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Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It’s Thursday, December 14th. I’m Shumita Basu. This is “Apple News Today.” On today’s show… Starvation in Gaza hits alarming levels, a deadly problem for the people of Puerto Rico, and new research on how house cats mess up local ecosystems.
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But first, let’s take a brief look at some other big stories in the news. The federal election interference case against former president Trump is temporarily on hold. The federal judge overseeing it ordered a pause while appeals move forward on Trump’s attempts to have the case thrown out. His lawyers argue that the Constitution gives him legal immunity for actions he took while in office. This ruling could delay the start of Trump’s trial, scheduled to begin in March.
In Congress, House Republicans are moving ahead with a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden. They’ve not presented any evidence of corruption. The vote to move ahead was on party lines. The White House says the GOP’s investigation is politically motivated. Even if this leads to an impeachment vote in the House, there’s practically no chance the Senate would vote to convict the president and remove him from office.
Elsewhere in Washington, the Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates steady, no surprise there. Many investors liked what Chair Jay Powell said in his press conference yesterday about the health of the economy. Several big banks are changing their forecasts for next year. More analysts now think the Fed will start cutting rates sooner than previously expected.
And in sports, Draymond Green has been indefinitely suspended from the NBA. The Golden State forward hit a Phoenix player in the face during Tuesday night’s game. An indefinite suspension is one of the harshest punishments a player can get. The NBA said it took the step because Green has a history of unsportsmanlike actions. He’ll have to meet certain league and team conditions before he’ll be allowed to play again.
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Now to the war in Gaza, where months of Israeli attacks have made fuel, electricity, water, and medicine scarce.
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Illnesses are spreading, like diarrhea, food poisoning, and respiratory infections. And more than one million people, roughly half of Gaza’s population, are starving, according to the U.N. World Food Program.
Aid agencies describe empty supermarket shelves, kids and families wandering the streets with nowhere to go, waiting in line for hours for drinkable water, and arriving at bakeries before dawn hoping that the ovens are working. Those who manage to find food are struggling to afford it. In some places the price of flour has gone up ten times.
“NBC” spoke to a 12-year-old named Do’a Atef. Before the war, she was in school. Now, she spends her days begging for food and searching for firewood. Israeli attacks forced her family out of their home in northern Gaza. All 10 of them now live in tents in the south, where they don’t have access to clean drinking water. There are no diapers or milk for her baby brother, there are no bathrooms, and winter is approaching.
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Do’a Atef: [SPEAKING THROUGH TRANSLATOR]
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Atef tells "NBC," "I wish we could return to our home to have a truce, play with my friends, and have a good home like the old days."
Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi is a surgeon at a hospital in southern Gaza, he recently told "Democracy Now," he’s watching his family starve.
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Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi: I can't find food, clean water. Me as a surgeon, I can't find clean water to drink. I can't find food. I eat only once a day, dinner. Yes, once a day. I can't afford my children food.
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Since Israel launched attacks, very little humanitarian aid has been allowed in. The spread of fighting to the south has strangled aid distribution even further. Only a fraction of what people need to survive is getting in, according to aid agencies. And as the war stretches on, conditions for civilians are only getting worse.
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Scientists are warning that Puerto Rico is experiencing "excess mortality", where thousands more deaths are happening per year than what researchers would expect based on historical patterns.
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In 2022, compared to the United States overall, the death rate in Puerto Rico was almost 11 percent higher. And data from early 2023 indicates the trend has continued.
“The Washington Post” and Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism looked into the factors behind the rise in the death rate and found a collapsing health care system driven by natural and financial disasters.
Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, and residents are still dealing with unresolved damage from it, and other hurricanes and earthquakes. Specialized medical care has been hard for people to access ever since.
One reason is the number of doctors on the island has plummeted in recent years. After Puerto Rico’s economy crashed in 2006, providers left in droves. In just over a decade, the number of doctors dropped by nearly half. Today, it can take up to eight months for patients to be seen.
Another issue is scarcity of medical resources. The town of Aguas Buenas, which has about 25,000 residents, has just one functioning ambulance. People have died waiting for paramedics to arrive.
A funeral director in town, Héctor Montañez, said last year, he had the highest number of services in 40 years of doing business.
Héctor Montañez: [SPEAKING THROUGH TRANSLATOR]
He says the town only has two cemeteries. There’s not enough space for all the people who are dying.
Along with doctors who’ve left, Puerto Rico has also seen an exodus of younger people. It’s now one of the most rapidly aging societies in the world, with all the additional health challenges of old age. People over 65 now account for more than 20% of the population.
Experts say meaningfully reversing Puerto Rico’s surge in deaths won’t happen unless systemic social, economic and political issues are addressed.
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This is an in-depth article, and you can read the full story in the Apple News app.
Let’s close on a story from “Scientific American” that explores how one of the world’s favorite pets has managed to terrorize more creatures than pretty much any other predator out there.
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I'm talking about house cats. And if you’re a cat person, like me, you don’t need me to tell you this, but they can be very hot and cold. Sometimes they want nothing to do with you, other times they generously tolerate you. But when it comes to what they hunt, cats are not picky at all.
A group of researchers recently put together a database that tracks the targets on your cat’s hit list. And it turns out, there are more than 2,000 species on this list. Most are things you would expect, like birds and mice. But there are some surprises depending on where these cats are in the world. They’ve been recorded preying on sea turtles, emus and even cattle. Some of these species are endangered and a few are already extinct.
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Some of this has to do with the fact that house cats are popular pets, and are being introduced into ecosystems that just didn’t have this kind of skilled, carnivore predator before. So, wildlife ecologists tell “Scientific American,” it’ll be important to manage the world’s cat populations if we want to prevent more extinctions in the future.
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 “Bloomberg Businessweek.” It looks at how a deadly fungus could spell doom for the world’s banana supply, and how scientists are fighting it.
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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