Hollywood Writers Reach Deal To End Strike, Shutdown Implications, Prison Deaths

TV and movie writers reached a tentative deal with Hollywood studios that could end a nearly five-month strike.

Union members still have to ratify the deal, which union leadership called exceptional. So what's in it?

I'm Steve Inskeep with Michelle Martin and this is up first from NPR News.

It comes at a time when we are seeing other threats to the U.

How would a government shutdown affect the U?

And what's happening inside a North Carolina federal prison? An NPR investigation reveals that this one facility accounted for a quarter of all deaths of people in federal custody in the past 10 years. Stay with us, We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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Writers and Hollywood Studios yesterday reached a tentative deal. Wait a minute. Are we saying? Those jokes on the late-night shows are scripted anyway? If approved, the deal would end a nearly five-month work stoppage.

NPR's Mandalit Delbarco has been reporting on the writer's strike since May, and she's with us now from Los Angeles to tell us more. Mandalit, welcome, thanks for joining us.

Sure, good morning.

What do we know about this deal?

Well, the Writers Guild of America seems very excited. The screenwriters celebrated together last night. I've seen their cheers posted on social media.

What do you think it took to finally come to an agreement here?

You know? In the final stretch, negotiators were joined by top executives from four Hollywood studios Disney's Bob Iger, David Zasloff from Warner Brothers Discovery, Ted Sarandos from Netflix and Donna Langley from NBCUniversal. Those heavy hitters met with the guild at the offices of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers at their offices. Inside the Galleria, a well-known suburban shopping mall in the valley. But these past five months have been very acrimonious, with a lot of finger-pointing by both sides. The studio heads met with the WGA once over the summer, and the writers complained that they were chastised and not listened to.

So, given all that, when will production start again?

Well, that's the big question for everyone in Hollywood, and maybe everybody who watches movies and TV wants to know that, too. The answer is as soon as possible. The writers may have made a deal, but they still have to approve it. And the actors union, Sag-AfTRA remains on strike against the studios over very similar issues. Now the actors are waiting for the AMPTP to get back to them. And if that happens soon, and the writers can work their magic and all the people it takes to make a TV show happen, can get started again. Some insiders say there might be time to salvage the winter TV season and we might see those late-night and daytime talk shows come back right away. You know, Michelle? I went to several picket lines on Friday and I talked to a number of screenwriters, including Brian Nelson.

Whatever deal we make may be the template for other deals going forward specifically.

Of course, the next people in line being Sag-Aftra, Nelson says the writers will support everyone else who supported them. In fact, the screenwriters plan to continue picketing only in support of the actors who are waiting in the wings. So everyone in Hollywood is waiting for a happy ending to the saga.

That is NPR's Mandalit Delbarco in Los Angeles, Mandalit, thank you.

Thank you.

So one new deal has been reached in Hollywood, but another one still hangs in the balance, this one in the nation's capital.

Yeah, it's September 25, which means Congress only has about five days left to avoid a government shutdown, given the infighting in the Republican Party. It looks less likely that a deal can be reached in time. Which leads to the question of what effects a government shutdown could have on the U.S economy.

NPR's David Gurra is with us now to talk about all this. Good morning David.

Hey Michelle.

So let's point this out again the people who get your Social Security checks out, who process your passports. All these functions of government won't be getting paid, these people won't be getting paid. But what could the other economic effects of a government shutdown be?

Yeah, I don't want to diminish the difficulty of that, both to people and businesses. Keep in mind, though, that when there is a shutdown, everyone does get paid eventually. But yeah, hundreds of thousands of government workers wouldn't get paid, the government wouldn't be able to pay for what it's bought. That has a direct effect on the economy. All kinds of knock-on effects.

So, tell us more about those potential headwinds.

It's a long list of them. According to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, growth is already slowing. Soon student loan payments are starting back up for 40 million borrowers. Auto workers are on strike. Energy prices have been rising pretty steadily.

Well, say more about that, though. How would something like not being able to get fresh data become a significant problem for the economy?

