--:-- Shumita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, May 6th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shumita Basu: On today's show, Israel's plans to take more control of the Gaza Strip, how Trump's tariffs could impact your favorite movies, and what to know about today's Real ID deadline. But first, attorneys general from 19 Democratic states plus Washington, D.C., are suing the Trump administration over efforts to overhaul the Department of Health and Human Services.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So far, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has eliminated 20,000 full-time positions at HHS and has canceled funding for a number of longstanding research programs that support millions of Americans.
--:-- Shumita Basu: One is the Diabetes Prevention Program, which has been tracking people with type 2 diabetes and prediabetes for three decades. And it also works to better understand associated diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Around 38 million people in the U.S. have diabetes, and the CDC estimates that one in five people don't know that they have it.
--:-- Shumita Basu: NBC News health reporter Aria Bendix told us about the impact of canceling this program.
--:-- Aria Bendix: Columbia University was one of the sites participating in the study, and it handled the bulk of the funding. So the researchers now say they can't do blood work, brain scans, urine samples, all the things that are necessary to study patient outcomes.
--:-- Aria Bendix: And they're also really worried about the ability to preserve the data sets that they've already collected.
--:-- Aria Bendix: These cuts come as Kennedy says that tackling chronic disease is a cornerstone of his Make America Healthy Again agenda.
--:-- Aria Bendix: Another long-running program HHS terminated, an advisory committee that makes recommendations on how to test newborns and children for genetic disorders.
--:-- Aria Bendix: HHS says it's part of the administration's broader goal of reducing the size of the federal government, but advocates say this was a low-cost, high-reward effort that won't make much of a dent in the federal budget.
--:-- Aria Bendix: Genetic screenings detect potentially life-threatening or life-altering conditions for roughly 14,000 babies every year.
--:-- Aria Bendix: Again, Bendix told us it's hard to square this with RFK's larger goals.
--:-- Aria Bendix: These are really severe and debilitating childhood diseases that often don't result in survival beyond the teen years unless a child has access to early treatment.
--:-- Aria Bendix: So it's unclear why something like this would be cut.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The administration also eliminated funding for a program that helps new parents learn more about sleep-related infant deaths and how to prevent them.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It's been credited with saving thousands of babies' lives since 1994.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And HHS has made or is considering a number of cuts that impact the LGBTQ plus population, a community that nearly 10 percent of American adults are part of.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Hundreds of grants focused on improving health outcomes for LGBTQ people have been cut, including one that works toward preventing HIV in adolescents and young adults.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Washington Post also reports that the administration is considering eliminating the National Suicide Hotline for LGBTQ Youth.
--:-- Shumita Basu: According to a New York Times estimate, more than $800 million in grants for this population were canceled as of early May.
--:-- Shumita Basu: A lot of the grants were terminated on the grounds that they don't align with the new administration's priorities.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Next week Kennedy is expected to appear before a Senate committee to testify about his overhaul of HHS. His budget will ultimately need Congress approval.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now to Gaza, where Israel plans to expand its military operations and seize even more territory from Palestinians.
--:-- Shumita Basu: There have been many voices in the Israeli political establishment, particularly on Israel's far right, who would like to see the military eventually control the entire Gaza Strip.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Jerry Shee is the Jerusalem bureau chief for the Washington Post.
--:-- Gerry Shih: Now, the military leadership has so far resisted that idea, saying that this is completely infeasible.
--:-- Gerry Shih: The amount of manpower required would be tens of thousands sort of upward or exceeding 60,000 reservists.
--:-- Gerry Shih: So we've sort of arrived at this kind of middle solution where what the Israeli military will do is eventually, gradually, over the course of the coming weeks and months, take more and more and more of Gaza and stay there indefinitely.
--:-- Gerry Shih: A senior Hamas official said this week, given Israel's intensified military plans, the group is no longer interested in peace talks.
--:-- Gerry Shih: Since Israel broke the ceasefire in March, the IDF has declared more than 70 percent of Gaza either a military red zone or an evacuation zone.
--:-- Gerry Shih: It has displaced more than 420,000 people, according to the UN.
