--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, July 24th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, why Delta Airlines is still struggling to recover from the big IT outage. You can now walk into a grocery store and buy bullets the way you buy bananas. And Kamala Harris hits the campaign trail with an assist from Beyoncé.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But first, as American politicians focus on the rapidly changing presidential campaign, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington, hoping to get their attention during a critical time for the war in Gaza and for his political survival.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Everything is happening at such a rapid clip that Netanyahu is having a very hard time even sort of manufacturing interest in his speech at the moment.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Ben Samuels, a U.S. correspondent for Haaretz. He explained the high stakes of this visit as Netanyahu prepares to address Congress today.
--:-- Ben Samuels: While Republicans are welcoming him with open arms, at least 20 Democratic lawmakers are skipping today's speech to protest the war. Vice President Harris also won't attend, though her staff says it's because of a scheduling conflict.
--:-- Ben Samuels: But she will meet with him later in the week, as will President Biden and former President Trump. And with Harris now the presumptive Democratic nominee, her stance on Israel is under more scrutiny.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Samuels told us how Harris is seen by some as more critical than Biden of Israel's war in Gaza. She doesn't necessarily have that support for Israel in her bones like Joe Biden does.
--:-- Ben Samuels: So it really remains to be seen how he's going to navigate this relationship with Kamala Harris.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Biden administration has been pressuring Hamas and Israel to make a ceasefire deal. Biden says there's progress, but still, quote, gaps to close.
--:-- Ben Samuels: And Netanyahu's allies on the far right oppose an agreement with Hamas, suggesting it amounts to a surrender. There are still eight American hostages held by Hamas.
--:-- Ben Samuels: On Monday, Netanyahu met with some of their families. Samuels told us how they're pushing him to accept a deal that would set their loved ones free.
--:-- Ben Samuels: It is the only deal on the table. The time is now. This is a five-alarm fire.
--:-- Ben Samuels: But some of those family members said the message didn't seem to resonate with the Israeli leader.
--:-- Ben Samuels: And, you know, one of the most consistent criticisms of Netanyahu is that he is putting his own political self-interest ahead of the national security of the state of Israel and instead of protecting Israeli citizens.
--:-- Ben Samuels: If he doesn't accept the deal that is currently on the table, if he does not fully prioritize this, it'll be very hard for even his most stalwart of defenders to come away with anything short of the fact that Netanyahu is in it for himself and not in it for saving the lives of the Israelis that are still being held hostage in Gaza.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, some Israelis say Netanyahu shouldn't be making the trip abroad while so much is happening at home.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Israel is just fighting in Gaza. It's also trading strikes with Houthi forces in Yemen and fighting daily with Hezbollah on its northern border.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, let's turn to the ongoing fallout from the global IT outage last week.
--:-- Ben Samuels: So many businesses, from hospitals to grocery stores to banks, got hit with the dreaded blue screen of death from a glitchy security software update.
--:-- Ben Samuels: And most of them are getting back to normal. But Delta Airlines has been very slow to recover, and that's meant a nightmare week for Delta passengers.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Tens of thousands of people have faced cancellations, and many have been stranded for hours at airports across the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Oh, it's been frustrating. Very frustrating. Nothing is going according to plan. My plane never came in. It kept getting canceled, canceled, canceled.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Delta's CEO has apologized and explained why it's lagging behind other carriers in recovery.
--:-- Ben Samuels: More than half of the airline's IT systems run on Windows, which the CrowdStrike error hit. Each system had to be manually rebooted.
--:-- Ben Samuels: And critically, the crew scheduling system was affected. Now that might sound like a small detail, but for an airline, that's a huge deal.
--:-- Ben Samuels: As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution explains, if the minimum number of crew members don't get sent to the right airport at the right time, planes can't take off.
--:-- Ben Samuels: And for every flight that's canceled, it means that plane isn't available for the next flight. And so on and so on.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can see what's happening, right? The Ruppel effect for Delta was enormous. More than 6,600 flights have been canceled.
--:-- Ben Samuels: And to make things worse, this all went down during the busy summer travel period. With flights 90% booked, Delta had fewer options for rescheduling passengers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The company says it's working around the clock to restore operations, but federal authorities say it's not fast enough.
--:-- Ben Samuels: The Department of Transportation launched an inquiry. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says customer service has been unacceptable.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At LAX, KTLA spoke to a passenger who had been stranded for 10 hours.
--:-- Passenger: Her grandchildren were sleeping on the floor. They haven't given us anything. They haven't given us any information. We haven't, no, nothing.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Buttigieg says he plans to enforce new consumer protection rules for air travel that the Transportation Department rolled out a few months ago.
--:-- Ben Samuels: Those rules require airlines reimburse for food and hotels and issue quick automatic cash refunds for passengers who don't want to be rebooked to a later flight.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Milk, eggs, bread, and ammo.
