--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Monday, January 29th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coming up, why Gaza's called the most dangerous place to be a child right now. Museums cover up exhibits of Native American artifacts. And a thrilling comeback and an upset set the stage for the Super Bowl. But first, let's take a look at some big developments in the Middle East.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Three U.S. troops are dead and dozens more injured after a drone attack in Jordan near the Syrian border. The U.S. says Iran-backed militant groups were behind the attack, and President Biden promises a response. The difficult part is how to respond in a way that doesn't start a larger conflict between Iran and the U.S.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Layton talked about this tricky balance on CNN. There are several options here. Most of them are very bad. But the best option of a bad series of choices is going to be to hit something that is very important to the Iranians, but it is not something that strikes at the core of the regime or at the core of some of their capabilities, but it would serve as a warning to them.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: So something like attacking naval assets in the Persian Gulf, something like that kind of goes up to the line. Iran denied involvement in the drone strike.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This latest violence comes as the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt are encouraging Israel and Hamas to make a new deal for a ceasefire. There were high-level talks in Paris yesterday, which included the CIA's director.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: One proposal could stop fighting for up to 60 days in exchange for the release of hostages and more aid to Gaza. And the UN is urging the U.S. and other countries to restore aid money for the UN's agency working in Gaza.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This came after Israel accused several UN workers of involvement in the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel. The U.S., Germany, and many other countries halted funding. The U.N. has fired several employees and says it's investigating, including considering criminal prosecution, which is rare for aid workers.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But at the same time, the U.N. says countries should still provide money because the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains desperate and U.N. aid is a lifeline for civilians.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: We've been reporting daily about the dangerous situation for civilians in Gaza. Today, we want to get more specifics about conditions on the ground.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Before the aid story broke, I spoke with Dr. Tanya Hach, a pediatric intensive care doctor with Doctors Without Borders, also known as MSF. Dr. Hach-Hassan is in frequent touch with colleagues working in Gaza.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: She told me what doctors and nurses are seeing is unlike any other war zone they've worked in. There is literally no safe space. People cannot flee. This is a population that is completely entrapped, who has been asked or forced to move sequentially into a smaller and smaller pocket of land.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And even in those areas that are declared, quote unquote, safe, where they're told to flee to, they are being actively killed. So it's completely unprecedented in modern day history.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: How are your colleagues in Gaza doing right now? What's the latest that you're hearing from them?
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: Since the very beginning, the messages have been dire, and they've become increasingly dire as time's gone by. I would say last week, I got a lot of messages to the effect of, we're literally living in hell. We never imagined something so horrific. We feel like the world has completely abandoned us.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: I think there was a sense of frustration. One colleague, and I can actually just pull up her messages to me here, but one colleague described feeling kind of numbness. And I quote, that's how I feel, complete numbness. Nothing matters. Nothing affects me. If you told me right now that the whole world was on fire, I wouldn't blink. I don't know why this is, but that's how I feel. I feel numb.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: I would like to ask about Gaza's youngest patients, newborns and their mothers. The UN reported that some 20,000 babies were born in Gaza in the first 105 days of the war. I'm also seeing reported spikes and miscarriages and stillbirths.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: What capacity is there for treating pregnant women and infants? Almost none at this point. We've heard numerous stories, rather horrific stories of women trying to access care for delivery.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: A pregnant woman known to the MSF team had tried to find somewhere to deliver her baby, but the hospitals were full and ultimately delivered in the latrine near her tent. And unfortunately, her son died.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: We had one nurse colleague who very early on described her cousin or relative delivering at home delivering a healthy baby and being so grateful that she made it through labor at home safely and that the baby survived and was healthy.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: And 10 hours later, their home was bombed and the new mother and her new baby were both instantly killed.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: UNICEF says Gaza is the most dangerous place on Earth to be a child right now. They've called it a graveyard for children.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: Dr. Ha-Chasson says that even if a child is lucky enough to survive the bombing, there's no guarantee they'll survive the war.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: The new mothers describe not being able to keep their babies warm. If you're lucky and you can produce breast milk, your supply is likely to be limited by dehydration with ongoing limited access to drinking water.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: And then if you cannot produce breast milk, formula is almost impossible to come by these days.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: We've had report over report about starvation in Gaza and families eating at most one meal a day, sometimes not at all, no access to clean water.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: And then in children, what this often translates to even more so than in adults is this vicious cycle of diarrheal disease, illness and malnutrition.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: Multiple humanitarian organizations are sounding the alarm that the deaths from disease and epidemics and starvation are likely to even surpass those of the bombardment.
--:-- Dr. Tanya Hach-Hassan: According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 26,000 Gazans have died, including many children.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Dr. Ha Chasson says collecting data has been difficult, and the number of deaths is likely much higher.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Several museums across the U.S. are changing or closing exhibits displaying Native American artifacts. This is to comply with new regulations from the Biden administration.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The new rules require consultation and consent from descendants, tribes, or Native Hawaiian organizations in order to display or do research on human remains or cultural items.
--:-- Sean Decatur: The intent of the regulations, and I think the intent of this process, is to make sure that the voices of indigenous peoples have a say both in how their stories are told in museums and participate actively in the presentation of their narratives in museums.
--:-- Sean Decatur: Decatur said in a letter to staff that the exhibits were also out of date from a time when museums did not respect the perspectives and shared humanity of Indigenous peoples.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Similar moves are happening at the Field Museum in Chicago, Denver Art Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, and others.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Curators are removing objects or covering up display cases until staffers can research what needs consent.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Interior Secretary Deb Haaland rolled out the new regulations last month. She's the first Native American to hold a cabinet position.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: She said the process will help return what was stolen back to communities. And she said it's, quote, laying the groundwork for the healing of our people.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: A couple of quick stories from the sports world before we go.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Russian figure skater Kamila Valjeva is banned for four years for violating doping rules.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport is backdated to December 2021. That's when she tested positive.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The decision likely means Russian skaters will be stripped of their team gold medal from the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, and the U.S. team will get gold instead.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Medals have been in limbo for years as legal wrangling over the doping allegations dragged on.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And in the NFL, the Super Bowl is now set, with the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the San Francisco 49ers.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It'll be a rematch of the 2020 Super Bowl, which the Chiefs won. The Niners pulled off a big comeback win that ended a historic playoff run by the Detroit Lions.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The Chiefs knocked off the Baltimore Ravens in an upset.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And finally, we've got a narrated article on a writer's journey to use science to heal his own broken heart.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: More than 400 days after the breakup, I continue to stew on it, analyze it, grieve it. I also haven't had more than three consecutive hours of sleep since the fall of 2022.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: That's the voice of LA Times reporter Todd Martins. If you've ever been through a bad breakup, you know how much it hurts. And you also know that it's not just psychological pain.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Martins talks with researchers to explore how our brains get rewired after heartache. He learns about how heartbreak affects our immune systems. It can literally make us sick.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And he finds out what science has to offer to fix a broken heart.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: That's queued up for you next in the Apple News app. And if you're listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find the story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
