--:-- Shamita Basu: Hey there. Before we get into today's episode, we have a question for you. If you are taking care of an aging loved one, or you yourself are aging, what kinds of challenges are you facing when it comes to getting support? And what kind of support would help? Use your voice memo app on your phone to record your answer. Please tell us your name and where you're from, and try to keep it to around a minute. You can send it to us at AppleNewsToday at Apple.com. Again, that's AppleNewsToday at Apple.com. And we might include your voice on an upcoming episode of Apple News in conversation. Thanks.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Thursday, August 29th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, Israel launches its second day of escalated attacks in the West Bank. The dispute over what Trump did at a military cemetery. and why the Surgeon General says the stress of parenting is an urgent public health issue. But first, this November, there is so much more at stake than just the White House. And over the next few weeks, we'll be focusing on some of the down-ballot races to pay attention to. Today, we look at the Senate, where several seats could flip, deciding which party controls the chamber. With me to break it all down is my colleague Gideon Resnick.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Hey, Shamita.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So we know that Democrats have a very narrow majority in the Senate and that they're likely to lose at least one seat this November. Senator Joe Manchin, who served as a Democrat from the very red state of West Virginia, is retiring this year. So it's all but certain that that seat will flip to Republican. What other states should we be paying attention to?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, Democrats overall have a very difficult map this year for the Senate. They're going to be defending 23 seats across the country, a lot of them in purple and red states. And Republicans, on the other hand, are defending 11 seats. So at the moment, Democrats have just a one-seat majority in the Senate, which means if Republicans were to flip two seats, they take the chamber. If they flip just one, but they also get the White House, they would have Vice President J.D. Vance, in that case, breaking tie votes in a similar manner to what we've seen from current Vice President Harris. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently told The Washington Post that this is the best map that he has seen in a long time. So they're clearly quite bullish on this.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The races that a lot of people are watching beyond West Virginia, which you just talked about, are John Tester in Montana and Sherrod Brown in Ohio. So both of those are Democratic incumbents in red states.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Mm hmm. Well, let's start with Montana. Tester has been in that seat for a long time, right? He has. He's a third-generation Montana dirt farmer, the kind of bio that Democrats find successful in the state. He's served in the Senate since 2007. He's the kind of guy whose ads in the past have shown the fingers he lost in a meat grinder when he was younger And the fact that he keeps winning means historically he sort of bucked the Republican tilt of the state over the years But the challenge here that is different this time is this is the first time that Tester's election is in the same year as Trump will be on the ballot. And Trump won in Montana by 16 points in 2020. This year, Tester is running against Tim Sheehy. He is a wealthy businessman, an ex-Navy SEAL, who Tester has been trying to paint as kind of an outsider who's out of touch with the values of Montana. Meanwhile, Sheehy has tried to tie Tester to unpopular elements of the Biden administration's record, including on immigration. Republicans have talked about this race as their key to winning back the Senate. You know, Trump has campaigned there. But another big variable in this contest is there's an abortion measure on the ballot in Montana, which Democrats think could potentially help their chances. So for now, the Cook Political Report is calling it a toss-up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Okay, so let's turn to the Senate race in Ohio, which we should say is the state J.D. Vance is from. Yeah, he is. And his counterpart in the Senate from that very state is in a tough race that Cook is also calling a toss-up. That is Sherrod Brown, who is known as being kind of a progressive populist in the state. He's running against a businessman named Bernie Moreno.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And then just quickly, I want to mention the races that are in the other blue-wall states. Democrat Debbie Stabenow is retiring in Michigan, and open seats are a little more difficult to hold on to for incumbent parties. Obviously, Michigan is going to be an important state at the presidential level. And then Democrats Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and Bob Casey in Pennsylvania are also in difficult races, but they seem a lot likelier to hold their seats and have been pretty consistently leading in polling even when Biden was in the race. One more quickly, too, is Arizona, where there is likely to be a very close presidential contest. And there's an open Senate seat after Kyrsten Sinema announced that she would not run for reelection. The Democratic nominee here is Ruben Gallego. He's been polling pretty well against his Republican opponent, Carrie Lake, a Trump ally who lost her race for governor in 2022 and has consistently denied the results of the 2020 election. There's also an abortion-related referendum on the ballot in Arizona that similarly to what we just said about Montana and Tester could perhaps help Gallego.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So what about Republican-held seats that they are trying to defend? Where are we seeing that happen?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah, there's incumbent Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Rick Scott. They're defending their seats in Texas and Florida, respectively. With Texas, you'll probably remember, Shamita, when Ted Cruz was being challenged by Democrat Beto O'Rourke. Cruz won by just over two percentage points. It was actually a very, very close race. And this time, Representative Colin Allred is challenging him. And actually, for what it's worth, the polls look quite close so far. Now, Texas has historically been a long shot for Democrats. We hear about it every single cycle, but they see their chances slowly improving in that state. And then in Florida, there's former Congresswoman Debbie McCarsall Powell, who is taking on Rick Scott. Florida similarly has been really elusive for many cycles now for Democrats, but they are thinking if they have a successful night in November, perhaps anything is possible.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Alright, a lot to watch, Gideon. Thanks so much.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yeah of course. Thank you.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to the West Bank, where Israel is on its second day of launching a new series of attacks in the occupied territory, the largest in decades. Israeli forces call it a counterterrorism operation. At least 14 people are dead. Here's Middle East correspondent Yolan Nell reporting on BBC.
