--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, June 28th. I'm Shamita Basu. And I'm Duarte Giraldino. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: 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: First, a brief update on a developing story. The U.S. launched airstrikes in Syria overnight, targeting militias backed by Iran. ABC News explains this is the second time Biden has ordered the use of force in the region following a strike in February responding to rocket attacks.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: According to the Pentagon, the U.S. targeted these sites because militias there have been launching drone attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq. You can find more on this story and others in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Surfside, Florida, at the scene of the condominium collapse, some family members of the many missing residents are still holding out hope that their loved ones will be found alive. They're standing just beyond the barriers, trying to get a glimpse of the round-the-clock search efforts.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And yet the Washington Post is reporting no one has been pulled out of the rubble alive since the earliest hours of the rescue on Thursday. Crews are still looking for survivors, though. They're working 24 hours a day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They also dug a massive trench into the rubble that's 40 feet deep and 20 feet wide. They're hoping it helps them find survivors.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The Wall Street Journal spoke to a veteran rescuer to understand how the effort is continuing. He said there are cases when survivors are found seven, even 10 days later.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: That's because buildings sometimes collapse in a way that forms pockets in the rubble where people can survive. Rescuers dig tunnels propping up the wreckage with support beams as they go. It's a delicate operation, and they need to move cautiously to make sure the pile doesn't shift, which could be dangerous to potential survivors and rescuers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: While rescue operations continue, investigators are trying to figure out how this tragedy happened. Susana Alvarez escaped the collapse. She told NPR that residents were previously told the condo was safe.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: In 2018, we had a board meeting, and we sat there with the town of Surfside, and the town of Surfside said to us that the building was not in bad shape.
--:-- Shamita Basu: NPR obtained meeting minutes, and they say a town inspector told residents the tower was, quote, in very good shape.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But weeks before, an engineering firm analyzed the building and found cracks and other damage. That firm produced a report that recommended repairs. The meeting minutes say the inspector had reviewed that report. He's no longer employed by the city, and NPR wasn't able to reach him for comment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The U.S. blood supply is getting dangerously low. Surgeons and ER doctors are worried about this. The situation is so bad that the American Association of Blood Banks is now saying, in most places, inventory is below a one-day supply.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: USA Today explains how there's a simultaneous problem of low supply and high demand, all tied to the pandemic. As vaccinations increase and hospitals get COVID under control, surgeries that were postponed during the pandemic are now resuming, and the people going through those operations need blood.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But donations haven't yet caught up. During the pandemic, many mobile blood drives were canceled or scaled back. They're only slowly picking up. This is one of the worst times of the year for supplies to drop. In the summer, car crashes typically rise, and this makes the need for more blood critical.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The U.S. uses about 36 units of blood every day, so doctors are hoping that more people will step up and help. If you're willing and able to donate, you can find a donation spot near you through the American Red Cross.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As more of us get vaccinated and the U.S. opens up, we're all coming to terms with the fact that we're now different people. You probably learned a lot about yourself during the pandemic, but while so many of us were just trying to survive, did you actually engage in self-improvement?
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Vox is arguing that pressure to proclaim personal growth from your pandemic experience is just not healthy. Psychologists are warning against rushing to find meaning out of the pandemic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Vox points to articles that feature personal finance lessons from the pandemic or ways to improve your friendships after more than a year of isolation. Some people looking for jobs say that they're being asked in job interviews about how they used lockdown to pursue personal development.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But the pandemic is not over, and its psychological effects certainly aren't. The pandemic traumatized a lot of us, especially if you were an essential worker, leaving your house every day when everyone else was told to stay indoors, or if you lost loved ones. People of color had some of the worst health and economic outcomes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Therapists tell Vox that there hasn't been enough time yet to turn our pandemic experiences into lessons for the future. Psychologist Joy Hardin-Bradford says that in trying to find broader meaning too quickly, you might not be giving yourself the chance to process how you feel.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: A psychiatrist adds, if all you took out of the past year and a half is that you survived, that should be enough.
--:-- Shamita Basu: How do astronauts do laundry? This is not the setup to a joke. Seriously, have you ever thought about it? The answer is they don't. When you're sent to space, you have to pack as lightly as possible because right now, there's no good way for astronauts to wash clothes while in orbit.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: But scientists are working on a solution that they hope will also improve the way we do laundry here on Earth. Fast Company spoke with retired astronaut Leland Melvin. He left the planet twice, and he says those missions were short, so he was able to bring new shirts for each day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But clothes take up valuable storage on the spaceship. And for longer missions, the room is better used for essentials like food. So astronauts usually end up wearing the same clothes for up to seven days. And yeah, Melvin says they stink.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And not only that, they get rid of that dirty laundry by shooting it out in a little capsule that burns up in the atmosphere. So it's both gross and wasteful.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is the problem the scientists at Tide are trying to solve. They collaborated with NASA on a laundry system that should work in low gravity conditions and use way less water than a standard washing machine.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: They're hoping to send what they're calling NASA Tide for its first test at the International Space Station next year. Here's where it comes back to Earth. The idea is developing this technology for NASA can ultimately be used to figure out how to clean our clothes on Earth with less water and energy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One company exec says figuring it out in space first is the ultimate test. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're there, check out some of our audio stories. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
