--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Thursday, August 21st. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, why so many Americans feel stuck right now, what the latest vaccine recommendations mean for you, and the highest-grossing animated movie of all time hits American theaters this week. But first, back-to-school season looks very different in communities that have been impacted by President Trump's immigration crackdown.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The LA Times reports on how Los Angeles schools are taking steps to stop immigration agents from detaining students. Howard Bloom is an education reporter for the LA Times.
--:-- Howard Bloom: We're experiencing something that could be unique in American history, where a school system and school systems up and down the state of California are essentially aligned in opposition to the executive branch of the federal government.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bloom reports as school started a week ago, a coordinated effort among L.A. school police, officers from other municipalities, community members and district staff are patrolling areas near about 100 schools in L.A., setting up safe zones.
--:-- Howard Bloom: Community volunteers and even school staff will also serve as scouts to alert campuses if immigration actions are going on nearby. It's one thing to be relatively safe in a school, but also what about going to and from school?
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bloom says these volunteers, teachers and officers are somewhat limited in what they can do if they witness someone being detained, but they've been trained to know what's within their legal rights.
--:-- Howard Bloom: Once you're off the school grounds, it's difficult for whether you're a school district person or a teacher volunteer to interfere with a federal enforcement activity. But you can report it. You can film it on your cell phone and you can observe what's going on. And when something is reported, then the school may go on lockdown, for example. It may keep immigrant parents on the school site so they don't go outside and risk being taken into custody.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bloom reports teachers have also been trained on what to do if immigration officials come knocking on a school's door.
--:-- Howard Bloom: Essentially, the training is turn them away. If they say they're doing a welfare check, if they say they want to talk to somebody, don't let them in unless they have a signed and valid judicial warrant. And so they've had to do things like learn how to recognize what is a valid judicial warrant.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There have already been some incidents around L.A. schools.
--:-- Howard Bloom: A 15-year-old student with disabilities was confronted by federal agents just outside a local high school last week. And this student was taken in a case of mistaken identity. It turned out they were looking for the student's cousin who had a criminal record. But this incident with a student handcuffed and taken at gunpoint certainly alarmed a lot of people. And it had a profound psychological effect on this student, but it also has a chilling effect on everybody at a school.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And it doesn't take a lot of these incidents before there are concerns about will students go to school? Will they be able to concentrate on their schoolwork when they're at school?
--:-- Howard Bloom: A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection commented on the incident saying the school itself was not being targeted and that agents were looking for a specific person with connections to MS
--:-- Shamita Basu: More broadly the administration has said no location including a school is off for immigration enforcement actions
--:-- Howard Bloom: The L.A. school superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, said the school system will oppose any efforts to interfere with the education process of children. The right to an education, regardless of immigration status, is something that's been protected by past Supreme Court rulings.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Bloom told us it's hard to know how this might play out, especially in a state like California, where a lot of people are willing to confront immigration agents and where the administration is already facing lawsuits.
--:-- Howard Bloom: Because right now there are cases in which the Trump administration is accused of violating the law, violating due process, deporting people faster and under questionable circumstances, faster than the law allows. So how these court cases play out will be a big factor here as well.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to reporting from The Wall Street Journal about a frustrating feeling shared by many Americans.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: There's this sense among a lot of people being stuck, people who feel like I can't find a house, I can't find a job. That's economics reporter Conrad Puzia, who's been examining what's fueling this feeling of being frozen.
--:-- Conrad Puzia: So there are really a couple of things going on at the same time. There's very few people getting hired and there's very few people getting laid off. So there's very little movement in the labor market.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The second thing that's happening is that just very few people are moving, moving to new cities, new counties, or even just new homes within the same city.
--:-- Conrad Puzia: And then the third phenomenon is very few home sales.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He says it's hard to pinpoint exactly why Americans are moving less, but data shows this is a long-term trend.
--:-- Conrad Puzia: In the 50s, 60s, about 20 percent of the people in America would move every year, and now we're at about 8 percent. So it's a huge decrease. We're way less mobile as a society.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One contributing factor seems to be the aging U.S. population.
--:-- Conrad Puzia: Older people tend to move less.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Also, more households today have two earners, which can make it more challenging for one person to chase an opportunity in a new city if their partner can't also find new work there as well.
--:-- Conrad Puzia: Housing prices have climbed, too, especially in some of America's most expensive cities, where some of the highest paid job opportunities can be found.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Puzia says the economy in recent years has made it much harder for Americans to move altogether.
--:-- Conrad Puzia: You now have high interest rates. People can't find houses they can afford anymore because there's a 7% mortgage that they have to pay and the house prices haven't really come down. Still others have found themselves in a kind of golden handcuff situation where stable jobs and good mortgage rates kept them in the same spot.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The American economy has for decades been defined by the flexibility to live and work where you want.
--:-- Conrad Puzia: But Puccia says the slowdown in mobility in the housing and the labor market has real economic consequences.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If people can't move somewhere new to pursue a better job opportunity, for whatever reason, they may earn less money and spend less money.
