--:-- [Upbeat music fades out, and the hosts introduce themselves]
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, December 1st. I'm Shamitha Basu.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And I'm Duarte Giraldino.
--:-- Shamitha 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.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: We're getting closer and closer to some Americans receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. Vice President Mike Pence spoke with governors about a rollout plan yesterday, And Bloomberg reports he told them distribution could start as early as the third week of December.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: With more than 267,000 people in the country dead from the virus, the question that's on a lot of people's minds is who gets the vaccine first? And when is my turn? The medical publication stat breaks down what we know so far.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Today, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has an emergency meeting to vote on recommendations. This is the group that advises the CDC on vaccine policy. Jose Romero is the committee's chair. He told Stat this is the most important vote for the advisory group in his career.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Yet this group plans to recommend health care providers be given top priority. But the Trump administration is recommending seniority be given to literally seniors. According to Stat's reporting, administration appointees like Dr. Deborah Birx and HHS Secretary Alex Azar are saying adults over the age of 65 should have first access to the vaccine ahead of health care workers.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Then there are folks in long-term care facilities. According to CDC data, these facilities account for 39 percent of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. And yet this particular group only makes up one percent of the U.S. population and just six percent of infections.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The vast differences between those numbers speaks to the heightened risk that this population faces. Right But here the thing The CDC advisory group is torn about whether to include people who live in long care facilities in this top priority list According to Stat several people on the committee support the idea but others say scientists still don't know enough about how older, vulnerable adults will respond to the vaccine.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The takeaway here, this advisory group makes recommendations. The federal government has the option to roll out a plan. But ultimately, it's your state government that has the last word. And this means across the country, we're likely to see a patchwork of plans for who is first in line to get the most anticipated vaccine in history.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: But let's keep the big picture in mind, too. Between the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, we're expecting to see enough doses to vaccinate 20 million Americans this month, another 25 million Americans next month in January. That's roughly 14 percent of the U.S. population. So for most of us, our dose of the vaccine is probably still several months away.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Congress has just a handful of working days to get through a long list of to-dos before the end of the session. Lawmakers want to approve a spending bill to avoid a partial government shutdown. That bill could include another stimulus package to help millions of people in the U.S. who are struggling to get by right now.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: And the clock is ticking. Many relief programs expire at the end of the month. A federal pause on evictions, deferment on student loans, pandemic-related work and family leave. These are just some of the provisions that are supposed to end on December 31st.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And then there are programs that have lapsed or that need more funding to continue, like the Paycheck Protection Program, another round of stimulus checks, and federal unemployment benefits. Not to mention additional funding for vaccine distribution. CNN points out the CARES Act mostly included money for vaccine production and development, not distribution.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: And now that several vaccine manufacturers are waiting for the go from the FDA some people worry there isn't enough money to make sure the shots get to people The national association that represents local health departments across the country has asked Congress for more than a billion to pay for vaccine distribution.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Congressional aides told CNN, out of all the things that might end up in this spending bill, funding for vaccine distribution is at the top of the list. As for another round of pandemic-related stimulus measures, well, it had a fighting chance before the election. But now that the presidential race is over, CNN is reporting the dynamics shifted.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: The Trump administration is changing the way that one of its most praised conservation acts will work. It's called the Great American Outdoors Act. We talked about it before on this show. And the act got a lot of bipartisan praise. Grist is reporting that at the time, it was a way for President Trump to throw his support behind Republicans who were running for Senate in states like Montana and Colorado, where conservation is a top issue.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But now some critics are saying that the latest changes undermine the spirit of the law. The Grist is an environmental news publication, and it explains, back in August, the Great American Outdoors Act made permanent and annual $900 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Now, that means the government will automatically include nearly a billion dollars every year to this fund. It also created a separate one-time fund of up to $9.5 billion to maintain parks and other federal land. But in the days following the presidential election, the Secretary of the Interior issued an order requiring states and municipalities to sign off on transfers of federal land.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And this is really significant. Yeah, it could also make it more challenging for some of these agencies to buy land from private owners. This means if the federal government wants to use this funding to buy land from a property owner a state governor or a county board could block the transaction Grist explains this is not the way this type of funding has been allocated in the past but the Interior Department is arguing it's a good thing.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: It gives states more decision-making power. Grist reports many environmental groups believe this recent order is anti-public lands, that it undermines conservation rather than promotes it. Even Republican Senator Steve Danes, who co-sponsored the agreement, has criticized this new footnote.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Now conservation groups are hoping President-elect Biden will reverse course once he takes office.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: Today is Giving Tuesday. It's the charitable answer to Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping. And it turns out the idea is particularly well-timed after Thanksgiving.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Neuroscientists say there's actually a significant connection between being grateful and feeling more generous. It's very interesting. You know, Fox cites some studies that show a deep neural link between gratitude and generosity. These two ways of thinking share a pathway in the brain.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: And it turns out, after a little brain training, you may feel even better when you give. This one neuroscientist at the University of Oregon conducted a study where she asked one group of participants to keep a gratitude journal for several weeks, and the other group could journal about anything, no prompts.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And then she ran two experiments with them. She deposited money into people's accounts, and she donated money from people's accounts to charity. And she scanned all the participants' brains while she was doing this and she found for the people who journaled about gratitude, their brains responded more to charitable donations than seeing money put into their own accounts.
--:-- Shamitha Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
--:-- [Music fades in, and the hosts wrap up the show]
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