So it depends again on how long a shutdown lasts, but it could be a big problem. After the last Fed meeting, the Fed chair reiterated he and his colleagues are making decisions about raising interest rates based on the data. If the government can't collect those data and distribute them, Greg Daco says Fed policymakers would be in a real bind at their next meeting. This lack of data in the midst of a government shutdown would essentially mean that economists, investors and policymakers would be flying partially blind, flying partially blind. Which would be a real challenge for the Fed, which is, of course, hoping to pull off that soft landing, getting high inflation under control without triggering recession.

Okay, as quickly as you can, if there's a shutdown. What effect is that going to have on how? Investors, who do have a lot to say about the economy, how they view Washington's decision-making?

Yeah, there's frustration, there's fatigue, I'll say. During past shutdowns, the market reaction has been pretty muted. Alec Phillips is the chief political economist at Goldman Sachs.

It's difficult to say that this will be a major negative for the market, assuming that it, you know, follows the pattern of previous shutdowns.

But, of course, those political divisions aren't going away anytime soon, so it's crisis after crisis, and that could take a toll, Michelle.

That's NPR's David Gerrard, David, thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

A new NPR investigation has revealed a disturbing pattern.

Yeah. Of the 5,000 people who died in the past decade while in federal custody, one out of four died in the same prison.

NPR's Meg Anderson is with us now to explain what's behind those numbers. Meg, good morning.

Good morning.

So let me just clarify one thing there are more than 120 federal prisons and we are talking about just one, so tell us what's going on there.

Yeah, so it is a prison in North Carolina, it's called the Butner Federal Medical Center, and to an extent, more death there makes total sense. It's a prison hospital, and it's the Bureau of Prisons Main Cancer Treatment Facility.

Tell us about some of the stories you found.

Yeah, well. We found more than a dozen inmates who waited months, and some of them even years, for medical care. One inmate who ended up at Butner that we ended up focusing on his name was Jeffrey Ramirez. And he found a lump in his testicle. He asked to see a doctor, but he didn't get an ultrasound. Until more than a year after he started complaining, he was eventually diagnosed with the final stage of testicular cancer.

I know myself, that's the first place I would go.

I'd go to the doctor.

This would not happen, and I'm angry, I'm angry because it didn't have to get this far.

Yeah, and he died just 11 days after he talked with me. hmm.

Okay, but Meg Butner is a prison hospital, so are these men women? I guess both are they getting better care once they get there?

Yeah, just men, actually, and not necessarily. We found problems there, too. One man in prison there, Frank Carr. He waited more than a year for heart surgery.

I do not want to die because I've seen so many people die in here.

I've witnessed people die, and I don't want to be one of the statistics.

And he did end up getting his surgery, but another man we found waited five months for surgery to treat skin cancer. By then, it wasn't feasible anymore. Another inmate died after staff failed to give him his anti-epileptic medication. And last fall, two Butner inmates died in the night after they didn't get timely medical attention. And I should note that the BOP declined our request for an interview, but they said they are, quote committed to providing safe and effective health care.

Were you able to talk with anyone at the prison?

Yeah, so current and former staff at Butner told me that they think understaffing is the main reason for these delays in care. Of course, one way to fix that would be to hire more people, another way would be to lower the prison population. But part of the problem is we just don't actually have that much insight into what happens inside prisons.

How well does the health care system work?

Things that you would just assume we would know.

So until there's independent oversight, it's hard for anyone to recommend concrete steps.

Okay, that is NPR's Meg Anderson Meg. Thank you so much for this reporting.

Thank you.

And that's up first for Monday, September 25th. I'm Michelle Martin.

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Today's Up First was edited by Sierra Crawford, Rafael Nam, Barry Hardiman and H..J. Mai. produced by Shelby Hawkins, Ziad Butch and Katie Klein. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott.

Thanks for listening to Up First. You can find more in-depth coverage of the stories we talked about today, and much more on NPR's Morning Edition. That's the show that Steve Inskeep, A. Martinez, Leila Fadl and I host. Find Morning Edition and your NPR station at stations.npr..org.