--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Thursday, October 10th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, how Harris and Trump are fighting for votes in the Pennsylvania county that's known for picking presidents, the many missed red flags that led to last month's school shooting in Georgia, and a theory about the mysterious inventor of Bitcoin. But first, Hurricane Milton is bearing down on Florida after making landfall last night. This is a quickly moving situation. You can find the latest developments in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But today, we're going to look at the role the federal government plays in responding to big weather disasters like this. This is the second major hurricane FEMA is facing in two weeks. So far for Hurricane Helene, they say they've spent over $200 million on aid for things like meals, water, tarps, and generators.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ahead of Hurricane Milton, FEMA helped Florida clear debris left from Helene. It prepared tens of millions of emergency meals, collected safe drinking water, and more. It has been a busy time and made busier by the fact that FEMA is also facing a stream of lies and misinformation about their response to Helene. Some of those lies have been amplified by former President Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told CNN she's worried that Trump's comments could discourage hurricane victims from seeking federal support. We really have just got to stop this rhetoric because what it's doing is it's putting fear in the people that we're not going to be there to help them. And I worry that they won't register for assistance with us and get access to the critical resources that they are eligible for.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At recent campaign rallies, Trump claimed FEMA neglects areas with Republican voters. He said the agency will run out of money because it funneled aid to undocumented migrants instead, which is false. FEMA plays a role in border management, but it pulls from a different pot of money for disaster response. And the agency's baseline funding has actually increased over the last decade or so.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump has also suggested FEMA is only giving $750 to hurricane survivors whose homes have been swept away. But that $750 is just the initial stipend that FEMA provides to cover essentials like diapers or food. The maximum amount of aid FEMA gives for things like home repairs is more than $42,000.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Both President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have criticized Trump's comments. Here's Harris on CNN.
--:-- Kamala Harris: It is dangerous. It is unconscionable, frankly, that anyone who would consider themselves a leader would mislead desperate people to the point that those desperate people would not receive the aid to which they are entitled.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So far, Hurricane Helene is estimated to have damaged thousands of homes and businesses and taken more than 220 lives. It's too soon to say just how devastating Hurricane Milton will be. But again, you can follow the latest developments in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn to Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state in a close race for the White House. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are spending a lot of time and money there lately, more than any other state. Trump was there yesterday. Harris is scheduled to be there on Monday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Collectively, they're set to spend $350 million on TV spots alone, according to The New York Times. Jarrett Renshaw, a White House reporter for Reuters, explains why Pennsylvania is getting so much focus.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: It really just comes down to size. With 19 electoral votes, it's the largest in terms of electoral votes of all the battleground states. I often tell people, just to think about it, all Trump needs to do to win the White House is win Georgia and win Pennsylvania, and all the rest of the map can stay the same.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: So that tells you how important Pennsylvania is for Trump. And following that logic, how important Pennsylvania is for Harris to make sure Trump doesn't win the state.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: Harris's campaign is focusing on shoring up parts of the Democratic base, but also chipping away at Republican advantages in more rural counties. Trump's campaign has focused on turning out infrequent voters.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: The polls show a very close race in the state. This is not unusual for Pennsylvania, which has seen tight margins before, like in 2016 when Hillary Clinton lost to Trump by just over 44,000 votes. And in 2020, when Biden beat Trump by just over 80,000 votes.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: The geography and demographics of Pennsylvania and its mix of rural, urban, and suburban areas make it an interesting microcosm of America. You know, you have Philadelphia, which is obviously one of the largest cities in America. Democrats pull deep from there and come out of that every statewide election with huge margins, and similar with Pittsburgh.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: But you have a lot of these Rust Belt cities that have a good mix of Democrat and Republicans, and suburban areas, which obviously is becoming more and more important for Democrats. And then you just got a large section of just rural Pennsylvania where Republicans kind of run up the numbers.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: And there's one county in particular that might hold the key to how the whole state could swing. Erie County is a bellwether that's picked the winning candidate in the last four presidential elections. If your message appeals to folks in Erie, I think it's a good chance your message appeals more broadly in Pennsylvania.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: With that in mind, both campaigns are investing in Erie. Harris has the upper hand in money and staffing, which Democrats hope will give them the advantage in the county.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: I think that's the real test, right? You talk to folks who've been around politics for a while, particularly on the Democratic side, But they'll tell you ground games win elections. And if they're right, Harris is going to win Erie County.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: But I said it's an open question if Harris's ground game will make a difference. Another factor for Democrats is that their registration advantage over Republicans in Pennsylvania has dipped a lot over the last nine years.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: Renshaw said that could be people who are already voting for Republican candidates just now changing their party affiliation. But the trend is worrying some Democrats. People have mixed opinions on how to interpret it.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: It clearly something that is benefiting Republicans and it something they can surely point to and objectively point to as a sign of enthusiasm here in the state. You know, I really think time will tell about what its broad impacts are.
