--:-- Shumita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, May 19th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shumita Basu: On today's show, Israel agrees to resume basic aid to Gaza as it presses forward with its ground offensive. Why Americans aren't taking American manufacturing jobs. And investigators are trying to understand how a big sail ship crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But first, to the news that former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. His office released a statement yesterday which said that this was an aggressive form of the disease, but added that it appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management, and that his family is reviewing treatment options.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Offering some details on his diagnosis, his office said he was seen last week for a new finding of a prostate nodule and diagnosed with prostate cancer with metastasis to the bone. President Donald Trump said he was, quote, saddened by the news and wished him a fast and successful recovery.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Kamala Harris, Biden's former VP, said that, quote, Joe is a fighter, and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership.
--:-- Shumita Basu: CNN's medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner doesn't have special insight into Biden's health, but he went on the network to offer some context on the announcement.
--:-- Dr. Jonathan Reiner: The bad news is that his Gleason score, which is how the pathologists grade the aggressiveness of the tumor by looking at it under the microscope, was quite high. So a very aggressive form.
--:-- Dr. Jonathan Reiner: The second adverse diagnostic information that we've received is the fact that it's now already a metastatic to bone. So it's no longer contained in the prostate.
--:-- Dr. Jonathan Reiner: You know, Prostate cancer is often treated initially with removing the prostate, but that's not an issue here because the cells have already spread into other parts of the body and we're told that it's spread to the bone.
--:-- Dr. Jonathan Reiner: He also said there could be possible treatment options for someone in Biden's position from cutting edge immune therapy to more traditional chemotherapy.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Biden's health was already a major subject in the news. New reporting suggests the former president's health was deteriorating while in office.
--:-- Shumita Basu: There's no indication his diagnosis is linked to those claims. His last publicly released physical was in February of 2024, where his longtime doctor declared him fit to serve.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Biden has a long and personal history with cancer. His son Beau died of brain cancer, which helped spur him to make cancer research a personal priority for him in office.
--:-- Shumita Basu: President Obama put him in charge of a moonshot initiative as vice president in 2016.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And in 2022, as president, Biden announced major new funding to tackle the disease in his State of the Union address.
--:-- Shumita Basu: This is personal to me and to Jill and to Kamala and so many of you. So many of you have lost someone you love. Husband, wife, son, daughter, mom, dad.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Cancer is the number two cause of death in America, second only to heart disease.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Last month, I announced the plan to supercharge the cancer moonshot that President Obama asked me to lead six years ago.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Our goal is to cut cancer death rates by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years. I think we can do better than that.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Responding to Biden health news, former President Obama said yesterday that quote nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And I'm certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now to Gaza and the desperate scenes unfolding as Israel launches an extensive new ground offensive, while at the same time agreeing to resume the entry of some aid.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That's the sound of a charity kitchen in northern Gaza as Palestinians rush to secure food before yesterday's announcement.
--:-- Shumita Basu: On Sunday, the Israeli cabinet agreed to allow, quote, a basic amount of food for the population to ensure that a hunger crisis does not develop.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Supplies are running low and starvation has gripped the population. No food and no water was allowed to enter Gaza for 78 days.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And the U.N. relief chief recently surprised many with the strength of his criticism toward Israel, describing events as a 21st century atrocity.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Earlier today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that his decision to resume limited aid to Gaza came after pressure from allies who said they wouldn't be able to support Israel as long as there were images of hunger coming out of Gaza.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And he said Israel's newly launched air and ground offensive aims to displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and eventually take control of all of Gaza.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Over 100 people were killed in airstrikes over the weekend, according to the local health ministry, and CBS reports talks between Israel and Hamas in Doha are ongoing.
--:-- Shumita Basu: As the war continues, Israel's military is having a harder time finding fighters willing to participate.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Attendance rates of reservists are plummeting, and more and more soldiers are simply refusing to fight.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Ruth Margulit with The New Yorker told us about one of those reservists, Iran Tamir.
--:-- Ruth Margulit: He initially reported to fight after the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas. He was in the United States, heard about the attacks, got on a plane, and less than 24 hours later, reported to his former base.
--:-- Ruth Margulit: And this was very widespread. There was a sense in Israel that this was really a war of no choice back then.
--:-- Ruth Margulit: But since then, things have started to change, not only for Iran, but really for many people.
--:-- Ruth Margulit: In recent weeks, Israel has called up tens of thousands of reservists, including Tamir, to help expand its offensive in Gaza.
--:-- Ruth Margulit: But Tamir decided he wouldn't return. He published an open letter calling Israel's rhetoric around the war deceptive, specifically Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stated goal of returning the Israeli hostages and destroying Hamas.
--:-- Ruth Margulit: And, many other reservists believe that that's no longer the case, that the war goals are being blurred and that actually sort of giving up on this idea of a negotiated ceasefire in order to occupy Gaza militarily and impose military rule there.
--:-- Ruth Margulit: And for some government ministers really the end goal is to see Jewish settlements in Gaza.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Margulit spoke to other members of Israel military including a commander who told her he doesn't know why he's fighting anymore.
