--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Wednesday, December 15th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. Shemitah Basu is off. 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: At least 88 people are dead after tornadoes ripped through multiple states last weekend. President Biden is visiting Kentucky today. Mayfield was one of the hardest hit places there. It's utter devastation. A majority of the buildings have been completely leveled. If not, their roofs shaved off.
--:-- Natalie Naysa-Alland: I drove past the courthouse and the bank in downtown Mayfield yesterday. And it's just bits and pieces that are left. There is no power. There is very little water. It's complete annihilation. It really, really is. And it's very sad.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Natalie Naysa-Alland writes for USA Today. We caught up with her while she was out doing some field reporting. She told us about a nursing home there that was destroyed in a direct hit.
--:-- Natalie Naysa-Alland: It's not there. It's just crumbles and ruins on the floor, surrounded by wheelchairs, bedding, linens, jagged glass lines, most of the windows that have been blown out. Half of the roof is gone. There are several vehicles that have plowed through brick in the facility. One was almost halfway through, and several others all have their windows blown out.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But somehow, all 74 seniors who lived at this facility survived. The people there, they were ready for the worst. So staff decided that several hours prior, they would initiate a tornado practice drill. So they participated in that drill about 4 p.m. on Friday. And at about nine o'clock, they realized that things were headed very south. So they decided to actually put that plan into place.
--:-- Natalie Naysa-Alland: They all gathered in the main room. And by the grace of God, only two were injured when the tornado hit.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Natalie says she was struck by how people are helping each other get through the destruction. They said that support has been coming in from as far as out of state all the way from Louisville Lexington the Nashville area. They're busing in water, they're busing in port, and anything that needed food.
--:-- Natalie Naysa-Alland: I was out with one of our photographers, and a man walked up to us and asked us if we were hungry. I mean, that just kind of shows the support and the love and the care that's coming in from the community here.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Today, the Fed is taking center stage. The central bank will tell the world what it's going to do about the fastest inflation in America since the 1980s. Wall Street is going to be digging into details, especially key questions like, when does the Fed expect to hike rates? And how fast will it phase out the current bond buying program that it's been using to fight the pandemic's economic impact?
--:-- Alexa Juliana Ard: Bloomberg has a deep dive into all the risk factors that could derail the global economy in the year ahead. And it's not just about the Omicron variant and inflation. There are other forces around the world that could bite America's economy.
--:-- Alexa Juliana Ard: One big place to watch is China. The real estate market there has big problems. Plus, Beijing is known for imposing strict lockdowns to control COVID. All this could clamp down on China's economic growth, and the effects of a major slowdown there could spread around the world.
--:-- Alexa Juliana Ard: And you're going to want to keep your eye out on food prices. Bloomberg points out, hunger often drives social unrest. Sometimes it even helps overthrow governments. A lot of people forget a food price shock in 2011 was a major driver of the Arab Spring.
--:-- Alexa Juliana Ard: Supply chain issues and bad weather have world food prices near record highs. And just so that you know, there are a lot of countries already at risk of severe food shortages.
--:-- Alexa Juliana Ard: Bloomberg ends on a positive note because some things could go right in 2022. You might be a factor. Did you manage to save money during the pandemic, maybe because you canceled the family trip or didn't shop as much during lockdowns? Around the world, people racked up trillions of dollars of excess savings. If we all spend more of that rainy day money, it could be a big boost to economic growth.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Keep all of this in mind today when the Fed finally speaks. As smart as the economists there are, the world is full of surprises that could blow up their plans.
--:-- Alexa Haggerty: That's what a lot of women named Alexa are asking Amazon. Washington Post journalist Alexa Juliana Ard is one of them. She writes after 2014, when the AI assistant launched, things changed for people with the same name.
--:-- Alexa Juliana Ard: People with the name Alexa, myself included, started experiencing people speaking to them differently, treating them differently, being asked not to say their name or arbitrarily given a nickname to avoid triggering the device. And so there was this prioritization of robots over humans. The name Alexa, it turned into a command.
--:-- Alexa Haggerty: AI ethicist Alexa Haggerty points out that many companies initially made their assistants' voices female by default, including Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, and Google's assistant. She worries that reinforced gender stereotypes and problematic ways of speaking to women.
--:-- Alexa Juliana Ard: Post journalist Alexa Juliana Ard told us some of the Alexas she spoke with had been bullied, even sexually harassed. Some were asked to go by different names because saying Alexa often wakes up the device.
--:-- Alexa Weber Morales: You know, we have Alexa Weber Morales, who emphasizes that her boss is a very kind man, but he did suggest maybe we shouldn't say Alexa's name because it was causing interruptions in work meetings. And it just was disruptive. But that's not fair. Why are we putting that on the individual?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There's this group that's asking Amazon to choose a non-name for the product. Amazon says the name was inspired by the Library of Alexandria in Egypt and all the knowledge that it housed. The company says customers can use other words to activate like echo or computer, but the reality is many users don't change the settings.
--:-- Alexa Juliana Ard: So for around 130,000 people in the U.S. named Alexa, they're stuck sharing a name with an AI assistant and all the annoyances that come with it.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Last night, sports history was made. The Golden State Warriors had the ball against the New York Knicks. The big moment came with a pass to Steph Curry. He was behind the three-point line. Just listen. It's good! There it is! Stephen Curry! The all-time three-point king in the NBA! With that, Curry broke Ray Allen's record for long-distance shooting.
--:-- ESPN: The Warriors, they called the timeout so Curry could savor it. Everyone rushed to hug him. Curry handed the historic ball to his father. Allen was also on hand. He gave a hug to the player who smashed his record. Curry was in tears by the time he sat down on the bench.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: By the end of the game, Curry had made 2,978 three-pointers in his career. Many credit his ability to shoot from afar with changing how basketball is played. His college coach told USA Today, Curry straight up extended the zip code. He forced teams to stretch out and defend him. That created space for his teammates to make things happen close to the basket.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It helped turn the Warriors into NBA champions, and Curry's record, well, it may stand for a long time. 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.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: I'll talk with you again tomorrow. Thank you.
