--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, March 12th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, the Trump administration threatens big funding cuts for higher education, lessons learned from the last major measles outbreak, and a possible beginning of the end of the war in Ukraine. But first, widespread tariffs from the Trump administration on foreign steel and aluminum are expected to take effect today, which would impact all countries the U.S. imports these resources from. Both steel and aluminum will be tariffed at 25 percent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And for one of those countries, Canada, Trump initially planned to double the tariff rate in response to a recent surcharge on electricity announced by Ontario, but he withdrew that threat after Ontario rolled back their tax. Trump's tariff strategy has been a roller coaster so far with threats and reversals. The stock market has been on a similar volatile ride, and it's left many wondering what exactly the president is trying to achieve with these tariffs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So we called up Dan Flatley, who covers national security and economics for Bloomberg News, for more insight into Trump's goals.
--:-- Dan Flatley: Essentially, what Trump is trying to do here is reorder international trade and try to revitalize American manufacturing. At the same time, he's also trying to raise revenue to extend his tax cuts from 2017 that were enacted in his first term.
--:-- Dan Flatley: But, it's difficult to know if the threats, delays and reversals are part of Trump's strategy and an indicator that it's working as intended because he's getting some concessions from foreign leaders. Or if these walkbacks signal that his plans are flawed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Of course, that is all sort of this grand experiment that's happening in real time. And so there is a school of thought that all of these moves on tariffs may be ultimately, him trying to get some sort of grand bargain with Canada and Mexico and with China to basically bring in more revenue to the United States, achieve what he calls a more even playing field for U.S. workers, and to reshore some U.S. manufacturing.
--:-- Dan Flatley: In Trump's first term, he did not issue tariffs as widely as he has in this term. But those tariffs didn't result in the promised increase in American factory jobs or heightened inflation that those for and against the tariffs had forecasted.
--:-- Dan Flatley: This time, the president has said he believes being more aggressive with tariffs could lead to bigger economic impact. He also didn't rule out the possibility of a recession in a recent interview with Fox News.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing. And there are always periods of it takes a little time.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump has claimed credit for the market in more bullish times, but he says right now he's not paying attention to how the stock market reacts to tariffs to consider adjustments to his policy.
--:-- Dan Flatley: However, Flatley told us the Treasury and Commerce secretaries certainly are watching the markets. They say Americans just have to be patient during this period.
--:-- Shamita Basu: However, economists by and large do not agree with the president's approach to tariffs. They've warned shoring up American manufacturing could take a long time, and the risk of tariffs could scare off companies that are considering making long investments in the U.S.
--:-- Dan Flatley: Ultimately, Flatley says Trump tariff strategy appears to be a big gamble. If we do enter into a recession, what it means for Trump's economic plans, he may have to dial some of those back depending on what happens.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's all kind of playing out in real time, and we'll just have to sort of see how it all shakes out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to education news. Yesterday evening, the Department of Education said it will cut its workforce nearly in half this month as President Trump works to eliminate the agency altogether.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, the DOE's Office of Civil Rights on Monday sent letters to 60 colleges and universities telling them that they're under investigation or being monitored for alleged violations relating to, quote, anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the letters warned further action would be taken if schools do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The schools that received this letter include a mix of large, small, public, and private institutions nationwide. To name just a few, Columbia University, Middlebury College in Vermont, Ohio State University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Virginia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At these schools, over the course of the last year plus, some students have gathered to protest the war in Gaza and express support for Palestinians. Many demonstrators called on their schools to divest from companies that are profiting from the war.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And in some of those cases, like at Northwestern University and Brown University, their efforts succeeded.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In an interview with CNBC yesterday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon characterized the protests as attacks on Jewish students and faculty.
--:-- Linda McMahon: Campuses and universities should be about open debate and discussion. What they should not be about is violence, attacking other students, attacking faculty to put forth, their anti-Semitic views.
--:-- Shamita Basu: These are attacks on Jewish students, Jewish faculty.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some Jewish students at Columbia and other schools told reporters at the height of protests last year they did feel unsafe at times on their campuses.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Students reported verbal harassment from protesters. And at Yale, a student says she was hit in the eye by a Palestinian flag. She believed she was targeted for wearing a Star of David necklace.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But some Jewish students and faculty members have pushed back on assessments of anti-Semitism and say they've supported the anti-war causes on their campuses.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the protesters more broadly have said there is nothing anti-Semitic about protesting Israel's attacks on Gaza, calling for a ceasefire or expressing solidarity with Palestinians.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Joseph Hawley, an associate professor at Columbia University, who is Jewish, made a similar point in a recent conversation with Democracy Now!
--:-- Joseph Hawley: But look, we do have problems with, harassment and bias towards Jewish students. We have problems with harassment and bias towards Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian students.
