--:-- Shumita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, August 26th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
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--:-- Shumita Basu: On today's show, a pared-down education department faces shifting priorities, how the immigration slowdown is impacting the labor market, and scientists say we're one step closer to cross-species organ transplants. But first, to Gaza, where back-to-back airstrikes hit Nasser Hospital, the largest functioning hospital in Gaza, killing 22 people Monday morning in an attack that prompted international condemnation and a rare admission of regret from the Israeli government.
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--:-- Shumita Basu: And a warning, this story contains graphic audio from military strikes. Five of those killed were journalists, working for several international outlets, including the Associated Press, Reuters, and Al Jazeera. NPR reports a live camera feed operated by a Reuters journalist was filming nearby Israeli tanks from an open stairwell at Nasser Hospital when a missile struck, killing him instantly.
--:-- Shumita Basu: This is sound from moments later when a second strike hit, killing first responders and other journalists as they stood in the same stairwell attending to the damage. You can hear a man's voice in the video saying, quote, they killed the people.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The journalists have been identified as Hussam al-Masri, the Reuters cameraman running the live feed, his colleague Moaz Abu Taha, as well as Mariam Daqa, a contributor to the Associated Press. Al Jazeera cameraman Mohamed Salama and Ahmed Abu Aziz from the publication Middle East Eye were also killed.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Within hours of the attack, the Israeli military acknowledged it, and a spokesperson said it regretted, quote, any harm to uninvolved individuals, but did not clarify who its target was. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office suggested the strikes were the result of a mistake.
--:-- Shumita Basu: His office issued a statement saying, quote, Israel deeply regrets the tragic mishap that occurred today at the Nasser Hospital, and went on to say, quote, Israel values the work of journalists, medical staff, and all civilians.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It was one of the deadliest days for the press in this conflict, where Israeli attacks have killed more than 240 media workers who are considered civilians in the past 22 months of war, according to the UN.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Recent reporting from The Guardian, in partnership with the Hebrew language outlet Local Call and the Israeli-Palestinian publication Plus 972 magazine reveals the outsized impact this war has had on civilians. According to this reporting, figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate that five out of six Palestinians killed by Israel in the war have been civilians.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The figures are from May of this year and put the civilian casualty rate at 83 percent. The Guardian characterized the figure as a, quote, extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Shani Rosanis is the Middle East analyst for the German public broadcast service DW News. She recently spoke on the network about why these numbers are important to pay attention to.
--:-- Shani Rosanis: Israel keeps saying that the civilian death toll is actually lower because a very big chunk of it is militants. What this document is showing is that Israel claims are actually not substantiated. It is showing that Israel own numbers actually indicate that the number of militants that were killed was fewer meaning that the civilian casualties are far higher than Israel was willing to admit so far.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Israel did not dispute the existence of the database or dispute the data when approached by Local Call and Plus 972 magazine. But when reached by The Guardian, an official said the figures in the story were, quote, incorrect and did not offer more detail.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Guardian also reports that when the Israeli military investigates alleged war crimes committed by its forces, about 88 percent of those inquiries are either shut down or left unresolved.
--:-- Shumita Basu: These include recent high-profile incidents, such as the case of 112 Palestinians who were killed while lining up for flour in February last year, and more recently in June, when 31 Palestinians were killed while trying to pick up food at a distribution point in Rafah.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Both of those cases are unresolved. The Israeli military says it conducts investigations in accordance with Israeli and international law.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Let's turn now to the Education Department, where hundreds of staffers from the Office of Civil Rights will start to return to work in the coming weeks. This is by order of a federal judge who back in June determined mass layoffs by the Trump administration made it, quote, impossible for the office to perform basic functions and resolve complaints in a timely fashion.
--:-- Shumita Basu: More than half the people who work there have left or been laid off. Most of them laid off.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Laura Meckler, a national education reporter with The Washington Post, joins us to break down how the Department of Education has dramatically reshaped civil rights in schools under Trump.
--:-- Laura Meckler: The people who are left are just left with just an enormous amount of work. We've seen the backlog of cases, which the education department reports was at about 20,000 when they arrived in January, climb by June to 25,000.
--:-- Laura Meckler: That's like an enormous addition to the backlog in just five months. By comparison, the department's backlog grew by about 16,000 cases over the course of Biden's time in office.
--:-- Laura Meckler: Now, some attorneys are juggling as many as 300 cases each.
--:-- Laura Meckler: I spoke to one mom whose daughter was punished more harshly than a white boy for essentially the same thing, which was buying a vape at school. In fact, the girl, the black girl, actually hadn't even used it. She had returned it before she used it.
--:-- Laura Meckler: And the white boy, the mom says that she learned, actually was like using it in the hallways of school. And yet he got a shorter suspension.
--:-- Laura Meckler: This mom was told in December the investigation into her complaint was almost complete. Then the regional office handling it closed. Her case got reassigned. And at this point, she told me she's not sure when it might be resolved.
--:-- Laura Meckler: Other types of cases are falling by the wayside, too. There are thousands, literally, of other cases pending for more everyday things, such as disability, for instance.
--:-- Laura Meckler: A lot of cases involve disabilities and people complaining that schools are not providing accommodations. And beyond the growing backlog, Meckler reports that the Trump administration is making changes to which cases get prioritized altogether.
