--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Wednesday, May 15th. I'm Yasmin Khan, and for Shamita Basu, this is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, Israelis blow the whistle on brutal conditions for detained Palestinians. How Vermont wants to enforce accountability for fossil fuel companies. And a new dog now wears the crown of Best in Show.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But first, let's take a brief look at some big stories in the news. The Biden administration is moving ahead with more than $1 billion in weapons deals for Israel. This will allow the transfer of tank ammunition and mortar rounds. Earlier, the U.S. paused a shipment of bombs out of concern they could kill civilians in Gaza. Critics say allowing this other arms deal to go forward undercuts Biden's efforts to convince Israel to change war tactics and better protect Palestinian civilians.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Moving to the presidential campaign, President Biden is challenging Donald Trump to two debates in June and September, and Trump says he's ready and willing. Biden proposes that the two campaigns negotiate debate terms directly. This would cut out the Bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which has organized the events since the 1988 election.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In other news, there's a preliminary report out on problems with a container ship that destroyed Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge. Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board say the ship had two electrical blackouts the day before the crash, and it had two other blackouts that knocked out critical gear. This is the most detailed report yet on the incident, but investigations may go on for years.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And air quality is suffering in multiple U.S. states, with smoke from massive Canadian wildfires crossing the border. The impact is being felt across the center of the U.S., as far south as Oklahoma. Thousands of Canadians are evacuating, trying to escape more than 100 wildfires tearing through the country.
--:-- Matthew Chance: Three whistleblowers working with the Israeli military have come forward to describe haunting scenes at a detention center for Palestinians. They spoke with CNN about the facility, called Sedi Temen, which sits on a military base in the desert, about 18 miles from the Gaza border. It holds about 70 Palestinians suspected of being militants and also functions as a field hospital for others captured in Gaza.
--:-- Matthew Chance: I spoke with Matthew Chance, chief global affairs correspondent for CNN, about conditions at Sedi Temen and his interviews with both former detainees and the Israeli whistleblowers.
--:-- Matthew Chance: The fact that there were three Israelis who were either serving members of the Israeli military or part of the medical service that works alongside the military, I think is a really important indication of how serious the excesses are inside Sedi Temen.
--:-- Matthew Chance: And what they were telling us were quite shocking details about how Palestinian detainees are treated, being forced into stress positions for days and weeks, people blindfolded, people with their hands shackled, the sort of fence to keep their hands above their head when they can no longer hold their hands there.
--:-- Matthew Chance: I mean, we had guards inside the facility who spoke about how the detainees were routinely beaten. And not just beaten by being slapped or things like that, but beaten with clubs, which broke their bones and broke people's teeth.
--:-- Matthew Chance: And I think one of the whistleblowers said that the beatings were not for the purposes of interrogation. Is that right?
--:-- Matthew Chance: Well, some of them were, some of them weren't. Sometimes it was just for trying to peep under their blindfold to see where they were.
--:-- Matthew Chance: But what one of the whistleblowers told us, which I think was most disturbing, is that, yes, the interrogators wanted information about Hamas, about where the hostages may be held in Gaza. That was the sort of on-the-face-of-it reason why these people are being interrogated.
--:-- Matthew Chance: But there was a strong sense, more than a strong sense, that they wanted to punish these people. They wanted to punish the people of Gaza after October the 7th with so many people dead.
--:-- Matthew Chance: There was a sort of red mist that descended over the country.
--:-- Matthew Chance: You also said that this detention centre was one part field hospital. If I were to walk into the health facility, what would I see?
--:-- Matthew Chance: Well, this facility was meant to be providing medical care for people with battlefield injuries. But there simply wasn't the equipment or the manpower to provide adequate care.
--:-- Matthew Chance: We're talking about people blindfolded, stripped naked, wearing diapers so they didn't have to go to the bathroom, shackled by their hands and their feet to the beds, injured as well, often without painkillers, often without appropriate medical care.
--:-- Matthew Chance: And so what one medical worker that we spoke to said is that this sort of treatment essentially amounts to punishment. And that not something that Israel as a nation a respectable nation should be doing.
--:-- Matthew Chance: CNN also interviewed at least a dozen former detainees of the facility. One of them was a surgeon from Gaza, Dr. Mohamed Al-Ran.
