Ceasefire On Track, Pandemic Preparedness, Pepsi Sued

0:02Israel's war cabinet gives the final approval to a deal with Hamas. The ceasefire, only the second of the ongoing war, officially begins tomorrow. I'm Scott Simon. I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is Up First from NPR News. The latest from the region today on the podcast. Also five years after America's first COVID case, is the country better prepared for the next major public health crisis? And the case against Pepsi over allegations a case of the soda costs different amounts for different shoppers. So please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

1:06It's time to free up your teams and focus on your future. Learn more about the technology, insights, and support available at amazonbusiness.com.

1:36This message comes from Rince, who knows that mastering the perfect house party table spread takes time. But so does laundry. So Rince takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned. And you can take the time once spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, to finally pursue your real passion. Rolling delicate roses of capicola alongside meandering ribbons of Amon Serrano. transforming a humble plank of weathered barnwood into a show-stopping charcuterie spread. Rinse. It's time to be great. First up today, the war in Gaza. A ceasefire is imminent. Israel's war cabinet signed off on the deal early this morning, and international mediators say it starts tomorrow morning.

2:22It should bring about a pause in fighting, as well as the release of dozens of Israeli hostages and many more Palestinian prisoners and detainees over the next six weeks. And Piaz Hadil al-Shalchi joins us from Tel Aviv. Hadil, thanks so much for being with us. Good morning. What else can you tell us about the agreement? Well, we're starting to get a little bit more information about the timing of the ceasefire and what this multi-phase deal will look like in the next few weeks. Hamas and Israel have both promised to hold their fire starting at 8.30 tomorrow morning here in Israel. And then no earlier than the same afternoon, we should start seeing people be released 33 hostages freed over this first phase for almost 1 ,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

3:04Deal efforts have been underway for months. Why a deal now? Well, first of all, let's remember that this deal contains much of the conditions that President Biden actually helped come up with last May. But geopolitically now, things have changed so much in the Middle East since that time. Hamas has lost a lot of its military capabilities over 15 months of war and suffered serious leadership losses, including its longtime head, Yahya Senwar. And then Hamas's backers, also including Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, have been weakened significantly by Israel. But then there's something new.

3:36Their incoming president of Donald Trump. Trump has said all hell will break loose in the Middle East if a deal to end the war wasn't reached just before he becomes president, and that's on Monday. And this wasn't just a warning to Hamas. It was also a call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to get serious about closing a deal. What's been reaction there so far? Well, it is the eve of the ceasefire, and Palestinians in Gaza and Israelis are both kind of saying, we'll believe it when we see it. In Gaza, the past few days have been some of the deadliest in recent weeks. Just last night, there were Israeli airstrikes that the military said targeted Hamas weapon sites and fighters, and Gaza health officials said 122 Palestinians were killed in those strikes, including 33 children.

4:20Our producer in Gaza, Anas Baba, talked to Mohammed Abul Kass in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. Abul Kass says he's not really optimistic yet, and he won't be until he will be able to go back to whatever is left of his home. And then here in Israel, there is relief that some hostages are coming home, but it will also be heartbreaking to see them suffer from psychological, physical challenges after being held for 15 months. Sivan Yadin was at a protest in Tel Aviv this week, and she said she doesn't like that the deal is carried out in phases.

4:54Yadin says she would have preferred that all hostages return home at the same time because they should be reunited now with their families. And if the deal holds, what can we expect in coming days? Well, day one, tomorrow, the releases begin. Hamas is supposed to free three female hostages, and then the Israelis are supposed to release 30 Palestinian prisoners for each of them. And then there should be weekly releases and the beginning of a troop withdrawal, a surge of aid into Gaza and some displaced Palestinians should be able to go back home in the north. But negotiators still need to talk about what the upcoming phases are supposed to look like and hopefully bring an end to the war.

5:36And Piers Adil El-Shulchi in Tel Aviv, thanks so much. You're welcome.

5:44Monday marks five years since the U.S. recorded its first case of COVID-19. And we're still learning about the virus, our reaction to it, including some new and concerning information about Trump cabinet pick Robert Kennedy and how prepared we are for the next pandemic. NPR's Will Stone has been on the story from the beginning and joins us now. Will, thanks for being with us. Sure thing, Scott. You were in Seattle when that first COVID case, January 2020, in the U.S. was confirmed, weren't you? I was. This was a man in his 30s who'd come back from Wuhan, China. And at the time, the message from public health was that the risk of human-to-human spread was low.

6:29It wasn't actually until the next month that it became clear the virus was spreading in the community here, in Seattle, and elsewhere in the country. And five years later, how well prepared is the U.S. for another crisis like COVID? It's a mixed picture. Certainly, there's a lot of disillusionment in public health and medicine. You'd hope that after a big pandemic, the country would be better off. But Dr. Andrew Pavia at the University of Utah told me it just doesn't look that way to him. We've not done a really good job of changing the things that need to be changed. There's so much fatigue. There's so much trauma from the COVID pandemic.

7:06The medical profession saw an exodus of nurses and doctors. The same trend is true in the public health workforce. Meanwhile, trust in public health and government agencies has fallen. Misinformation, fights over masking, school closures, lots of things could have played a role. And a recent survey from Harvard found trust in doctors and hospitals dipped from 70 percent in 2020 to less than 50 percent as of early 2024. And what could some of the consequences of that be? Yeah, it's hard to overstate the implications, Scott. I spoke to Lauren Sauer about this. She's an expert on pandemic preparedness at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

7:47People have to participate in public health, right? The public is the most important part. Unless we really spend a lot of time building the trust in public health back, we could build all the systems in the world and they won't work. And along with that, funding is under threat. There was an infusion of money during COVID, but there have been proposals from House Republicans to slash funding for public health programs, including the CDC. And it's possible that it will gain momentum when President-elect Trump is sworn in on Monday. Well, are there some notes of hope when it comes to pandemic preparedness?

