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Gideon Resnick, Narrating: Good morning! It's Friday, November 17th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show: A global summit to address Earth's growing plastic problem, the player-turned coach hoping to bring North Carolina another field hockey title, and what a former NASA astronaut says that TV gets right and wrong about space.
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But first… a quick look at some of the top stories in the news, starting with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Lack of fuel continues to be a huge problem for hospitals and aid agencies trying to help people in Gaza. The UN says there will be no aid deliveries into Gaza from Rafah crossing today due to shortages. Israel has blocked all but one delivery of fuel since the war started in early October.
Now, there's another total communications blackout across the Gaza Strip because Palestinian telecom companies say fuel for back-up generators has run out. And the World Health Organization says, there's not enough fuel for ambulances to evacuate patients from Al Shifa hospital. There, Israeli forces are continuing a raid to search for Hamas militant operations that Israeli officials claim are based at the hospital. It's the largest hospital in Gaza and has effectively been shut down since Saturday, when it ran out of fuel. And aid groups say they have lost touch with their teams inside the hospital.
The UN is warning that people in Gaza are in "desperate" need of food and water, which are, quote, "practically non-existent." And the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees says, he's worried the communications blackout could lead to a further breakdown of civil order.
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Ismail Ramsey: These are signs of a situation, when you have a blackout and you cannot communicate with anyone anymore, already that there is, uh, the conflict is ongoing. You have no electricity, you miss everything, you're not close to a relative, that's triggers and fuels, even more, the anxiety and the panic.
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The Israeli government has defended blocking fuel from Gaza by citing concerns that Hamas militants could steal the fuel and use it for military purposes.
Now to the United States, where the man who broke into former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's home and attacked her husband with a hammer last October has been convicted. A jury in federal court found David DePape guilty of attempted kidnapping of a U.S. official and assault on an immediate family member of a U.S. official. The charges could send DePape to prison for decades, and he also faces state charges.
In Washington, the Supreme Court denied Florida's request to reinstate a law that would punish businesses, like restaurants, for allowing children to attend drag shows they host in the state, among other live performances. The law had been blocked by a federal judge in a lower court, who ruled that it violated First Amendment rights, and said the law was quote "specifically designed to suppress the speech of drag queen performers." The Supreme Court didn't explain its reasoning in its brief order, and a First Amendment challenge to the law will continue in the lower courts.
And in Congress, embattled New York Representative George Santos says he will not seek re-election in 2024. This came after a House ethics panel released quote "substantial evidence" yesterday that Santos violated campaign-finance laws, including using campaign funds for personal purchases and filing false campaign reports. Purchases made by Santos that he claimed as campaign expenditures included Botox treatments, OnlyFans, a subscription site typically used to host pornography, and an Airbnb Santos used for a trip to the Hamptons. The freshman congressman already faces multiple federal charges, including theft, money laundering and stealing public funds. The House panel says it will share its findings from the ethics investigation with the Justice Department.
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<v This week, 150 countries have gathered in Kenya to discuss Earth's plastic problem. About 400 million metric tons of plastic waste ends up in landfills, oceans and rivers each year. And the problem is only getting worse>plastic production is on track to triple by 2060.
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Jyoti Mathur-Filipp: Nature is suffocating, gasping for breath.
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That’s Jyoti Mathur-Filipp one of the heads of the global summit:
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Mathur-Filipp: All ecosystems, terrestrial and marine, are under threat from plastic pollution. Not only vulnerable and endangered species are at risk, but all diversity of life on our planet hangs in a balance.
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A key focus of this week's discussions is whether to limit the amount of plastic being produced or to just focus on managing plastic waste, notably through recycling.
Oil and gas companies in particular have spent decades pushing recycling as a key solution. But research has shown that recycling has failed to contain plastic waste. In fact, less than 10 percent of plastic is recycled worldwide. At the same time, the fossil fuel industry is pushing back against the idea of creating limits on how much new plastic companies can produce. And they have the backing of some big countries. Russia and China, two major oil-producing countries, have argued that production cuts have no place in the final treaty. And Saudi Arabia said putting a cap on plastics production would negatively affect their economic growth and stability.
