--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, July 26th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, what new research tells us about the lasting effects of elite school admissions policies, how people in Ohio are bypassing legislators to protect abortion rights, and why tonight's U.S. Women's World Cup match is one to watch. But first, let's take a look at some major stories in the news.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Florida is feeling what may be the hottest ocean temperature in recorded history. One reading found the water hit over 101 degrees in the Florida Keys area. The hot tub level reading is higher than the existing record set in the Persian Gulf.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Extreme weather is also spreading in southern Europe. In Italy, at least seven people have died in two parts of the country. Wildfires are raging in Sicily, and the north has been hit by powerful storms.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Later today, the Fed is expected to raise interest rates by another quarter percentage point. That would bump rates to a 22-year high. Investors will watch to see what Fed Chair Jay Powell says.
--:-- Shamita Basu: With inflation cooling in America and several forecasters lowering the odds for a recession, the Fed may be able to ease back on rate hikes soon. Meanwhile, the economy will escape one potential roadblock. UPS and the Teamsters Union have a tentative new labor deal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If it's finalized, that'll mean there won't be a massive strike that would have had widespread economic impact. CNBC's Frank Holland reported from the New York Stock Exchange trading floor on what the Teamsters say is in the deal.
--:-- Frank Holland: $30 billion of new money throughout the length of the contract. Existing full and part-time workers get $2.75 more per hour this year. And then this was a really big sticking point. Pay for part-time workers, they'll now be bumped up to $21 per hour.
--:-- Frank Holland: Teamsters also saying delivery drivers who are UPS Teamsters will get $49 per hour industry-leading pay when it comes to that area.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In immigration policy news, a federal judge has struck down the Biden administration's new restrictions on migrants seeking asylum. The system penalizes migrants who cross the border illegally and favors those who schedule appointments to seek asylum.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The judge is delaying the ruling to give the government time to appeal. And the Education Department is investigating admissions at Harvard. The focus is on how the school gives preferences to children of donors and alumni or legacy students.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Several groups representing people of color have called for the investigation. They say these special preferences work against qualified minority students. Harvard says it's committed to diversity.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In that Harvard admissions investigation, and in the recent Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action, there was a big focus on a small number of highly selective schools, the Ivies and a handful of others.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Only a fraction of students go there, but Atlantic writer Annie Lowry argues that it's still important to focus on these universities because they're deeply influential across our society.
--:-- Annie Lowry: Because these schools are so dominant in educating the elite, there's really strong evidence that you could actually really diversify that elite by just diversifying who goes to these schools.
--:-- Annie Lowry: And socioeconomically diversifying that elite, given everything that we know about power and privilege, might really have an impact.
--:-- Annie Lowry: Lowry writes about new research with hard numbers. Students who attend super elite schools are 60 percent more likely to enter the top 1 percent of income earners and three times as likely to be working at a prestigious company.
--:-- Annie Lowry: Also, the country's most powerful politicians, scientists, judges, and business leaders tend to come from these schools. The numbers make a case for diversifying elite schools, and the researchers have several ideas on how to do this without changing the quality of students.
--:-- Annie Lowry: The top of the list is what we mentioned earlier on the show, the special treatment given to kids whose parents are alumni.
--:-- Annie Lowry: The first, and I think one of the biggest, is to eliminate the preference for legacy students, which functionally is affirmative action for rich white kids.
--:-- Annie Lowry: It's not all legacy students that have a huge leg up. It's especially the very, very, very wealthy legacy students. And this ends up putting the thumb on the scale from students who come from top 1 families top 0 families.
--:-- Annie Lowry: And again the thumb on the scale for wealthy legacy students you can believe how heavy it is. It's about a 40 percentage point advantage in admissions.
--:-- Annie Lowry: Another suggestion from the researchers is to stop recruiting athletes. There's this misconception that playing a sport is a way for low-income kids to get an edge.
--:-- Annie Lowry: But the reality is different. Many student athletes get into elite schools because they have experience in elite expensive sports, things like fencing and sailing.
--:-- Annie Lowry: And I have one policy idea of my own. These top schools with massive endowments need to think bigger. They could be admitting more students, many more students, twice as many students, 10 times as many students, by diverting some of their resources into doing so.
--:-- Annie Lowry: And so you can imagine them making their classes bigger and making them more socioeconomically diverse, and it would give many more kids the same advantages that they're giving mostly rich kids right now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now let's go to Ohio as part of our series State of the State, where we look at what voters want and how their politicians are responding, or in this case, not responding, which is why people are taking the matter of abortion rights into their own hands.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ohio residents have just gathered enough signatures to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this November. And according to a recent poll, 58 percent of Ohio voters want to approve it and add protections for abortion rights to the state constitution.
--:-- Susan Tebin: Reporter Susan Tebin with The Ohio Capital Journal says many voters have told her this is about having power over their health care.
--:-- Susan Tebin: Should I have a choice in what my health care is and should I be able to say what this is? Should I be able to say that legislators and politicians might not know about medical decisions better than I do?
--:-- Shamita Basu: But before Ohio gets to vote on that in November, voters will face another election next month. And this one's a little complicated. It's a Republican-backed proposal that would make it harder to amend the state constitution.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So it has major implications for the proposed abortion amendment. Right now, Ohio requires a simple majority of voters to amend the state constitution, but the issue on the ballot in August would change that to a 60 percent threshold.
--:-- Susan Tebin: Opponents are saying that makes it basically impossible to amend the Ohio Constitution. And then the supporters are saying this is what the U Constitution does at 66.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Reproductive rights advocates and abortion opponents across the country are watching what happens in Ohio. The outcome could influence their strategies for elections to come.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Tonight, the United States takes on the Netherlands in the World Cup. It's a high-stakes game to watch, a rematch of the last World Cup final when the U.S. beat the Dutch team.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meg Linehan is a writer for The Athletic and host of the podcast Full Time with Meg Linehan. She's been to every single U.S. women's national team game this year.
--:-- Meg Linehan: You know, the Netherlands-Portugal game, I don't know if you watched it, but like it was not a great game and Netherlands were very wasteful, right?
--:-- Meg Linehan: So for as much criticism as the U.S. was getting about like you're not finishing your chances, like the Netherlands were not finishing their chances. So it's not going to be this 2019 final rematch, I don't think.
--:-- Meg Linehan: This match will set the tone for how the rest of the tournament will go for the U.S. team. Linehan's prediction for the final is that the U.S. will take on Germany.
--:-- Meg Linehan: And she says that makes her nervous. When we played them in two friendlies back in November, the game that the U.S. lost, the first one, U.S. was the better team.
--:-- Meg Linehan: And then the game that they won was a little more even. It does feel, it feels a little, a little nervous. If we get into a USA tournament, anything can happen.
--:-- Meg Linehan: Linehan is in New Zealand right now, and she says even off the field, this World Cup has an energy that's pretty exciting.
--:-- Meg Linehan: It really does feel like there's a tournament, like you walk down the street and you will just hear people talking about it. And what's great to me is like, they're just saying like, oh, at the World Cup, are you going to the World Cup?
--:-- Meg Linehan: There's no like, are you going to the Women's World Cup here? It's just World Cup. It's so nice.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That full episode of After the Whistle is queued up to play for you next. And remember to cheer on the U.S. women tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
