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What’s next for immigration after a big Supreme Court move · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, December 20th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, migrants struggle as the Supreme Court makes a move on immigration policy, inside the COVID surge in China, why bird flu is so bad this year and a burning cinematic question about "Titanic" answered 25 years later.
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  But first, a quick update to a story we talked about yesterday morning. The January 6th committee voted to recommend charging Donald Trump with four crimes related to the attack on the Capitol. They are: obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., making false statements and aiding or inciting an insurrection.
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  Trump's campaign responded by repeating past criticisms of the January 6th committee. As we mentioned, whether he's actually prosecuted is not the committee's call. That's up to the Justice Department, which declined to comment to "Reuters."
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  Now let's turn to U.S. immigration news, where there's a big legal development. The Supreme Court is temporarily blocking the Biden administration from ending a Trump-era immigration policy. It's called Title 42, and the policy allows border officials to expel migrants without the usual legal review. The Trump administration said this was to prevent the spread of COVID. But immigrant advocates said it was unfair to asylum seekers.
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  In blocking the change for now, the Court sided with 19 conservative states, who argued that Title 42 should stay in place because lifting it would encourage more migrants to come, which they say the system can't handle. "Texas Tribune" immigration reporter Uriel García is covering how this affects migrants on the ground.
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  Uriel García: What this means for migrants is that many of them who are subject to Title 42 are going to have to wait until this issue gets resolved in the courts.
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  Title 42 was supposed to have ended tomorrow. García explains that there's been a build-up of people heading to America to escape difficult conditions in Latin America.
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  García: There are thousands of migrants who've been waiting to be able to come into the U.S. and start an asylum process. On top of those who've been waiting, we have even more recent migrants who are fleeing their countries right now trying to come into the U.S.
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  And lots of migrants are already here. Many cities and states say they're straining to help them. Border Patrol agents in El Paso have been releasing people to local shelters, but some people end up on the streets. García told us about a migrant from Nicaragua trying to make his way to Florida where he has family, and work lined up to support his wife and sons back home.
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  García: And I asked him where he was gonna sleep that night. He said, "Well," 'cause it's so cold and it's so windy, he told me, "We're gonna go to a nearby parking garage and sleep there." It was him and dozens of other migrants who were carrying cardboard that they were using sort of as a makeshift mattress.
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  Migrants sleeping on the streets are facing brutal winter weather. El Paso will be freezing this weekend, with wind chill making it feel like single-digit temperatures. Last weekend, El Paso's mayor declared a state of emergency to free up additional resources for shelter. It's not clear what the courts will do about Title 42. But many communities say they need help to keep migrants who are here right now safe.
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  China is facing an enormous surge of COVID-19 infections. Public health officials say the virus is spreading faster than ever.
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  Michaeleen Doucleff: So we're talking about estimates of like 700, 800 million people being infected over, like, the course of a month or two months. So that is just completely unprecedented in this outbreak in the world, really.
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  Michaeleen Doucleff covers global health for "NPR." Up until recently, China had a strict "zero-COVID" policy, including lockdowns and quarantine rules. But after nationwide protests, the Chinese government pulled back on those restrictions earlier this month, exposing a previously sheltered population. Health officials say the case count was already growing before restrictions were lifted.
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  Doucleff: Basically 1.4 billion people in China are vulnerable, essentially, to this virus, to an infection. And in places where that's been, where the whole population is vulnerable to the virus, to an infection, essentially, when Omicron has come, it has infected about 40 to 60% of the population over the course of about 90 days.
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  Roughly 90% of adults in China have received two shots of the Chinese vaccine, which protects them from severe disease. But some public health experts say the country could've done more for vulnerable groups and acted sooner.
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  Doucleff: This summer was when China should have started vaccinating those elderly, giving them the third shot, the booster. Because elderly people, to be protected against severe infection, need three shots of the Chinese vaccine. So they really waited till the last minute, like the last month when it's already kind of exploded in a lot of places to prepare for this massive surge that's coming.
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  The next few weeks could prove crucial, especially with millions of people expected to travel during the Lunar New Year next month.
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  You've probably heard about the bird flu epidemic, but you might not appreciate the massive scale until you see a couple of jaw-dropping charts from "Bloomberg" recently. One shows the number of birds that've been euthanized because of infection, and the bar for this year is more than double the size of last year. It's literally off the chart. Another shows the hockey-stick rise of U.S. egg prices, which have doubled this year, soaring because of bird flu's impact on supply, as well as rising energy and feed costs for farmers.
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  "Vox" asks the top question for pandemic-minded people: why don't we vaccinate chickens and turkeys against bird flu? It's about money, as you might expect. When vaccination is more expensive than culling infected flocks, farmers just won't do it.
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  But it's a little bit more complicated than that. One issue that "Vox" focuses on is trade. The U.S. exports nearly a fifth of its poultry. And if a bird's been vaccinated, the eggs might have flu antibodies. Now, it's hard to tell whether those antibodies come from vaccination or infection. Countries won't import eggs and meat if they think they might be infected. So poultry producers won't vaccinate because they might risk their product being rejected.
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  To overcome this problem, there would need to be some coordinated system, internationally, to keep track of bird vaccinations. And this is where it comes down to, and I'm sorry to use this analogy, basically a game of chicken. No one wants to be the first to start a vaccination program, because they'd risk losing business if no one else gets on board. But as "Vox" explains, with bird flu becoming a bigger and bigger problem, international cooperation might be more likely in the future.
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  There's a new "Avatar" movie out in theaters, and that means Director James Cameron is out and about doing interviews. And it's funny, it's been 25 years since he made "Titanic," and yet, he still gets asked all the time about that iconic scene.
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  [START TITANIC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Jack Dawson: Never let go. [BREATHING RAPIDLY]
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  Rose DeWitt Bukater: I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go.
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  [END TITANIC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  You know the debate. Why couldn't Rose just scoot over and make room on that floating door for Jack? He didn't have to die! Well, James Cameron has heard all of your griping and he's always said it's nonsense. And when he was asked about it by the "Toronto Sun" recently, he said that he commissioned a study to put that question to rest for good.
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  James Cameron: We took two stunt people that were the exact body mass of Kate and Leo, and we put sensors all over them and inside them, and we put them in ice water, and we tested to see whether they could have survived by this method or that method or that method. And the answer was, there was no way they could both survive. Only one could survive.
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  Cameron says he'll share more details on this science project in February, when "Titanic" is set to be re-released in theaters for its 25th anniversary. The "Sun" also asked him if he regrets killing Jack.
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  James Cameron: No. No, he needed to die. It's like Romeo and Juliet, right? It's a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality, right? Now, maybe I didn't do it in a way that everybody agrees with. But Jack had to die. It's that simple.
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  [END TORONTO SUN ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  He also said, maybe he should've made that door that Rose was floating on a little bit smaller, to never invite the debate in the first place.
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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. We have a narrated article coming up next that's especially relevant after a jury in L.A. found Harvey Weinstein guilty of three charges, including rape. He's already serving time in New York for other crimes.
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  "The Hollywood Reporter" has the story of the woman whose memo documenting Weinstein's harassment helped launch the MeToo movement. She's now speaking out.
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  That story is queued up to play next. I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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