--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Thursday, May 30th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamit Abassu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Coming up on today's show, Biden and Trump's positions on Israel and Gaza, why it's getting harder for some groups in some states to register voters, and an unconventional trend in the funeral business.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Israel says the war in Gaza will likely last through the end of this year. That would mean fighting continues through the U.S. presidential election. There's speculation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would prefer a Trump victory. The two were close when Trump was previously in office, when he controversially moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But Ben Samuels, U.S. correspondent for Haaretz, says Trump and Biden's stated views on the current conflict in Gaza have way more similarities than a lot of people might realize.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Trump is sort of considered the wild, bluster, hawkish guy, and Biden is sort of being painted as the guy who is wavering on Israel. But when you actually look at their comments, if you read Biden's most recent comments on the war given to the Jewish American Heritage event at the White House, you'd be hard-pressed to see if that was from a Democratic president or a Republican president.
--:-- Ben Samuels: While Biden has criticized some of Israel's moves, I say a lot of it has been rhetoric without much action to back it up. For example, earlier this month, Biden told CNN that he would halt some weapon shipments to Israel if it launched a full-scale invasion of Rafa.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But this week, the White House said an Israeli airstrike there that hit a refugee camp, killing at least 45 Palestinians and injuring hundreds more, did not cross a red line.
--:-- Ben Samuels: The U.S. did pause an arms shipment at one point a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, Trump reportedly told a group of wealthy donors this month that he supports Israel's war on terror, and that student protesters in the U.S. should be thrown out of the country.
--:-- Ben Samuels: But at the same time, he's been critical of Netanyahu, calling him out for allowing the October 7th Hamas attacks to happen on his watch.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The North star for both of these candidates is that Hamas must be defeated and Israel must do whatever it needs to do to ensure its self-defense and the United States will support that.
--:-- Ben Samuels: So that kind of goes unchallenged. But where it differentiates is how Israel can actually go about doing that and how Israel should actually go about doing that.
--:-- Ben Samuels: President Biden's tensions with Netanyahu are well known. And I say on the policy front Biden has called for far more protection for civilians, more humanitarian aid, and for the Palestinian Authority to administer Gaza in the aftermath of the war.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Trump hasn't really laid out what kind of military strategy he wants to see or what the plan should be for the day after. He has also said he doesn't think a two-state solution would work.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: With Trump, it's a little bit less specific. All you're really hearing from him is that Israel needs to finish the job, they need to do it quickly.
--:-- Ben Samuels: And the thing that he's really focusing on in terms of attacking Biden is saying that Biden is not only betraying Israel, but he is allowing domestic anti-Semitism to fester because of his failure to properly combat the nationwide campus protest movement.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Ultimately, I say both candidates remain steadfast in support for Israel, even if they have some criticism of its conduct. And both want the war over as soon as possible.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: For Biden in particular, the longer it goes on, the greater impact it could have on his campaign. It's obviously not going to be the issue that everyone goes to the polls thinking about, but on the margins, especially in swing states that have heavy Arab populations, that have heavy Muslim populations, that have a lot of young people that have grown increasingly disillusioned with Biden and his policies, it really could make a difference in terms of how it tips to scales.