--:-- Gerry Shih: That's roughly a fifth of Gaza's population.
--:-- Gerry Shih: And in this plan approved by Israel's security cabinet over the weekend, thousands more Palestinians would be forcibly displaced.
--:-- Gerry Shih: Israel would also take control of humanitarian aid distribution.
--:-- Gerry Shih: Since March 2nd, Israel has allowed no food, medicine or other supplies to enter Gaza.
--:-- Gerry Shih: It's the longest total blockade ever imposed.
--:-- Gerry Shih: The UN says hunger is widespread and nine out of 10 Palestinians do not have access to safe drinking water.
--:-- Gerry Shih: From what we can tell, aid has reached basically a non-existent level.
--:-- Gerry Shih: Israel says the current blockade on aid is meant to force Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages.
--:-- Gerry Shih: And Israel says taking full control of aid distribution is the only way it will consider lifting the blockade, according to officials who spoke with the Post.
--:-- Gerry Shih: It also plans to move Gaza's entire food supply to a military-guarded area in the south under the protection of U.S. security contractors, forcing people in northern Gaza to travel there.
--:-- Gerry Shih: But the challenges would be immense.
--:-- Gerry Shih: There would be only 4 to 10 aid distribution hubs, serving a population of over 2 million people.
--:-- Gerry Shih: And many people are too weak or injured to make the journey.
--:-- Gerry Shih: This has obviously raised serious concerns from many of the international organizations who say that this would violate a lot of the principles governing international humanitarian activities.
--:-- Gerry Shih: For one thing, their rules often require impartiality when it comes to distributing aid.
--:-- Gerry Shih: That aid should arrive in conflict zones unfettered and be given to anybody who needs it.
--:-- Gerry Shih: She told us Israeli officials are saying they will use facial recognition technology to screen people seeking aid to prevent members of Hamas from receiving it.
--:-- Gerry Shih: That raises the question of who exactly is Hamas.
--:-- Gerry Shih: Israel has been known to sort of implement a very wide net when it comes to describing people who have worked for the civilian government in Gaza as being affiliated with Hamas.
--:-- Gerry Shih: NPR spoke to a former U.S. official who said Israel tried to implement a version of this aid plan while former President Joe Biden was in office, but his administration rejected it.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Trump administration offered no immediate comment on Israel's plan on Monday, but Trump does plan to visit the region next week.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Let's turn now to the latest tariff threat from the White House.
--:-- Shumita Basu: On Sunday night, President Trump said he would impose a 100% tariff on movies produced outside of the United States.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Saying that international production amounts to a national security threat.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Then, just hours later, the White House said no final decisions had been made, and Trump said that he would meet with industry officials to make sure that they liked the plan.
--:-- Shumita Basu: None of the major studio executives I talked to were expecting this.
--:-- Shumita Basu: They were all caught very much off guard.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That's Meg James, senior entertainment industry reporter for the Los Angeles Times.
--:-- Meg James: What President Trump has said is that he wants to make Hollywood great again.
--:-- Meg James: He has identified three Hollywood ambassadors, including actor John Voight, who are concerned about the number of major films that are being shot or produced in overseas locales.
--:-- Meg James: Often, Hollywood producers choose to make certain content in countries that have generous tax incentives.
--:-- Meg James: What that has meant, particularly here in Los Angeles, is a really big slowdown in the amount of feature film production and even television production that we are seeing here locally.
--:-- Meg James: According to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, about 18,000 jobs have been lost in the last three years, primarily in California.
--:-- Meg James: Many crew members, special effects workers, have been calling for greater attention to this loss of filmmaking, the loss of expertise here in Hollywood and beyond.
--:-- Meg James: And so in some ways, what President Trump has done is really raised an awareness of an industry that has sectors that are hurting.
--:-- Meg James: But a major question is how this would work.
--:-- Meg James: Large movie productions are kind of like manufacturing a car. components can come from all over the world.
--:-- Meg James: Even though a lot of American movies are written, cast, and edited largely in the United States, it's increasingly common for some work to happen abroad.
