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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It’s Thursday, September 28th. I’m Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today’s show… how young people in Europe are using a human rights lawsuit to force climate action, why Airbnb seems worse now, and what we can learn from the man who got stuck in space.
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But first, let’s take a look at some major stories in the news. We’re just days away from a potential government shutdown. It’s looking less and less likely that Congress will pass the necessary spending legislation before Sunday. There’s a Senate bill to avoid a shutdown that’s got bipartisan support. But several House Republicans on the right aren’t getting behind that approach. They want big concessions on border security and cutting spending elsewhere. And these holdouts are getting criticized from others inside their own party.
The possibility of a shutdown came up in last night’s Republican presidential debate on "Fox Business." Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie pointed the finger at a lot of people.
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Chris Christie: Voters should blame everybody who’s in Washington, D.C. They get sent down there to do the job and they’ve been failing at doing the job for a very long time. And let’s be honest about this with the voters. During the Trump administration, they added $7 trillion, $7 trillion in national debt. And now the Biden administration has put another $5 trillion on and counting. They have failed, and they’re in the spot they’re in now because none of them are willing to tell the truth. None of them are willing to take on the difficult issues. They just want to keep kicking the can down the road.
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In response to the same question, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also tried to turn the focus to Biden and Trump.
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Ron DeSantis: The people in Washington are shutting down the American dream with their reckless behavior. They borrowed, they printed, they spent and now you’re paying more for everything. They are the reason for that. They have shut down our national sovereignty by allowing our border to be wide open. So, please spare me the crocodile tears for these people. They need to change what’s going on. And where’s Joe Biden? He’s completely missing in action from leadership. And you know who else is missing in action? Donald Trump is missing in action. He should be on this stage tonight.
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He owes it to you to defend his record, where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt. That set the stage for the inflation that we have now…
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Candidates also talked about the United Auto Workers strike. More workers may go on strike tomorrow if the union isn’t satisfied by talks with the Big Three U.S. automakers.
In other labor news, Hollywood studios and the actors’ union will hold talks next week. It’ll be the first such meeting in several months. This follows a tentative deal struck between studios and writers, which includes pay increases and rules around the use of artificial intelligence. The writers have been cleared to return to work while the new contract is ratified. Some of the first TV shows to return to the air will be late night talk shows, like Jimmy Fallon’s and Stephen Colbert’s.
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Now to a story about climate change and fighting for accountability, in an unusual court case unfolding this week.
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Six young people are suing 32 European countries in the European Court of Human Rights. The plaintiffs are between the ages 11 to 24, and they say the governments have failed to adequately address climate change, and the failure is a violation of human rights. They want the court to rule that countries have a global responsibility for actions that drive climate change, not just responsibility for protecting their own citizens.
One of the plaintiffs, Sophia Oliveira, spoke to “CNN.”
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Sophia Oliveira: [SPEAKING THROUGH TRANSLATOR]
Translator: We need you to do a better job. I notice that climate change has a big impact on my life.
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The plaintiffs are all from Portugal, and they point to the devastating wildfires there that killed more than 100 people in 2017. Caterina Mota said the smoky conditions forced schools in her area to close.
Caterina Mota: [SPEAKING THROUGH TRANSLATOR]
Caterina Mota: None of our family houses burned down or anything like that. But we obviously felt it. And we increasingly feel the impacts of climate change in our summers.
The group is also citing other climate-related disasters, like Portugal’s recent heat waves which they say made it difficult to go outside, sleep, and breathe. In response, the countries say that none of the plaintiffs has established that climate change has caused them serious harm.
As extreme weather becomes more common, climate litigation is becoming a tool to try and force governments to take action. A few months ago, young people in Montana won a similar suit against the state. Many similar cases are pending around the world. If this case is successful, it would also send a message that governments have not just a moral obligation to protect people from the climate crisis, but a legal one too.
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Airbnb is in the news a lot lately. The biggest story is New York City’s crackdown, making it much harder to list properties.
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That’s a big-picture policy shift, but there are also changes people are noticing at the ground level. Kate Lindsay writes in "The Atlantic" about an experience that she had this summer while traveling for a wedding.
Kate Lindsay: I kind of came to the realization when the friends who had picked a hotel for this wedding we went to were relaxing in the hotel hot tub and, like, having a leisurely morning, and that same morning my boyfriend and I, who were at an Airbnb, we were cleaning the kitchen and doing all those other chores, and it took us a second and we just looked at each other and we were like, I actually don't know why we picked this.
She did some digging and found that a lot of people are feeling this frustration. And she found hard numbers, showing that even as Airbnb rentals require guests to help with cleanup, cleaning fees shot up 36 percent in three years. As Lindsay puts it, Airbnb no longer feels like a scrappy, community-based platform. Now, it’s become its own industry… with mega hosts who manage multiple properties.
Lindsay: Anytime there's a marketplace that's doing well, anyone with more resources can come in and kind of disrupt it or take advantage of it in a way that ends up kind of dampening, or sometimes just ruining, the initial philosophy.
Lindsay reached out to Airbnb, which says it provides lodging at better prices than typical hotels, a claim that is supported by outside data. In the end, Lindsay says Airbnb may ultimately be turning into just another version of the hotel business. She argues that it’s a pattern we see in a lot of startup businesses taking on a giant industry. Eventually, in the process of getting big enough to compete, they basically become the thing they sought to replace.
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American astronaut Frank Rubio is back on Earth after 371 days in space. That’s a record for the U.S. space program.
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It was supposed to be only a six-month mission, but technical problems kept him in space for much longer, along with two Russian cosmonauts.
Now that he’s back, researchers are eager to understand how the extended time in space affected him. Rubio talked to “ABC” before he returned to Earth about the significance of spending a year in orbit.
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Frank Rubio: It teaches us that the human body can endure, it can adapt, and as we prepare to push back to the moon, and then onward on to hopefully mars and further on in the solar system, it’s important to learn how the human body adapts and how we can optimize that process.
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Hanging out in microgravity for so long affects the body and mind in major ways. Muscle mass decreases from lack of use. Astronauts experience bone loss too. And they can have trouble keeping their balance after they return home. Imagine, it’s like not using your legs at all for months and then trying to walk steadily again. For a four to six-month mission, it typically takes a couple of days for the body to acclimate. Rubio can expect it to take even longer.
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But scientists will be with him as he recovers, and the data they collect could help future astronauts as they prepare to take on even bigger missions.
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, we've got a narrated article coming up next. "GQ" goes on a very unusual men’s retreat, one that combines a cowboy experience, with a kind of group therapy. It’s a story that might really surprise you.
And our narrated articles are now also available in the Podcasts App. Just search for "News+ Narrated" to start listening to articles from the world’s best magazines and newspapers.
Enjoy listening to those, and I’ll be back with the news tomorrow.
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