--:-- [Music transitions to a new segment]
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now to some other big stories in the news. Staying with the war in Gaza, violence continues in the South following the Israeli strike on the Rafa refugee camp we mentioned earlier.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And we're learning more about the impact of continued Israeli attacks. Al Jazeera spoke to an eyewitness who had a graphic description of the aftermath of a strike that Palestinian officials said hit a tent camp in southern Gaza.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Most of those killed were women and children. Children were always playing here. They were all torn to pieces, body parts scattered all over the place. Women and innocent children.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Israel denied attacking that camp west of Rafa.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Separately, Israel's military said it now has control of a buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt that effectively gives Israel control over Gaza's entire land border.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In legal news, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito says he will not recuse himself from 2020 election or capital insurrection cases.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: A group of Democratic lawmakers had called on him to do so after news reports that flags associated with Capitol attackers and election deniers flew over Alito properties.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: He says his wife flew the flags and that she was not trying to associate herself with the so Stop the Steal movement or any other group.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As for Trump's New York criminal case, jury deliberations continue today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yesterday, jurors asked to review testimony from Trump's ex-lawyer Michael Cohen and former National Enquirer boss David Pecker.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And in Hong Kong, 14 pro-democracy activists have been found guilty of subversion after trying to hold an unofficial primary election.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's the biggest national security case yet tried under a sweeping law imposed by Beijing. Activists say the verdict is another sign of the threat to freedom in Hong Kong, following government crackdowns since the 2019 protests.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Voter registration drives at places like churches, parks, and grocery stores play a vital role in getting Americans involved in the political process.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: They register people who are often hardest to reach. Low-income folks, people who don't speak English, people who might get left out.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But the groups that do this work say it's gotten much harder since 2020 due to legislation passed by Republicans in a number of states.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: For example, in Florida, a law imposed new rules around who is allowed to do the work of registering voters.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It created more paperwork for these groups and bigger penalties if they make errors. The new maximum fine is $250,000.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Longtime civil rights activist LaVon Bracey told NPR this had a chilling effect.
--:-- LaVon Bracey: Literally, when we're talking nonprofits, where every dollar counts.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: A federal judge blocked parts of that law, including a stipulation that non-U.S. citizens could not collect registration applications.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Even so, several groups have shut down their registration drives. Others have adjusted by guiding voters to register on their own.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Carolina Wassmer, the Florida program director for a group that focuses on registering Latino voters, told NPR about the challenges.
--:-- Carolina Wassmer: All the rules and regulations keep me up at night.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's why I always tell the canvassers and educate them on, like, we have to do things to the best. We also always consult our legal team.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Republican lawmakers in Florida say the new rules are meant to combat fraud in elections.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There was one case in the state where six canvassers were arrested for allegedly falsifying a few dozen applications.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But critics of the law say it's solving for a problem that by and large does not exist, that in reality there's no evidence of widespread fraud in voter registration drives across the country.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In Florida, the law is already having a big impact. Registrations through drives there fell by 95% in the months after the law went into effect compared to the same period four years earlier.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: University of Florida political science professor Daniel Smith told NPR millions of people have relied on these groups in Florida.
--:-- Daniel Smith: Not every individual is the same. Not every individual has the same opportunities to register or re-register. They have various types of barriers. Maybe it's transportation. Maybe it's information.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: At least five other states led by Republicans have passed similar legislation since the 2020 election. Many are being challenged in court.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In the meantime, voter registration groups in those states are trying to figure out if and how to continue their work.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Finally, a look at an unusual new option around a topic that's difficult to talk about but impossible to avoid. What happens after we pass away?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The typical choices are cremation or burial, but both can be bad for the environment. Cremations cause a lot of pollution, burials involve poisonous and bombing chemicals, plus coffins take up scarce land.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Los Angeles Times reports that some people are deciding to go with something greener, human composting. The official term is natural organic reduction, which turns human remains into soil.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The LA Times spoke to several families whose loved ones chose this route. One woman spread her late husband's soil in a favorite patch of woods.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In another case, when Wayne Thomas Dodge died, his soil was given to friends and family, along with pots of his beloved Japanese maple trees.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: They're now planted all over the Seattle area. His relative, Marie Eaton, talked to CBS about the impact.
--:-- Marie Eaton: When I come out to garden, he's there. And every time I'm under one of the maples, I think, oh yeah, Wayne, you're here.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Ten states have legalized human composting, and others are taking steps to join them.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: 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 have a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The New Yorker has the story of the biggest Ponzi scheme in Hollywood history. It looks at how a struggling actor scammed friends out of millions.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
