--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Thursday, July 18th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Coming up on today's show, aid is arriving in Gaza. So why isn't it being delivered? The mysterious illnesses troubling a small Texas town and the free perks a very pricey European city is offering to tourists. But first, it has been another busy 24 hours in the presidential campaign, in a week that has already been filled with dizzying headlines.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yesterday was the third night of the Republican National Convention, but there was plenty going on outside of Milwaukee. Democrats find themselves still struggling to settle on a path ahead as Republicans coalesce around their ticket.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: President Biden tested positive for COVID-19. According to the White House, he's feeling fine and will carry out presidential duties while isolating. But the diagnosis comes at a troubling time in his campaign, and it pulled him away from events in Nevada.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: CNN reports that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi privately told Biden that polling shows he cannot win re-election. And she said that staying in the race could damage Democrats' chance of taking back the House.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Meanwhile, ABC reports that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries have both had conversations with Biden about exiting the race.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now, the White House continues to say that Biden is in the race and campaigning to win. But these stories and the fact that they are still coming out signify a deep challenge ahead in convincing his party that he should remain in the contest.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Meanwhile, on the RNC stage last night, Trump's vice presidential pick J.D. Vance, a senator from Ohio, introduced himself to the nation.
--:-- J.D. Vance: I grew up in Middletown, Ohio. A small town where people spoke their minds, built with their hands, and loved their God, their family, their community, and their country with their whole hearts.
--:-- J.D. Vance: But it was also a place that had been cast aside and forgotten by America's ruling class in Washington.
--:-- J.D. Vance: The former Trump critic lavishly praised him, and he referenced the former president's survival after the assassination attempt.
--:-- J.D. Vance: Vance also attacked Biden's record, including on economic and foreign policy.
--:-- J.D. Vance: Joe Biden has been a politician in Washington for longer than I've been alive. 39 years old. Kamala Harris is not much further behind.
--:-- J.D. Vance: For half a century, he's been the champion of every major policy initiative to make America weaker and poorer
--:-- J.D. Vance: And in four short years Donald Trump reversed decades of betrayals inflicted by Joe Biden and the rest of the corrupt Washington insiders
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Tonight, the Republican National Convention will come to a close with a speech by Trump, who Vance referred to as the once and future president.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The U.S. military has officially ended the troubled mission to provide aid to Gaza from a temporary pier off the coast.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: This was a highly publicized project that President Biden championed in his State of the Union address.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It cost roughly $230 million to build, ran into a number of problems, and ultimately was only operational for about 20 days in all.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: NPR reports on the aid crisis more broadly, focusing on a new problem. Aid that's getting into Gaza, but not being given out fast enough.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Israel says it's allowing shipments into Gaza, but the goods are sitting for days or even weeks before they're distributed to Palestinians.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Aid workers say they're having trouble delivering aid because of ongoing Israeli attacks, fuel shortages, and looting.
--:-- Aya Batrawi: Different aid workers I spoke with described that Gaza side of the border as a scene from the movie Mad Max, like this lawless stretch of territory with bandits and no security.
--:-- Aya Batrawi: There are men with sticks waiting for the trucks, broken windshields and mirrors. The trucks have metal wires and screens to protect them from rocks and more attacks.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Israel says it's working to increase deliveries and that it has paused military operations in a corridor during daytime to allow for more aid to move to populated areas.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But Mercy Corps told NPR that it hadn't received a single aid delivery in more than two months.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And Reuters reports that conditions are so bad, many Palestinians are scavenging for anything they can eat, including mulberry leaves, just to get some sustenance.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Meanwhile, hospitals remain overwhelmed and lacking enough supplies.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Here's what pediatrician Dr. Ahmed Youssef told Al Jazeera.
--:-- Dr. Ahmed Youssef: The medications we use for controlling severe bleeding, especially in the patient's liver disease, in an environment where everybody is bleeding, we are out of these really vital medications.
--:-- Dr. Ahmed Youssef: And so what the communities had to do is work off of suitcases bought in by prior medical teams greater than three months ago, because currently all inflow of medical supplies has been stopped at the border.
