--:-- Shumita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, February 25th. I'm Shamitza Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shumita Basu: On today's show, Republican lawmakers are feeling the heat from their constituents at town halls, a look at how abortion bans affect sepsis rates, and a controversial pick could win the Oscar for Best Actress. But first, to the ongoing fallout from federal job firings.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Yesterday, the Office of Personnel Management, which is effectively the government's HR department, told federal agencies that they can ignore Elon Musk's email, demanding they outline what they accomplished last week or risk losing their jobs.
--:-- Shumita Basu: President Trump commented, too, saying some employees work with sensitive information and should be exempt from the email request. But he also suggested employees could still be fired or, quote, semi-fired for noncompliance.
--:-- Shumita Basu: One DOJ employee described the past few days to Politico as massive whiplash all the time.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The next large-scale cuts are coming for the Pentagon. On Friday, the Defense Department announced plans to cut 5,400 probationary workers starting this week, which would reduce its workforce by up to 8 percent.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Pentagon also said it plans to put a hiring freeze in place, and it's proposed cutting 8% of its budget per year over the next five years. That's roughly $50 billion a year.
--:-- Shumita Basu: However, the Pentagon says a number of defense priorities will be exempt from cuts, like money that goes toward border security and countering China in the Pacific.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Washington Post examined one agency within the Defense Department where there's a lot of fear about the impact of cuts to staffing and budget.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The small office that handles the recovery of missing in action personnel, otherwise known as the Defense Department POW MIA Accounting Agency.
--:-- Alex Horton: It's not really clear to us whether this is a sacred cow that they're willing to lose or if it's going to be overlooked when it comes to sparing some of the federal employees.
--:-- Alex Horton: The agency has around 700 people on staff and their backgrounds are quite unique. There's forensic anthropologists, historians, even underwater archaeologists.
--:-- Alex Horton: That's because this agency does the difficult and painstaking work of finding, identifying, and repatriating the remains of Americans who died in wars overseas.
--:-- Alex Horton: This takes a lot of work, a lot of science. You know, there are historians trying to figure out where people are in the field.
--:-- Alex Horton: Archaeologists have to go to, like, a lot of times these very austere, you know, dangerous environments, and there's unexploded ordnance and stuff.
--:-- Alex Horton: So these things take a long time to unfold.
--:-- Alex Horton: Horton told us about one veteran recovered by the agency during Trump's first term when the U.S. struck a deal with North Korea to repatriate the remains of Americans who died during the Korean War.
--:-- Alex Horton: Master Sergeant Charles McDaniel was last seen in 1950 tending to wounded soldiers in battle.
--:-- Alex Horton: His remains were identified by the agency in 2018 68 years later and parts of his skull clavicle and dog tag were returned to his sons
--:-- Alex Horton: They spoke to the agency that year about what it meant to finally be able to lay their father to rest
--:-- Alex Horton: Well, it doesn't answer all the questions, you know, about his actual dying, but it certainly lets us have some certitude about that and some gratitude that there is some answer to that now.
--:-- Alex Horton: But it's still amazing to look at that. And I was actually, it felt like, you know, it's a gift from God to us.
--:-- Alex Horton: It's unclear how exactly this agency might be affected by upcoming cuts, but staff are bracing for them to be widespread and indiscriminate.
--:-- Alex Horton: One employee of the agency told Horton, out of every DOD agency there is, we're the only one above reproach from a moral standpoint.
--:-- Alex Horton: It's not about making weapons. It's about returning loved ones to their families.
--:-- Shumita Basu: While Congress was in recess last week, many Republican lawmakers returned to their districts and held some of their first town halls with constituents since Trump took office.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And a lot of them received an earful.
--:-- Shumita Basu: People demanded answers about how sweeping budget cuts might impact them locally, about the mass firings of federal workers, and about the authority President Trump has given Elon Musk.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Here's how one town hall sounded in Georgia.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Elon was going to be the main topic tonight, and he's going to continue to be the main topic tonight because we are all freaking pissed off about this.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You're going to hear it and feel it.
--:-- Shumita Basu: President Trump's efforts to expand executive powers came up, too.
--:-- Shumita Basu: You can imagine my shock and pure horror when I woke up to find that our president had given himself unprecedented executive powers and then within a few days named himself king to his followers.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Republican Representative Rich McCormick was hosting this particular town hall.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And that woman you just heard who introduced herself as Virginia told McCormick she is a descendant of founding father Patrick Henry.
--:-- Shumita Basu: and she quoted Henry.
--:-- Shumita Basu: A king is a tyrant. If a wrong step is made now, the republic will be lost forever and tyranny will rise.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It's clear from all the writings of our founding fathers that our great republic was never meant to be ruled by a dictator nor a king.
--:-- Shumita Basu: McCormick responded.
--:-- Shumita Basu: When you talk about tyranny, when you talk about presidential power, I remember having the same discussion with Republicans when Biden was elected.
--:-- Shumita Basu: He went on to say that he believes executive power should be restricted because it feels out of balance right now with other branches, and he later told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he believes the pace of federal employee firings has been too fast.
