--:-- Mark Garrison: Good morning. It's Wednesday, January 3rd. I'm Mark Garrison in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Mark Garrison: On today's show, family members raise questions about deaths in federal prisons, what it took to launch a women's hockey league in just six months, and how people are messing up the moon. But first, let's take a quick look at some major stories in the news.
--:-- Florencia Sotonino: There are new fears of a widening conflict in the Mideast after the assassination of a senior Hamas leader, Saleh Al-Aruri. He was killed in a drone strike in Lebanon's capital, Beirut. Israel hasn't confirmed or denied it ordered the killing, but it's widely seen to be responsible.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Florencia Sotonino, spokesperson for the U.N. Secretary General, said this could be a dangerous escalation. We are calling for maximum restraint from all parties. We don't want any rash actions that could trigger further violence.
--:-- Florencia Sotonino: Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, is an ally of Hamas. It's threatened in the past to retaliate against Israeli assassinations on Lebanese territory.
--:-- Mark Garrison: At Harvard University, President Claudine Gay has resigned. The move follows weeks of criticism of her testimony before Congress about anti-Semitism on college campuses and growing allegations of plagiarism in past academic research.
--:-- Claudine Gay: The Harvard Corporation investigated concerns about her research before, concluding that she made some mistakes but did not engage in misconduct. But new allegations about her research came out more recently.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Gay will stay at Harvard as a faculty member.
--:-- Mark Garrison: In legal news, a federal appeals court ruled that Texas doctors are not required under federal law to perform emergency abortions. This is a blow for the White House, which argued that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act gives doctors the authority to perform abortions in emergency cases.
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--:-- Mark Garrison: And we know more this morning about the dramatic escape of all 379 passengers and crew on board the Japan Airlines flight that caught fire on a Tokyo runway yesterday.
--:-- Anton Daiba: You had a hard time breathing. So I took my hoodie. The only piece of equipment I still have left, everything else has burned down and covered my face. And then after a while, they finally opened the doors and everyone ran out. And then you had to jump out of the plane.
--:-- William Manzion: And I turn around and I see the air flame with the nose completely smashed and the flames all over on the back.
--:-- Mark Garrison: The fire happened after a collision with a Coast Guard plane where five people died. Transport officials and police are investigating the cause, including whether negligence may have played a role.
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--:-- Mark Garrison: Since 2009, three-quarters of all deaths in federal prisons have been deemed natural. And if a death is classified as natural, federal prison authorities aren't required to do an autopsy.
--:-- Kesha Jackson: What the prisoners were saying to me is that he had been in a special housing unit for three days, banging on the door because he was going in and out of consciousness and he couldn't breathe. Days later, an officer did CPR, but John died shortly after.
--:-- Mark Garrison: The prison ruled his death as natural but Kesha found out more later. Her husband had MRSA, a staph infection. It's typically not fatal if treated properly. Kesha believes her husband might have lived with the right care.
--:-- Kesha Jackson: Saying that it's a natural death could sometimes be misleading. I believe that having proper medical treatment could have possibly saved his life.
--:-- Mark Garrison: NPR found many cases like Jackson's, where medical neglect or poor prison conditions could have played a role in the deaths, and where the family was given little to no information.
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--:-- Mark Garrison: History was made this week after the first puck was dropped in the newly formed Professional Women's Hockey League.
--:-- Haley Salvian: The crowd was really great. The line to get into the building was huge. It went around a full city block in Toronto just to get into the building. All the merchandise lines were so long.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Salvian told us the backstory to the league's creation. It came together in just a few months, something unheard of in the world of professional sports.
--:-- Haley Salvian: So from July 1st until January 1st, they had essentially six months to get their original six markets finalized, do venue agreements, build the rosters, create branding, marketing, sales, ticketing. Just so many things had to go into putting this league together.
--:-- Mark Garrison: They knew things were going to be perfect, but they thought that they owed it to the players to start this league as soon as possible.
--:-- Haley Salvian: It's not the first professional hockey league for women, but there's never been one quite like this, with all the best players facing off. Women hockey at the professional level has always been divided. There was a league in Canada and then there was a competing league in the U.S.
--:-- Mark Garrison: You can read more of the Athletic's coverage of this new league and all sports on the Apple News app.
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--:-- Mark Garrison: Finally, a story about what happens when you mess with the moon. Some researchers now believe that humans have become such a dominant force on the moon that it's now in a new epoch called the Lunar Anthropocene.
--:-- Mark Garrison: More than 100 spacecraft visits since 1959 seem to be taking their toll. Popular Mechanics looks at a new paper on this. From spacecraft touching down, sometimes even crashing on the moon, to astronauts walking on the surface, humans are altering its geology, disturbing the delicate balance of the moon's environment.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Researchers say exhaust from spacecraft can do serious damage, and debris left behind from past missions is also a problem. The moon is littered with abandoned spacecraft from decades of landings.
--:-- Mark Garrison: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next from the Wall Street Journal.
--:-- Mark Garrison: Any day now, we're expected to get the names of Jeffrey Epstein's associates listed in court documents. The Journal has an investigation that reveals how young women were drawn into Epstein's inner circle and abused.
--:-- Mark Garrison: If you're listening in the podcast's app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Mark Garrison: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
