--:-- Shemitah Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, March 19th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: On today's show, why a pair of astronauts on an eight-day mission ended up in space for nine months, how Florida's rollback of DEI policies changed college campuses, and some tips for filling out your NCAA tournament brackets. But first, updates on two big international crises, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Let's start with Ukraine. Hours after a phone call between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Putin agreed to a halt in attacks on energy infrastructure, that agreement appeared to crumble. Russia launched fresh missile and drone attacks on Ukraine, striking both civilian and energy infrastructure.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Ukrainian officials say two hospitals were hit, a violation of international law. Ukraine also launched long-range drones into Russia overnight. Russian officials say one of those hit an oil depot.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Before Russia's most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was open to the partial ceasefire and supported continuing negotiations for a full ceasefire.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Trump described his phone call with Putin as very good and productive, and a Kremlin spokesperson indicated Putin would consider a long-term ceasefire if all foreign military and intelligence aid to Ukraine were halted.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: But today, Zelensky said Russia's overnight attacks show that Moscow's claimed support for a full ceasefire is not real. Zelensky is expected to speak with Trump sometime today.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Let's turn to the war in Gaza now, where a wave of deadly attacks by Israeli forces in recent days shattered the country's fragile ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had, quote, resumed combat in full force and that any negotiations would continue under fire.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: A Hamas official said Netanyahu's decision to return to full-scale war will be a death sentence for the remaining hostages.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Israel's strikes this week were the largest attacks since the ceasefire started in January, killing hundreds of Palestinians in the first 24 hours.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: They landed across the Gaza Strip as many people were having their pre-dawn meal for Ramadan.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The Washington Post received voice notes from Palestinians the morning after the attacks. One of them was 22-year-old Wasam Thabet.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: I was lying in my bed, almost asleep, when I started hearing the heavy continuous bombing. I think everyone in Gaza already waked up, freaked out, checking the news channels.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: We are still traumatized by what we have here witnessed or experienced in the last war. I don't think we have the energy or strength for another war.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The strikes also came two weeks after Israel began a blockade on aid entering Gaza.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Israeli officials say the strikes exclusively targeted terror targets and weapons stockpiles.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: And Hamas has confirmed that several of its leaders were killed in the strikes, including its de facto head of government.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Health workers in Gaza have reported many women and children among the casualties and hospitals are reportedly struggling to treat the sudden volume of patients.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Medical professionals with Doctors Without Borders who were working from Nasser Hospital, posted on social media yesterday that the injuries they're seeing are disastrous and that, quote, doctors in the emergency room were crying due to the intensity and difficulty of the situation.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The AP reports the Israeli military has ordered people to evacuate eastern Gaza a sign that Israel could soon launch renewed ground operations.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: With both Gaza and Ukraine, President Trump has spoken about how he plans to swiftly end the conflicts.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: But so far, the president and his negotiators have not been able to make lasting deals that all parties can agree to.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Two NASA astronauts made their long-awaited return to Earth last night after an unexpected nine-month stay in space.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: And SpaceX freedom, splashdown. Good main release. Copy splashdown. We see main shoots cut. Nick, Alex, Butch, Sunny, on behalf of SpaceX? Welcome home.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Last June, astronauts Sonny Williams and Butch Wilmore arrived at the International Space Station on a Boeing Starliner, the first time the spacecraft launched with a human crew.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: They were originally slated for an eight-day mission to the ISS, but early on, they ran into problems.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: After they launched, while they were traveling to the space station, they had some issues with their thrusters and there were some helium leaks.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Andrea Leinfelder is a space reporter at the Houston Chronicle.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: They reached the station safely, but it was the thruster issues that really gave NASA pause.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: That pause led to a decision straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster. Williams and Will Moore were left behind, and the Starliner returned to Earth without a crew.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: Now, President Trump has claimed credit for bringing the astronauts home, saying he directed Elon Musk to, quote, go get them on one of SpaceX's Dragon capsules after they were abandoned by President Biden.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: Leinfelder told us this plan between SpaceX and NASA was already in the works before Trump came into office.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: A lot of people think that this is a rescue mission, that they've been rescued or saved. NASA has had a plan since last summer, so it's not a rescue or a save.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: And the spacecraft they flew home in had actually been at the space station since September.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: So they were really just waiting on the replacements to come and get them.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: The astronauts themselves also don't say they were abandoned or needed to be saved.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: Will Moore recently said in a press conference from the ISS that astronauts are generally prepared for the possibility that they would have to stay longer.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: That's what we do in human spaceflight. That's what your nation's human spaceflight program is all about, planning for unknown, unexpected contingencies.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: There's also one small upside to the length of the trip that I pointed out.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: Sunny Williams now has the record for total spacewalking time by a female astronaut.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: She, over her nine different spacewalks, has spent 62 hours and six minutes spacewalking.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: And I think that's just a cool factor that gets overlooked.
