--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, November 10th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, growing violence in the West Bank, explaining the Michigan football sign-stealing accusations, and the end of a long and twisted Airbnb saga. But first, Israel has agreed to daily pauses in its attacks to allow more civilians in Gaza to evacuate and more humanitarian aid to reach people. This is the kind of move the Biden administration has been pushing for weeks, but it still falls short of the ceasefire that many other countries are calling for.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's move now from Gaza to the West Bank, where violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers and troops has spiked since October 7th. Israel's military says it's conducting raids on militants. The International Crisis Group estimates more than 130 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war. NPR sent teams of journalists there recently where they reported from farming villages.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's harvest season for olive trees, and some Palestinian farmers say they've been blocked from their land since the war began. Last week, a farmer named Bilal Saleh was killed working in the groves. NPR's Steve Inskeep went to speak with his family to try to piece together what happened. Their village sits on one side of the valley, and an Israeli settlement is on the other.
--:-- Hazem Saleh: So the family decided to leave. But, he told Inskeep, Bilal turned back because he forgot his cell phone. At that time, we heard two bullets or three bullets. Two or three gunshots. What I heard, two. You heard two? Yes.
--:-- Hazem Saleh: His brother says they found Bilal bleeding with wounds to the arm and chest. They carried him back to his wife and children and he died with them by his side.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Israeli military arrested an off-duty soldier who has since been released from custody. The military didn't explain to NPR why it released him.
--:-- Bilal's Widow: The law that they have for themselves is stronger than our existence. Many Palestinians in the West Bank feel the justice system, largely under effective Israeli control, is tilted against them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A report last year from an Israeli human rights group found failures in oversight, that only 1% of Israeli soldiers accused of killing or harming Palestinians were ever indicted.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, a quick look at some other stories in the news. Republicans are more hopeful about their chances of retaking control of the Senate now that West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin says he won't seek another term.
--:-- Joe Manchin: I've made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate. But what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some political analysts see that last bit as a hint that Manchin may consider an independent run for president in 2024.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In personal finance news, the IRS is changing tax brackets in a way that could lower what you owe on next year's earnings. Income levels for brackets are going up next year to account for inflation. The standard deduction will also be bigger.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But again, that applies to 2024 income, not what you'll owe in the upcoming tax season. You can read details on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And a team of U.S. surgeons has performed the world's first transplant of a whole eye. If it's ultimately successful, it could transform how vision is treated. The patient was severely injured by an electric shock and received the new eye in a partial face transplant.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's early, and the patient hasn't regained sight yet, but initial results show that there seems to be communication between the transplanted eye and his brain.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to the big scandal in college football involving one of its top teams, undefeated Michigan. It's accused of going beyond the rules to decode the hand signals rival teams use to call plays.
--:-- Pat Forty: This basically goes back to Connor Stallions, a former analyst, low-level staffer at the University of Michigan, who was discovered sending out associates to opposing teams that Michigan was going to play to buy tickets to sit in the stands and to videotape and record the play signals that they used to send in plays to the players on the field.
--:-- Pat Forty: Stallions has since resigned and said that university staffers were not aware of what he was doing. Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh has said he didn't know about the scheme.
--:-- Pat Forty: College sports officials are investigating. Now, depending on what they find, Harbaugh could be suspended and Michigan's whole program punished.
--:-- Pat Forty: The tricky thing about this one is sign-stealing, as shady as it sounds, can be legal. If coaches figure out what plays the other team is calling while they're playing them or by watching on television, that's fine.
--:-- Pat Forty: But certain advanced surveillance moves, like filming future opponents, can cross the line. Now, if you ask any college coach, they'll tell you that to some degree, sign stealing is happening all the time.
--:-- Pat Forty: Everyone's trying to pick apart how their opponents operate. And this is an argument Michigan is pushing. Just this week, it handed over documents to league officials that it claims shows evidence of other teams trying to decipher Michigan's signals.
--:-- Pat Forty: As I explain, a sort of, see, everyone's doing it argument. And so if you're going to penalize us for this, you need to penalize the rest of the league that was trying to spy on us. Or penalize any of us, which would really be what Michigan would prefer.
--:-- Pat Forty: The outcome of this scandal could have major implications for college football. This season, you know, as far as Michigan goes, in this, and they might have the best team in the country, they're going to be playing under a cloud of suspicion, a cloud of acrimony.
--:-- Pat Forty: And it also, I think, I'm not sure, relationships were great for Michigan with the rest of the Big Ten, but going forward, they're fractured.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In California, a bizarre tenant dispute that attracted national attention is finally over. Sort of. Now, you might remember seeing this viral story from the Los Angeles Times about a luxury Airbnb rental with a guest who checked in as usual and then just refused to check out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She stayed there without paying rent for almost 600 days. It was a long and messy personal and legal battle between the guest, Elizabeth Hirshhorn, and the homeowner, Sasha Jovanovich.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's way more than I could attempt to explain here, and the whole twisty story is pretty entertaining to read. So if you haven't already, you should check it out for yourself on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Or just wait for the inevitable straight-to-streaming documentary that somebody's got to be working on about this.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, the recent update is, last week, seemingly out of nowhere, Hirshhorn left. Javanovich says he still doesn't know what happened.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If she moved out permanently or plans to come back, it may not be over. Lawyers for both sides are still exchanging messages, and Hirshhorn wouldn't comment to the LA Times.
--:-- Shamita Basu: After this experience, Javanovich seems to be done with the whole Airbnb thing. He says he's not planning to list the rental again, and he's already changed the locks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the news app right now, stick around for a narrated article that is so L.A., even though it's by New York Magazine.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's about the ultra-fancy, ultra-hyped California grocery store Air One. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Enjoy your weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday. Thank you.
