conference call shortly after the shooting. They were weighing the options. He knows this because he managed to get a hold of secret recordings of those conversations.
--:-- Tim Mack: One of the senior NRA officials kind of described the situation as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they want to be respectful. But on the other hand, by being respectful, they could end up acting as if they might have had some sort of responsibility here. And that's really the big tension strategically for the NRA after this shooting and for many shootings to come.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Mack obtained more than two and a half hours of these recordings. Through these tapes, you get a sense of the fine lines senior executives are trying to walk. Here's what one NRA lobbyist had to say on the call more than 20 years ago. At the same period where they going to be burying these children we going to be having media within 10 miles of our convention center the world media trying to run through the exhibit hall looking at kids fondling firearms which is going to be a horrible horrible horrible juxtaposition
--:-- Tim Mack: They even considered putting together a million dollar fund for the victims. But ultimately, they decided canceling the convention would open them up to media attacks and it would deny them the space to respond to critics. So they went through with the convention.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NPR asked the NRA for comment, and the organization called this investigation a hit piece and called the sources shadowy. As Tim Mack explains, what these tapes reveal is how pivotal this decision was in the wake of Columbine. It ultimately served as a blueprint for how the NRA would respond to dozens of other schools' shootings over the following decades.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In the years since, the NRA has definitely settled on a much more uncompromising stance, One in which it takes great pains to take no responsibility for any of the shootings, as well as pushing back against the media and also what it calls the politicization of the issue when people want to propose gun legislation in the aftermath of such shootings.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The way kids get graded in school hasn't really changed much in decades. We all know the rules, right? You study hard, you do your assignments on time, deadlines or deadlines, you get graded on merit. But now many educators are starting to rethink this approach, largely because of what they learned about their students during the pandemic.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The LA Times looks at how some schools are reevaluating how they grade kids. Instead of penalizing students if an assignment is late or if a first draft of an essay is not so hot, some school districts are giving kids more time and more chances to try again. This might mean a few extra days to complete an assignment or giving them an opportunity to retake a test altogether.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It also means that GPAs aren't necessarily taking a hit if, let's say, you have an unexcused absence from school or you're not participating as actively as some of your peers. And here's where the pandemic comes in. Lockdowns and remote learning gave educators a rare chance to see into the home lives of many of their students. And they found that many kids go home and they care for a younger sibling or they're dealing with other responsibilities that keep them from completing their schoolwork on time.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And that juggle doesn't always mean that kids are not learning or can't handle the work. But they may have been getting D or F on assignments when they could be getting A or Bs The idea is to base grades on what a student is learning and remove things like deadlines or how much work they do from the equation
--:-- Shamita Basu: According to the LA Times, in the Los Angeles Unified School District, when kids were given extra time to make up missed work, nearly 15,000 grades improved. One education expert quoting this piece says, Not knowing the answer to a math question today doesn't mean I don't have the capacity to learn it tomorrow. We all learn at different rates and in different ways. Our grading systems, he argues, should reflect that.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: If you're a basketball fan, you may have heard some NBA players complaining about official game balls. Since 1982, the league has been using Spalding brand basketballs, but this year they switched it up. They picked up a different manufacturer, Wilson. Some players are saying it makes a big difference. And if you look at this season's stats, shooting is down across the league.
--:-- Paul George: It's a different basketball. They don't have the same touch and softness that the Spalding ball had. And, you know, you'll see this year, there's going to be a lot of bad misses.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: CBS Sports took a close look to see whether there's a direct relationship here. And the conclusion is, it's hard to prove this exactly. It turns out every year, players get off to a slow start with their shooting, and they get better as the season goes on. When you look at just the first few games across all seasons, this year isn't much of an outlier.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There is another possible explanation for the shooting decline. Refs are calling games differently. CBS says game officials are trying to cut back on shooters making what they call non-basketball moves. That's intentionally trying to draw a foul. That means instead of a player going to the free throw line, a lot of these moves are getting marked as missed shots.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: CBS says give it some time. Maybe these new basketballs just need to be broken in. Any player will tell you the newer the ball, the less grip it has, and it can just slip away from you. But maybe, just to be safe. Until everyone adjusts, don't place any big bets on the league.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners. We'll talk to you again tomorrow.
