--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It is Thursday, September 1st. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamita Basu. 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.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The results are now in, and Sarah Palin is not getting back into elected office yet. She lost the special election to Democrat Mary Peltola. They were competing to finish the term of Alaska's Republican Congressman Don Young, who died in March. No Democrat has represented Alaska in the House since Young was elected in 1973.
--:-- Peltola has an indigenous background in a state where more than 15% of the population identifies as such. She will be the first Alaska native in Congress. That's just a tremendous honor to come in and finish out the remainder of his term.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, because this was a special election, Peltola has to run again in November to keep the seat. And Palin promises a tough campaign. We have just begun. It's a fight for what is right for Alaska and for our nation.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Political analysts are looking at this and other special election results for early signs of how the midterms could go. Several analysts have pointed out that Democrats have done pretty well in the special elections taking place after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, though retaining control of the House is still seen as a challenge for the party.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Democrats have argued that abortion rights could be a winning issue for them in November. Republicans have tried to keep the focus on inflation and the blame on Biden. It's hard to know how much to read from just the Alaska result. It's unusual in that it used ranked choice voting for the first time in the state with multiple politicians competing.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Voters rank candidates in order of preference. The Democrat Peltola was able to beat Palin because enough people put her down as an alternative choice. That makes the November election for a full term a bit of a wild card. A Democrat, two Republicans, and a Libertarian all competing under the rank choice system.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Folks with student loan debt are working out how Biden's relief plan will work for them. So far, many people only have the headline details. Using the authority Congress granted the Department of Education, we will forgive $10,000 in outstanding federal student loans. In addition, students who come from low-income families, which allowed them to qualify to receive a Pell Grant, will have their debt reduced $20,000.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Borrowers making less than $125,000 per year are eligible. Those who qualify are eager to figure out how to sign up. They even crashed the education department's website at one point. We asked Washington Post education reporter Danielle Douglas-Gabriel to explain how the program will work.
--:-- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel: Some people with their information on file at the department will get loans automatically forgiven. Others will need to do paperwork. That application should come out in mid-October. It's supposed to be a short form, just kind of attesting to your income and your household kind of setup and situation.
--:-- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel: The White House says borrowers can expect debt relief four to six weeks after applying. The Department of Education and the White House is really encouraging people to try to apply by November 15th so that they would receive some kind of student loan forgiveness, if not full relief of their loans, before the resumption of federal student loan payments and the end of the payment moratorium at the end of the year.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Of the 43 million borrowers who could see some relief under this plan, more than 60 percent received Pell Grants. So they are eligible for the full forgiveness. Douglas Gabriel says two of Pell Grant recipients are Black and they especially stand to benefit from the program.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Black women tend to have the largest balances because they borrow more often. Many have started to pursue advanced degrees and grad plus loans. Douglas Gabriel talked to an 18-year-old with around $10,000 in federal loans. Her dream school was Spelman, the private historically Black college in Atlanta. But she chose the University of Georgia, a public school, in order to save money on tuition.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: She was thankful for the debt forgiveness, but concerned that, no, it doesn't address the next few years of my education nor grad school. So I still have to think about borrowing and trying to be very strategic about where I go and how much I spend and all of that.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There's a lot of reporting right now about loneliness in America and fraying social connections. Vox takes a different approach on the topic, with the illustrator Aubrey Hirsch using a graphic novel format. We highlighted a previous work of hers about the cost of breastfeeding. Her drawings bring numbers home in a way that traditional charts and big blocks of text don't.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Hirsch's latest piece focuses on what some call the male friendship recession. Survey data shows the percent of men with at least six close friends fell by half in roughly the last 30 years, and one in five single men say they have no close friendships.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And there are serious mental and physical health consequences of this. Research shows social isolation can weaken immune systems and make people more likely to have Alzheimer's, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, or other problems. Some mental health experts think growing male isolation may be contributing to societal violence.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Hirsch's illustrations highlight several reasons researchers blame for the decline in male friendships. One is because young men are living at home with parents longer. More than half of people aged 18 to 29 live with their parents. They're not bonding with people outside their home as much.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Americans are switching jobs more frequently and spending less time in offices. Hirsch's visual journalism also looks at how boys are raised and what role that might play in decaying social ties.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can see it in full color on the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You're probably familiar with the directors Martin Scorsese, Sofia Coppola, Spike Lee. But do you know the filmmaker Alan Smithy?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: He's the man responsible for giving the world this. He who controls the spice controls the universe. And what Pida did not tell... For those of you who go outside more often than me, that is from the 1984 version of Dune. And Smithy ended up being credited with it for the television release, not the actual director, David Lynch.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The even stranger part is that Smithy doesn't even exist. Vice explains the origin story of the pseudonym. In 1969, a movie called Death of a Gunfighter had two different directors. Neither wanted to be associated with the project. So, the solution? A made-up name, Alan Smithy, was credited as the director.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Since then, the pseudonym has been attached to over 100 films, many of which are, well, cringey or troubled productions like David Lynch's Dune. Vice explains that the name was largely sidelined in the 2000s, but Smithy's work lives on forever.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We will talk with you again tomorrow.