--:-- Matthew Chance: He was brought in, blindfolded, shackled, just like everyone else. The difference with him is that because he spoke Hebrew as well as Arabic, he was sort of designated as somebody who could help the Israeli soldiers.
--:-- Matthew Chance: And so he was allowed to sort of take his blindfold off. He didn't assist them in what they did, but he acted as a translator for a certain period of time.
--:-- Matthew Chance: So he's one of the few Palestinians that we spoke to who was able to see very clearly with his own eyes what was happening around. Everyone else was blindfolded.
--:-- Matthew Chance: He said that taking the blindfold off was actually a curse.
--:-- Matthew Chance: Right. He's a doctor, so he was able to assess the level of medical care that was being provided by Israel.
--:-- Matthew Chance: And he was able to sort of witness the beatings as well. And he corroborated a lot of what the Israeli whistleblowers told us.
--:-- Matthew Chance: And so in that sense, it was incredibly useful to have both Israelis and Palestinians tell us what they saw and to cross-reference those versions of events.
--:-- Matthew Chance: And there was a lot of overlap.
--:-- Matthew Chance: I mean, one of the things I want to raise is that you often hear the criticism, and I put it to one of the whistleblowers, is why should we care what Palestinians are going through when you've got Israelis still unaccounted for inside the Gaza Strip?
--:-- Matthew Chance: And you can imagine the appalling conditions that they're being held in as well.
--:-- Matthew Chance: And one of the Israeli whistleblowers said to me, he's like, yeah, yeah, I think that he's awful, but if Hamas is so terrible, and I believe that it is, he said, then we shouldn't be holding that group up as a bar to the way in which Israel should behave.
--:-- Matthew Chance: We're in a different category and we need to behave like we're in a different category.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: When asked for a response to the whistleblower's claims, the Israeli military told CNN that it ensures proper conduct towards the detainees and that allegations of misconduct by soldiers are examined and dealt with.
--:-- State Senator Dick Sears: One of the smallest states in America is taking on one of the world's biggest industries over damages related to climate change. Lawmakers in Vermont overwhelmingly passed a bill last week that would require fossil fuel companies that contribute to climate change, like ExxonMobil and Shell, to help pay for the cost of cleanup.
--:-- State Senator Dick Sears: Vermont is dealing with over a billion in damages from flooding last summer. And the state climatologist believes more extreme weather is coming.
--:-- State Senator Dick Sears: If lawmakers who support the bill succeed, the policy would be the first of its kind in the United States. But as State Senator Dick Sears, one of the co-sponsors, told Vermont Public Radio, he thinks other states will follow.
--:-- State Senator Dick Sears: We will set an example for others. I look back to 2000 when Vermont became the first state to pass something akin to civil unions.
--:-- State Senator Dick Sears: And a lot of people said, oh, we shouldn't do this. We shouldn't be the first. And the Supreme Court forced the legislature's hand, no question about it.
--:-- State Senator Dick Sears: But I look now at how marriage equality has grown, not only in the nation, but worldwide.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Vermont Public Radio also spoke to Jennifer Rushlow, a dean at the Vermont Law and Graduate School. She's testified in support of the bill.
--:-- Jennifer Rushlow: I am sort of of the mindset that good governance requires lawmakers to move forward with good laws.
--:-- Jennifer Rushlow: There's always the potential for litigation. I'm sure the state will be sued, but I think the good news is that the state is on the right side of the law, and we have all reason to believe that they should prevail if they are sued.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Republican Governor Phil Scott has said he would veto the bill over concerns about the cost of taking these companies to court and the time it would take for Vermont to receive compensation.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But if Scott vetoes it, lawmakers think they have a strong shot at overriding him in a vote next month.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The state attorney general says she's ready to defend the law.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And already, other states, including Massachusetts and New York, are looking at their own versions of similar legislation.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Finally, last night was the finale of the Super Bowl for dogs and dog lovers. The best in show winner at the 148th annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is the miniature poodle.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And with that, a jet black champion named Sage went to claim her giant ribbon. The puffs around her ankles were perfectly groomed, of course.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you want to go deep into the whole culture behind the famed Westminster show, keep listening for a narrated article from The New Yorker.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It looks at the enormous amount of time and money that people put into getting these dogs ready to compete. That's playing next in the Apple News app.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