--:-- Meg James: For example, a major scene in the latest Marvel film, Thunderbolts, involves a leap from the world's second tallest building in Malaysia.
--:-- Meg James: According to the New York Times, one superhero movie like that might rely on half a dozen or more specialized firms across the world.
--:-- Meg James: And it's extremely unclear how tariffs would apply in these kinds of cases.
--:-- Meg James: How are they going to judge what part of a movie being produced overseas qualifies for a tariff?
--:-- Meg James: Is the tariff going to be based on the film budget?
--:-- Meg James: Is it going to apply to television shows?
--:-- Meg James: There are so many unanswered questions that no one really seems to have a handle on.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So far, the Motion Picture Association, which represents the biggest Hollywood studios in Washington, hasn't responded to outlets for comment on the matter.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But their most recent economic report showed that the film industry netted gains for every major global market.
--:-- Shumita Basu: As the White House discusses all of this with Hollywood executives, James told us it's sure to be a subject of conversation at next week's most celebrated international film festival in Cannes.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Among the films being premiered is Tom Cruise's latest Mission Impossible movie, The Final Reckoning.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Scenes for that movie were filmed all over the world, including in the UK, South Africa, and Norway.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday.
--:-- Shumita Basu: They come at a moment when press freedoms are under attack, with the Trump administration banning the Associated Press from the White House press pool, threatening to cancel critical funding for public media, and with Trump filing lawsuits against several for-profit media outlets.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Among yesterday's Pulitzer winners are The Washington Post for their coverage of the assassination attempt on Trump's life.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Reuters for an expose on lax regulation that makes fentanyl so easy to get.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And The Wall Street Journal for their reporting on Elon Musk's embrace of the MAGA movement.
--:-- Shumita Basu: ProPublica also won for its work documenting deaths of pregnant women in states with restrictive abortion laws.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Last fall, we spoke with one of those journalists, Cassandra Jaramillo, about her reporting on a young woman who died while experiencing a miscarriage in Texas.
--:-- Shumita Basu: When she first shows up to the hospital, they tell her that there's nothing that they can do, that it would be illegal to intervene because her fetus, although she was going to lose that pregnancy, still had a heartbeat.
--:-- Shumita Basu: We'll link to a collection of those stories in our show notes.
--:-- Shumita Basu: In other news, Newark Airport, the nation's 14th busiest airport, is seeing day after day of delays and cancellations because of air traffic control staffing issues and equipment failures.
--:-- Shumita Basu: A union official said yesterday that a number of staffers are taking leave after a stressful incident last week in which controllers briefly lost all communication with aircraft under their control.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Bloomberg says controllers were left in the dark for about 90 seconds on April 28th.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged in a statement on Monday that, quote, our antiquated air traffic control system is affecting our workforce.
--:-- Shumita Basu: United Airlines, which has a hub in Newark, announced last week it would start canceling 35 flights.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That's about 10 percent of its flights every day out of Newark Airport.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a press conference that the FAA is short about 3,000 air traffic controllers nationwide.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And finally, one other travel note to leave you on.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Today is the deadline to get your real ID card.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That's an upgraded driver's license or a state identification card that you'll need if you want to board an airplane domestically with just your ID card.
--:-- Shumita Basu: As of the end of last week, nearly 20% of travelers still hadn't gotten their real ID.
--:-- Shumita Basu: If you're one of those people who still doesn't have it, don't panic.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You can still travel using a passport, a permanent resident card, or certain Department of Homeland Security trusted traveler cards.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Also, there's a lot of bad information on social media right now about this whole process.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So here are some quick fact checks.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Yes, you can still drive a car if you don't have a real ID.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And no real IDs will not replace passports for international travel.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That includes cruises.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shumita Basu: New York Magazine spoke with some of Democratic Senator John Fetterman's closest advisors, including his former chief of staff.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And they say, based on behavior they have observed, they're concerned his mental health is getting worse and they're questioning if he is fit to serve as a U.S. senator.
--:-- Shumita Basu: He has defended himself and says he's in good health.
--:-- Shumita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shumita Basu: I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
