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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, February 28th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, questions about whether Amber Alerts do enough to find missing kids, Adidas has a $1.3 billion problem, what to do with all its unsold Kanye West shoes and why we feel younger in our heads.
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<v But first, voters in Chicago head to the polls today to choose their next mayor, and they won't be lacking options. Eight Democrats are challenging Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who's also a Democrat. As a Black lesbian woman, she was many firsts when she won City Hall. But she faces a tough reelection fight. This race echoes a national challenge among Democratic candidates>how to talk about crime and policing.
POLITICO reporter Shia Kapos tells us this feels personal for Chicago. It's a city that so often gets dragged onto the national stage in conversations about crime.
Shia Kapos: Chicago is not the only big city in the country that saw crime rise during the pandemic. And with the unrest that followed, you know, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, those cities all had an increase in crime. What's different is that they have seen the declines faster, and Chicago's just not there yet. There is a decline, but it's not as steep as residents would like.
What do to about crime is a big campaign issue in the mayoral race. There are calls to shift money away from police. One candidate says police should be able to "hunt down" criminals like rabbits.
Kapos: The reality is that crime went up since Mayor Lightfoot took office four years ago in part because of the pandemic. But now, it's gone down over the past year. Crime is on the decline, and so, she's feeling really good about that. The problem is residents in a lot of areas in the city say wow, there's still a lot of crime. It's really bad.
Depending on how her reelection bid turns out, Lightfoot's story could serve as a signal to other Democrats about how difficult it is to meet voters' expectations on reforming policing. She's been criticized for her administration's response to protesters after George Floyd's murder. And far from defunding, she's increased the police budget every year she's been in office.
Kapos explained how other Democrats are watching this race in Chicago to see which candidate's messaging on policing and racial justice ends up resonating most with voters.
Kapos: So, other big cities are looking to see how voters decided. Does it mean that the electorate is going to want a tough on crime message in the future?
With so many candidates in the field, it's likely that none of them get the majority needed to win outright today. So, the top two vote-getters would advance to an April runoff.
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More than 300,000 children are reported missing in America every year. But fewer than 300 lead to an Amber Alert. They're issued on phones, radio, TV and highway signs with details so the public can tell authorities if they see something that matches the description.
A new USA Today investigation finds that it's not clear how much the alerts actually help locate missing kids. Most children who get Amber Alerts are found safe. But USA Today's data shows that the alert itself only helped in about a quarter of recent cases. Critics say the alert system often moves too slowly to matter, and some families complain that their missing children were unfairly denied Amber Alerts.
There are also racial disparities. Amber Alerts are sent for Black children at about the same rate they're reported missing. But Black children in Alerts are found less often than White and Hispanic children. It's not clear why, though it's possible media outlets give less attention to missing Black children. Also, Black families may hesitate to report missing children because of distrust of police.
Law enforcement officials argue that Amber Alerts should be rare, since sending too many alerts could condition the public to ignore them. But critics say rules for alerting are too strict. Typically, officials won't send Amber Alerts related to runaway children or custody disputes. But there are calls for reconsidering this, to focus not on why the child is missing, but whether they're potentially in danger.
Some families are left to wonder whether an Amber Alert could've made a difference for their missing loved ones. La Shann Walker's daughter and grandson went missing in Gary, Indiana in 2015. She still holds onto hope.
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La Shann Walker: I'm never giving up, but I'm just… My heart, my mind is just… I can't keep going on like this, not having no answer.
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The family wanted an Amber Alert. State records show the request was denied because it didn't meet criteria. Indiana has rules around the level of danger to the child and whether there's enough descriptive information to help the search. Walker recently told USA Today that she believes her family might still be together if the authorities had sent an Amber Alert.
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Adidas isn't done with its Kanye West problem. After cutting ties with him over repeated antisemitic comments, it now has truckloads of unsold Yeezy sneakers. Adidas recently said it could lose as much as $1.3 billion in revenue on the shoes, which can go for nearly $600 a pair. As you might expect, this did not do wonders for the stock price. Here's how Bloomberg reported on the market reaction earlier this month.
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Reporter: Shares in Adidas have plunged after the German sportswear maker said it may report an operating loss of €700 million this year.
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The Washington Post reports on the tough spot the company is in. Selling the sneakers means a lingering link to a disgraced celebrity. Dumping them is costly move, and possibly a fiery one. Fashion companies sometimes burn unsold goods. There are options that fall somewhere between the extremes of selling them and burning them, but they come with different risks.
One analyst said Adidas could strip off the branding and sell them at a discount. This is the so-called "zombie Yeezy" option. But he says this might still create PR problems.
Another option is to sell off the merchandise to discount stores in the U.S. or to retailers in developing countries. The sneakers could be sold off by the pound. One professor who's studied how fashion companies get rid of unsold stuff says the best option may be for Adidas to donate the shoes to disaster relief, like the earthquake recovery efforts in Turkey and Syria.
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Two questions for you. One: how old are you? And two: how old are you in your head? My grandmother always used to say she still felt 26 in her mind well into her 90s.
It is really common for people to give two different answers. So many people feel younger than they are. On average, adults over 40 tend to perceive themselves as being roughly 20% younger than their actual age. The Atlantic writes about research on the concept of subjective aging.
Writer Jennifer Senior argues that thinking of yourself as younger than your actual age might seem like a form of denial, but it can actually be kind of optimistic. Think of it this way. If you're 53 but you feel 35, maybe it's because you still see many good years ahead of you.
Senior explains that trauma can play a role in our mental age, too. For lots of people, their pre-pandemic age might be where the clock stopped.
Research finds that people tend to start rolling back their mental ages around 25. Before that, people tend to say they feel older, not younger.
Senior also points to a survey asking adults what their favorite age was, and many said it's their current age. It seems like the best of both worlds to understand that you are the wisest you've ever been, but you're also still 26 in your head.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening to us in the News app right now, keep listening. We've got a narrated article coming up next from Wired about the so-called Plant Assassins. These are crews that are targeting invasive species with hatchets, chain saws and herbicide. So, sit back, enjoy listening to that and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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