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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, June 23rd. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, the Supreme Court could end affirmative action, we'll look at one state that did that years ago, America's changing views on abortion, one year after the end of Roe V. Wade, and the massive danger and opportunity, when businesses try to jump on a TikTok trend.
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But first, let's take a quick look at some major stories in the news.
All five people aboard the underwater tourist vessel are dead. Searchers located fragments of the submersible near the Titanic, evidence that a catastrophic implosion destroyed it. Rear Admiral John Mauger who led the search, said the passengers couldn't have survived.
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Admiral John Mauger: On behalf of the US Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families.
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"The Wall Street Journal" reports that top-secret underwater U.S. military technology detected what might've been the sounds of the implosion, soon after the sub launched. Officials involved in the search tell the "Journal" that the Navy couldn't definitively say the sound came from the sub imploding. But it shared the data, which helped narrow down the search.
Now the focus turns to why the sub failed under the pressure of the deep ocean. And there are also questions about the cost of the search, which required a lot of people and military hardware.
In Washington, President Biden says American ties with India are important and getting stronger. He hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for meetings and a state dinner. Military deals were a key part of the visit, including selling drones to India and joint production of fighter-jet engines. Modi referenced this in a speech to Congress.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi: Now, the United States has become one of our most important defense partners.
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A handful of Democratic members of Congress skipped the speech, as a protest against human-rights abuses in India, especially against Muslims and other religious minorities.
We've also got an update related to a topic we talked about recently on the show, forever chemicals. They get their name because they don't disappear from our bodies or the environment. Now, chemical and manufacturing giant 3M will pay up to 12.5 billion dollars to settle lawsuits claiming that these chemicals polluted drinking water over decades. The money is meant to pay for environmental testing and cleanup.
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Any day now, the Supreme Court will make a decision on the future of affirmative action nationwide. Which brings us to this week's "State of the State," our ongoing series about how state and local policies impact the people who live there. Today's let's talk about the state of California, now that it's been more than 25 years since it banned affirmative action. California's story could give us clues on what the future might look like if the Supreme Court ends or restricts the practice more widely.
California voters ended government-sponsored affirmative action in a 1996 ballot initiative. So, we have years worth of data on the impact on public universities. Yale economist Zach Bleemer studies college admissions. He shared a few major takeaways with "NPR." First, enrollment for underrepresented minority students at highly selective schools dropped immediately.
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Zach Bleemer: Black, Hispanic and Native American students, on average, go to slightly less-selective schools. White and Asian students, meanwhile, on average, get to go to slightly more-selective schools, taking the slots of these Black and Hispanic students who had lost access to those places.
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He also followed these people from underrepresented groups as they entered the workforce.
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Zach Bleemer: The typical student who, because of the end of affirmative action, had a little bit less access to more selective universities, ended up earning about 5 percent less than they would have earned if they'd had access to more selective universities through race-based affirmative action.
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Now remember, Bleemer is an economist, and that's how he thinks about how to gauge the impact of affirmative action.
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Zach Bleemer: I think the best that I can say is, forgetting questions of equity, if your goal is just to maximize economic efficiency, just to identify an admissions policy that will spur economic growth, identify students who will be able to best take advantage of university resources, earn the highest wages, pay back the most in tax dollars and otherwise succeed using a university's resources, that's what affirmative action did.
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He told "NPR," if the Supreme Court ends affirmative action nationwide, we'll probably see a version of what happened in California play out across the country. That means fewer Black, Hispanic and Native American students at top schools, and down the road, a wider income gap.
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We're gonna to stay with legal news, focusing on one of the most divisive issues ending up in courts today, abortion access. Tomorrow marks one year since the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade. That ended one giant, generational fight over abortion, but it launched dozens more big fights across America, as states moved to restrict or protect the procedure. Just yesterday, a judge halted a Wyoming law that would've made it the first state in the nation to ban abortion pills.
