--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Wednesday, February 14th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: On today's show, why a crucial Palestinian aid agency is in crisis, how an update to the college financial aid process led to some chaos, and celebrating yourself this Valentine's Day. But first, let's take a quick look at a few major stories in the news.
--:-- Starting in the Middle East, where officials from Israel, Egypt, Qatar, and the United States met in Cairo yesterday to negotiate a possible second ceasefire in Gaza. The plan would pause fighting there for up to six weeks and involve another swap of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages. Initial conversations ended without a breakthrough.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The talks come as Israel plans to invade Rafah, the city in southern Gaza that borders Egypt. Egypt has threatened to suspend its peace treaty with Israel if the Israeli military moves forward with that offensive.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Speaking from the White House on Monday, President Biden said he hopes negotiations continue. But I encourage Israeli leaders to keep working to achieve the deal. The United States will do everything possible to make it happen.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now to New York, where Democrat Tom Suozzi won a snowy special election in the state's third congressional district yesterday. This was the seat previously held by Republican Congressman George Santos. Suozzi defeated his Republican opponent, Mozzie Pillip, in a race that was seen as a referendum on national political issues like immigration.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Suozzi's victory narrows the Republican majority in the House. Now Speaker Mike Johnson could only afford to lose two Republican votes on any partisan bill.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Speaking of partisan efforts, Republicans in the House voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last night. They have accused him of refusing to comply with U.S. border laws, which he denies. This second effort to impeach him passed by a single vote.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Mayorkas is now the first cabinet secretary to be impeached in nearly 150 years. The issue now heads to the Democrat-controlled Senate, where it's unlikely Mayorkas will be convicted and removed from office.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And in sports, according to preliminary data, the Super Bowl on Sunday was the most-watched television event in U.S. history. More than 123 million people tuned in to watch the Kansas City Chiefs take down the San Francisco 49ers.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Chiefs will have their victory parade today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The main UN agency tasked with providing aid to Palestinians is running out of money. Major donor countries including the U.S. cut funding to UNRWA after Israel accused a dozen of the organization's 13,000 staff members of taking part in the Hamas attacks on October 7th.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Experts say so far the Israeli allegations are unverified, and the UN says Israel has yet to share its intelligence with them. The agency's commissioner fired the accused employees, but he admitted that he did so without due process.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The New York Times reports that several employees had been fired or left the agency in the past due to links to Hamas. And two UN investigations are looking into the veracity of these new claims.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Separately, the Israeli military led a group of journalists on a tour of tunnels that the military claims Hamas had been using beneath a portion of the UNRWA headquarters.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: UNRWA said in a statement that it had not been informed by Israel of the tunnel's existence and that the headquarters were vacated on October 12th.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But the allegations and investigations are threatening to impact the future of the organization's work. To fully put this moment in context, it's important to understand how essential UNRWA is to Palestinians and how UNRWA and Israel have long been at odds.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Here's how the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres characterized the organization's work. UNRWA is the backbone of all humanitarian response in Gaza. I appeal to all member states to guarantee the continuity of UNRWA's life-saving work.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The group's full name is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. It was established in 1949 as a way to help hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were displaced after Israel's founding.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In this current crisis, it has been the lead agency providing food, water, shelter, and other emergency aid. And it's provided these basic needs for decades for Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Since the October 7th attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for its dismantling. UNRWA is self-perpetuating. It is self-perpetuating also in its desire to keep alive the Palestinian refugees' issue. And we need to get other UN agencies and other aid agencies replacing UNRWA if we're going to solve the problem of Gaza.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But UNRWA's commissioner, Philippe Lazzarini, says there is no other aid agency ready to step in. And he says it's not just about providing emergency help during the current war.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: He argues that UNRWA is the only group poised to offer essential services and some stability after, whenever that moment of transition comes. We have half a million girls and boys deeply traumatized that we urgently need to bring back into an education system.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And this will not be provided by an emerging local administration. There is absolutely no other UN agency or INGOs which have been tasked over the last few decades to provide government-like services like education to hundreds of children.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Lazzarini said if funding doesn't resume soon, UNRWA could be forced to shut down their operations by the end of the month.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There have been major issues in the past few weeks with FAFSA, the main form aspiring college students need to fill out to calculate their financial aid packages.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: More than 17 million students file for aid every year through FAFSA, or the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. But the latest version has been riddled with problems.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It all started when Congress mandated that FAFSA revamp its system to make it easier for people to apply. Danielle Douglas-Gabriel is a higher education reporter with The Washington Post.
--:-- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel: The new streamlined FAFSA form was supposed to soft launch at the end of 2023. So December 30th rolls around, and the form goes live really quickly, but it's only available for a couple of hours.
--:-- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel: And parents were livid because many of the ones, especially the ones I spoke with, were waiting hours trying to get into this form. And the next day, they're still waiting hours. New Year's Day, they're waiting hours, and they're just getting error messages or being told to hold tight in a waiting room.
--:-- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel: Finally, the forum went live in January, but with a lot of issues. As a result, parents, students, and colleges haven't been able to get much-needed financial aid information.
--:-- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel: Some schools have faced no choice but to push back the traditional May 1 deadline that students need to commit to a university by. What's more, I report that many people who already completed the new FAFSA will likely receive an incorrect estimate for aid.
--:-- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel: That's because the Education Department initially failed to update a crucial formula. And so now we're in February, and there are a lot of students who are in this situation worrying, will I be able to submit this form? And if so, will it get to the schools that I'm looking at in time to receive a clearer picture of what I'll actually have to pay for college and what support I'll get.
--:-- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel: Currently enrolled college students are impacted as well. They use FAFSA to find out what kind of aid they qualify for year to year.
--:-- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel: I spoke with Leah, the mom of a student in Texas. She is a woman who is helping her husband go through chemotherapy, helping to keep her household in order, and wanting to make sure that her oldest daughter, who's enrolled in a public institution in Texas, is able to remain enrolled.
--:-- Danielle Douglas-Gabriel: And, you know, in talking to Leah, it's hard not to have your eyes water up a little bit because you can sense her fear of not being able to help her daughter and her daughter having to drop out.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yesterday, the Department of Education announced new measures to help address these problems.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: They say they're doing everything they can to work on them quickly, but also that Congress mandated the changes to the FAFSA without giving them adequate funding to support them.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Meanwhile, colleges are bracing for more hiccups. And students tell The Washington Post they're worried that their dream schools might be slipping out of reach.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's unfortunate. And I feel for parents who are feeling this pressure and this stress of not being able to help their children with one of the most critical decisions of their life.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And it's difficult. It's a difficult time.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Finally, today is Valentine's Day. If you were planning to get someone you love a gift and you haven't yet, you can thank me for that reminder.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But also, have you ever considered just treating yourself? The Wall Street Journal reports how more and more people are using the holiday to celebrate themselves and buying gifts that say, I love me.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We live in a country, after all, where nearly half of people are not married and where, according to Pew, most single people say they aren't actively looking for a partner.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Which is why the journal says retailers, both large and small, have been adjusting to this growing trend of self-indulgence.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Even gifts traditionally marketed for couples, like lingerie or jewelry, are now being marketed as something for women to gift to themselves.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: This trend is getting so popular that last year, 39% of people in a poll cited by the journal said they bought themselves a Valentine's Day gift.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Some people told the journal that buying gifts for themselves made them feel independent. And others say it's a nice way to avoid receiving yet another pair of itchy socks from a well-meaning partner.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And if you're already listening to the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up from The Atlantic. Silicon Valley startups are building their own societies and designing them to their liking.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow. Thank you.
