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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It’s Monday, November 13th. I’m Shumita Basu. This is “Apple News Today.” On today’s show… The dire situation for hospitals in Gaza, the potential safety impact as major airlines hire thousands of new pilots, and researchers find a weird animal that hasn’t been seen in decades.
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We’ll start with the latest on the conflict in Gaza, where hospitals are rapidly collapsing as Israeli ground troops press further into cities.
Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati runs the burn unit at Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al Shifa. He said newborns had to be taken off incubators because they don’t have enough power to run them. Three babies died, and he fears for the lives of others. He told "NBC" there’s constant fighting and attacks.
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Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati: If you can hear in the background, it’s like bombardment and bombing of the hospital and from all sides.
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Israel says Hamas has command centers underneath hospitals, though Hamas and hospital staff deny this. White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told “CBS” Hamas is violating laws of war by keeping military equipment and troops in or near hospitals and other civilian facilities. But, he said, Israel still needs to be careful.
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Jake Sullivan: The United States does not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people, patients receiving medical care, are caught in the crossfire, and we've had active consultations with the Israeli Defense Forces on this.
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On "NBC," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government has tried to make arrangements for patients to be evacuated to get care elsewhere.
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: We’ve asked other countries to, the U.N., UNRWA and so on, build field hospitals. Let’s move the patients out of these Hamas command posts in the hospitals to these safe places. So far, they’ve moved a few patients, not enough. I hope more will move.
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Doctors say it’s too dangerous to move many critically ill and injured patients. Israel says it offered fuel to hospitals and Hamas blocked delivery. Hamas denies this and says Israel isn’t offering nearly enough fuel for hospitals to function.
The World Health Organization is calling for an immediate ceasefire, along with other nations, and protesters marching in major cities.
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The WHO said at this rate of fighting, a child is killed every ten minutes in Gaza.
Now, let’s take a quick look at some other stories in the news, starting with another development in the war on hostage negotiations.
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Yesterday President Biden spoke with Qatar’s leader on efforts to free the hostages held in Gaza. Qatar is mediating between Hamas and Israel, with negotiations reportedly focusing on children and elderly people being held captive.
In other news, the Pentagon says it hit a training camp and safe house in Syria, facilities used by troops backed by Iran. The U.S. has launched a series of attacks on Iranian proxies, lately, in retaliation for attacks on American forces in the region.
In politics, Senator Tim Scott is ending his run for the White House. After the South Carolina Republican pulled out, two of his biggest donors said they will now back Nikki Haley.
We’re just a few days away from a potential government shutdown. The federal government will run out of money by the end of the day on Friday if no deal is reached. Still-new House Speaker Mike Johnson now has to deal with the problem that was a headache for his predecessor. Finding a deal that his whole party can support, since it only takes a handful of Republican votes to torpedo a plan. Johnson’s initial proposal for stopgap funding of the government in two parts is already turning off some GOP hardliners. The Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House don’t like it either.
And in entertainment news, there was a major box-office disappointment over the weekend.
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Man: I'm asking… for one last fight.
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“The Marvels” only did $47 million in domestic ticket sales. That’s the worst debut performance out of dozens of movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The flop comes as investors are questioning Disney’s management of Marvel and other franchises. And as all the studios are trying to get past the disruptions from its labor disputes with writers and actors.
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The next time you get on a plane, there’s a chance your pilot will be less experienced flying it than in the past.
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During the pandemic, many airlines encouraged pilots to retire while air travel was mostly shut down. As we all know, demand came back and airlines have been struggling to hire enough pilots ever since. Many are promoting more junior pilots faster, and recruiting hires from regional airlines, where pilots typically have less experience flying bigger planes.
Andrew Tangel from “The Wall Street Journal” spoke to us about it.
Andrew Tangel: So, suddenly you've got a lot of pilots who are now in control of a larger airplane and so it's new controls, new quirks, new responsibilities it's like driving a new car that you are suddenly having to learn.
The airline industry refers to this trend as juniority. Regulators and safety experts have decided it’s a good time to scrutinize the experience of people in the cockpit.
Tangel: Earlier this year, the industry and U.S. regulators became alarmed at a spate of close calls at U.S. airports. Commercial jets were getting way too close to a potential collision. And in trying to assess what happened and how to prevent serious close calls, a lot of people in the industry started to openly worry about all of the so-called juniority in the pilot ranks, in the air traffic control ranks.
The FAA says it’s not seeing a rise in safety problems compared to before the pandemic. And the last major fatal U.S. passenger airline crash happened in 2009. But the federal agency is watching all the new hires closely. Major airlines brought in more than 13,000 pilots last year. That was more than double the year before.
Tangle told us about an incident involving a Delta Airlines pilot fresh out of training. They were attempting to land a jet in Atlanta that didn’t have a working anti-skid system. It’s pretty routine for airlines to keep planes in service in a situation like this. When the plane landed, one of its tires blew and the landing gear caught fire.
Tangel: The firetrucks from the airport all had to respond, put out the fire. The passengers on the airplane had to get off the plane via those inflatable emergency slides. So it was a pretty harrowing landing, and we talked to one passenger who described it as a pretty rough and scary landing.
The FAA said it was too soon to conclude what factors played a role in that incident.
Airlines aim to help new pilots gain skills by pairing them with veteran flyers. The “Journal” talked to the former chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, an experienced pilot himself. He took a flight recently where a relatively new United pilot had been paired with a more senior captain, and he was impressed by her smooth landing. He said it was “refreshing,” evidence that the system is working.
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Finally, something you don’t see every day. A critically endangered animal that went undocumented for over 60 years. NBC looks at how researchers on a recent expedition to Indonesia saw Attenborough’s long-beaked echidna.
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It’s named for the famous biologist Sir David Attenborough. And it’s truly one of the weirder animals out there.
It’s a little smaller than the average housecat and it’s covered in quills, which makes it look kinda like a porcupine. It’s got a long beak and strong, little digging feet. But what’s most unusual is it’s one of only five mammal species that lays eggs, which makes it something of an evolutionary outlier. That’s one reason why biologists are eager to preserve them and were so excited that they caught one on tape.
Now, that was quite an ordeal. It took a crew of 25 working over nine weeks, at risk of malaria, earthquakes, and hungry parasites. The team thought they were on to something when they noticed holes in the ground. That’s a classic echidna sign. They like to dig for worms.
Now, the crew almost came away with nothing. But on the very last day of taping, in the very last set of images on their footage, they saw it. A little echidna poking around. That was the first evidence in generations that it survived all these years of illegal hunting and other threats. As for the moment they finally saw it, the team leader called it “extreme euphoria.”
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And check out our weekly interview show, “In Conversation.” I talked to “The New Yorker” editor David Remnick about his recent reporting trip to Israel. He wrote about the October 7th massacre, Israel’s assaults on Gaza, and what comes next.
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David Remnick: This situation is intolerable. It's intolerable for Israelis to live in fear, and it's intolerable for Palestinians to live lives of occupation, or blockade, and misrule, and immiseration. It's intolerable.
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If you’re listening in the Apple News app right now, that episode is cued up to play for you next. And I’ll be back with the news on tomorrow.
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