We've covered a lot of these developments in the last twelve months. As we hit the one-year mark, we wanted to take a broader look at how the landscape is changing as far as how Americans think about abortion, and what's ahead. So, we called up "NPR" correspondent Sarah McCammon, who's been covering the transformation of abortion policy in America, and the reactions. She says, so much has changed so fast.
Sarah McCammon: So much has changed, particularly if you look at the map in the Midwest and South. I mean, there are just huge swaths of the country now that have little to no abortion access. There are more than a dozen states where abortion is virtually non-existent, where it's banned even in the early weeks of pregnancy. If you add to that, states that have banned abortion up to 12 or 15 weeks, the number goes up a bit. There are other states that are in the process, whether they have bans that are tied up in litigation or that are scheduled to take effect later on, the number is growing.
One of McCammon's specialties is political divides. And abortion has only become more divisive in the past year. Recent Gallup polling shows 61 percent of people who responded said overturning Roe was a "bad thing," while 38 percent said it was "good." The range of people's views on abortion is complex, and the full impact on politics is yet to be seen.
McCammon: That said, as this pollster I spoke to pointed out, most Americans also support some restrictions on abortion. And so, what I'm seeing now is Republicans aware of some of the political backlash to the Dobbs decision, starting to sort of lean into this idea that public opinion supports some restrictions. Now, that's a case that I think we're gonna start seeing the GOP primary candidates trying to make to voters that their position is in line with public opinion.
She says Democrats are looking at these polls and making the same argument, that they are representing the majority of Americans on this issue. And based on how voters have acted in the last year, especially during the midterms, the Republican message may not be resonating.
McCammon: We saw voters by and large voting to support abortion rights and voting against measures that would be likely to restrict abortion access.
Looking to the future, courts will still play a big role in deciding abortion access, but voters hold a lot of power. How they vote on state ballot questions and who they choose to make future laws on abortion. For decades, the two sides fought over Supreme Court nominations. But now we know that the Supreme Court never had the power to definitively end the fight, only to change it, splintered into state-sized battles across the country.
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Finally, a story we liked about the impact of TikTok influencers on business. Now in some ways, this might feel like an old story. Of course companies look to social media trends to see how they can get in on the memes and get young customers. But "The Wall Street Journal" got some rare inside access into how companies are using TikTok. At its best, TikTok can be what one marketing exec calls a "billion-person focus group." But at it's worst, it can be a huge headache.
One case study is Chipotle. It partnered with TikTok food influencers Keith Lee and Alexis Frost on what's called a "Keithadilla," a twist on the chain's quesadilla. Chipotle splashed videos of them all over social media.
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Keith Lee: This is the fajita quesadilla and in my opinion it's worth the hype.
Alexis Frost: And it just dropped, only in the Chipotle app.
Lee: And guess what? You can even get the vinaigrette, vinaigrette, [SLOWED DOWN] vinaigrette.
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But that special sauce he's talking about proved to be a nightmare. Sometimes it ran out. Plus, the Keithadilla took way longer to make. Employees hated doing it. And people posted nasty comments when they couldn't get it.
Still, Chipotle couldn't deny it was a breakout hit with fans. So it put the Keithadilla on the menu permanently. The TikTok-ers won.
For big companies, product research and development can take more than a year. TikTok hype moves a billion times faster, forcing companies to be more nimble. And at least in some cases, it leads to rushed, flawed products. In the end though, many companies see following TikTok trends as a must to stay ahead.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, stick around. Our weekly interview show, "In Conversation," is queued up to play for you next.
Our team has spent hours watching 2023 commencement addresses in recent weeks to pull together the best, most memorable speeches given to this year's graduating class. The really good ones resonate even if you crossed that stage years ago.
Idina Menzel: Don't hold back.
Oprah Winfrey: We need you to dream big. We need audacious thinkers.
Jon Batiste: Kindness and empathy is a superpower.
Lin-Manuel Miranda: Do what you have to do that allows the most space for what you want to do. Tomorrow is not promised. Make plans anyway.
That episode is queued up to play for you next. Enjoy the weekend, and we'll be back with the news on Monday.
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