--:-- Dr. Ahmed Youssef: Dr. Youssef says he has had several cases where people survived explosions and made it through surgery, only to die from infections because there isn't enough medicine.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: USAID said in a statement this week that Israeli leaders still need to do more to protect civilians and humanitarian workers in order to get the aid in the hands of the Palestinian people
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Our next story takes us to Granbury, Texas, a small town near Fort Worth, where residents are mysteriously getting sick.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: They weren't sleeping. They were getting severe migraines. A lot of people were getting tinnitus. Some people seemed to be losing their hearing.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's Andrew Chow, a reporter with Time.
--:-- Andrew Chow: A lot of people were getting high blood pressure. People who had never had a history or any sort of family history with a high blood pressure.
--:-- Andrew Chow: And then there were these more extreme events, you know, cardiovascular events, heart arrhythmia, palpitations.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The dominant theory among residents and medical experts on what is making people sick? Bitcoin.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You might wonder how digital currency could do that.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There's a Bitcoin mine operating nearby, and the suspicion is the thousands of fans used to cool down computers that power this facility are creating a lot of noise.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: So much noise that people in Granbury believe it's actually making them ill.
--:-- Andrew Chow: I could feel the vibration sort of in my chest and it would sort of undulate, move up and down.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The current owner of the mine is Marathon Digital Holdings, one of the largest Bitcoin holders in the world.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It didn't answer Time Magazine's questions about health impacts, but it did say that it's installing technology to replace loud fans.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: One reason Bitcoin miners like Texas is the loose noise regulation. It has the loudest state limit in America by far.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There's also the friendly administration. Governor Greg Abbott has said that he wants Texas to be the top state for cryptocurrency.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Given all of that and the lack of major medical studies on the health impact of living by Bitcoin mines, The Granbury community says it's been tough to get state lawmakers to help them.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The local politicians I talked to said their hands are tied.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: They can't just write a rule saying that this company or any company should stop making noise.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The only thing they can do is draft statewide resolutions that applies, you know, to the whole state.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And that is thorny for all sorts of reasons.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Granbury residents told Chow they feel defeated. The health issues are exhausting. Their medical bills are mounting.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And Chow says the town feels like a canary in a coal mine, a sign of more potential trouble to come.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There are many other communities that could experience this as crypto mining expands in the US
--:-- Gideon Resnick: There are more than 100 large operations nationwide
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Because of the spread of this industry both in terms of Bitcoin mining and data centers at large since the rise of artificial intelligence over the last couple years, the data center industry has taken off in an immense way because AI, like crypto, relies on the energy and the sort of constant churning of these giant server farms.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Let's end the show today with some other stories being featured in the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: With all the political news out there, you might have missed the Emmy nominations.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Bear scored 23, a record for the comedy category.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: What if I wanted to open a restaurant? They're hard and they're brutal and they're specific, but I know how to do it.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: This would be a different kind of restaurant.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Though many have quibbled whether The Bear is, in fact, a comedy.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: On the drama side, Shogun leads with 25 nominations.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Ringer stepped back and crunched all the categories to come up with a list of winners and losers.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And one of the winners is FX, which has both of those leading shows.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's also a big year for brand new dramas, racking up award nominations right as they debut.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In space exploration news, The Verge has the story of NASA canceling plans to send a rover to the moon to search for water.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The rover, named Viper, cost more than $400 million to make.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: NASA cited rising costs and that continuing with Viper could force cancellation of other missions.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And now it plans to disassemble the rover.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: NASA says it will explore the moon in other missions.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And finally, one of the world's most expensive cities is offering tourists some perks, if they go green.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: NBC News reports that this week, Copenhagen rolled out a new program that provides visitors with free meals, train tickets, and museum tours if they make sustainable choices.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you show up to the Copenhagen Museum by foot or public transit, for example, you'll get a glass of wine at their rooftop bar on the house.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Or if you help clean the harbor, you can score free kayak rentals.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's an innovative program, launched perhaps not surprisingly by a city that has more bikes than people.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Just make sure you know what you're doing when you hop in the bike lane.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The locals are experts and have places to be.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And if you are already listening in the News app right now, stick around.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We have that Time Magazine story on Bitcoin mining in Texas queued up to play for you next.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And if you're listening in the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
