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--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, September 9th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Queen Elizabeth II has died at 96. She reigned over the United Kingdom for 70 years, longer than anyone, and was the world's oldest monarch.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She became queen at the age of 25 in 1952. Harry Truman was the president.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Many Britons saw Queen Elizabeth as a steady presence during difficult times. She ruled over the country as it transitioned from an empire to a commonwealth and the superpower that it is today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In 1957, she delivered her first televised Christmas broadcast.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's inevitable that I should seem a rather remote figure to many of you, a successor to the kings and queens of history, someone whose face may be familiar in newspapers and films, but who never really touches your personal lives.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But now, at least for a few minutes, I welcome you to the peace of my own home.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Earlier Christmas speeches had been delivered on the radio, but this televised BBC broadcast was one of the first signs that she wanted to modernize the monarchy, including using mass media to connect.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She spoke about rapid changes taking place in society.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today, we need a special kind of courage. Not the kind needed in battle, but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right. Everything that is true and honest.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Tina Brown has written about the royal family for years. I spoke to her a few months ago, just as the Queen was preparing to celebrate her platinum jubilee.
--:-- Tina Brown: I think Elizabeth's legacy will be, you know, that the monarchy survives and remains. An institution that embodies service and duty and stoicism and British commitment to fairness and justice.
--:-- Tina Brown: I think that that's really what she wants to see happen, that the monarchy itself continues with the purpose that she's brought to it, and that her family can continue to do that.
--:-- Tina Brown: Brown says the Queen was all about decorum and discipline.
--:-- Tina Brown: The Queen has understood for the whole of her life the power of the royal silence, the need for her to be inscrutable, the need for her to be genuinely impartial, to not have any evidence about her of a political, a partisan, a personal point of view that could give any kind of suasion to anyone else's views.
--:-- Tina Brown: And she's managed to uphold that all of this time, which is really extraordinary.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Still, the Queen faced many scandals.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Several royal marriages fell apart during her reign, most famously that of Charles and Diana.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Queen was initially criticized for a slow official response after Diana's death.
--:-- Shamita Basu: More recently, her son Prince Andrew settled a lawsuit over sexual abuse allegations he denied.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And, of course, there was Harry and Meghan's public exit from their royal roles.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For some Britons, the monarchy itself was the problem.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some see the institution as an outdated relic of colonialism, tainted by the violence and greed of empire.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some see it simply as a waste of public money.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The queen was personally criticized for not paying income taxes, a policy that was changed in the 90s.
--:-- Shamita Basu: During her time, the monarchy made moves to cut costs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Fifteen British prime ministers served during Queen Elizabeth's reign, starting with Winston Churchill.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One of her last official duties on Tuesday was appointing Liz Truss as Britain's new prime minister.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yesterday, Truss spoke about the Queen's legacy and the transition to supporting the new king, Charles III, who at the age of 73 is the oldest person ever to assume the British throne.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We offer him our loyalty and devotion, just as his mother devoted so much to so many for so long.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And with the passing of the Second Elizabethan Age, we usher in a new era in the magnificent history of our great country, exactly as Her Majesty would have wished, by saying the words, God save the king.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Charles became king the moment that his mother died.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That transition is instant.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But in the days ahead, there's a long series of events planned, remembering the queen and marking the shift to this new reign.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today, King Charles will meet the prime minister in London and make his first televised address as head of state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The royal family and the government have been planning these events for decades, mostly in secret.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But some details have leaked out, in particular in reporting last year from Politico and a few years back from The Guardian.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The plans are pretty fascinating to read about.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's codenames, orders of operation, rehearsals.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some details are planned down to the minute.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Codenames allow royal staff and civil servants to avoid saying things like "The Queen has died out loud."
