--:-- Shumita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, May 2nd. I'm Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shumita Basu: On today's show, the Hollywood writer's strike is now on. We'll explain what you need to know. How artificial intelligence is saving people's voices. Plus, hopes for a new gold rush after California's heavy rainfall. But first, let's briefly catch up on several big stories developing.
--:-- Shumita Basu: We're entering a critical moment for the U.S. debt ceiling, with a new warning that a default could be just weeks away. President Biden wants to meet with the top four congressional leaders from both parties next week. This high-stakes invite comes as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warns lawmakers that America could default on its debt as soon as June 1st. Maybe later, if they don't make a deal to raise the debt ceiling.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Maybe you would think that that date would be a little more precise, but it's an estimate that's kind of tricky to pin down, because timing of a theoretical default depends on how much tax revenue the U.S. brings in, which can't be predicted exactly.
--:-- Shumita Basu: In other news, at least six people are dead and dozens injured in Illinois after a dust storm blinded drivers, causing dozens of vehicles to crash yesterday. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers reports on how the combination of high wind and work on farmland near Interstate 55 turned into a deadly series of crashes.
--:-- Chad Myers: All of a sudden, you have all of the farmers with their discs and their harrows and their plows making this dust loose. And when the wind blew today, 45 miles per hour, the dust from that equipment made this dust storm.
--:-- Shumita Basu: On now to the latest in Texas, where investigators are still looking for a man they say killed five neighbors with an assault rifle after they asked him to stop doing target practice in his yard.
--:-- Shumita Basu: While the manhunt unfolds, people in Cleveland, Texas, are asking questions about the initial law enforcement response. NBC spoke to one of the survivors of the shooting, Wilson Garcia. He says he called 911 before the gunman started shooting at them.
--:-- Wilson Garcia: He told dispatchers he was threatened.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Another shooting survivor, Ramiro Guzman, says he called 911 repeatedly while hiding in a closet. Dispatchers said deputies were already there. By the time deputies actually did arrive, five people were dead and the gunmen had escaped.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The local sheriff said that he had only three deputies covering a 700 county. Garcia says it took half an hour for someone to arrive after they first called for help. And he says maybe people would still be alive if help had come sooner.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It's official. Writers in Hollywood are on strike. Producers failed to agree on a new contract with the Writers Guild of America. The deadline to avoid a strike was midnight Pacific time. Now, union writers are preparing to walk picket lines at media companies in L.A. and New York.
--:-- Shumita Basu: There is a lot at stake in this standoff. Before the strike, we talked to Alyssa Wilkinson, a senior culture reporter and critic for Vox. She says the outcome here will set the tone for the future of entertainment.
--:-- Alyssa Wilkinson: With the business just coming out of a really, really hard time during the pandemic, there's a lot of people who don't want to stop working because it means foregoing income, but also wonder if they don't set a great baseline now, if there will even be a Hollywood to work in in 10 years.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So this is a really, really pivotal moment.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Writers Guild says that streaming is cutting into writers' incomes. Writers can make a lot of money on TV reruns, earning fees called residuals when something they wrote runs again. But they earn less with streaming.
--:-- Shumita Basu: To get a sense of how much less they make when episodes are streamed versus aired on broadcast TV, NPR spoke to Brittany Nichols, a writer for the show Abbott Elementary.
--:-- Brittany Nichols: There's no reason for them to replay it on television where I would get that network residual. They're only going to put it on these streamers where I'm going to be making, at best, $700.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You know, you're getting checks for $3, $7, $10. It's not enough to put together any sort of consistent lifestyle.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Another major sticking point for writers is the mini room, a practice that has become more common. This is where people are hired to write scripts before a show is picked up for production.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now, a standard writer's room might hire seven or eight people, but many rooms might only have two or three. And the jobs generally pay less than a traditional writer's room.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Besides lower pay, writers say many rooms hurt their careers because it's harder to advance to bigger production roles when writing and production are split up.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Writers Guild members say that makes it tough for early career workers to make connections and move up the ladder.
