--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Monday, April 22nd, Earth Day. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: On today's show, what we know about the judge presiding over Trump's criminal case in New York, how drug shortages are putting Americans at risk, and a fervent salad debate. But first, let's take a quick look at some other stories that are in the news.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Over the weekend, the House of Representatives passed a series of bills that will provide nearly $100 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. The Senate is expected to consider the measures this week, and President Biden is expected to sign. House Speaker Mike Johnson had broken the aid plan into separate bills. That was to get around objections from some Republicans to more aid for Ukraine.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told NBC about how the aid could make a difference.
--:-- Volodymyr Zelensky: Thank you. I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces of Ukraine. And we will have a chance for victory if Ukraine really gets the weapons system, which we need so much, which thousands of soldiers need so much.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In Israel, even as more U.S. aid is approved, there's new criticism of Israel's military. Axios reports that the U.S. is planning to sanction an Israeli unit for human rights violations in the West Bank. Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he'll fight any sanctions. Also, Israel's military intelligence chief is resigning. This is the most senior figure to step down following the failure to anticipate the Hamas attack inside Israel on October 7th.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Today, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a case that could affect homelessness in America, as the number of Americans lacking shelter hits record levels. The case focuses on an Oregon city with a ban on camping. Officials there say the law keeps people safe because tent encampments are often sites of crime, drug use, and fires. Advocates for unhoused people say the law punishes people who can't afford a place to live.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And Taylor Swift's latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, is smashing records on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. Swift got more than 300 million Spotify streams in a single day. Apple Music says that first numbers make this record the quote biggest pop album of all time.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And I love you. It's ruining my life. I love you. It's ruining my life. That song, Fortnite, featuring Post Malone, became the most streamed track in a single day in Spotify history. And there could be more. If the album debuts at number one on the U.S. Billboard chart, Swift would tie Jay-Z with 14 number one albums. That would put those two behind only the Beatles.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Opening arguments are set to begin in Trump's criminal case in New York today. He's pleaded not guilty to multiple charges that he falsified business records to cover up hush money payments to an adult film actress. Judge Juan Mershon is the New York Supreme Court justice presiding over this case.
--:-- Bart Jansen: He's a fairly experienced trial court judge. He's been on the felony court for about 15 years. That's Bart Jansen, Justice Department correspondent for USA Today. He told me it's not only that Mershon is experienced overall. He's dealt with matters pertaining to Trump pretty recently.
--:-- Bart Jansen: In 2022, he oversaw the criminal charges against two parts of the Trump organization, which were accused of tax fraud. And the case resulted in convictions, and Mershon sentenced the two companies to a combined $1.6 million fine. Trump has used that to claim that Mershon is biased against him. And Trump has tried unsuccessfully to have him removed from the case.
--:-- Bart Jansen: He's also leveled complaints against Mershon's daughter because she works for a digital marketing agency that has worked for Democratic candidates. The New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics said that her work didn't taint the judges' impartiality.
--:-- Bart Jansen: Jansen says Mershon's past work on the Trump Organization case, as well as others, provides some insight into how he typically works. Independent legal experts tend to say that he's just a very businesslike judge. He's very efficient. He likes to keep things moving along.
--:-- Bart Jansen: That trial, you know, a relatively high-profile trial, even without Trump himself being a defendant in that case, ran relatively smoothly. In the first week of this trial Mershon presided over the whittling down of hundreds of prospective jurors to get 12 selected.
--:-- Bart Jansen: And tomorrow Mershon will allow prosecutors to make the case that Trump has violated a gag order It intended to keep him from intimidating witnesses and others involved in the trial.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Drug shortages in the U.S. are at an all-time high. The Wall Street Journal chronicled some frenzied stories of people going to pharmacies eager to refill their prescriptions, only to find that they couldn't. And doctors forced to use lesser substitutes.
--:-- Liz Esley-White: Really popular diabetes drugs like Ozempic, Monjaro, as well as life-saving allergy treatment epinephrine, common antibiotics such as amoxicillin, which is what you get your kid when they have an earache, chemotherapy medications, injections that hospitals commonly use in intensive care, and really high-stakes medical situations.
--:-- Liz Esley-White: More than 300 drugs were in short supply in the first quarter of this year, the highest level in more than two decades of available data. Some drug companies say that this issue has to do with consumer demand. But health economists the journal spoke to said this is a longer-term problem.
--:-- Liz Esley-White: It has to do with a broken supply chain that's making it difficult for generic drug makers to remain in business. Many of those drug makers have left the industry or offshored their production to other countries.
--:-- Liz Esley-White: The problem is that they've become so cheap that it's hard to make them in America now. And a lot of businesses have just gotten out of the business of making them. And so we're only down to like a couple suppliers of some of these important medications.
--:-- Liz Esley-White: That is especially true for sterile injectables. These drugs are hard to make and hospitals go through them quickly. For example, the chemotherapy drug carboplatin or the chemotherapy drug cisplatin. We only have a handful of those manufacturers.
--:-- Liz Esley-White: So if one of them has an issue, like their production line needs to be shut down to address a safety problem, then we don't have a lot of slack in the system to make up for them shutting down.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: An anesthesiologist the journal spoke to said that he's frustrated by how often he's having to substitute drugs because of shortages. And this is all having a huge impact on patients as well.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It can mean that they have to wait longer to get a key treatment. Their chemotherapy appointment gets pushed back a couple weeks or something like that which is pretty scary when you facing a disease like cancer.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There are many ideas on the table but fixing the problem may need a major change to the business model. And that might include allowing price increases for generic medicines so more companies would be motivated to make these vital drugs.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We're going to close today with a pretty fun food debate, or at least one I think is enjoyable to have. It's related to a question about when a food you know and love stops being said food, and what it means to be a purist about such things.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Like, for example, does pineapple belong on a slice of pizza? Would you consider a hot dog a sandwich or no? This particular argument comes to us from The Atlantic, which takes a look at the recent evolution of the beloved Caesar salad.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It has an interesting origin story that, like a lot of food inventions, came from necessity. In 1924, Caesar Cardini's restaurant in Mexico was swamped with folks who had crossed the border from San Diego to get around Prohibition.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: He was low on ingredients, so he threw together what he had, a dressing made of egg, oil, garlic, salt, Worcestershire sauce, and citrus juice, all over Romaine lettuce. Add some Parmesan cheese and croutons, and a star we know as Caesar was born.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But as of late, the Atlantic writes, there have been so many surprising variations on the theme. Quote-unquote Caesar salads with kimchi, orange zest, fried chickpeas, pig ear, and more.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And in some cases, missing the hallmarks of the original salad itself, including but not limited to romaine lettuce. Food pros tell of the Atlantic that Caesar is a strong enough signifier that the word itself can sell practically any salad, even when it doesn't look or taste quite like a classic Caesar.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The legacy and popularity of the perfectly garlicky, salty dish is that it endures a century later in so many forms. As the Atlantic puts it, the Caesar is forever, which means it's forever being manipulated, for better and for worse.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you are already listening in the news app right now, we have a narrated article for Earth Day coming up next from The New Yorker. It looks at how a former NYPD official is now trying to tame New York City's massive trash problem and why the city is such a difficult place to keep clean.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