--:-- Laura Meckler: They really switched their whole interpretation of civil rights. So where we saw the previous administrations go after school districts if they are seen to be discriminating say against students of color Black and Hispanic students, not giving them the same opportunities.
--:-- Laura Meckler: Now what we see is the administration going after school districts that they perceive as giving them unfair advantages, typically through programs that are meant to address inequities in the first place.
--:-- Laura Meckler: For example, 45 universities are now under investigation for working with the Ph.D. Project, a nonprofit that has tried to help students from underrepresented groups earn a doctorate in business.
--:-- Laura Meckler: It has historically focused on Black, Hispanic, and Native American students, but earlier this year opened its membership to anyone. Still, even after those changes were made, the education department opened a probe alleging the project limits eligibility based on race.
--:-- Laura Meckler: The administration is also fast-tracking cases related to anti-Semitism and transgender athletes. Critics of how the administration has shifted to Department of Education priorities say the changes hurt students who are vulnerable to discrimination.
--:-- Laura Meckler: The department says they are necessary corrections.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Last week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the labor market could be softening enough that an interest rate cut might be necessary by next month.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Demand for workers has begun to cool off, but overall the unemployment rate has been mostly steady because the labor supply has slowed down pretty dramatically too.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The U.S. population is getting older. The baby boomers are retiring. They're exiting the labor market. Fertility rates are pretty low.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Paul Kiernan covers the economy for The Wall Street Journal. And about four-fifths of population growth comes from immigrants.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But the number of immigrants in the U.S. is dramatically dropping. After a historic immigration boom between 2020 and 2024, President Biden imposed strict border restrictions.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Crossings have halted almost entirely under Trump. And many of his immigration policies have had a chilling effect on new arrivals.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Taken together, net immigration is now at its lowest point since the 1960s. Some experts think it could actually be negative.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That is, you know, more people could leave the country this year than come in.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Like the conservative American Enterprise Institute, where economists estimate by the end of the year, the U.S. will have 205,000 fewer immigrants total, give or take roughly a quarter million people.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Some economists are concerned by this because the U.S. labor supply heavily relies on immigrants.
--:-- Shumita Basu: With fewer immigrants, job creation starts to slump. Kiernan reports that's already happening.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Numbers from May to July show the economy added about 35,000 jobs per month, excluding the agriculture industry.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That's the lowest three-month average since the pandemic. And if there's no immigrants coming in, it could potentially go even lower.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That doesn't mean that the unemployment rate is going to spike. In fact, the unemployment rate would tend to go down if there was a worker shortage.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But it just means that the economy grows more slowly. That, combined with Trump's tariff policy, has economists concerned about possible stagflation, where prices rise and the job market slows at the same time.
--:-- Shumita Basu: As one economist put it very succinctly, what you're getting from trade policy is we want fewer goods coming into the country. What you getting from immigration policy is we want fewer people coming into the country.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And so all else equal you know that tends to put upward pressure on inflation downward pressure on growth and demand.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And for the Fed it just kind of a pickle because they have two jobs. It's low inflation and strong labor market.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And this is one of those times, it happens every now and then, when those two objectives can be in a little bit of tension.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It's worth noting some economists and forecasters think immigration will remain net positive this year.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But it's difficult to get a precise number because the U.S. doesn't keep holistic records on who exits the country, and the Trump administration has stopped regularly updating deportation data.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. President Trump says he wants to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, the first ever Black woman to sit on the central bank's governing board.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Trump accused Cook of mortgage fraud after one of his appointees from another department alleged on social media that Cook listed two of her mortgages as her primary residence.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The DOJ says it's looking into the matter. In a statement last night, Cook said there is no lawful reason she should be fired and she will not resign.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Trump administration has in the past targeted other perceived political opponents with accusations of mortgage fraud.
--:-- Shumita Basu: This latest move of attempting to fire Cook is an escalation in Trump's attempt to exert control over the Fed and pressure it to cut interest rates.
--:-- Shumita Basu: As the nation gets ready to mark the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina this week, a group of workers from FEMA is warning a similar disaster could happen today as a result of changes enacted by the Trump administration.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Miami Herald reports about 200 FEMA employees sent a letter to Congress saying, quote, they have come together to sound the alarm as heightened hurricane activity is possible from now through early October.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Some of their concerns outlined in the letter are an unqualified administrator and mass staffing departures.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The letter also calls on FEMA to be made its own cabinet-level department. FEMA currently operates under the Department of Homeland Security.
--:-- Shumita Basu: FEMA's response to Katrina is often cited as a failure from an infrastructure and planning and coordination standpoint.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And finally, scientists in China for the first time successfully transplanted a pig lung into a human.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The transplant was carried out in a patient who was brain dead, and scientists only monitored the patient for nine days after, but they say their goal was achieved, which was to prevent organ rejection and uncontrolled infection.
--:-- Shumita Basu: National Geographic says this is a critical milestone in the field of xenotransplantation, That is, transplantation across animal species.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And while pig-to-human transplants are still a ways off, one surgeon said if safety and efficacy can be established, this type of surgery could be a paradigm shift.
--:-- 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. The New Yorker looks at the transformations at the Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi and what it's meant for President Trump to have such an ardent ally serve as the government's top law enforcement officer.
--:-- Shumita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
