--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Good morning. It's Wednesday, October 6th. I'm Duarte Giraldino. Shmi Dabasu is off. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: 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: A federal court case is looking at the role pharmacies may have played in the surge of opioid deaths in the last 20 years. 900,000 people OD'd since 1999. Opioids helped drive those overdose numbers.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This trial involves four chains, CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, and Giant Eagle. The lawsuit accuses them of dispensing opioid pain pills without enough safety and monitoring.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Under federal law, pharmacies are supposed to block and report suspicious orders of controlled substances. NPR has been following this trial and done some pretty in-depth reporting on the role pharmacies play.
--:-- Mark Lanier: This has been a problem since the 1990s. And these pharmacies really didn't start trying to screen even semi-affected things until after they'd already been slapped on the wrist.
--:-- Mark Lanier: These pharmacy chains are defending their actions. Generally, they say the blame lies with drug makers and the doctors who prescribe painkillers.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But earlier this year, an NPR investigation found some Walmart pharmacists tried to sound an alarm about the way their employer was dispensing opioids. And they say they were ignored.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Here's what one pharmacist told NPR for that investigation.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: I sent the email to Walmart and I explained them that there are large number of controlled substance and the narcotics were dispensed not for genuine purpose which are for distribution on the street
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: They told me do not reach out to the DA or do not call the police If you're going to do so, your employment going to be terminated immediately.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Walmart said it acted responsibly.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: As for the current case, if the pharmacy chains are found guilty, they could be on the hook for billions of dollars. This case is seen as a bellwether. It may hint at the outcome of thousands of lawsuits nationwide.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: States and local governments, they say they've spent huge amounts of tax dollars dealing with the aftermath of addiction. Drug treatment programs, foster care programs, law enforcement, ER visits, all of it costs money.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And this case may determine how much of that staggering bill pharmacies could be made to bear.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There's a new development in the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. It involves the role of organized crime in the movement of Haitian people.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Several people from across Latin America are now under arrest, and they're accused of running an international smuggling ring involving children.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Some of the best reporting on this has been from the Miami Herald. Its latest story is about law enforcement agencies across Latin America closing in on a criminal gang.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The ring is suspected of smuggling around 1,000 Haitian migrants, including hundreds of children. These people were moved from Chile. Their final destination was intended to be Mexico or the U.S.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Many Haitians, they fled their home country for Chile after the deadly earthquake of 2010.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: U.S. authorities have said they believe a criminal organization is behind the recent flow of thousands of migrants to the U.S. border.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Department of Homeland Security said, there was a number of children under that bridge in Del Rio who didn't have parents with them. That's a possible sign of child smuggling.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: International police leaders calling what happened to the child migrants horrifying. They were tiny kids, some just a few years old.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It's a rough time right now in school cafeterias. The pandemic wrecked the supply chain schools rely.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And because of supply and labor shortages, cafeterias are having trouble getting the food and workers they need to feed children.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: It's so bad that Washington Post food reporter Laura Riley found some schools barely even have the dishes they need to serve food, let alone the food itself.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: They don't have the plastic trays to put things on and they can't source enough forks and spoons or sporks to have any kind of more complex food.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So the problems are myriad and really do result in kids maybe not getting enough nutrition right now.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This is way bigger than whether Taco Tuesday has to become Tuna Tuesday. For many children, school meals are their primary source of healthy food.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And a lot more families need free meals at school because they fell behind during the pandemic.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The reality for many low-income Americans is without school lunch, there would be no lunch.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Laura Riley says some big food companies canceled contracts with schools on short notice.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And when the trucks do show up, they often don't have the food schools ordered.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And this means some meals are not meeting nutritional standards.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So many school districts that used to have two or three different vendors that brought them food are limited now to one vendor.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So if that vendor says, sorry, guys, I can't get you chicken nuggets this week, the people who administer the school lunches have to go to Sam's Club or Costco to get those foods.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And that if they have staff who can make grocery runs.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: One state school system says it barely has enough people even applying for jobs.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently announced billion in funding for school meal programs.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But experts worry, throwing cash at this problem won't make up for missing links in the supply chain.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: When will they actually see the money? You know, the federal government is notoriously slow in getting things out to the state and then the state getting things out to the individual districts and the districts getting them out to the individual schools.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So the longer these lags go on, the more this problem becomes exacerbated.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Tom Cruise wanted to pull off what's kind of like the real Mission Impossible, but a Russian crew beat him and Hollywood to become the first to shoot a feature-length film in space.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Yesterday, Russia launched a spacecraft with three people on board, including actor Yulia Parashild.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The movie is called The Challenge, and she plays a doctor sent into space on an emergency mission to save a cosmonaut.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Of course, this film set won't look like anything that's standard.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: There won't be tons of producers running around the International Space Station, people in charge of holding boom mics, stylus on call to help with wardrobe, none of that.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: A producer is on the trip with Parashild. He'll take care of the lighting and shooting.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: A professional cosmonaut blasted off with them, and he'll help out with the movie.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And a couple of cosmonauts already on board the space station will play minor parts.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: 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.
