--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, March 27th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, a Nebraska bill targeting trans minors gets an unusual filibuster, the high cost of elder care, and the unexpected teams heading to the final four. But first, let's catch up on several developing stories to start the week.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A severe storm system moved through Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia over the weekend, killing at least 26 people. Most of the destruction was in rural Mississippi, where a powerful tornado ripped through the town of Rolling Fork in one of the most impoverished areas in the country.
--:-- Damian Harris: I rushed to check on my mom in the storm. She was one of dozens of people who died. It looked like I was in just a maze of just destruction. You're hearing people scream for help, holler for help.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Biden declared a major disaster in Mississippi on Sunday and directed federal aid to be sent to the state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In international news, a big day in Israel as the government debates whether to put a pause on Prime Minister Netanyahu's plan to overhaul the judiciary.
--:-- Elliot Gottkin: This is the main highway that goes down through Tel Aviv. And there are fires, several fires have been lit. And there's one in front of me with black acrid smoke kind of billowing into the sky and almost floating out some of the iconic skyscrapers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As of this morning, more of the country came to a standstill with universities, workers' unions and hospitals participating in a general strike. Flights were temporarily grounded from Israel's main international airport.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And lastly, Silicon Valley Bank reopens today under new ownership. First Citizens Bank is buying big pieces of the tech lender that failed earlier this month and acquiring all of its deposits loans and branches.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This closes one chapter in what's been a dramatic month for U banks set off by two of the largest bank failures in history with financial regulators stepping in to pull novel moves and ease fears.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Nebraska is one of dozens of states that's considering legislation that limits rights for transgender people. Late last week, the Nebraska legislature voted to advance a bill that would ban gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, with some lawmakers breaking down in tears, pleading with their Republican colleagues to reconsider.
--:-- Senator Michaela Kavanaugh: I have nothing, nothing but time. And I am going to use all of it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Senator Michaela Kavanaugh, a Democrat, kept a filibuster going for over three weeks in opposition to this bill. She spoke to Vogue about what it was like.
--:-- Senator Michaela Kavanaugh: It was exhausting emotionally, physically and mentally. And she says gender-affirming health care for transgender kids is already challenging to access. Making it illegal would be dangerous to trans kids' health.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's an assessment shared by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
--:-- Senator Megan Hunt: Trans kids are just like any other kids in America. They get good grades. They go to school. They do activities in clubs. They have friends, they date, they have dreams and goals, they get married, they have kids, just like everybody else.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The lawmaker who introduced this bill said it's to protect young people from undertaking treatments they might regret later as adults, citing research that says adolescents' brains aren't fully developed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's more rounds of debate ahead, and Republican Governor Jim Pillen has said he will sign the bill into law if it reaches his desk.
--:-- Shamita Basu: More than a decade of research shows that gender-affirming care saves lives by reducing depression and thoughts of suicide in trans kids and teens.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Recently, results from one of the largest ever surveys of trans adults living in the U.S. were released. It was by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Washington Post. More than 500 trans people participated.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the takeaway was clear: 78 said living as a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth has made them more satisfied with their lives.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As 37 T.C. Caldwell put it, living doesn't hurt anymore. It feels good to just breathe and be myself.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Beth and Doug Rober are like a lot of couples their age. They own their house in Virginia. They have savings. He has a pension and Social Security after working as a history teacher for years. She is still working as a public school librarian.
--:-- Beth Rober: She was hoping to retire last year. But like many Americans, her retirement plans are now on hold.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A wave of boomers reaching retirement age are finding that they are unprepared for the high cost of specialized care.
--:-- Doug Rober: He has Alzheimer's, and he lives full-time at a care facility which costs around $72,000 a year. That's more than Beth's salary. She makes $64,000 annually.
--:-- Beth Rober: She sold their boat and their pickup truck, their daughter sends money every month, and they have a GoFundMe. But Beth told Washington Post reporter Chris Rowland, it's just not enough.
--:-- Beth Rober: She feels betrayed, honestly, that she feels that a social contract has been broken. I mean, they literally, this is like a middle-income family that had made all the right moves, setting themselves up for retirement. And now that's completely shattered because he's in a facility and she can barely afford it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Researchers at Boston College estimate about one in four boomers will find themselves in a uniquely tough position as middle-income earners. They'll need moderate to severe elder care, but they're too poor to pay out of pocket and too wealthy to qualify for federal aid.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Roland says the long-term care industry has failed to provide affordable options for middle-class families. And some of that is by design. Where you can make the most money in assisted living these days is by building high-end stuff for wealthy people with very nice, fairly lavish facilities with chandeliers and wood paneling and beautiful carpets and highly polished grand pianos in the common spaces.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He says real estate developers and investors are overlooking a huge market of families, like the Ropers, who have smaller budgets.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Families with this serious financial burden are waiting on lawmakers in Washington to agree on some kind of policy solution. Some advocates argue there should be long care insurance programs. But with Congress divided, they're not optimistic that national moves will happen.
--:-- Beth Rober: Beth Roper told Roland she's baffled there's no safety net for families like hers who worked and saved and paid their taxes, who did, in her words, everything our country asked us to do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: People are running out of words to describe this year's NCAA basketball tournaments because they have managed to surprise at every turn.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On the men's side, a truly unexpected group of teams will compete in the Final Four next weekend. For the first time since seeding began in the 70s, not a single number one, two or three seed advanced to the final weekend.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Three teams are making their Final Four debuts. Florida Atlantic, San Diego State and Miami. Florida Atlantic hadn't even won an NCAA tournament game before this March.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Their win against Kansas State to get them to the Final Four was, of course, very dramatic. Here's how the call sounded on PBS.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that's it! The Owls of Florida Atlantic! They are headed to the Final Four! Only UConn, which is the fourth team in contention, has been here before.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And there are similarly big surprises in the women's tournament. UConn's dominant women's team will miss the Final Four for the first time since 2007, after they lost on Saturday to Ohio State.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One team that has made it is Iowa, who is heading to the Final Four for the first time in three decades, thanks in part to the incredible efforts of Kaitlin Clark, who finished with a massive 40-point triple-double on Sunday against Louisville.
--:-- Shamita Basu: USA Today calls her a transcendent talent, the superstar women's basketball needs right when the game needs it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find more coverage of the tournaments and all the stories we talked about today in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, stick around. We've got a narrated article coming up next from GQ about Jeremy Strong, one of the stars of Succession, which is now back for its fourth and final season.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This GQ profile is memorably good. You get a sense of how much intensity Strong brings to his character and how he's thinking about the end of the series.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
