On today’s show: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the latest on a school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin. The Wall Street Journal’s Jesse Newman breaks down Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plans to reform food systems in the U.S. Scientists are measuring the burps and farts of livestock. Vox’s Benji Jones explains how that could help mitigate climate change. Plus, Trump felony convictions are upheld, TikTok’s last-ditch effort to avoid being banned, and Italy’s crackdown on fake “pasta grannies.” Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Chapter 1: What happened in the Madison school shooting?
Good morning. It's Tuesday, December 17th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, why so many Americans distrust food policy experts, rethinking what we feed livestock to reduce global warming, and TikTok makes one last pitch to avoid being banned in the U.S., But first, another community in America is living through the nightmare of a school shooting.
In Madison, Wisconsin, yesterday, a 15-year-old girl shot and killed a fellow student and teacher and wounded six others at Abundant Life Christian School, a private K-12 school with around 400 students. The shooter, identified by police as Natalie Rupnow, who went by Samantha, was pronounced dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.
Police said as of last night they had not identified a motive. Officials say a teacher and three students were treated for non-life-threatening injuries. As of yesterday evening, two students were in critical condition with life-threatening injuries. The shooting happened inside a classroom with students from mixed grades.
Here's Madison Police Department Chief Sean Barnes at a press conference last night detailing the moment police were alerted to the incident.
At 10.57 a.m., A second grade student called 911 to report a shooting had occurred at school. Don't let that soak in for a minute. A second grade student called 911.
Police say they're talking with the parents of the shooter who are cooperating. They also searched the family's home. Barnes said they don't know how the suspected shooter got the handgun found at the scene.
How does any 15-year-old get a hold of a gun, or anyone for that matter? You know, you get into the philosophical question about guns and gun safety, something that we all should be talking to our loved ones about. That's something that will be a part of this investigation.
Barnes says they will eventually question students who witness the shooting when they're ready.
That will give us an idea of not only what unfolded, but it could answer the question to motivation because, again, the students who unfortunately had to witness this. But that's not something that we want to rush. We're not going to interrogate students.
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Chapter 2: Why do Americans distrust food policy experts?
Kennedy has said the members of this panel should be prohibited from making money from food or drug companies.
He's concerned with conflicts of interest in how these dietary guidelines are drafted.
Chapter 3: What are RFK Jr.'s plans for food reform?
And there's evidence to support that. In the past, researchers have connected experts on these panels to prominent food companies and lobbying groups. But some of Kennedy's other ideas about what we eat and drink may involve more bureaucratic red tape since they fall under the purview of other federal agencies.
His proposal to limit fluoride in drinking water, for example, would be up to the EPA, not HHS. And if he wants to crack down on cooking with seed oil or using pesticides in farming, he'll need to work with Trump's nominee for Department of Agriculture. And before any of that, as we mentioned before, he'll need these meetings this week to go well, so he'll be confirmed by the Senate.
What do burps and farts have to do with climate change? Well, it turns out quite a bit if they're coming from farm animals. While we often think about carbon dioxide when we talk about global warming, there's another gas that's maybe even more critical to the problem.
Actually, molecule for molecule, methane is more potent than carbon dioxide is when it comes to its impact on warming.
That's Benji Jones, an environmental correspondent for Vox. He tells us the bulk of global methane emissions come from human activities, and the largest single source among them is agriculture. That is, the burps and farts of farmed animals. Now, one big way to reduce those emissions would be if people cut down on how much meat they eat.
But in a world where people are consuming lots of animal products, scientists are working on another way of tackling the problem. Jones recently traveled to Colombia, the country, not the university, where researchers are trying to figure out what they can feed cattle to produce less methane.
So certain kinds of forage, like different kinds of grasses or legumes, are thought to be associated with lower methane production. So like literally they're burping less or their burps contain less methane. And so they're trying to figure out, okay, which grasses or which types of forage will actually lead to this reduction.
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Chapter 4: How does ultra-processed food affect health?
In order to test this, they put sheep into metal chambers that look a lot like walk-in refrigerators. The chambers are hooked up to high-tech machines that measure gas emissions. And then the researchers feed the sheep lots of different kinds of plants to see if they can reduce that methane output. Jones explained that the food comes from a massive seed bank.
I mean, it has like 67,000 samples and they're stored in like these freezing rooms in vacuum sealed aluminum bags. And I got to go into one of them. It was like negative 10 degrees. It was freezing. And so I literally only stayed in for like two minutes, but you can just see thousands of these seeds in these library like shelves.
And this room alone is just essential, not only for this project, but for like research all around the world.
Lab testing is still underway, but scientists told Jones some of the early results look promising. And they say one big advantage of doing this type of research is that the solution could be fairly low-tech, which would make it scalable in low-income countries.
Chapter 5: What changes could SNAP undergo under RFK Jr.?
This would just be changing the kind of forage that they use or favoring one forage over the other. They wouldn't have to buy a potentially expensive supplement that would maybe be out of their price range or increase the cost of meat. This is a pretty simple solution. And it's also really elegant in a way. It's literally just saying, oh yeah, we have control over what we feed our animals.
Thank you.
Chapter 6: What are the implications of the federal dietary guidelines?
Chapter 7: How are students trained for school shooting situations?
Jesse Newman, a food reporter at The Wall Street Journal, told us why so many people are losing confidence in the institutions that set food policy.
consumers want to be sure that what they're putting in their bodies is, you know, is good for themselves and their children. And there's a sort of an increasing sense that, you know, food companies, in fact, are putting profit above public health.
Kennedy has been a longtime outspoken critic of our food system. And when he was campaigning for president, he tapped into this growing sense of distrust around food.
especially packaged food and, you know, how nutritious it is and whether it's actually hurting us. And in fact, you know, it sort of has amplified concerns among U.S. consumers that federal regulators like those at FDA and USDA really aren't doing enough to protect consumers.
Kennedy has talked a lot about the dangers of ultra-processed foods, which many health experts have blamed for rising rates of obesity and chronic disease in the U.S. He says if he's confirmed to lead HHS, he'll remove ultra-processed foods from school lunches. He can't go it alone, though. That would require coordination with the FDA.
He's also talked about SNAP, which is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a.k.a. food stamps. And he has talked about how he thinks that SNAP beneficiaries really shouldn't be using their food stamps to buy things like soda or processed food.
Another area Kennedy could leave a big mark, the federal dietary guidelines for Americans, a cornerstone of federal nutrition policy. A panel of experts working on the latest recommendations announced last week they will not tell Americans to consume less ultra-processed food, which has gotten a lot of criticism.
Kennedy has said the members of this panel should be prohibited from making money from food or drug companies.
He's concerned with conflicts of interest in how these dietary guidelines are drafted.
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