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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Thursday, November 30th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, Henry Kissinger's death reignites debate over his legacy, the story of a woman whose final act was saving others from medical debt, and how "The Bachelor" and other TV shows are spotlighting romance for older people.
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But first, let's look at some big stories we're following today. In Gaza, a pause in fighting is going to be extended for at least one more day. The announcement came just minutes before the truce was set to expire. Qatar has been mediating between Israel and Hamas, with the U.S. closely involved.
In America, prosecutors say an agent of the Indian government directed the attempted assassination of an American citizen on U.S. soil. The target of the plot detailed in the indictment was an activist for an independent Sikh state. The news comes after Canada's prime minister said there were credible claims that agents of the Indian government killed a Sikh activist in Canada. India has denied allegations of targeted assassinations.
And in so many parts of the world, people are reflecting on the life and legacy of Henry Kissinger, who died yesterday at the age of 100. The diplomat lived through a century of history and shaped much of it. Arguably the most influential American statesman who never served as president, though at one point, he did hold the titles of White House national security adviser and secretary of state at the same time.
Kissinger made both strong allies and fierce enemies. Supporters praised him as a brilliant strategist who engineered the Cold War masterstroke of opening relations with China during the Nixon administration. His harshest critics called him a war criminal, pointing to his support for bombing Cambodia and Laos during the Vietnam War, which killed tens of thousands of people. He's one of the most disputed winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, for his negotiation of a ceasefire in Vietnam. He spoke about it in Oslo, years later, in 2016.
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Henry Kissinger: The award of the Nobel Peace prize invariably occurs in circumstances short of global peace. That very gap provides inspiration to persevere after the ultimate goal of diplomacy.
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Kissinger has been described as relentlessly pragmatic by some, shockingly amoral by others. How people judged him depended on what they thought of his results.
You can read obits and reactions to his death on the Apple News app.
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Now to environmental diplomacy, as world leaders gather for COP 28, the U.N. climate summit in Dubai. They'll talk about climate change and solutions to cut emissions that contribute to global warming. But this year's choice of host country is a sort of paradoxical backdrop to these talks, The United Arab Emirates has a massive carbon footprint.
Chico Harlan: In the UAE the fossil fuel industry is extremely wedded into the fabric of the economy and society.
That's "Washington Post" climate reporter Chico Harlan. He told us about how oil transformed the local economy.
Harlan: This is a country that was poor and looked nothing like it does now before the discovery of oil 60, 70 years ago. And now it's a very fabulously wealthy country with two huge gleaming cities, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Today, fossil fuels account for 30 percent of its GDP. And the person leading the summit on behalf of the UAE is also the CEO of the state-run oil company. He's pledged to eliminate methane emissions by 2030 and transition to net zero by 2045. Yet, at the same time, the company is ramping up offshore oil production. One climate analyst told Harlan, those plans are not compatible with the global commitment to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. And a spokesperson for UAE officials leading the summit has denied reports that the country tried to cash in on their host status by lobbying for oil and gas deals with participating nations.
Reducing emissions is the ultimate goal of the summit, but Harlan points out, there's a lot of momentum around another issue, a bit of unfinished business from last year's conference. Wealthy nations responsible for the vast majority of emissions agreed to create a loss and damage fund to help poorer nations offset the cost of floods, droughts, and heatwaves linked to our warming planet.
Harlan: Just in Malawi alone, the damages are sometimes cited as 500, 700 million dollars. That's an enormous amount. That's just one country. And the list goes on and on, you know, Pakistan, places where you see these huge events happening that make headlines. But what you don't always realize is that if you go back to these places, people haven't recovered. And the entities, the U.N. entities, including the World Food Program that are kind of the de facto first responders in these places when emergencies strike, they don't have enough money to go and do the work that they need to do or that people need to recover.
Now, leaders need to figure out how much money to put in that fund, who will pay for it, and how it will work.
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Next, a story about the remarkable legacy left behind by a woman who recently died after battling ovarian cancer for years.
38-year-old New Yorker Casey Mclntyre worked in publishing and loved stories. So, it was fitting that she told the story of her final days on her own terms. In a posthumous social media post, she revealed she'd been raising money to cancel other people's medical debt. Her efforts were able to wipe out close to 70 million dollars in medical bills.
Mclntyre's husband Andrew Gregory told "NPR," the inspiration came from a story the couple saw about a church in North Carolina that raised funds to cancel out millions of dollars of debt. They reached out to the nonprofit group they learned about in that story, called RIP Medical Debt, which purchases debt at a fraction of the cost in order to forgive it. And Mclntyre decided, that's how she wanted to celebrate her own life.
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Andrew Gregory: And Casey was very excited about it. And she got out of the hospital, which we were very lucky that she did. She entered home hospice at the recommendation of her oncologist, and we were really lucky that she lived for six months.
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This is a major issue in America. Research shows that roughly 1 in 10 adults carry medical debt. Mclntyre's fund is still open and collecting donations. "NPR" has a link in the full story, which you can find in the Apple News app.
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Tonight is the two-hour season finale of "The Golden Bachelor" on ABC. For two decades, the reality franchise focused on young people, mostly in their 20s and 30s. But this time around, it flipped the format, making a 72-year-old widower the star. The women competing for his heart are in their 60s and 70s, and some have lost spouses, too.
Other shows, like the "Sex and the City" reboot, are also focusing on later-in-life romance. "The Atlantic" looks at the surprising spotlighting of love after 50 that we're seeing on TV right now, and argues, telling the stories of people with more life experience makes pop culture better and more real. The stakes of the love stories feel bigger because they're not just about exciting new feelings. They're also about dealing with loss, and existing obligations to children and family. We've heard the Golden Bachelor talk about his late wife, and how difficult it was to process her loss.
By putting topics like parenthood and grief front and center, "The Atlantic" says, these shows are celebrating the value of age in relationships. Seniority can strengthen our ability to overcome hurdles, and lead to more honest conversations about love and priorities.
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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, we've got a Narrated Article coming up next from "New York" Magazine. It's a deep dive on Robert F. Kennedy Jr., what the magazine calls his "mind-bending" politics, and how he could impact the 2024 presidential election.
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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