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Inside the aviation industry’s rough start to 2024 · Apple News Today

• 0:00
  [MUSIC FADES IN]
• 0:05
  Mark Garrison, Narrating: Good morning. It's Wednesday, January 10th.
• 0:08
  I'm Mark Garrison, in for Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today."
• 0:12
  On today's show, air travel deals with multiple high-profile emergencies,
• 0:17
  House Republicans go after Biden's Homeland Security Secretary
• 0:20
  over immigration, and a new study reveals what's hiding inside bottled water.
• 0:32
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 0:34
  Let's start with aviation, where 2024 is getting off to a rough start.
• 0:38
  Last week, five people on a Coast Guard plane were killed
• 0:41
  when it collided with a Japan Airlines plane on the runway in Tokyo,
• 0:45
  starting a massive fire.
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  All the passengers and crew of the Japan Airlines plane survived.
• 0:51
  And then there was the Alaska Airlines flight,
• 0:54
  where a large panel fell off the side of a Boeing 737 Max 9
• 0:57
  shortly after take-off.
• 0:59
  It left a gaping hole that forced an emergency landing.
• 1:02
  Other planes have been grounded for inspection.
• 1:06
  These incidents have some travelers feeling pretty uneasy
• 1:09
  about what is, historically, one of the safest modes of travel.
• 1:13
  "Wall Street Journal" aviation reporter Ben Katz is hearing about this a lot.
• 1:18
  Ben Katz: I will say I've had a few people tell me that they've kept their seatbelts on
• 1:21
  for their entire flights over the last couple of days when they have been flying,
• 1:25
  which maybe they wouldn't have normally done before.
• 1:27
  Garrison, Narrating: Investigators are looking into these incidents, but Katz says
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  it'll be a while, likely many months, before we have firmer answers
• 1:34
  about what happened.
• 1:35
  Katz: It's an incredibly meticulous process of investigating any kind of accident.
• 1:40
  But the early indications are showing that at some stage in this process that…
• 1:44
  led to both incidents, that some kind of human error was involved.
• 1:50
  Garrison, Narrating: Katz points out that the aviation industry is still in the process
• 1:53
  of getting back to normal
• 1:54
  after largely shutting down during the worst of the pandemic.
• 1:58
  Katz: What we saw during the pandemic was airlines parking thousands of jets.
• 2:02
  We saw airports come to near standstills. Millions of people had to be retrenched.
• 2:07
  And that was across the board from pilots to cabin crew,
• 2:10
  but also to maintenance staff and factory workers for Boeing and Airbus.
• 2:14
  Coming out of the pandemic o ver the last two years or so,
• 2:17
  we've seen that almost in the exact reverse.
• 2:20
  Garrison, Narrating: Manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus have spent the last couple of years
• 2:23
  ramping up production after making major cuts.
• 2:27
  And Katz spoke to flight safety experts who say the industry has faced challenges
• 2:31
  in rebuilding its workforce.
• 2:33
  Now, that might not leave passengers feeling super confident
• 2:36
  about boarding their next flight. But Katz says it's important to remember,
• 2:40
  accident rates are below pre-pandemic levels.
• 2:43
  Katz: Aviation is held to an incredibly high standard
• 2:46
  when it comes to safety. And the industry is obsessed.
• 2:48
  And I think that's why, when we see incidents or accidents like these,
• 2:53
  that the industry kind of wakes up and it jolts alive
• 2:57
  and flyers kind of take notice, you know, because it is a scary thing.
• 3:01
  And in aviation, the damage from mistakes and in accidents are severe.
• 3:05
  [PENSIVE MUSIC]
• 3:16
  Garrison, Narrating: Now, let's take a quick look at some other stories in the news.
• 3:19
  At least four people are dead as severe weather rips across the U.S.
• 3:23
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 3:24
  There were multiple tornadoes reported in the Southeast,
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  dangerous flooding is threatening east coast cities,
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  and strong winds are tearing down power lines,
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  leading to hundreds of thousands of outages in multiple states.
• 3:36
  At the White House, there's a major review underway
• 3:38
  of how cabinet members delegate authority when sick or traveling.
• 3:42
  This comes after President Biden and other top officials
• 3:44
  were kept in the dark for days
• 3:46
  about the hospitalization of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
• 3:49
  Yesterday, the Pentagon disclosed that he was undergoing treatment
• 3:52
  for prostate cancer.
• 3:55
  In Ecuador, the country is under a state of emergency
• 3:57
  as violence is escalating.
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  The government is in conflict with powerful criminal gangs.
• 4:03
  Violence flared this week after one of the country's
• 4:05
  most notorious criminals disappeared from prison.
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  There were also riots and mass escapes at other prisons.
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  And yesterday, the conflict played out on television,
• 4:14
  as masked gunmen stormed a live broadcast.
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  The video shows them threatening the crew.
• 4:19
  [START BBC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 4:20
  [INDISTINCT SHOUTING]
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  [END BBC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 4:24
  Police later arrested the attackers.
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  The station says two employees were injured, including a camera operator
• 4:30
  who was shot in the leg.
• 4:32
  And in the Middle East today, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
• 4:35
  met with the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas.
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  The U.S. has talked about the possibility of his group governing Gaza in the future.