--:-- Alyssa Wilkinson: That presents an issue because again it means that you might only be able to get to be a writer if you have some other source of income or you know some kind of a way to pay your bills outside of your writing which limits the kind of work that can be done.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But it also just means that people are scrambling more and they're not sharing in the profits that the platform or the network are making.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The first place you'll notice the strike's impact is on late night comedy shows, which need people to write timely jokes. If the strike drags on, TV and movie production could slow down too.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Next month, contracts for directors and actors are up for renegotiation. And if talks between writers and producers keep faltering, other Hollywood creators may consider strikes as well.
--:-- Shumita Basu: There are so many questions about the future of artificial intelligence and the ways it's going to change how we work and live. A story from the Washington Post caught our attention because it looks at a deeply personal way that AI is giving people something they thought they could never get back, their ability to speak after disease silenced them.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Losing my boys is difficult because I lose the ability to engage with other people. Having my synthetic boys helps give me some of that back. That's Ron Brady speaking to the Post using a simulation of his voice created by AI.
--:-- Ron Brady: Hi, Dave. Hi, Sue.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It's called voice banking. It's a process where companies record a person speaking, then they make a synthetic voice that can be pretty similar to that person's real voice.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And it sounds way less robotic than computer-generated voices of the past. A person can just type whatever they want their new voice to say.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Voice banking can be expensive and time-consuming, but advancements in AI have brought the cost down and made the service more accessible.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Demand has been rising in recent years. Customers include ALS patients like Brady, but also people with Parkinson's, throat cancer, and more.
--:-- Shumita Basu: There are still a few hurdles to be worked out. But for the most part, people who use AI voice technology tell The Post, being able to speak in a voice that sounds like their real voice helps them feel more confident and connected to the world and to the ones they love most.
--:-- Ron Brady: When I heard my improved voice it felt like it was the first time since being diagnosed that any part of me actually physically became better.
--:-- Shumita Basu: California has been pummeled by severe rain this year, and we're seeing some surprising domino effects from all that water, impacting everyone from winemakers to amateur gold hunters.
--:-- Shumita Basu: One colorful consequence of all this rain is super blooms of wildflowers. Fields of orange poppies, yellow fiddlenecks, and lavender blue lupins, blanket parts of the state.
--:-- Shumita Basu: There are so many flowers, the San Francisco Chronicle notes they can be seen from space.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now for vineyards, Wine Enthusiast explains how the heavy rain could help them.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The water filled up aquifers that were dried by drought. And it also washed away salt deposits in vineyards.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now that salt can be toxic, so the heavy rain was a refresh. Or as one Sonoma winemaker puts it, it renews the life force in the soils.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And then there's gold. Heavy rain and runoff loosened up gold deposits in the Sierra Nevada rivers. And that has some treasure hunters gearing up to try their luck.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Good Morning America caught up with one on a riverbank. He says he has seen several success stories.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Everybody that has come here to look for gold has found gold since the rain. Now, even those who do strike gold probably won't strike it rich.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Also, it is hard work. A geologist explains to SFGate that heavy equipment is banned to protect the environment, so amateur gold hunters have to put in a lot of backbreaking work, crouching, panning, and sifting for hours.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Another geologist describes it kind of like fishing. You may not get a bite, but you will have a nice day hanging out on the river.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Before we let you go, a little update on a story we talked about yesterday on the show.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Last night was the Met Gala, honoring the late designer Karl Lagerfeld. And there was a lot of speculation as to whether his cat Choupette would attend.
--:-- Shumita Basu: She did not, but there were a lot of nods to her on the red carpet, including from Lil Nas X, Doja Cat, Jared Leto, and Janelle Monae, who all paid tribute to Chupette with their outfits.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You can see their looks and all the coverage of the event in our curated collection on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And if you're listening in the News app right now, stick around. We've got a narrated article from New York Magazine that sticks with the fashion world theme.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It asks a tricky question. What was and is the it girl? That is queued up to play for you next, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow. Thank you.
