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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It’s Thursday, October 12th. I’m Shumita Basu. This is “Apple News Today.” On today’s show… The latest twist in the messy Speaker of the House race, investigating Idaho’s maternal health policies following the state’s abortion ban, and how AI is transforming Alzheimer’s research.
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But first, to the deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel today for meetings. He’s also visiting Jordan and will meet with Arab leaders in the region. Blinken is arriving as Israel is temporarily overhauling its government. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is forming an emergency unity government, bringing in his political rival Benny Gantz, a former defense minister, while the country is at war.
Israel is in the middle of a massive mobilization of troops, which could lead to a ground invasion of Gaza. There is already a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with relentless airstrikes, and Israel cutting off food, water, and power. The U.S. has been in talks with Israel and Egypt to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Inside Israel, we’re learning more about the impact of the cross-border attack by Hamas as the dead are mourned and survivors share their stories. One of them is Amir Tibon. He’s a journalist who writes for "Ha-aretz." And he recently spoke to "The Atlantic" about what happened when Hamas fighters attacked his small border community.
Tibon was in his home with his wife and their two young children when they heard gunfire. They barricaded themselves in a safe room. And he called a friend to find out what was going on.
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Amir Tibon: And what Amos told me in reply was the scariest thing I heard. He said, "Yes, I know, but it's not only in Yor Kibbutz, it's not only in Nachal Oz, it's all over southern Israel. It's all over. It's in cities and in towns and in kibbutzim and in villages. Thousands of armed Hamas fighters have infiltrated the country. They've taken over military bases.” That's where I thought, okay, we're going to die here. Nobody's going to be able to come in time.
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Tibon told "The Atlantic" they had no food, no power, no light. Hours passed. He tried to keep his young daughters calm so the gunmen outside couldn’t hear them.
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Tibon: You have to be absolutely quiet, not a word. You can't cry, can't talk. It's dangerous.
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Tibon called up his father, who’s a retired military officer, who drove to the family and helped Israeli soldiers get them out. Tibon said he’s angry… with Hamas, but also with Netanyahu for what he says is the government’s failure to protect its citizens. He’s sympathetic toward Palestinian civilians, but he says, Israel must destroy Hamas and win this war.
Tibon: No country in the world can allow something like this to happen to its citizens and just go to business as usual. And I feel bad for the people of Gaza, I have to say. I feel very, very bad for the people of Gaza. I’m sad. I’m heartbroken. But the response Israel will have to take will be completely disproportionate to anything we’ve seen in the past because this was a disproportionate event. This was our 9/11.
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Now, let’s take a quick look at some other stories in the news. Republicans have voted, but the race for Speaker of the House is still in doubt. Congressman Steve Scalise narrowly won a closed-door party vote. And he sought to project confidence and continuity.
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Steve Scalise: We need to make sure we're sending a message to people all throughout the world that the House is open and doing the people's business.
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But the reality is, Scalise still has to win a vote on the House floor. And it’s not clear he’ll get the support of Republicans who voted for his opponent Jim Jordan. With the risk of a messy floor vote, the GOP leadership adjourned the House to regroup. That means it is still leaderless, while wars rage in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Staying in the U.S., two major labor developments. In a surprise move, the United Auto Workers Union expanded the strike to include thousands of workers at a Ford truck plant. This is seen as a big escalation as trucks account for the lion’s share of the Big Three automakers’ profits. Ford calls the union’s new move "grossly irresponsible” in the face of the strong offer it made workers.
And in other strike news, there does not appear to be an easy path to end the Hollywood actors’ strike. Talks between studios and actors have fallen apart. Union leaders and studio heads were meeting on a regular basis in recent days. But now studio negotiators say the sides are too far apart. Actors have said that companies can do more to improve pay and put in strong rules governing the use of AI.
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Turning now to “State of the State”, our ongoing series about policies at the local level and how they impact the people who live there. Today, we’re in Idaho.
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Like many Republican-led states in the wake of the Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade, Idaho passed a near-universal abortion ban, one that’s still being fought over in courts. And, like in other states, lawmakers in Idaho said that they would prepare for the increase in pregnancies by improving resources for expecting parents and young families.
But “ProPublica” reports that unlike other states with conservative legislatures, lawmakers in Idaho have failed to provide support they promised. Lawmakers let two bills die that would have extended postpartum Medicaid coverage to 12 months, something other states with new abortion restrictions have done. This summer, Idaho lawmakers rejected $36 million in federal grants to support childcare. And, as “ProPublica” puts it, the big thing that sets Idaho apart from other abortion-ban states is its decision to eliminate a federally-funded committee that investigates maternal deaths.
Audrey Dutton: We're now the only state in the U.S. that has no maternal mortality review happening.
Longtime Idaho investigative reporter, Audrey Dutton, told us, a lot of people in the state don’t understand why lawmakers shut down a program that’s designed to help make pregnancy and childbirth safer.
Dutton: We won't have any idea what happens when people are pregnant and they die, if it is potentially related to abortion policy, if it's related to the fact that we don't have an exemption for, you know, general health of the mother. We just won't know.
It’s one example of how abortion restrictions can hurt people who are trying to have children. “NBC” has reported on how some OB-GYNs have left Idaho after the ban, meaning expecting parents have fewer options and have to travel farther to get medical care.
Idaho’s House Republican Leader says the Party is working on new legislation to put extended Medicaid coverage back on the table. And to resume studying maternal deaths, as well as to support prenatal and postpartum care.
But it’s not a guarantee those will pass. Dutton told us there’s still a major divide in the Idaho GOP.
Dutton: There are Republicans who want to support the results of this law that they passed, you know. They want to make sure that if they are requiring people to carry pregnancies to term, that they support those pregnancies. And there is also a section of the Republican party here that doesn't see that as government's role. And so, you're seeing, kind of, the challenge, the struggle there.
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Finally, a story that offers hope for dealing with Alzheimer’s. The disease is extremely difficult to diagnose and treat. But new technologies that draw on artificial intelligence could possibly give doctors a vital head start, one that could change patients’ lives.
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"The Wall Street Journal" looks at some of the most promising new approaches. Several under development look for signs of Alzheimer’s using eye scans and blood tests. It’s possible that people’s eyes could show signs of the disease 20 years before symptoms appear. The tricky part is that human technicians can’t reliably spot the signs in the scans. But AI models can be trained to see things that humans miss, such as tiny specs showing protein buildups that can indicate Alzheimer’s.
AI is also helping scientists find genetic triggers. One says that training an AI model to scan genetic information sped up his research by a decade. He says it’s like a person seeing one tree at a time, versus AI absorbing a whole forest of information at once.
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Alzheimer’s has frustrated generations of researchers in the past. But the future could be very different, with artificial intelligence giving medicine an edge.
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've got a Narrated Article coming up next from “The New Yorker,” one that profiles National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. He’s leading the response to the war in Ukraine, alongside the Israel-Hamas conflict and other global crises.
If you’re listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News+ Narrated to find that story, and I’ll be back with the news tomorrow.
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