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Why tens of thousands of auto workers could strike this week · Apple News Today

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  Gideon Resnick, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, September 12th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show… Relief efforts are underway after disasters in Morocco and Libya, what to know about vaccines this fall and winter, and how AI may enable humans to talk to whales.
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  But first, time is running out for the Big Three U.S. car makers and the United Auto Workers to reach a deal to avoid a strike. UAW members want a new deal with Ford, GM, and Stellantis, or as you might know them, the makers of Chryslers. The current contract expires Thursday night, so around 146,000 workers are ready to strike as early as Friday if they don't come to an agreement.
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  Jamie LaReau: I'm told there's papers flying across the table with all of them right now. So, it's intense negotiation.
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  Jamie LaReau covers the auto industry for the "Detroit Free Press." In order to understand this moment, there's some important historical context about deals made during the financial crisis. So, workers hired after 2007 didn't get defined-benefit pensions. Their health care was less generous. And the union gave up general pay rises and cost-of-living adjustments. The concessions were to help the industry survive the downturn. It did, and now the union wants payback.
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  LaReau: There's a lot of things on the table that they feel are owed to them at this point, given, again, what they gave up back during the Great Recession and given how much money the automakers have made.
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  The UAW has asked for a 40 percent pay raise over four years. They've also talked about a 32-hour week for 40 hours of pay. And other benefits, like bringing back those pensions.
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  LaReau: They know they're probably not going to get that much, but they want close to it, they want some more economic parity, they look at how much money the automakers have made over the last decade and they feel they want their fair share of it.
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  The counter-offers from the car makers vary, but raises are more in the 10 percent range, not 40-something. Companies argue that the union is asking for too much, which would make the Big Three less competitive with non-union factories making Teslas and foreign cars. They say, raising labor costs would mean higher prices for consumers, who would then buy other cars instead.
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  So there's a lot on the line for both workers and automakers if a walkout does happen later this week. Workers would make about 500 dollars a week, far less than they earn on the job. And big money is at stake for General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. By one estimate, a 10-day strike against all three companies would cost them nearly one billion dollars.
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  But LaReau says, both sides have been pretty far apart in their proposals.
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  LaReau: You know, there's always a chance that they will reach some kind of an agreement before Thursday, at 11:59, midnight basically, but right now people are anticipating there will be some kind of a strike.
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  Now, let's take a quick look at some other stories in the news.
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  The death toll from the Morocco quake keeps rising. It now stands at more than 2,800 people. And it's hard to know how many people are still missing, because so much of the worst impact is in areas that have been hard to reach. The clock is ticking, but rescue workers are still working to find survivors buried under destroyed homes.
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  There is another disaster in Libya, where authorities say at least 2,000 people are dead after massive flooding in the country's east. The military there says thousands more are missing. The dangerous situation is further complicated by political divisions between east and west, and destroyed infrastructure following years of conflict.
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  The U.S. has taken a key step toward the release of five Americans held in Iran. It cleared international banks to release six billion dollars in frozen Iranian money in exchange. The funds will be restricted to spending for humanitarian purposes. The U.S. has also agreed to release five Iranians held in America. Neda Sharghi's brother, Emad Sharghi, is one of the Americans who has been held in Iran. She spoke to "CBS" last month, as signs of a release deal emerged.
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  Neda Sharghi: I wish they had done it sooner. But they're doing it now. I want them to finish this and bring my brother home. Let my aging parents see him before it's too late. And I want them to work on bringing other Americans home.
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  And in Turkey, an American caver is now safe after a complicated rescue from a cave that extends thousands of feet underground. Mark Dickey has decades of experience in caves, but got extremely sick while he was deep underground. He was stuck for more than a week, but teams of cavers worked together to get him treated and gradually out to the surface.
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  New COVID booster shots from Moderna and Pfizer are now FDA approved. And today, the CDC meets to discuss and recommend who should get these new shots.
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  Cases and hospitalizations are still low, overall, compared to the worst of the pandemic, but they do tend to rise around this time of year. And we are in the middle of a mini COVID wave. So, if you can't remember the last time you got vaccinated or boosted, experts say now is a good time to consider it. "NPR" spoke to Deepta Bhattacharya from the University of Arizona's College of Medicine.
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  Deepta Bhattacharya: COVID-19 is not a pleasant thing to get, even if you're not at particularly high risk of getting really sick. And so, to the extent that the vaccines reduce that chance, and I'm pretty sure they will, then again, unless you have got some really compelling reason not to get it, you should probably go ahead and get it.
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  And COVID is not the only illness to prepare for. Depending on who you are, there are three different vaccines to think about heading into fall and winter: COVID, the flu, and the new vaccine for RSV, a potentially lethal respiratory virus that is especially dangerous for infants and older adults. "TIME Magazine" looks at everything available.
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  The vaccine for RSV is approved for people over 60 and also those who are between 32 and 36 weeks of pregnancy. There's also a separate antibody treatment approved for babies under 8 months old.
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  So, that's RSV. The guidance for the flu shot remains pretty simple. It's the same as every year. Doctors say anyone over six months old should get one. And it's important to remember with the flu, what might be a case of the sniffles for one person, could send another to the hospital. Some years, in fact, tens of thousands of Americans die from the flu. So, much like COVID, experts say with the flu, it's important to think about protecting not just yourself, but the vulnerable people around you. You can read more about what protection is available from "KFF Health News" and "TIME Magazine" in the Apple News app.
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  In "Finding Nemo," you may recall the scene where the blue fish, Dory, insists that she can talk to whales.
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  Dory: [IMITATING A WHALE] We need to find his son.
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  Now, in real life, scientists are trying to figure out if we can talk to whales. "The New Yorker" spent time with researchers who are trying to see if artificial intelligence could help decode the languages of other species, potentially making it possible for us to talk with them.
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  Their research focuses on sperm whales. They're very chatty and communicate through clicks, kind of like Morse code, that sounds like this…
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  [WHALES CLICKING]
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  Researchers say, when sperm whales click at each other, the structure looks a lot like a conversation. AI systems are now quite good at human languages. So it's possible that one could translate these whale clicks into something that humans can understand.
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  The challenge is, AI systems need a lot of data to figure out a language. So researchers are trying to get more whale clicks on tape. "The New Yorker" tagged along as scientists raced through the ocean to strap recording devices to whales. It can involve a long pole, sometimes a drone, and always a lot of patience and care dealing with giant creatures that can be tough to find.
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  If you're listening in the Apple News app right now, you can hear the whole story as a narrated article. It is truly great. So enjoy listening to that, and we'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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