Winnie Lau leads a project at the non-profit Pew Charitable Trusts that's focused on reducing marine plastic pollution. She told "NPR" that the large-scale reduction of plastic waste is gonna require all types of solutions.
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Winnie Lau: If you don't have the right accountability mechanism in place, they could be designed to not work at all and sometimes could make the problem worse.
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The current round of talks concludes Sunday with the hope that the treaty negotiations end next year.
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There's something pretty remarkable is happening in college sports right now. Today, the University of North Carolina women's field hockey team takes on Virginia for a shot at the national title this weekend. The team's head coach, Erin Matson, reflected on this big moment to "NBC."
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Erin Matson: Oh, it's amazing. You know, I'm just so proud of the team.
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So, yeah, boiler-plate coach talk. But here's what's so special about this story: Matson is the youngest-ever Division 1 coach in any sport at 23 years old. And just last year, she was on the field helping to lead the Tar Heels to four national titles as a player. You might remember her story because we shared it on the show before.
Matson basically marched into the coach's office and asked them to consider her for the top job, it happened to be opening up right around the time of her graduation. It took some convincing, but she beat out every other candidate. And while there were zero doubts about Matson's skills as a player, she's widely considered to be one of the best field hockey players of all time. It was a bigger question about how those skills might translate to coaching and coaching the very team she used to play with.
Fast forward to today and those questions have been answered by the Tar Heels' nearly perfect record this season. They entered the NCAA tournament as the top-ranked team. And players who spoke with "NBC," said that it's been a huge asset that their coach knows them so well. Though, most of them still just call her Erin.
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UNC Player: She's been able to understand us so well and that's honestly transformed into great coaching.
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"NBC" asked Matson how she's handling the pressure for preparing the team for another, possible, national title. And, also, the pressure of knowing that many young athletes and young women are looking to her as a role model.
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Matson: I want people to feel that empowerment, uh, and self-belief and confidence in themselves that I've been lucky enough to get from so many people around me.
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<v If you're anything like me, you might have watched a TV show set in space, and wondered could that really happen? Well, this week on our interview show, Apple News In Conversation, Shumita chatted with Garrett Reisman he's a former NASA astronaut who serves as an advisor for the Apple TV+ show>For All Mankind. The fourth season of the show is out now.
It explores an alternate reality, where the Soviet Union, not the United States, landed first on the moon and looks at how that event goes on to change the course of history. It's Reisman's job to make sure the storylines the writers come up with are actually scientifically plausible even though there are historical liberties being taken.
Garrett Reisman: What's amazing is, it's been several years now since season one and science-fact is starting to fall right in line with some of the things we did in the show.
Here's a bit of Shumita's conversation with Reisman as she tries to better understand the realities of visiting outer space:
Shumita Basu: Are you up for a speed round? Can I throw a speed round at you?
Reisman: Yeah, let's do it.
Basu: Okay. Your favorite memory of being in space?
Reisman: An orbital sunrise I watched and just watching the sun come over the horizon of the Earth.
Basu: Top realization you had.
Reisman: The fragility of the planet. When you look at how thin the atmosphere is, it's striking.
Basu: Are aliens real, yes, or no?
Reisman: [LAUGHS] I don't know, but I'm, I'm okay saying, I don't know.
Basu: I thought I could catch you in a speed round like this.
Reisman: No good try.
Basu: And lastly, finish the sentence, the future of space travel is…
Reisman: Booming. I don't mean that in a, [LAUGHS] in a catastrophic way. It's a very exciting time. The future is incredibly bright and what's going to happen in the next, even just the next 10 years is going to be astonishing.
It's a fascinating conversation that covers a lot of ground. The relationship between NASA and Space X, about what TV gets right and wrong about space, and about cherishing this planet while we search for more like it.
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<v If you're listening in the Apple News App, stick around to hear that next. And if you're in the podcasts app, just search for Apple News In Conversation to find it. Before we let you go, a quick programming note>Apple News Today will be off next week for Thanksgiving and returning on November 27th.
So, enjoy a great week with your loved ones. And we'll be back with the news after Thanksgiving weekend.
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