--:-- Yolan Nell: What we've been hearing from local journalists really is it's in terms of the scope as well as the scale of this. It's being compared to the days of the Palestinian Second Intifada or uprising some two decades ago. I mean, it's hard to get a lot of information. Cities like Janine, the main entrances have been closed off by Israeli forces preventing journalists from getting in.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's focus on one of the cities mentioned that's being targeted, Janine. It's been a flashpoint in the long conflict between Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the West Bank, especially in recent years. It's home to thousands of descendants of Palestinians who were displaced by Israel's creation in 1948. Many live in a large refugee camp. It has one of the highest rates of unemployment and poverty among all the refugee camps in the West Bank. Reuters reports on how those conditions have helped generate hostility toward Israel and support for Palestinian militant groups among some refugees.
--:-- Yolan Nell: Israel says Iran-backed groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, base fighters in dense areas like the refugee camp in Jenin, and that they've seen a spike in attacks from the West Bank in recent months. Israel's foreign minister compared the situation to the one in Gaza, calling it a full-fledged war. And he says Israel may issue evacuation orders of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, similar to the orders in Gaza.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Also in recent months, attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank have increased. The U.N. counts more than a thousand of these attacks since the war in Gaza began and more than 600 Palestinians killed. CNN correspondent Paula Hancox spoke about how evacuations would affect Palestinian civilians.
--:-- Paula Hancox: It would be very significant when you're talking about these refugee camps in Shams, for example, in Janine. They are densely populated, a very similar situation to what we see in Gaza, where it would be difficult for them to be evacuated. And of course, there would be a concern if this operation were to be significantly increased by the Israelis. There would be civilian casualties within that as well. And she says medical care is under threat. We've also heard from the Ministry of Health in the West Bank that at least two hospitals have been blocked by the Israeli military, saying that there have been mounds of dirt, for example, pushed towards those areas.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We have seen and obtained video that would back up some of those claims. We seen some very heavy Israeli military assets in those areas bulldozers for example pushing up infrastructure and pavement We heard from the Red Crescent Society as well saying that their maneuvering of ambulances has been heavily restricted by the Israeli military as well.
--:-- Shamita Basu: With this escalation in the West Bank, Israel is now fighting on three fronts, including in Gaza and on its northern border with Hezbollah. Before we let you go, here are some other stories being featured in the Apple News app. There's new information in the dispute over what former President Trump and his campaign staff did on a visit to Arlington National Cemetery this week. NPR reports that an official there tried to prevent Trump staffers from taking photos and videos in a part of the cemetery where service members who died in recent conflicts are buried. That includes those killed in the Afghanistan withdrawal three years ago. Federal law does not allow partisan campaign activities inside military cemeteries. On social media, Trump posted a statement from families of service members buried there. It says they approved Trump's team getting footage of the visit.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In health news, the U.S. Surgeon General says that parents are under dangerous levels of stress. This may not be news to you if you've ever had to watch toddlers while working from home or monitor your teenager's social media habits. But Dr. Vivek Murthy says life is so challenging for parents right now that it warranted an advisory from his office. He's calling for a national paid family leave program, more support for parents in the workplace, and for pediatricians to give mental health screenings to parents while treating their children.
--:-- Dr. Vivek Murthy: The truth is, parenting is and has always really been a team sport. It's only in relatively recent years that we've come to put this pressure on parents, where they feel that they've got to do all of it by themselves. Otherwise, they're failing as parents. And the truth is, we need each other. We need fellow parents. We need friends. We need family. We need neighborhoods and communities that support parenting. And if we do, then kids, parents and all of us will be better off.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And in other news, a conviction in the murder of Las Vegas journalist Jeff Gehrman. A jury found former county official Robert Tellis guilty of stabbing him to death in 2022. Gehrman had reported on Tellis' alleged misconduct. The Las Vegas Review Journal's executive editor said Gehrman was killed for holding an elected politician accountable. After his death, journalists worked to make sure his legacy lived on by following through on his reporting. I spoke to Washington Post reporter Lizzie Johnson on Apple News in conversation last year about finishing Gehrman's final investigation. If you're listening in the Apple News app right now, that episode is queued up to play for you next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