--:-- Shamita Basu: The plan for her death was codenamed London Bridge.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Guardian reported it laid out how the Prime Minister would be informed of her death with the message, London Bridge is down.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Then others in government and around the world would be informed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Politico said the day of the Queen's death was referred to by planners as D-Day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So today is D plus one, Saturday is D plus two, and so on.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Each day has its own set plans, including backup plans if anything goes wrong.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For example, Operation Unicorn, as it's called, lays out how to carry the queen's body from Scotland, where she died, to London via royal train.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Another train would follow hers to clear piles of flowers thrown on the tracks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If rail travel isn't possible for any reason, Operation Overstudy goes into effect.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That means her coffin will be transferred by plane.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Queen's coffin will be moved from Buckingham Palace along a ceremonial route.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The public will be able to visit her once she's lying in state at the Palace of Westminster.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, her funeral will be at Westminster Abbey.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We have a collection of stories about the life of Queen Elizabeth and the transition to King Charles, including a collection of rare photos from the Queen's life that have never been published before.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all of that on the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to domestic news and the midterm elections, now less than two months away.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Currently, Democrats narrowly control the House and the Senate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Many forecasters expected them to lose both in the midterms, but things seem to be changing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Cook Political Report recently lowered its forecast for how many seats Republicans will pick up in the House, and it sees Senate control as a toss-up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Republicans have so far been banking on a few things.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Biden's poor approval ratings, high inflation, and structural advantages through gerrymandering.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But in the last few months, the political ground seems to have shifted toward Democrats.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: I was just thinking, and I wrote this the other day, about that famous clip of Vince Lombardi saying what the hell's going on out here when he's a Green Bay Packers coach.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: And that's sort of how I feel about it as an analyst.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: I feel a little torn.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: He says the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade is what's changing things.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: He sees a shift in polling and in recent electoral results.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: The political environment has just seemed to be trending toward Republicans, and that momentum, I think, has stopped and even maybe reversed itself a little bit.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: Over the next few months, he's going to be watching where parties are spending money and where they have to play defense.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: But even if there is a momentum swing toward Democrats, Kondik reminds us we're talking about super slim margins.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: Let's say the results in November are that the Republicans net, you know, one Senate seat and 10 House seats.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: On one hand, you could say, historically speaking, for a midterm, it's pretty disappointing.
--:-- Kyle Kondik: On the other hand, that would give Republicans control of both chambers of Congress.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So that's the important thing going on here.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So again, they're still very much in the game to flip both chambers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before I let you go, let me tell you what's coming up on this weekend's episode of In Conversation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I talk with the artist Jenny O'Dell, author of the book How to Do Nothing, resisting the attention economy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's doing nothing with like air quotes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yeah. When Jenny says doing nothing, she's not talking about being bored or watching paint dry.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The point is to pull away from the things that we call productive in a capitalistic or work-oriented way and instead engage in things that aren't measured in dollars or clicks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can actually perceive more sometimes by doing less.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I think I quote the acoustic ecologist Gordon Hampton, who basically is saying that, like, if you're silent, then you can actually hear what is around you.
--:-- Shamita Basu: My conversation with Odell is the last episode of our Think Again series, which has been all about challenging the way that you look at your life, your work, and your relationships.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Each episode was designed to sort of shock the system a bit, to shake you out of your default and encourage you to explore a new perspective.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you haven't yet, I really hope you'll go back and listen through all of the Think Again episodes we put out.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's Malcolm Gladwell on how to be better at changing your mind.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I wonder whether if people on the kind of dug-in extremes held their ideas a little more lightly, there would be greater room for some compromise or common ground.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Gender expert Kate Mangino on how to have more equal and more fair partnerships.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's little things. It's thoughtful, small actions that show each other that I get you and I love you enough to do this for you.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the hosts of the Maintenance Phase podcast gave us some advice on how to spot junk health science and navigate wellness culture.
--:-- Shamita Basu: First of all, don't trust anybody who's telling you to do something unsustainable for a short period of time because it's a self-esteem nightmare.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's a lifestyle nightmare. Just don't do it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all of these episodes by following Apple News in conversation in the news or in the podcast app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'll be back with the news on Monday.
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