--:-- Jarrett Renshaw: Some Pennsylvania residents describe the atmosphere right now as politically dialed all the way up. A Politico reporter, Holly Otterbein, who grew up in the state, said, as a Philadelphian who watches Jeopardy, the deluge of ads is like nothing she's ever seen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to a Washington Post investigation that goes deep into the life of the 14-year-old who shot and killed four people at Appalachee High School in Georgia last month.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Colt Gray is facing murder charges as an adult. And his father, who bought the gun that was used, was also arrested and is facing murder and manslaughter charges, as well as cruelty-to-children charges related to allowing his son to have a weapon in the first place.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Investigative reporters with the Post spoke with Gray's family and reviewed texts, emails, and other documents to piece together how Gray became the youngest alleged mass shooter in 25 years and what they found was a life of neglect not just on the part of the parents but from multiple institutions that are supposed to protect children and families.
--:-- Sarah Blasky: He grew up in a very difficult home situation. He had two parents who were constantly struggling with addictions of various sorts, who on sort of the best of days might have been described as negligent by those around them, neighbors, other family members.
--:-- Sarah Blasky: But on the worst days, one family member in particular said that she actually witnessed Colt Gray's mother hit him. And so he really had a hard time.
--:-- Sarah Blasky: Gray's parents were evicted multiple times. They moved a lot. He went to six schools in five years. There were times where he was absent from school for a year at a time. He didn't attend eighth grade and, you know, nothing ever happened.
--:-- Sarah Blasky: No one came to check on him, whether that was child services or the school systems that we are aware of. And so in all of these moments, you see all of these authorities that are supposed to help protect children and prevent them from causing harms to others. Just not being able to or not taking the extra step to do that in the case of Colt Gray.
--:-- Sarah Blasky: What stood out to me was just how disjointed all these different authorities are. Over the years, Colt and his family interacted with Georgia child welfare workers, multiple school systems, three county sheriff's departments, and two local police agencies.
--:-- Sarah Blasky: And each of them had a piece of Gray's story. Altogether, she said that information should have painted a picture of a child in need of serious help.
--:-- Sarah Blasky: One particularly disturbing missed red flag came in the spring of 2023. The FBI flagged a Discord user who threatened to open fire at a school. Another message included images of an AR-style gun and a shotgun.
--:-- Sarah Blasky: Shortly after, officers arrived at the Gray household porch and interviewed him and his dad. Colt promised that he didn't write the threats.
--:-- Sarah Blasky: If the police had compared the photo of the guns with the home interior or weapons they might have realized that the posts were in fact his.
--:-- Sarah Blasky: So imagine how differently a school system might have reacted like Appalachee High on the morning of the shooting when a teacher reports that Colt Gray has been asking about how they respond to active shooters, how differently that would hit if that school had already been aware that this student had been flagged by the FBI for making threats.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Colt Gray and his father will next appear in court in December. The 14-year-old faces the possibility of life in prison.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories being featured in the Apple News app. The WNBA finals start tonight. The No. 1 New York Liberty take on the No. 2 Minnesota Lynx.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the Liberty, along with their twerking mascot, Ellie the Elephant, will have the home court advantage in Game 1. Both of these teams are bringing big star power. The Liberty have two former MVPs, Brianna Stewart and Jonquil Jones, and the Lynx have 2024 runner-up Nafisa Collier.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Ahead of tip-off, you can check out ESPN's recap of each team's road to the finals, plus analysis on what it'll take for them to win it all.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Over the years, a lot of people have tried to solve one of the biggest mysteries of the internet era, the identity of the inventor of the digital currency Bitcoin.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Multiple attempts have been debunked, but filmmaker and journalist Colin Hoback is the latest to put forward a theory in a new HBO documentary. He claims to have found the alias that Bitcoin's inventor used online and linked it to a Canadian developer.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This developer, if Hoback's theory is accurate, would have been a college student when cryptocurrency was first getting started. But that developer told the Washington Post, sorry, he's got the wrong guy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So we'll see where this theory goes. But the interest in solving the riddle probably won't go anywhere anytime soon, because whoever the inventor of Bitcoin turns out to be, they're sitting on tens of billions of dollars from their creation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, a little PSA of sorts. In the event of a major disaster like a hurricane that knocks out cell service, you can still communicate with your iPhone via satellite. Just upgrade to iOS 18 to enable the feature.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Wall Street Journal writes about how a man just outside of Asheville, North Carolina, lost all cell service when Helene hit. And he was surprised and relieved to find his phone connected to satellite so he could text his family.
--:-- Shamita Basu: iPhones have had satellite capabilities for a while now, and some Androids do as well, but not everyone knows about it. It's good to keep in mind in emergencies.
--:-- Shamita Basu: 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.
--:-- Shamita Basu: After a Brooklyn daycare shut down unexpectedly, one family decided to host a temporary nursery in their living room. New York Magazine describes the chaos and uncertainty that followed.
--:-- 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.
