--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, August 25th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, federal cuts have left many health agencies stretching to perform basic functions. How a strict abortion law has changed what it's like to be pregnant in Texas. And a new Little League World Series champion is crowned. But first, in a new phase of President Trump's crackdown on Washington, D.C., some National Guard troops patrolling the city began carrying firearms last night.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's been two weeks since Trump declared a crime emergency in D.C. and used that as justification for federalizing the city's police force and sending in National Guard troops. Some of those troops are now reportedly in areas like the city's National Mall, among the safest and most tourist-friendly sites.
--:-- CNN Reporter: CNN reports that overall, there has been a drop in crime in Washington since Trump's takeover. According to police data, in the first week of federal forces in D.C., property crime was down about 19 percent compared to the week before, while violent crime dropped roughly 17 percent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The numbers for things like theft, burglary and car break-ins, however, vary widely. There are some indications that the increased militarized presence is beginning to have an effect on the local economy, with restaurant visits and store foot traffic down compared to data from a year ago.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At the same time, The Washington Post reports that federal law enforcement is increasingly taking a new approach of having ICE agents accompany D.C. police officers to make arrests.
--:-- Jenny Gathright: A big change in D.C. and probably the most visible and most felt by residents has been this increased immigration enforcement from ICE. A significant portion of the arrests that the White House is touting as a result of this have been immigration related.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That has included instances of delivery drivers on mopeds being detained by ICE. The Post reports that local police have been trying to enforce traffic laws for mopeds. But now with ICE officials riding along, a number of these arrests have resulted in drivers, many from Central and South America, being detained.
--:-- Jenny Gathright: Those are some of the most visible arrests that go viral on social media of ICE detaining delivery drivers who routinely are all over the city on mopeds delivering food.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The White House says there have been more than 300 arrests of people in D.C. who do not have legal immigration status. That's a tenfold increase over typical ICE arrest numbers in the area, according to a review of government data by CNN.
--:-- Jenny Gathright: And the administration claims many have been arrested for additional crimes, but we haven't provided evidence to verify that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: D.C.'s attorney general had filed a lawsuit challenging Attorney General Pam Bondi's order to ignore sanctuary city laws in the Capitol. In a hearing last week, the judge in the case seemed to suggest that Trump likely has the authority to order police to assist ICE.
--:-- Jenny Gathright: This is an untested law. And so I think the question about how far the Trump administration can take this is something that moved to the courts and is going to be fascinating and very intense to watch.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Roughly eight in 10 D.C. residents oppose Trump's police takeover and the deployment of National Guard troops to the city, according to a Washington Post-Shar school poll.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to public health. Last week, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to, for now, move ahead with canceling close to $800 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health that it claimed were earmarked for topics that do not align with the administration's values.
--:-- Annie Waldman: These grants affect a wide array of projects like research on HIV, cancer, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. And they're just one part of massive cuts to federal health spending the administration has made this year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ProPublica recently took stock of how the workforce across all federal health agencies has been impacted by analyzing public information from the HHS staff directory.
--:-- Annie Waldman: Reporter Annie Waldman told us the administration went much further than it initially promised. They really said that these cuts were going to be focused on parrying down the federal government and getting rid of, in their words, administrative bloat.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ProPublica found a little more than 20,000 workers have either left or been pushed out of federal health agencies this year. That's about 18 percent of the total workforce.
--:-- Annie Waldman: This includes scientists, public health specialists, clinicians, consumer safety specialists, product investigators, cancer and HIV specialists, and vaccine and chronic disease experts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The net result, ProPublica reports, is a number of departments stretching to perform their basic work. Some food and drug inspectors have had to buy their own supplies to sweep for pathogens. Some labs have been unable to purchase mice for vaccine tests.
--:-- Annie Waldman: And this tally does not include workers who have received layoff notices but remain on administrative leave. So the true total is higher.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The NIH was hit particularly hard, losing 16 percent of its staff and the FDA, which lost at least 21 percent of its workforce.
--:-- Annie Waldman: And more than a third of these workers that were cut were at their Office of Inspections and Investigations, which serves as the eyes and ears of the agency.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That means there are going to be fewer people that are looking at Americans' food, drugs, and medical devices.
--:-- Annie Waldman: The CDC's Chronic Disease Center lost about 20 percent of staff, nearly half of whom were scientists and public health workers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Waldman says that's meant some divisions, like the office that tracks tobacco use and supports state-level programs to prevent smoking, have been effectively eliminated.
--:-- Annie Waldman: I've been told by multiple people that there is only one employee left working in the office.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so, what this means is that even though RFK Jr. is on his bully pulpit saying that he is going to end chronic disease in America, he is taking away the very people who are experts at this.
--:-- Annie Waldman: ProPublica interviewed more than three dozen former and current federal employees for this story. And they told Waldman there are ways to find efficiencies in their work as the administration wants to do.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But most people told me that this is not the way to do it. You need to go in and actually see which programs are working and support those programs and then try to find the inefficiencies to phase those out.
