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Now we know how much the pandemic hurt kids’ learning · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Hey, Podcast listeners. It's Shumita here. Every once in a while, we're gonna recommend a show worth checking out. This week, it's "Slate's" new season of "One Year," covering the year 1942. What happens to a country under maximum stress? Just look at America's home front at the dawn of World War II. In this season, "Slate" tells stories from the distant past that sound like they've been pulled from the present day. You'll hear about runaway inflation and the man who was desperate to stop it, about how the country dealt with massive loads of disinformation, and about a worker revolt that changed music forever. Listen to "One Year: 1942" on Apple Podcasts.
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  Good morning! It's Tuesday, October 25th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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  New national test scores put hard numbers to what many parents and students have been feeling about how destructive the pandemic was for kids' learning.
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  The National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is often called the "nation's report card," shows dramatic declines in math and reading scores for fourth and eighth graders. Drops in math scores were the worst since testing began in 1990. And more students scored at "below basic" levels.
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  "CNN" spoke to one eighth grade teacher, Michelle Burke, who also has a kid in eighth grade.
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  Michelle Burke: My daughter is struggling in math exponentially. [CHUCKLES] A lot of the things that we're seeing emotionally, behaviorally, are putting a huge strain on what you're seeing in the classroom. Huge strain.
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  The declines in scores were broad and national, although some areas were worse than others. And these results shed new light on racial inequities. That includes Black and Hispanic fourth graders having bigger decreases in math scores than White and Asian students.
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  Education Secretary Miguel Cardona says these results are a wake-up call, that simply getting kids back in classrooms isn't enough.
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  Miguel Cardona: I'm very concerned about those scores, and I know that we have the resources now, and we need to maintain the same level of urgency we had two years ago to get our students back in, to making sure that our students get support.
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  Last year, the federal government invested $123 billion into American schools. That comes out to around $2,400 per kid. They're required to spend at least 20% of the money on academic recovery, but some experts wonder if that's gonna be enough, given how big the gaps are.
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  The United Kingdom now has a new prime minister. Rishi Sunak took over from Liz Truss earlier today after a ceremony with King Charles. Sunak is the first person of color to lead Britain. He's the son of immigrants of Indian origin, who came to the U.K. from East Africa. This comes 75 years after India gained independence from Britain, a fact that's getting a lot of attention in India. One network there captured it in a headline: "Indian son rises over the Empire. History comes full circle."
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  Sunak was previously Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, a job that's kind of like our Treasury Secretary. He's also one of the richest members of Parliament, with Goldman Sachs and hedge funds on his resume. His wife is the daughter of an Indian billionaire.
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  His financial credentials may have helped convince his Conservative Party colleagues that he was the right leader for a time of financial crisis and ongoing political division over Brexit. Sunak referenced this today, after his meeting with the King.
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  Rishi Sunak: It is only right to explain why I am standing here as your new prime minister. Right now, our country is facing a profound economic crisis. The aftermath of COVID still lingers.
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  Similar to the U.S., British conservatives like to cut taxes. But Sunak was a skeptic of his predecessor's plan for deep tax cuts, calling it a "fairy tale" that would wreck the economy. And he turned out to be right. Truss's plans got a terrible response, with markets tanking and the pound plunging.
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  He lost to Truss before, he waited, and he basically got his turn with a simple message: "I told you so." Now's his chance to show how he'll be a different kind of leader.
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  There have been a bunch of recent climate protests involving attacks on famous artworks. On Sunday, protesters in Germany threw mashed potatoes at a Monet. Earlier this month, demonstrators at London's National Gallery hurled tomato soup on Van Gogh's "Sunflowers." You can hear how shocking it was to people in the museum.
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  Unidentified Speaker 1: [SCREAMS] Oh!
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  Unidentified Speaker 2: Oh my gosh!
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  The London protesters were calling attention to their campaign to stop new oil and gas exploration in the U.K. We recently read this piece by "Vox" culture writer Aja Romano that struck us with its original take. Romano writes about how their opinion evolved, from seeing the tomato soup attack as horrifying, to thinking it "might be the best protest ever."
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  Now, before you jump to judge, here is the key: the Van Gogh is fine. So's the Monet painting. They were enclosed in glass, so no major damage was done. What these acts of protest did was they made you feel as though the world lost something of great cultural value. Romano says, that's the feeling we should have toward our planet, before we lose it to reckless man-made destruction.
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  Romano writes, there is a huge difference between a climate protest that actually destroys art in the name of saving the planet, and one that merely threatens destruction but doesn't actually go through with it. It raises questions about what it means to destroy something, to lose something, to mourn its loss, and to know what we could do to avoid losing it in the first place. In Romano's view, that's a pretty impressive impact for a couple cans of soup. There's plenty more to this provocative argument, which you can read on the Apple News app.
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  A few otters can be cute. Too many otters can be chaos. That's what Singapore is learning, now that it's dealing with an exploding otter population that's affecting the ecosystem, including humans.
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  The "Guardian" has this story, about how otters in Singapore have more than doubled in number since 2019. They're ravaging fish ponds, blocking traffic, and in some rare cases, attacking people. One man was chased and, at one point, pinned to the ground by a pack of otters that bit him 26 times in seconds.
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  Singapore is now working to relocate otters away from residential areas, and help people otter-proof their homes. For now, authorities are warning people not to touch the animals, don't feed them. Really, don't do anything that might get them to use those sharp teeth.
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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 now, stick around. We've got a narrated article coming up from "Car & Driver," on the future of auto dealers. That's queued up next. I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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