8:20Yes, there are some advances. Our ability to do wastewater surveillance to track the spread of disease, that's one example brought up by Caitlin Rivers. She's at Johns Hopkins and recently authored a book on fighting outbreaks called Crisis Averted. Technology really stands out as a realm where we've seen some great successes. I think there's a lot of emphasis right now on diagnostic testing and also around vaccination. The mRNA platform has been very successful, gives us a new tool to develop vaccines quickly for the next pandemic pathogen. And public health experts say having vaccines ready to go will be key for bird flu.

8:57That's why the government is stockpiling existing vaccines and developing new mRNA shots in case the outbreak escalates. And what has the incoming administration said about bird flu? Well, it's largely been silent. Certainly, Trump has the experience of Operation Warp Speed that produced the COVID vaccine. But scientists like Andrew Pavia at the University of Utah are concerned based on the track record of some of Trump's health picks. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could lead the Department of Health and Human Services. For years, Kennedy led an advocacy group that's a big player in the anti-vaccine movement.

9:33And Scott, yesterday we learned that in the spring of 2021, Kennedy filed a citizen's petition on behalf of that advocacy group to the FDA. And in it, he requested the agency revoke the authorizations for the COVID vaccine for all demographic groups. Of course, the FDA denied this request, but Kennedy has an extensive history of making inaccurate and misleading statements on vaccines, and he has already made comments undermining trust in the existing bird flu vaccines. We reached out to the transition team for comment about their plans, but did not hear back. And para-health correspondent Will Stone, thanks so much.

10:11Thank you.

10:16Finally, today, the U.S. government versus Pepsi. The Federal Trade Commission accuses Pepsi of giving unfair discounts for its soft drinks to its biggest retailer, discounts that it doesn't offer to smaller rivals. It's a case that gets to the heart of prices we pay at the grocery store, and it's a case that NPR's Alina Silyuk is following closely. Alina joins us in our studio. Thanks so much for being with us. Hello, hello. What's the case the government's trying to make? So the Federal Trade Commission alleges that Pepsi discriminates against smaller companies when it comes to how much it charges grocery chains for its stuff.

10:52A lot of the details are redacted, as you said, at least for now, but it is pretty widely understood that the large big box retailer here is Walmart, which is the largest retailer in the U.S. And to be clear, Walmart is not being accused of wrongdoing, but Pepsi is. The FTC alleges Pepsi offers promotions and special deals to Walmart that it does not offer to smaller chains, which would be, you know, including like Kroger. And that means, FTC alleges, higher prices for shoppers who buy Pepsi not at Walmart. But, I mean, cheaper prices are the whole point of big wholesalers, aren't they? How can it be that they buy more, you pay less, is somehow illegal?

11:34Yeah, it gets kind of interesting here. Let me walk you through it. So the law says you can definitely offer volume discounts. Like, if someone buys a truckload instead of a case of soda, sure, they get a discount. But a supplier has to be able to show it is legitimately saving money in that deal. And any discounted offers should be available to everyone. Like if it's a consortium of stores and they are buying by a truckload, just like Walmart, they should get that discount. And the FTC here alleges that Pepsi did not equally offer special promotions, that it gave preferential treatment to, well, Walmart, purely because it's biggest, it's the most important, not because Pepsi was actually saving money by doing big business at Walmart scale.

12:16And what does Pepsi say? That all of this is wrong on the facts and the law. The company says its practices are in line with industry norms, that it does not play favorites. I should add Walmart's declined comment. And, you know, there is the whole timing element to this, given that the Trump administration is about to take over the FTC. Which happens at noon on Monday when Donald Trump takes the oath of office. Is this case high on the new administration's to-do list? So this is interesting. The Biden FTC has actually issued a whole bunch of charges and lawsuits in the past few days at the 11th hour, which the Republican commissioners say has politicized the cases.

12:54But with the Pepsi lawsuit, there's actually a little bit of a complication with this one. And how so? So I have to tell you a little bit of history here. So this case hinges on a law that had not been enforced for decades. It's from 1936. It's called the Robinson-Patman Act. It was enforced pretty strictly until the 80s, but then it was kind of shelved because this was the heyday of this idea that bigger companies should not be punished for being more efficient than, say, mom-and-pop shops. And the law kind of sat there dormant. But in recent years, independent grocers, pharmacies, farmers have called for stepped-up enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act.

13:33And they have bipartisan support. In fact, the incoming FTC chairman has suggested he's open to the idea. Another Republican Trump has nominated to the FTC has written in favor of it. Still, the Pepsi case was pursued on a party line, with Republicans arguing the lawsuit was rushed out the door without enough evidence. So its future is unclear. And Pierselina Seljuk, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you.

14:02And that's up first for Saturday, January 18th, 2025. I'm Aisha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon. Today's podcast was produced by Andrew Craig with help from Fernando Naro, Gabe O 'Connor, and Martin Patience. Michael Radcliffe directed. Ed McDulty is our editor, along with Shannon Rhodes, Jerome Sokolowski, Jane Greenhalgh, and Emily Kopp. Andy Huther is our technical director with engineering support from Zach Coleman, David Greenberg, and Arthur Holliday-Lorent. Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor. Sarah Lucy Oliver is our executive producer. And Jim Kane is our deputy managing editor. Tomorrow on the Sunday Story, making big changes later in life.

14:47More Americans are switching things up as we live longer and healthier. And for more news, interviews, and analysis, you can tune in to Weekend Edition on your radio. Go to stations.npr.org to find your local NPR station. Do it now. Do it now. And then you can hear Scott roar like that. That was amazing, Scott. He's grabbing on to life.

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