--:-- Annie Waldman: But what's happening right now is that full-scale departments, divisions are just being hit hard with these cuts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A spokesperson for HHS told ProPublica cuts were made to reduce bloated bureaucracies, And they're working to redirect resources to science that rebuilds public trust and helps make America healthy again.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to Texas, where a year-long investigation from the Dallas Morning News reveals how state abortion laws have changed the landscape of health care for providers and patients.
--:-- Dallas Morning News Reporter: Texas has one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country. Abortion is illegal, except in cases where a patient's life or major bodily functions are at risk.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Doctors who are convicted of providing an illegal abortion can lose their medical license, face prison time, and be subject to larger fines.
--:-- Dallas Morning News Reporter: To date, no physicians have been convicted for performing an abortion in the state since the Dobbs decision.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Dallas Morning News spoke with nearly 50 current and former physicians who say Texas abortion laws are so vague that they're unable to provide the treatment they would typically recommend based on best practices and medical training.
--:-- Dallas Morning News Reporter: They see abortion as a necessary standard of care, but say Texas has created a culture of fear that's jeopardizing their patients' lives.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's how Dr. Shanna Combs, an OB-GYN in Fort Worth, described it to the Dallas Morning News.
--:-- Dr. Shanna Combs: What we're seeing is women ending up getting severe infections, getting septic, admitted to the ICU, needing massive blood transfusions, losing their uterus. All these complications that can lead to significant morbidity and unfortunately mortality for patients.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some institutions have taken these decisions out of doctors' hands, creating committees to review and approve cases where abortion can be provided.
--:-- Dallas Morning News Reporter: In other cases, hospitals are instructing physicians to use their best judgment when deciding if abortion is necessary and legal.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Doctors and legal experts say that puts them in a vulnerable position, given the lack of clarity around Texas's laws.
--:-- Dallas Morning News Reporter: Here's how Tommy Hastings, a medical malpractice attorney in Houston, put it.
--:-- Tommy Hastings: A very dear friend of mine who's a physician said, every time I treat a patient, I have to think, am I going to risk this mother's life or do I have to risk my children not having their mother at home because some zealot has decided to come after me to make a point.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Texas State Medical Board did revise some of its guidance for doctors, but did not specifically list exceptions to the abortion law.
--:-- Dallas Morning News Reporter: Under these restrictions, doctors told the Dallas Morning News they've changed how they counsel their patients, sometimes withholding information or talking in code, especially when they want to recommend a patient seek care out of state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Dr. Austin Denard, an OB-GYN from Dallas, said it's distressing for patients to consider leaving Texas for care, and she would know she's had to do it herself.
--:-- Dr. Austin Denard: It's traumatic to flee the state to go get essential medical care. Even when you have the means and the privilege to get on an airplane, to go get the care that you need to save your life or to save your future fertility, that's traumatic enough.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I think that that's not discussed enough publicly about what that really feels like.
--:-- Dr. Austin Denard: Practicing every single day in the state sometimes feels as traumatic as having to go flee myself.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Physicians told the Dallas Morning News that their patients are increasingly questioning if it's safe to be pregnant at all in Texas.
--:-- Dallas Morning News Reporter: The medical research from recent years shows health outcomes are getting worse for mothers and babies. Rates of serious complications like sepsis in the state have climbed, so have maternal and infant mortality rates.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For the first time, the world's leading authority on food crises declared on Friday that a man-made famine was occurring in Gaza City.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This follows months of warnings from aid groups that Israel's restrictions on food and other aid in Gaza, as well as the military strikes, were leading to starvation, particularly among Palestinian children.
--:-- UNICEF Executive Director: Children literally waste away. And you see it in rooms where suddenly they're all quiet. Children are so quiet because they have no energy even to cry.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And to see that happen, especially in a place where food is not very far away, right? There's no reason for this. This did not happen because there were cyclones or, you know, droughts. This happened because we could not get enough aid into these children.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Vox reports that official famine classifications are exceedingly rare.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Advocates say that while the distinction doesn't change the conditions on the ground, it can draw more attention and political action.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In immigration news, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador earlier this year before being returned to the United States, has been detained again today when he showed up for an immigration check-in in Baltimore, just three days after he was freed from custody.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Over the weekend, the Trump administration promised to send him to Costa Rica if he agreed to plead guilty to human smuggling charges and to serve whatever prison sentence he eventually received.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Otherwise, they threatened to send him to Uganda.
--:-- Shamita Basu: His lawyers accused the administration of trying to coerce a guilty plea from him and have said he's expressed willingness to leave the United States and accept refugee status in Costa Rica.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, the Little League World Series concluded yesterday with a big win for Chinese Taipei.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The team beat American champs Nevada 7-0, thanks in part to a dominating pitching performance by ace Lin Chinsaw.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yesterday's game draws to a close a series that featured some early drama, notably a bat-flipping scandal that involved lawsuits and a sign-stealing debacle that caused chaos on the field.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is a record 18th title for Chinese Taipei and its first Little League World Series win since 1996.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They also broke a six-year win streak by American teams.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Vanity Fair tells the story of William Nogueira, a man who spent 40 years on death row and while there helped take down one of America's most notorious serial killers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
