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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, October 6th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show: Looking at potential solutions to fight climate change, tracking the deadly history of the AR-15, and the story behind rising prices at your favorite coffee shop.
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But first, let's look at some major stories in the news. A federal court has chosen a new congressional map for Alabama. This comes after a long legal fight; federal judges repeatedly ruled that Alabama Republicans likely violated the Voting Rights Act by redrawing districts in a way that weakened the power of Black voters in the state. The new map will probably mean that one Congressional seat in Alabama will flip from Republican to Democratic, which could be crucial in the closely-divided House.
The Biden administration is resuming deportation flights of people to Venezuela. This comes after it extended temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living in the U.S. But those who arrived after July 31st will be a priority to be deported. More than 7 million Venezuelans have left their country over the past decade. Those deported back there will face food shortages, power outages, and threats from organized crime.
And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to Iranian human-rights activist Narges Mohammadi. In today's announcement, the Nobel Committee praised her for fighting for women's rights, even in the face of terrible consequences.
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Undisclosed Announcer: Her brave struggle has come with tremendous personal cost. Altogether the regime has arrested her 13 times, convicted her 5 times and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes. Ms. Mohammadi is still in prison as I speak.
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And she has managed to keep getting her message out from behind bars. "CNN" recently aired audio from Mohammadi, recorded inside Iran's notorious Evin Prison.
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Narges Mohammadi: [SPEAKING THROUGH TRANSLATOR]
Translator: This letter is not written by a free feminist in a developed, democratic society benefiting from civil protest methods and human rights, but rather by an imprisoned woman, who, like millions of Iranian women, has been living under the authority and oppression of a military system with ideological, patriarchal, and tyrannical foundations.
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The recognition of Mohammadi comes just over one year after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, which triggered widespread protests in Iran. And this month, another suspicious incident. A 16-year-old girl was seen entering a subway car with her hair uncovered. Security camera footage shows her being carried out of the same car unconscious. Authorities deny she was harmed, but human-rights activists say she was assaulted by Iran's police for violating the dress code for women, and as of last night was still in a coma.
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When it comes to stories about climate change, it often feels like the bad news is endless: Wildfires, smoke, drought, flooding, hurricanes, heat waves. 2023 is on track to be the hottest year ever recorded, with September shattering records. All the negative headlines can drive anxiety and hopelessness. But what happens if you reframe the conversation to focus on solutions, and the trailblazing people searching for answers?
That's what "NPR" just did along with local reporters across the country, dedicating this entire week to reporting on climate solutions. Neela Banerjee, from "NPR"'s climate desk, told us about the project.
Neela Banerjee: We didn't want any kind of concentrated climate coverage to be a dirge to make people feel like there's only one way to look at the climate disruptions and that is through a lens of hopelessness or despair, which I think the news can often generate, because there is action being taken.
One place their reporting took them was restaurants that are using technology to reduce food waste. More than a third of food grown in the U.S. is never eaten. It goes to landfills where it decomposes, creating fumes that contribute to global warming.
A company called "Too Good To Go" has an app that matches hungry customers on a budget with restaurants that have extra food. They mark down leftovers at the end of the day by as much as 80%.
Banerjee: This is a way for businesses to keep making money on the things that they produce and sell. It's a way to address climate change and to rein in emissions. And it's also a way for people to get food they want at a lower price.
The "NPR" series also visits Pennsylvania, where efforts are underway to reduce the carbon footprint of hospitals. Health care is a major polluter in America, accounting for about 8.5 percent of the country's carbon footprint. Doctors, nurses, and others at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center formed a climate action group. They persuaded their employer, a system with 40 hospitals, to phase out a problematic anesthetic gas, reduce cafeteria waste, and cut down on single-use items.
Now to give you a sense of the impact of that last change, one children's hospital was spending about $1 million every year on single-use sensors that measure blood oxygen. By switching to reusable ones, it cut consumption by 63 percent, and saved money too.
