--:-- Shemitah Basu: Good morning. It's Thursday, August 5th. I'm Shemitah 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: This week, New York City became the first major city in the United States to require proof of vaccination for several indoor activities, like dining or watching a show. Enforcement will start next month.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: This announcement has officials in other cities, San Francisco, Chicago, L.A., saying that they'll be watching to see what happens in New York and weighing whether they should do the same.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Quartz points out there's already some data out there about how effective these rules can be. Several European countries, including Italy and France, already require proof of vaccination or negative COVID tests for those activities. And so far, these guidelines seem to have encouraged people to get vaccinated.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: In France, in the two weeks after the president announced that the use of vaccine passes would expand to restaurants and other public venues, nearly 5 million people got their first dose of a vaccine. In Italy, the coronavirus commissioner said that the country saw a huge increase in vaccine appointments in the 24 hours after their vaccine rule was made public. In some regions, demand was up as much as 6,000%.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Quartz also acknowledges, like in the U.S., vaccine requirements did get some pushback in Europe. Thousands of people in Italy and France protested the use of vaccine passes.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Plus, there are still some unanswered questions about how the vaccine rule is going to be enforced in New York. Some people are concerned this is going to play out just like mask mandates. You know, that the responsibility for enforcing the new rules is going to fall on frontline service and retail workers. And that they are going to have to face angry customers again.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In the meantime, all eyes are on New York City to see if this could be another strategy to bring case numbers down.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: A federal program intended to forgive the debts of minority farmers is in legal jeopardy. The argument against it comes from conservative legal groups who say it discriminatory against white farmers.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: So at this point the entire minority farmer debt relief program is basically on hold. Josh Gerstein, a senior legal reporter at Politico, tells us about this legal fight.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: There have been, I think, at least 13 lawsuits that have been filed. And three judges have issued what are called preliminary injunctions, basically blocking the program from going forward. They said that it appeared there was a good chance that the white farmers who filed these suits would prevail on their claims that these are unconstitutional provisions because the government here is making distinctions among farmers on the basis of race, and they're not allowed to do that under the Constitution.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And that the reasons basically that the federal government has put forward for why they need to do this are not adequate to meet the legal standards that have been set in prior cases.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: The Biden administration is weighing whether or not they should fight this in court, because if they lose, it could risk setting a precedent. One of the concerns that we heard expressed by lawyers who looked at this issue was that if you took a case like this to the Supreme Court, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority and is particularly conservative on issues related to race, not only is it possible that this program might be struck down, but there could be damage done to other affirmative action programs that the government runs, other programs that involve race-conscious measures.
--:-- Duarte Girstein: Legal experts told Gerstein a relief program that focuses more directly on providing debt relief for African-American farmers or farmers who can prove the Department of Agriculture discriminated against them might be the best bet here.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The White House and Department of Justice have just about a three-week deadline to appeal the ruling.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Imagine this. You're on a bike ride, and all of a sudden you hit a bump and get thrown over the handlebars. You're badly scraped up and shook up. You don't want to go to an emergency room or call up your doctor. So you decide to go to an urgent care clinic to get checked out. You got insurance and the clinic is in your network. You get a few stitches. Then a couple of weeks later, bam, you get hit with a $1,000 bill.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: It turns out the clinic was in network, but the doctor wasn't. So what happened there is called surprise medical billing. That's when patients dealing with an emergency are hit with a bill for out-of-network care.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Starting next year, that type of billing is going to be banned by law. This is all part of the No Surprises Act, but urgent care centers, they fall into a gray area.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: Kaiser Health News looked into this issue. Urgent care clinics are meant to address serious but not life-threatening injuries. And as people look for quick health care, the number of these clinics is shooting up. Right now, there are about 10,500 of these centers in the U.S.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Kaiser Health News explains urgent care clinics are not explicitly mentioned in the No Surprises Act. And the reason for that gap comes down to this question. What should be classified as urgent care versus emergency care?
--:-- Josh Gerstein: Needing stitches feels like an emergency. But what about getting a flu shot? Many urgent care centers cover a wide variety of these types of services. Only some of these health clinics are specifically licensed to perform emergency procedures. And as Kaiser Health News points out, the way these clinics classify emergency services, it's not standardized.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: That's why the Biden administration is proposing banning surprise billing at clinics that have emergency licenses, essentially labeling them freestanding emergency rooms.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: Kaiser Health News reached out to the Urgent Care Association, which lobbies for these types of clinics, and their CEO says they are not on board with that proposal. She says they don't want to be thought of as emergency rooms. They need their own separate classification.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: That leaves only one other option for urgent care to be covered by the No Surprises Act. These types of clinics would need to be written into the rules before the law goes into effect in January.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The U.S. women's basketball team has been dominating at the Tokyo Olympics. This week, the team beat the No. 2-ranked Australia, 79-55. The women team will play against Serbia in the semifinals on Friday.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Meanwhile back in the U.S. a new report says that women college basketball players are not getting the support credit or treatment that they deserve. The NCAA, the entity that oversees college sports, came under scrutiny last year after this one video went viral. It drew attention to the sparse facilities at the women's basketball tournament in March.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: The Washington Post reports, That incident led to an outside review of the college-level sport, and it concluded that the differences between the men's and women's facilities really speaks to the systemic undervaluing of women's basketball.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: That type of treatment puts players at a disadvantage, and it undermines the growth of their sport. The report names several examples, like the NCAA refused to let the women's tournament use the lucrative March Madness trademark on any promotional materials. Women athletes were given prepackaged meals at their games, while the men had food sponsorships and got catered food from places like Pizza Hut and Buffalo Wild Wings.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: The review also identified a culture at the NCAA of women's basketball being treated as if it was destined to lose money. That's a narrative that the report called inaccurate and counter to the growing popularity of women's basketball.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In its defense, the NCAA tried to frame this issue as a matter of dollars and cents. The TV rights to the men's tournament, it brings in billions of dollars. That's vastly more than what the women's tournament brings in.
--:-- Josh Gerstein: But the report concludes this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. One outside analysis says the women's TV rights are undervalued, and that hurts the women's league's ability to draw sponsors and grow the brand.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: This review recommended major reforms at the NCAA, including a combined Final Four tournament, as well as changes to the leadership structure, media contracts, and revenue payments. Congress is also taking on this issue. The House Oversight Committee is looking into gender-based discrimination in college sports, and another report expected later this year will look at identifying disparities in college championships beyond basketball.
--:-- Shemitah 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 with you again tomorrow.