--:-- Joseph Hawley: Every time Israel goes on a new killing spree in the occupied Palestinian territories, anti-Semitism surges around the world. Every time, you know, Hamas kills hundreds of people, we have to deal with attacks on Muslims and Arabs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Colombia is the Trump administration's biggest higher ed target at the moment. The administration recently canceled $5 million in federal grants and contracts with Colombia claiming the school failed to respond to allegations of anti-Semitism on campus.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And it says a federal task force will be reviewing more than $1 billion in federal grants for the school to make sure it's in compliance with civil rights responsibilities.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last summer, Columbia's interim president, Katrina Armstrong, established an Office of Institutional Equity to address reports of discrimination.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And more recently, when federal funding cuts were announced, Armstrong said in an internal letter that the university was, quote, committed to working with the federal government to address their legitimate concerns.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump has vowed to make similar cuts at other schools now under investigation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The measles outbreak in Texas has now infected more than 200 people in the South Plains region of the state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At least 29 people have been hospitalized and one child who was unvaccinated has died.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's been a challenge for state officials to respond. The Texas Tribune reports in rural parts of the state, issues like a shortage of primary care providers and long distances between labs and testing sites have been difficult to overcome.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Public health officials in Texas can look to the East Coast for some lessons learned from another major, fairly recent, measles outbreak, one in which officials were able to stave off a larger epidemic in a much more densely populated area.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The biggest measles outbreak that happened in the years after the U.S. declared that measles was eliminated in the U.S. happened in 2019 in New York City.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Deirdre McPhillips is a data editor with CNN's health team. That outbreak was mostly concentrated in two Orthodox Jewish communities, one in Brooklyn and another in Rockland County, north of the city.
--:-- Deirdre McPhillips: And it was much bigger than what's happening now in Texas. There were almost 1,000 measles cases in combination of Rockland County and New York City.
--:-- Deirdre McPhillips: McPhillips reports work had already been underway to reach out to these communities about measles. But once the outbreak hit, one thing that really helped strengthen the response was state officials declaring a state of emergency that helped unlock resources, fuel outreach, and in some cases even fine schools that were letting unvaccinated kids attend.
--:-- Deirdre McPhillips: Some of the most impactful campaigning involved gaining trust in the Orthodox community and understanding what kinds of conversations were happening around vaccines.
--:-- Deirdre McPhillips: One thing that was happening in the communities was that there was a lot of misinformation about measles and also the vaccination.
--:-- Deirdre McPhillips: A lot of the work that was happening on the ground was to help parents understand that the measles vaccine is safe and also that measles isn't as benign as they were led to believe.
--:-- Deirdre McPhillips: McPhillips says health officials came up with a highly individual approach and went door to door to answer questions.
--:-- Deirdre McPhillips: There was a lot of involvement from trusted messengers in the community. A nurse association of Orthodox Jewish nurses were involved in creating a pamphlet that they hung on every person's door in the neighborhood that helped explain that the vaccine was safe and what it did to help protect kids.
--:-- Deirdre McPhillips: The city ended up administering 200,000 doses of the measles vaccine in New York City and another 30,000 in Rockland County.
--:-- Deirdre McPhillips: A retrospective study said those efforts averted a crisis that could have been 10 times worse, with as many as 80,000 infected.
--:-- Shamita Basu: McPhillips says even though New York was somewhat of a success story how to prevent measles has been known for a long time. This is not a lesson that we learned in 2019. We knew for a while, but the vaccine really works.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When measles was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, the average number of cases since then has only been about 180 cases per year. Before that, it was about 5,000.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And we have all of this look-back analysis at how much getting kids vaccinated really did help prevent the spread.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. In Congress, House Republicans passed a bill to avert a government shutdown scheduled to start on Friday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The bill now goes to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. The stopgap measure passed along a party-line vote, with the exception of one Democrat voting yes and one Republican voting no.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The measure funds the government through the end of the fiscal year, which is September 30th, and largely keeps spending flat, with a slight increase in defense spending.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Senate Democrats, the New York Times notes, are in a bit of a bind. Either pass the bill and give President Trump and Elon Musk wider leeway to continue slashing the federal workforce and programs, or be blamed for a shutdown.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In international news, the United States lifted its pause on military and intelligence aid to Ukraine on Tuesday as Kiev agreed to a proposed ceasefire that could signal the beginning of the end of its three-year war with Russia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's Secretary of State Marco Rubio after negotiating the deal in an eight-hour session with Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Marco Rubio: Today, we made an offer that the Ukrainians have accepted, which is to enter into a ceasefire and into immediate negotiations to end this conflict in a way that's enduring and sustainable and accounts for their interests, their security, their ability to prosper as a nation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Russia has not yet signaled whether it will agree to the deal, which proposes an immediate 30-day ceasefire to start.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One expert told The Washington Post this is a savvy move by President Zelensky, whose standing in the war was weakened by his Oval Office spat with Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The onus, that expert said, is now on Russia to accept or risk angering Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, the National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday released its preliminary report on the D.C. plane crash in late January between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet in which all 67 people died.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It doesn't offer an explanation for the cause of the crash. CNN reports that's expected to take more than a year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In this report, the NTSB is recommending a ban on all helicopter flights near Reagan Airport while certain runways are in use, and new routes for helicopter pilots, saying the current routes pose an intolerable risk, which should have been recognized earlier.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he will adopt the NTSB's recommendations, saying helicopters no longer will be threading the needle flying under landing planes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The New Yorker examines how the battle over free speech and campus activism is playing out at Harvard, another one of the universities that received a letter from the Trump administration threatening to resend federal funding.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
