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Why striking writers are so mad at Drew Barrymore · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It’s Thursday, September 14th. I’m Shumita Basu. And it’s good to be back with you here on “Apple News Today.” On today’s show… What to do now that the FDA says many cold medicines don’t work, why striking writers are so mad at Drew Barrymore, and how a stolen Van Gogh came home, in a big, blue IKEA bag.
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  S, Narrating: But first, let’s take a brief look at some major stories in the news.
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  The death toll in Libya from the flooding keeps going up as workers dig through the devastation. Thousands of people are dead and the final death toll could go into the tens of thousands. There are also growing concerns about the survivors, with wrecked roads making it hard to deliver aid, and high risk of disease outbreaks.
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  Dr. Huda Akram’s family is from the hard hit coastal city of Derna. She talked to “NPR” about the generational impact of the disaster.
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  Huda Akram: There's a lot of people who are dead. Entire households. The entire family name, from the grandfather to the husband and wives and grandchildren, completely wiped.
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  In legal news, a federal judge says a key program allowing hundreds of thousands of immigrants to stay in America is illegal. The new ruling involves the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. It allows immigrants whose parents brought them to America as children to stay here legally. Known as “Dreamers,” they’ve been in legal limbo for a long time. The latest ruling allows them to stay here while the court battle continues, likely heading to the Supreme Court.
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  Moving to Capitol Hill, Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney says he won’t run for reelection in 2024.
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  Mitt Romney: I think it's time for guys like me to get out of the way and have people in the next generation step forward. Because they're going to be shaping the world they're going to be living in.
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  Romney was the GOP presidential nominee in 2012. His party has changed a lot since then. He’s been a fierce critic of former president Donald Trump, and he was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in both impeachment trials.
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  And we could be hours away from a strike hitting the car industry. The United Auto Workers president says the latest offers from the Big Three carmakers are still well below what the union wants. Corporate leaders say they’ve made serious proposals and hope a deal can happen to avoid a strike. If there’s no agreement by midnight tonight, the union says it’s planning to start the strike at a select number of factories.
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  Now, a closer look at the news that has people wondering if their cold medicine should go in the trash. An FDA advisory panel says that a common ingredient in popular decongestants doesn’t work when taken orally.
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  It’s called phenylephrine. You’ll find it in DayQuil Cold & Flu, Advil Sinus Congestion & Pain, and hundreds of other over-the-counter cold medicines. “The Wall Street Journal” explains how the next step could be the FDA taking phenylephrine off its approved-ingredient list, which would mean these products eventually being removed from stores.
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  Now, one important thing to be clear on: Phenylephrine is not dangerous. And many medications that have it also include other ingredients that are shown to help with cold symptoms. They’re often sold under similar brand names, so for now, you’ll want to take a close look at the packaging to see what’s actually in the pills and syrups you’re buying.
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  So, how has this stuff been on the market for so long? Phenylephrine first got approval in the 1930s, before federal regulators started to require the rigorous clinical trials they go through today. More recent studies concluded, it does not clear up a stuffy nose. People who used it didn’t feel any better than people who took placebos.
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  So, to get ready for cold and flu season, the “Journal” has a list of some of the medications that you can skip, as well as an explainer on which ingredients do work that you should look out for on labels. You can read more in the Apple News app.
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  Things are tense in the entertainment business, with writers and actors still on strike. And frustrations this week turned to actor Drew Barrymore, when she announced her talk show was going back into production. She’s been accused of crossing the picket line.
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  Now here’s where it gets a little bit complicated. Barrymore hosts a daytime talk show, which is technically not part of the strike. She can be on the air and ad-lib, as long as she’s not reading scripts by Writers’ Guild members. That’s why “The View” has still been on air. But just because something is technically okay under a contract doesn’t mean it won’t make people angry. And union members are very angry with Barrymore. The Writers’ Guild has been picketing outside her studio.
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  They see this as a stab in the back. See, Barrymore has been acting since she was five. She is a member of the actors' union SAG-AFTRA. When the writers strike first started in May, she declined to host an MTV award show in support of the striking workers. So, union members say this is going back on her earlier support. "The Drew Barrymore Show" has three WGA writers on staff. Chelsea White is one of them. She talked to “Time Magazine” while she was picketing Barrymore’s show along with other writers.
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  Chelsea White: All we want is a fair contract and fair wages.
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  And we’re hoping that this can come to a resolution. That the studios can get on board and support people that are the creatives, and also crew, across all disciplines and across all unions, that help them make their money, you know, we just want our fair share.
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  The first new episode of Barrymore’s show airs on Monday. And we could see more shows resume without writers. HBO’s Bill Maher now says he’s restarting his show “Real Time”, without written material, in part because staying off the air means keeping other employees who are not on strike out of work. The Writers’ Guild says it’ll picket Maher’s show too.
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  A stolen Van Gogh painting, missing for years, returned in a big blue IKEA bag. That’s how a long-running art-world mystery was just solved.
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  It’s a reminder that real-life art crimes are nothing like the movies. They’re often clumsy jobs done by clumsy thieves, with no clue how to handle the masterpieces they steal.
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  This Van Gogh was taken by brute force in 2020. A thief smashed through the glass doors of a Netherlands museum with a sledgehammer. His DNA was all over the scene, and he was convicted. But by the time they got him, he didn’t have the painting anymore.
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  Enter Arthur Brand, a Dutch art detective. Yes, I said art detective. He knows how these kinds of things go down, and he worked with the Dutch police on his investigation. He told the “BBC,” he was approached by a man who said he had the painting, he didn’t want it anymore, and would hand it over in exchange for keeping his identity a secret. See, holding on to something like this becomes a huge liability. It turns out, the Van Gogh had been passed around criminal groups over the years, kinda like a hot potato. And this guy just wanted out.
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  The hand-off happened at the detective’s home. Apart from the blue IKEA bag, there was also a pillow inside protecting the painting. Despite the makeshift packaging, the work only had a few scratches, and with a little expert care, it could be back on display in a few months.
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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 right now, stick around.
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  We've got a narrated article coming up next from “Vox” all about quitting. It looks at the psychological reasons why it’s so hard to leave a job or other commitment, and also how to know when walking away is the right thing to do.
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  That’s cued up to play for you next, and I’ll be back with the news tomorrow.
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