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  Yesterday, Blinken met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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  Afterwards, Blinken said Israel should do more to protect civilians in Gaza
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  as it fights Hamas and reconsider some of its policies.
• 4:54
  [START YOUTUBE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 4:54
  Antony Blinken: Israel must stop taking steps that undercut Palestinians' ability
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  to govern themselves effectively: extremist settler violence
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  carried out with impunity, settlement expansion, demolitions,
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  evictions, all make it harder, not easier, for Israel to achieve
• 5:08
  lasting peace and security.
• 5:09
  [END YOUTUBE ARCHIVAL CLIP]
• 5:10
  Garrison, Narrating: Netanyahu has shown no interest in reviving negotiations
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  toward a Palestinian state.
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  Blinken also said that the U.S. is continuing to support Israel.
• 5:18
  [INVIGORATING MUSIC]
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  Today in Washington, House Republicans are holding a hearing about potentially
• 5:32
  impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
• 5:36
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
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  No cabinet secretary has been impeached in nearly 150 years.
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  Republicans argue that the administration's immigration policies
• 5:44
  have made the southern border vulnerable.
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  We talked to "Washington Post" Homeland Security reporter Nick Miroff,
• 5:50
  who covers immigration enforcement and Homeland Security.
• 5:54
  Nick Miroff: This case that they're building, you know, while it does have some elements of…
• 5:58
  alleged wrongdoing, has largely been political.
• 6:01
  Garrison, Narrating: Several Republicans have doubts about the impeachment case,
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  and the party holds a slim majority in the House.
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  And even if it did vote to impeach, there's little chance
• 6:10
  the Senate will vote to convict.
• 6:12
  Miroff says targeting Mayorkas seems to be more about creating a rallying point
• 6:16
  for Republicans with hardline views on immigration policy.
• 6:19
  Miroff: I think it's a way for them to channel their anger about…
• 6:23
  border and immigration issues.
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  It's a way for them to unite around a specific campaign.
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  But if we look at the real prospects for them actually removing him
• 6:33
  from office, they seem pretty low.
• 6:36
  Garrison, Narrating: Beyond the politics, there are challenges related to immigration.
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  Miroff reported on new government data showing that the U.S. removed
• 6:43
  more than 4 million people crossing the border since 2021,
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  but it also released more than 2.3 million migrants into the U.S.
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  As Miroff explained it, that shows the extent to which border security
• 6:55
  has been overwhelmed.
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  Mass releases are typically a last resort when agents don't have capacity
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  to process migrants.
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  Miroff says it's also important to keep an eye on immigration talks
• 7:07
  happening in the Senate.
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  Unlike the House impeachment effort, they could have real policy impact.
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  Mayorkas has played a role in pushing the Senate discussions ahead.
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  Miroff: What's interesting right now is there are sort of these two parallel processes
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  going on right now. There's this bipartisan group of senators
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  that are trying to negotiate immigration and border policy changes
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  in conjunction with this, you know, supplemental funding for the war
• 7:28
  in Ukraine and for Israel.
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  And the Republican Senate has been pretty focused on that.
• 7:35
  Garrison, Narrating: Mayorkas has defended his record and called on Congress
• 7:37
  to provide more funding for border security.
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  And the Homeland Security Department says House Republicans are wasting
• 7:43
  valuable time by pursuing impeachment.
• 7:46
  [THOUGHTFUL MUSIC]
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  Finally, new research shows that there are a lot more tiny bits of plastic
• 8:02
  floating in bottled drinking water than scientists thought.
• 8:05
  [MUSIC FADES OUT]
• 8:05
  The new study used lasers to scan for nanoplastics.
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  They're hard to detect because they're smaller than
• 8:10
  one-seventieth of a human hair.
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  The technology found hundreds of thousands of particles in the average liter
• 8:16
  of bottled water, using samples of several popular brands.
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  The data gives us new insight into a widespread problem.
• 8:24
  Lately, scientists have found trace amounts of plastics
• 8:27
  practically everywhere, in our food and water, in the ocean,
• 8:31
  in soil, even in the air we breathe.
• 8:34
  The "LA Times" explains how it's not yet clear how dangerous
• 8:38
  these plastics may be for humans,
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  but research on animals shows that microplastics can interfere
• 8:43
  with development, reproductive health, hormones, and immunity.
• 8:48
  We have more on the prevalence of plastics in our everyday lives
• 8:51
  and how easily these particles get into our bodies
• 8:54
  if you're listening in the Apple News app.
• 8:56
  Coming up next is an episode of Apple News "In Conversation" from the archives.
• 9:00
  Shumita spoke to author Matt Simon about our microplastics problem.
• 9:04
  [START IN CONVERSATION CLIP]
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  Matt Simon: We know for certain that microplastics are being found in placentas
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  and that mothers are passing these particles to their children
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  in utero. Children are tainted with microplastics before they're born.
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  And we are in desperate need of more studies
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  as to what the consequences could be.
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  [END IN CONVERSATION CLIP]
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  [MUSIC FADES IN]
• 9:24
  Garrison, Narrating: Simon also talks about ways to mitigate our exposure to plastic
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  and protect our health.
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  That's playing for you next, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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  [MUSIC FADES OUT]