--:-- Conrad Puzia: If college graduates get locked out of the job market in their early years, it can be difficult to recover economically over the course of their lifetimes. And if companies can attract workers from other states their productivity and profits could diminish
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you have 15 job openings in San Francisco but no one wants to move there no one taking up those job openings for whatever reason that hurts you as a business
--:-- Conrad Puzia: Any unfilled position means you are less productive, means you earn less money, which means ultimately you pay less in taxes and there's less economic growth.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Puzia says that eventually home prices could come down or the labor market could unfreeze.
--:-- Conrad Puzia: But the longer these trends continue, the bigger the gap could get between the economy's winners and losers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As respiratory virus season quickly approaches, let's talk about vaccines and what you should know to stay healthy.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: When it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, Bloomberg Public Health reporter Jessica Nix told us there have been some contradicting headlines lately.
--:-- Jessica Nix: The news is changing so much, and you're also hearing from all of these professional organizations at the same time about what to believe, what not to believe. You kind of don't know where to look.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The American Academy of Pediatrics recently came out with a very different recommendation for the COVID vaccine from the U.S. government.
--:-- Jessica Nix: It's the first time they've substantially diverged in about 30 years. The AAP strongly recommends COVID-19 shots for babies between six months and two years old.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the CDC, under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist who's been pulling back America's vaccine policies, does not recommend the shots for healthy children of any age, but says to follow the advice of your pediatrician.
--:-- Jessica Nix: And the CDC no longer recommends the vaccine for people who are pregnant. That goes against what many medical experts advise, because getting COVID can threaten a pregnancy. And COVID can be just as dangerous to young children as it is to older adults.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's not clear how the COVID vaccine will be covered by insurance companies.
--:-- Jessica Nix: Earlier this summer, Kennedy dismissed the members of the CDC advisory panel, which plays a key role in determining insurance coverage, and installed a new panel of ideological allies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We don't really know, since they've only had one meeting under their belt, what they're going to do next and what coverage is going to look like now that they are in charge.
--:-- Jessica Nix: However, for health experts that we talk to, most of them say it's in the best interest of the companies to cover these shots because the cost is going to be higher if you don't cover the shot and then you're having to cover the disease later on in a person's life.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So it is a question, but likely insurance companies are going to keep covering the shots.
--:-- Jessica Nix: Ultimately, experts told me, if you're trying to figure out if you or your child should get the COVID vaccine, start with talking to your provider. They know you and your children the best.
--:-- Shamita Basu: COVID, of course, is not the only respiratory illness families have to think about this fall and winter.
--:-- Jessica Nix: There's also RSV. Here, there are no dramatic differences between the government and the AAP recommendations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In July, Kennedy signed off on a recommendation to expand the population of adults who are eligible for the RSV vaccine.
--:-- Jessica Nix: As for the flu, the AAP and CDC are aligned here, too. Almost all people six months and older are advised to get the flu shot, especially children.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last year's flu season was one of the deadliest for kids in the last 15 years.
--:-- Jessica Nix: And there's a new option on the market. You able to get it at home and take it at home but it's not a shot. It's a nasal spray. It the same one that you can get at a clinic office. But now you able to go online enter your insurance information and schedule a time that you want your nasal spray to come to you and then you're able to take it or give it to your kids.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's a big win for everyone who really hates needles and scheduling doctor's appointments.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post reports the DOJ, in an unprecedented move, is seeking a wide range of sensitive information from hospitals related to medical care for young transgender patients.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The information includes billing records, dates of birth, social security numbers and addresses. They're also seeking communications with drug manufacturers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Attorney General Pam Bondi said the DOJ has issued more than 20 subpoenas for this type of information to hold medical professionals accountable for providing transgender care.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sources told the Post the subpoenas were related to patients younger than 19 in states that allow gender care for minors and somewhere it's been banned.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Post says it appears Bondi is attempting to build a case alleging medical providers broke criminal and civil laws while providing care.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAAD Law, a legal advocacy group, called the subpoenas, quote, a breathtakingly invasive government overreach.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked a state law that would require the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The ruling states children could be treated negatively by peers if perceived as the other and that the law crosses the line into coercion.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton vowed to appeal the decision, calling it flawed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The law passed the Texas legislature earlier this year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Houston Chronicle reports lawyers with the Texas AG's office said the requirement is nonsectarian.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The judge in his ruling, however, presented a what-if scenario, asking what might happen if passages from the Koran or the Book of Mormon were displayed in public buildings like schools.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, the highest-grossing film of 2025 is finally coming to the U.S., but not without some controversy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Najat 2 is an animated fantasy adventure that's earned more than $2.2 billion at the box office, making it the highest-grossing non-English language movie ever and the fifth of all time.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Slate reports the film has raised eyebrows in a number of ways.
--:-- Shamita Basu: First, it's being seen as a litmus test for Americans' taste for sprawling Chinese mythology, but also because of the tense diplomatic relationship between the U.S. and China.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Others have said they've spotted sinister anti-American references in the film.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The film's English dub stars Michelle Yeoh, who told People, she sees it, as an important cultural exchange and an opening for more Chinese stories that need to be told.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The New Yorker examines the rise of genetic testing and how it's built a community for people looking for answers about who their parents really are.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow. Thank you.
