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Mark Garrison, Narrating: Good morning. It's Tuesday, February 20th.
I'm Mark Garrison, in for Shumita Basu.
This is Apple News Today.
Coming up, a court ruling threatens the future of IVF,
inside the collapse of a Gaza hospital,
and the unusual and innovative way
Los Angeles is dealing with heavy rain.
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But first, it's been nearly impossible to get an abortion
in Tennessee since 2022.
It has one of the strictest laws in the country.
And once a child is born,
the state provides very little support for new parents.
"ProPublica" reporter Kavitha Surana
spent one year following Mayron Hollis,
a mother of four who found out just a few months
after giving birth to her youngest, Zooe, that she was pregnant again.
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Kavitha Surana: Doctors told Mayron that she had a very dangerous pregnancy.
The embryo was implanted in the scar tissue
from her recent C-section
and that could rupture her uterus or cause massive bleeding
and she could even die.
They knew that it would also be unlikely that the fetus
would ever make it to term.
[END PROPUBLICA ARCHIVAL CLIP]
Garrison, Narrating: At the time, she was fighting the state to keep custody of Zooe.
Mayron was three years sober after a lifetime battle with drugs,
and the state had already taken custody of her other children
over child welfare concerns.
Mayron wanted to end her high-risk pregnancy,
but she was blocked by the state's abortion ban.
She delivered three months early.
Her daughter, Elayna, weighed less than two pounds
and had to spend several months in the ICU.
Mayron almost died in childbirth,
Doctors saved her life with an emergency hysterectomy.
Tennessee has some of the worst outcomes in the country
when it comes to maternal health, infant mortality, and child poverty.
The state does not have paid parental leave.
And over the last decade,
state lawmakers have rejected legislation that would strengthen
the social safety net for babies and parents.
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Surana: So, you had this mother who went back to work
three weeks after her traumatic surgery
and is sometimes sleeping in her car outside the hospital
just so that she can see her daughter.
After Elayna came home, she was on oxygen
and a feeding tube for months.
And she was actually eligible for certain services
like having nurse visits
and more substantial disability payments.
But what we observed, I mean, it was such a testament
to how difficult it is to access these benefits.
We watched Mayron try to get connected with them
and constantly get hung up on or not have the exact right paperwork.
And, you know, Mayron left the hospital with a stack of papers
and phone numbers.
And that was all the connection that she got.
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Garrison, Narrating: Surana told us Mayron shared deeply personal details
and allowed ProPublica to follow her family's struggles
because she felt it was important that the world know
the consequences of Tennessee's policy.
[START PROPUBLICA ARCHIVAL CLIP]
Surana: She wanted people to know they forced me, basically,
to have a child,
but then they didn't help me take care of that child.
[END PROPUBLICA ARCHIVAL CLIP]
Garrison, Narrating: You can read Mayron's entire story and see pictures of her
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and her family on the Apple News app.
Now, let's take a quick look at some other stories in the news.
In Alabama, a court's unprecedented ruling that frozen embryos are people
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is raising concerns about the future of IVF.
It involved a wrongful death case where a patient mistakenly dropped
and destroyed frozen embryos.
The court ruled that they could be held liable
because the state's law, quote,
"applies to all children, born and unborn."
Alabama's Medical Association had warned that a ruling like this
could make IVF more expensive
and force clinics there to shut down or move out of state.
To business news,
where two of America's biggest credit card brands
are coming together in a deal worth more than $35 billion.
Capital One is buying Discover Financial.
Most Capital One cards are Visa or MasterCard,
so buying Discover gives Capital One another option.
It plans to switch some cards to Discover
and keep Visa and MasterCard on others.
And a notorious leaker of government secrets
is in a high-stakes court hearing today.
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["FREE JULIAN ASSANGE" CHANTS]
Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gathered outside
a London court, which is hearing, what could be, his last chance
to avoid extradition to the U.S.
He's wanted in America for trial over leaking military secrets.
The first leaks were in 2010.