--:-- Peter Hawley: In a handful of states, when you go out to the grocery store, you can now find a new type of vending machine that's attracting a lot of attention.
--:-- Peter Hawley: You start by touching the screen, kind of looking at different types of bullets.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Peter Hawley with Texas Monthly. He told us about these ammunition vending machines from a company called American Rounds.
--:-- Peter Hawley: There's only about 10 in circulation right now, across Alabama, Oklahoma, and Texas.
--:-- Peter Hawley: And Holly told us these machines can make the process of buying ammunition extremely simple.
--:-- Peter Hawley: The whole process probably takes two minutes at top speed. You feel a little bit like you're playing a video game or something, and then pretty quickly you have a handful of bullets in the bottom machine that you can pick up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: American Rounds argues the features on their machines make them a safer and more responsible way to sell ammo compared to buying them online or from a human behind a counter.
--:-- Peter Hawley: The machines use AI facial recognition to match the buyer's face to their driver's license, which is required to make a purchase.
--:-- Peter Hawley: They don't take cash, only credit. And the company argues it would be pretty tough for someone to steal.
--:-- Peter Hawley: It's steel-plated. I think it weighs about 2,000 pounds and it's probably seven feet tall.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But experts on gun violence are not convinced.
--:-- Peter Hawley: NPR spoke with one expert who said making ammunition and firearms more accessible across more places leads to higher rates of gun injuries and deaths.
--:-- Peter Hawley: Another gun violence policy expert told USA Today they'd like to see these machines check not just people's IDs, but also background checks, which American Rounds has said it has no plans to require.
--:-- Peter Hawley: That means someone who's not legally allowed to own a gun could still buy ammo from one of these machines.
--:-- Peter Hawley: Another concern experts called out was removing the human salesperson.
--:-- Peter Hawley: David Puccino with the Giffords Law Center told Holly that humans play a critical role in responsible ammunition sales, looking for signs of distress or warnings that a customer might use the ammunition to hurt themselves or others.
--:-- Peter Hawley: These machines eliminate that checkpoint. Somebody who was inebriated or somebody who wanted bullets quickly to do something problematic could easily get them the same way they would buy bananas.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Holly told us ammo vending machines are mostly showing up in smaller rural communities right now.
--:-- Peter Hawley: The one he saw was in Canyon Lake, Texas, right next door to a middle school.
--:-- Peter Hawley: A lot of people in the community seem to be OK with it, he says.
--:-- Peter Hawley: But for others, the memory of the school shooting in Uvalde a few years ago and just a few hours west was still too fresh.
--:-- Peter Hawley: There are people who walk into the store and are left deeply uncomfortable.
--:-- Peter Hawley: And so I think the larger debate is about whether we want any kind of reference to guns or ammunition or weaponry in places where we typically do our shopping or where there's going to be children or where you're going to be living your normal life.
--:-- Peter Hawley: And is this a compromise or is this more so kind of a dystopian step too far?
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few campaign stories that are being featured in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Tonight, President Biden will address Americans from the Oval Office, telling them why he decided to exit the presidential race and what his goals are for the rest of his term.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It'll be yet another history-making event in an election cycle that has somehow made the word unprecedented seem cliché.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post spoke to historians for a different perspective, the long view.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And they say this is not chaos. In fact, they argue Biden stepping down is an example of democracy working exactly as it should.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They say this is what responsible political parties are supposed to do, to show people that America's system of government is bigger than any single leader.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And at a time when many Americans seem to think our democracy isn't working especially well, looking at it this way may offer you some comfort.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In other campaign news, some new national polls show Vice President Harris statistically tied in the race with former President Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One of the polls conducted by NPR, PBS News, and Marist finds Democrats are feeling more optimistic about winning.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Black voters in particular are more motivated.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Harris rallied supporters in Milwaukee yesterday at her first campaign event since Biden endorsed her.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The crowd there broke out into a chant common among Trump supporters, lock him up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Harris campaign says it's raised more than $100 million and signed up more than 50,000 people to volunteer.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And says signups are more than 100 times the average rate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Also, just to note, Harris walked on stage to the Beyoncé song Freedom.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Beyoncé is well known for being strict about who can use her music, but she gave Harris the go-ahead to use the song for the whole presidential campaign.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And staying with rallies, the Washington Post reports that the Secret Service has been encouraging the Trump campaign to avoid outdoor events.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Trump campaign is reportedly now scouting indoor venues, for future campaign stops, places like basketball arenas.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They're seen as easier to secure from threats because security can control and screen everyone who gets inside.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This comes as Secret Service director Kimberly Cheadle resigned yesterday, saying she takes responsibility for failures that led to the assassination attempt at an outdoor Trump rally in Pennsylvania.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening there right now, we have a narrated article playing for you next that has nothing to do with politics.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Harper's Bazaar looks at a new trend in dating apps, deleting them to meet people offline in real life.
--:-- Shamita Basu: How quaint.
--:-- 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.
