presto sql get string of elements to get first and second items

Have a table which has a column of string type and the data looks like

items
['apple','pear','orange']
['weather','news']
.....

How could I get the first and second items as separated columns

expected output

first_item     second_item
apple          pear
weather        news

tried to cast column as array then slice it but failed

cast(itmes as array(varchar))

got Cannot cast varchar to array(varchar) Any suggestions?

Depending on actual data you can try treating it as JSON:

-- sample data
WITH dataset(items) AS (
   values ('["apple","pear","orange"]'),
    ('["weather","news"]')
)

-- query
select cast(json_parse(items) as array(varchar))[1] first_item, -- element_at
       cast(json_parse(items) as array(varchar))[2] second_item -- element_at
from dataset;

Output:

Or just:

-- query
select json_extract_scalar(items, '$[0]') first_item,
       json_extract_scalar(items, '$[1]') second_item
from dataset;