--:-- Shumita Basu: In Wisconsin, constituents at one town hall were angry that their Republican representatives weren't pushing back on Trump and keeping executive power in check
--:-- Shumita Basu: On the West Coast in Oregon a woman named Sue Oliver expressed similar concerns speaking directly to her representative Republican Cliff Bentz
--:-- Shumita Basu: You are an attorney You are an officer of the court in addition to swearing an oath to our Constitution.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And yet, well, you and so many of your colleagues are just sitting around watching.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Well, I don't know. We'll see what happens next month.
--:-- Shumita Basu: There won't be a country left to run, sir, if you guys just sit back and are afraid of a primary.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Because I hear President Musk has threatened to primary, any Republican doesn't get on board.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The White House said these town hall incidents include just a handful of critics.
--:-- Shumita Basu: NBC reports that these contentious town halls could be an early sign that the honeymoon period for the Trump administration is coming to an end.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And the New York Times notes that with a slim majority in the House, Republicans are in a precarious position, especially for members in vulnerable districts.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But the fact that this pushback is also happening in deeply red areas could be a sign of a larger problem for the party down the road.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Let's turn now to a recent investigation from ProPublica that found pregnancy in Texas has become much more dangerous in recent years.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The state implemented a six-week abortion ban in 2021, which became a total abortion ban in 2022, soon after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But since then, no one at the state or federal level had studied the impacts of the policy on patients.
--:-- Shumita Basu: So ProPublica did their own analysis using hospital data from 2017 through 2023.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Reporter Lizzie Presser told us what they learned.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: The rate of sepsis for women who are losing their pregnancies in the hospital in the second trimester spiked more than 50% after the first abortion ban was passed in Texas in 2021.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: Developing sepsis is one way the body's immune system responds to infection, and it can be incredibly dangerous.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: One of the things that's so scary about sepsis is that once it sets in, it's extremely difficult to get ahead of.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: Sepsis can lead to a life-threatening drop in blood pressure.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: It can cause permanent kidney damage, permanent brain damage, very dangerous bleeding.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: And it can also cause death really rapidly.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: Before Roe v. Wade was overturned, the recommended standard of care for patients with pregnancy complications or miscarriages before fetal viability was to offer to terminate the pregnancy because of how dangerous infections can be.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: But today, under Texas law, a physician cannot terminate a pregnancy unless they can document the patient's life is at risk.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: And doctors face up to 99 years in prison for violating that law.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: Some doctors said, OK, that's very clear in the law.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: But when you're in the practice of medicine, it's extraordinarily gray.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: What constitutes a life-threatening risk?
--:-- Lizzie Presser: According to ProPublica's analysis, that uncertainty physicians are facing could explain why Texas hospitals are seeing rising sepsis rates for pregnant patients.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: They are waiting for women who are experiencing pregnancy complications to get really sick before they intervene
--:-- Lizzie Presser: But then you may not be able to intervene anymore because that risk can escalate so fast
--:-- Lizzie Presser: Between 2019 and 2023 the maternal mortality rate rose in Texas by 33 percent
--:-- Lizzie Presser: Meanwhile, nationwide, it dropped by 7.5 percent.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: And Presser says this trend with sepsis is not limited to Texas.
--:-- Lizzie Presser: Other states that have similar laws banning abortion are seeing sepsis rates climb too for patients experiencing complications before their pregnancies are viable.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Texas abortion law is under review this legislative session.
--:-- Shumita Basu: As a result of ProPublica's reporting, Presser says Republican lawmakers in Texas, including several of the authors of abortion policy in the state, have expressed a willingness to amend the law to better protect the lives of patients.
--:-- Shumita Basu: But it's unclear if proposed amendments will receive a public hearing this session.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're watching.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The United States on Monday joined Russia to vote against a U.N. resolution condemning Russia's war against Ukraine.
--:-- Shumita Basu: CNN reports the U.N. measure, which was backed by longtime European allies, called for immediate withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine and a peaceful resolution to the war now marking its third year.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The AP called it a sign of a shift in transatlantic relations, with the United States continuing to signal a willingness to split from Europe and refuse to blame Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now to an update on the closely watched mass rape trial in France, where 51 men were convicted two months ago of raping Gisele Pelico.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Six of the 50 men are already out of jail and living relatively normal lives.
--:-- Shumita Basu: The Sunday Times reports the men who have been released were let go because of their poor health or because they'd served their time in pretrial detention.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Now many are back in villages in France.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Some have returned to their families, to their job.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Gisele Pellico's lawyer says she is trying to return to normal life, too.
--:-- Shumita Basu: And the Oscars are this weekend, and after skipping several awards season ceremonies, Carla Sofia Gascon, who is nominated for Best Actress for her role in the film Amelia Perez, says she will attend the Oscar ceremony.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Gascon was largely left out of Oscar campaigning and has kept a low profile after years-old offensive tweets resurfaced, where she made charged statements about Black people, Islam, and immigrants.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Gascon is the first openly trans woman to be nominated for Best Actress, and said, quote, I'm grateful to be back.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Emilia Perez led all Oscar films with 13 nominations.
--:-- 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.
--:-- Shumita Basu: Popular Mechanics has the story of a puzzling archaeological object that spent 2,000 years at the bottom of the Aegean Sea before some of it got hauled up.
--:-- Shumita Basu: It might have been the world's first computer.
--:-- 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.