Banerjee: I think what you're seeing is a new generation of healthcare workers who, first of all, see the impact of climate change on people who come to them. Whether it is people with heat illness or whether it is because of smoke inhalation or infections after flooding. So, I think when people understand what climate change can do, they look at what they themselves can do and what their institutions can do.
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You can find more of NPR's Climate Week coverage in the Apple News app.
The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America. It's become a symbol of gun rights and individual freedom you see it on bumper stickers and flags and politicians' Christmas cards. It's also been used in some of the deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history.
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So, how did we get here? "Wall Street Journal" reporters Cameron McWhirter and Zusha Elinson set out to answer this question in their new book, American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15. And I sat down with them to talk about it for our latest episode of Apple News: In Conversation.
They told me about a pivotal moment in the AR-15's rise: the federal assault weapons ban of 1994. This piece of legislation banned the making and selling of 19 semi-automatic weapons in the United States, including the Colt AR-15. But the law ended up having some unintended consequences. Here's Elinson.
Zusha Elinson: It turned the AR-15 into a political symbol for the first time. And that plays a huge role going forward. You know, there weren't that many owners of AR-15s at the time. And this generates interest from people. Now people want to have this gun, right? Because A, you know, it's going to be banned, and B, it's a symbol of your politics.
In the decade after the ban was passed, there were actually more AR-15s made than in the three decades before that. That's because a loophole in the law allowed gunmakers to modify their AR-15s to get them back out on the market.
Elinson: When these gun control groups and Democratic senators went to write this ban, they didn't seem to understand what they were doing, almost. And so, they wrote a definition of a gun that really only got at the way it looked. They outlawed the form and not the function. So, the AR-15s made under the ban look a little different. But they're still semi-automatic. Can still shoot the same bullet as fast as you could shoot it before.
The ban passed by Congress in 1994 was temporary; it expired ten years later. And by then, as McWhirter explained, U.S. gun culture had shifted so much that the idea of renewing the ban hardly stood a chance.
Cameron Mcwhirter: It dies with a whimper in Congress and, simultaneously, the gun industry has really seen the profits that could be made from an AR-15, very high margins. And they're off to the races. So, when the gun ban is lifted, then you see the first huge boom in sales. The gun had been selling well throughout the ban, and then it takes off.
We cover so much more in this interview: from the unlikely inventor of the AR-15 to what feasible policy solutions to gun violence look like. To listen to the episode, follow Apple News: In Conversation in the Podcasts app. Or, if you're listening in the News app right now, it's queued up to play for you at the end of this show.
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A recent headline from "Vox" is very relevant, especially in the morning as you're maybe thinking of heading out to pick up a little Friday treat from your favorite coffee shop: "Why your $7 latte is $7." And the story's a worthwhile read because it goes beyond inflation. Yes, costs of lots of things are up - but that's not the full story. In fact, coffee bean prices are actually down a good bit from last year.
Coffee-shop owners tell "Vox" that they are paying more for milk, alternative milks, and energy. So, whether it's Starbucks or your local indie cafe, every business that wants to stay in business eventually has to raise prices when the materials get more expensive.
And don't forget the workers making your fancy latte. Like employees everywhere, they're facing higher prices, they wanna make more money. And lately, baristas have been able to secure higher wages. Lots of people and politicians argue for American workers to get better pay. Well, that has to come from somewhere.
"Vox" says the thing to keep in mind is a latte is a luxury product. If you want your caffeine for cheap, you could always brew coffee at home. But, if you want to go to the coffee shop and get that oat milk latte with a hand-poured design on top, you should know that you're opting into a mini-luxury experience. The good news, according to "Vox," your $7 latte is probably not gonna go up anytime soon. Looks like prices should hold steady for a while.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And, as I mentioned, if you're listening in the News app right now, the full In Conversation episode about the history of the AR-15 is coming up next.
Have a good weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
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