U.S. authorities have been trying to get a hold of him ever since.
Assange took refuge for seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London
before local police arrested him.
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If he loses in court this time,
Assange could be handed over to America in a matter of weeks.
The United Nations is expected to vote today on a resolution
for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The U.S. has signaled it'll veto it,
saying that could jeopardize peace talks.
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"Reuters" reports that the U.S. is instead proposing a resolution
that would call for a temporary ceasefire
and oppose a major Israeli ground offensive in Rafah.
One of the greatest humanitarian concerns right now
is the hospital system in Gaza.
There's a particular focus on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
It's the second largest in Gaza.
Israel and Gaza's health ministry
are telling two very different stories about what has happened
at Nasser since the Israeli military stormed the facility last week.
The BBC verified social media videos from inside the facility
as soldiers came in.
[START BBC ARCHIVAL CLIP]
[LOUD WHIRRING NOISE]
Undisclosed Speaker: [SPEAKING ARABIC]
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Garrison, Narrating: Israel said Hamas was holding hostages
at Nasser Hospital, which Hamas denied.
Israel also said it was working to limit civilian harm
and allow the hospital to keep functioning.
But Gaza's health ministry,
the UN and doctors say that's not true.
They described catastrophic conditions
and several patient deaths
at a hospital that has effectively ceased to function.
An eyewitness told "CNN" that Israeli troops pulled doctors
outside and forced them to strip to their underwear
and wait in the cold for hours.
Israel's military didn't immediately respond to "CNN"
about how the doctors were treated.
One of the people inside was Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi,
head of the Plastic Surgery and Burns Department.
After evacuating the hospital, he went on "Al Jazeera"
and called the situation there Judgment Day.
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Dr. Ahmed Moghrabi: It is a real horror, what was happening.
I'm shouting, we are screaming, and I'm telling you,
and I ask the leaders of this world, how many videos do you have to see
us killing, seeing us, seeing this real genocide
happening in front of your eyes, and nothing, nothing.
Just silence, just silence.
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Garrison, Narrating: He and others from the hospital made it to Rafah.
Around 1.5 million people are with them,
having fled heavy fighting elsewhere in Gaza.
But it could soon become much more dangerous.
As we've talked about,
Israel promises a major ground offensive there next month,
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at the start of Ramadan,
if Hamas does not release all remaining hostages.
At times lately,
nearly everyone in California has been under flood alerts.
Heavy rainfall is expected to continue.
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Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass recently spoke
to a local "ABC" station about the week's weather conditions.
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Karen Bass: We are prepared, but I do still worry
because the hills have not dried out from the last storm.
And so, of course,
every time there's a rain that's going to be heavy,
we have to worry about mudslides.
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Garrison, Narrating: She's talking about preparation
for the immediate effects of heavy rain.
But in recent years, L.A. has also prepared in another way.
"WIRED" looks at how it's done work
to become what urban planners call a sponge city.
That's a place that can gather rainwater in a way
that helps the community in the long term.
Historically, L.A. has relied on snowmelt and river water
brought in from far away,
but it's working to source more water locally.
Water managers in L.A.
have been replacing surfaces like concrete
with permeable materials like dirt and plants.
The combination of traditional dams and spongy infrastructure
captured more than 8 billion gallons of stormwater over just a few days
earlier this month.
For context, that's enough water
for more than 100,000 households for a year.
Typically, cities relied on gutters and sewers to funnel rainwater
out of cities to prevent flooding.
But with climate change driving heavier rains,
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old systems aren't working anymore.
Current weather is pretty rough for Angelenos,
but the city's trying a new way to deal with it,
and attacking another problem at the same time.
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 about financial scams.
And if you think that only naive people fall for them,
you'll want to hear this.
It's written by a person who was taken in.
She's a longtime financial journalist
who speaks to money experts for a living.
And yet, she fell for a scam
that ended in her handing over $50,000 in cash to a total stranger.
If you're listening in the podcast app,
follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story,
and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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