--:-- Ruth Margulit: He doesn't believe in the war. He doesn't believe in what the country is doing.
--:-- Ruth Margulit: He said that he's very ashamed of the government and ashamed even of his country, of where it's heading.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And I've heard that over and over again.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now to the domestic manufacturing industry, which is facing a confusing problem.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It seems kind of paradoxical that both political parties have been doing a lot to bring back manufacturing jobs.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And if you look at the industry, there's actually a lot of open manufacturing jobs right now.
--:-- Shumita Basu: That's NPR's Greg Rozalski with Planet Money.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: He set out to try to answer the question, with all the talk of boosting domestic manufacturing, why aren't Americans filling the manufacturing jobs we already have?
--:-- Greg Rozalski: As of March, there are nearly half a million open manufacturing jobs, according to government data, and probably more coming.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: The current and previous administrations have taken steps to boost manufacturing in the United States, whether it be Biden's Chips and Science Act and Inflation Reduction Act or Trump's tariffs.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: Some estimates predict that Biden's policies alone could add millions of more jobs over the next decade or so.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: But Rozalski told us the industry is struggling to find workers.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: Last year, the Manufacturing Institute, it's a nonprofit aimed at developing America's manufacturing workforce, and Deloitte, a consultancy firm, they surveyed more than 200 manufacturing companies, and more than 65 percent of the firms said recruiting and retaining workers was their number one business challenge.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: So what's driving this?
--:-- Greg Rozalski: The president of the Manufacturing Institute told Rozalski she believes the industry has a major PR problem, that people today have an outdated idea of what these jobs look like.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: When people think of manufacturing, they picture like a Charles Dickens novel or something, like that they're dirty, they're dangerous, they're monotonous.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: But she says that's a misperception. You know, she says that modern manufacturing is clean, it's high tech, it involves problem solving.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: Another reason these roles have been tough to fill, many require higher levels of education.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: Manufacturing used to be a strong career option for people with a high school diploma, but roughly half of the open roles today require a college degree, as the technology in plants has gotten more sophisticated.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: And finally, there's the issue of pay. Manufacturers have raised pay in recent years, and offering more would likely incentivize more people to consider the jobs.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: But Rozalski says that raises another perplexing question for the industry.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: One of the big reasons why manufacturers left America in the first place is because wages are higher here than overseas.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: So this sort of wage issue begs the question whether manufacturers, particularly in labor-intensive types of manufacturing, can be profitable and globally competitive in the United States.
--:-- Greg Rozalski: In other words, if American manufacturers can figure out a way to be more productive than foreign competitors by producing more in less time they might be able to pay the higher wages needed to attract and retain American workers.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But as Rozalski points out, that's a pretty unlikely scenario.
--:-- Shumita Basu: In recent years, U.S. manufacturing has been seeing an alarming slowdown in productivity growth.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shumita Basu: We are learning more about the bombing of a Palm Springs fertility clinic, which the FBI is investigating as an act of intentional terrorism.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The suspect is believed to have died in the blast and was a 25-year-old, 29 Palms resident.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The FBI described him as holding nihilistic ideations, while the LA Times quotes law enforcement sources describing him as an antinatalist who believed procreation was unethical.
--:-- Shumita Basu: No one else died in the blast, although it caused extensive damage.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The center is Coachella Valley's first and only full-service fertility center and IVF lab.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Kentucky is grappling with the devastating impacts of a tornado which has left at least 19 people dead, a figure that the governor, Andy Beshear, warned may rise.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Beshear has declared a state of emergency after the tornado ripped through the state, leaving tens of thousands of people without power.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Over the weekend, he called for support.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The parable of the Good Samaritan says everybody's our neighbor, and so we need the whole world right now to be really good neighbors to this region.
--:-- Shumita Basu: We're going to need a lot of help. We're going to need a lot of funding. We're going to need a lot of cooperation, but we will not abandon the people that have been impacted.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The New York Times reports the National Weather Service office in eastern Kentucky was scrambling to cover the overnight forecast on Friday as the tornado moved in.
--:-- Shumita Basu: A union leader representing Weather Service employees said that office no longer had a permanent overnight forecaster after staffing cuts ordered by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And finally, two people have died and at least 22 were injured after a Mexican Navy sailing ship crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Some people are still in critical condition.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The ship was on a goodwill tour and headed for Iceland.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It had never intended to travel under the Brooklyn Bridge, but for reasons that are still unclear, it veered off course on Saturday night.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Its masts collided with the bridge, though the vessel stayed upright.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Videos circulating on social media show crew members hanging from the sails.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The two people who died were crew members, with one being identified as a 20-year-old cadet named America Yamilet Sanchez and 23-year-old Adel Jair Maldonado Marcos.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Mexican Navy cited mechanical issues and an investigation is underway.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next from Women's Health magazine.
--:-- Shumita Basu: For new moms experiencing postpartum depression, it can be hard to find relief.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Usually it's treated with medication or psychotherapy or some combination of both.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But these days, more moms are turning to a different option, psychedelic mushrooms.
--:-- Shumita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