--:-- Andrea Leinfelder: And she wouldn't have gotten that record had she come home after a week.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Across the country colleges and universities are scrambling to interpret an executive order issued by President Trump in January which declared programs focusing on DEI diversity equity and inclusion are quote illegal
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The order instructed schools to stop using DEI principles to shape employment practices and admissions.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The president says these policies contribute to discrimination.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Although DEI initiatives were initially created to help close the gap for marginalized groups that have not historically had equal opportunities for jobs or education.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: There's one place in the country to look to that's had an early start on adopting these kinds of changes and could be an early indication for what campuses might start to look like nationwide.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: That's Florida, where under Governor Ron DeSantis, local Republicans have enacted a series of laws in recent years to dismantle DEI initiatives.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: One policy bans public colleges and universities from spending on DEI programs.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: It also bans educators from teaching critical race theory in general education courses.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Doug Belkin, a higher education reporter for The Wall Street Journal, told us how college curricula have changed.
--:-- Doug Belkin: What the Florida law has done is say we don't want too heavy an emphasis on these issues that put a harsh spotlight on Western civilization, on the American experiment, it's more important to try to create a sense of unity and an understanding so that we can create citizens here who are both appreciative of the country and informed on how things work.
--:-- Doug Belkin: Belkin recently spent time at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and he told us these laws have transformed the campus.
--:-- Doug Belkin: How classes are taught, how the student newspapers and news gathering organizations are thinking and where people are meeting and how tours are given and how dormitories are operating.
--:-- Doug Belkin: So it's had a really kind of wide-ranging effect.
--:-- Doug Belkin: The university eliminated 28 jobs related to DEI.
--:-- Doug Belkin: It scrubbed all DEI language from its websites, changed the name of its Center for Inclusion and Multicultural Engagement to the Office of Community and Belonging.
--:-- Doug Belkin: Within that office, photos of civil rights leaders were taken down from a center for Black students.
--:-- Doug Belkin: Rainbow flags were removed from the LGBTQ office.
--:-- Doug Belkin: Belkin says the new rules on campus have been welcomed by some students, particularly conservative ones.
--:-- Doug Belkin: A lot of conservative students have long felt that their perspective was not wanted.
--:-- Doug Belkin: And if they were to articulate it, they would get a crappier grade by their professor.
--:-- Doug Belkin: They could be ostracized by their friends or their social circle.
--:-- Doug Belkin: Other students and some faculty say these laws have had a chilling effect on free speech.
--:-- Doug Belkin: They are unnerved by the notion that the government is reaching in and saying, you cannot say these things, you can't advocate for this position.
--:-- Doug Belkin: They are really steering clear of a lot of these conversations because they don't want to get on the wrong side of a very unified state government, which has said, you know, this is not allowed.
--:-- Doug Belkin: The new laws also allow students to record classes without professors' consent, which some faculty and students told Belkin makes them worried their comments in the classroom could be shared on social media or used against them by someone with a political agenda.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts yesterday issued a statement, a rare rebuke of a president, pushing back against Trump and his allies who have called for the impeachment of judges that have blocked the administration's agenda.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Roberts wrote, the correct reaction to a ruling that a party disagrees with is to file an appeal.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: This comes as Trump is calling for the impeachment of the U.S. district judge who blocked the deportation of Venezuelan migrants over the weekend.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: That flight landed in El Salvador despite the judge's ruling.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Trump told Fox News on Tuesday he believes the Supreme Court will ultimately rule in his favor on this issue.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Sticking with courts, a federal judge ruled yesterday that Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency likely acted unconstitutionally in its shuttering of USAID.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The judge, ruling in favor of 26 current and former employees, ordered email access restored to current workers and blocked the Doge Department from taking any action related to USAID.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The Hill reports it's also the first time a judge ruled that Musk himself might be exercising enough independent authority that would require him to be confirmed by the Senate, rejecting the administration's assertion that he's an advisor and not the head of an agency.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: A White House spokesperson called the ruling a, quote, miscarriage of justice.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: And finally, the shot clock is winding down to finalize your March Madness predictions.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: For the men's tournament, we have until around noon Eastern today to submit your brackets in most places.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: And for the women's tournament, you've got a little more time by 11:15 Eastern Friday morning.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: To help you figure out your picks, we asked two pros at The Athletic for their best tips.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: Here's senior writer Justin Williams, who's covering the men's tournament.
--:-- Justin Williams: Ride the 11 seeds. You know, I think historically everyone has always wanted to pick the 12 in a 5-12 matchup, but recently it feels like the 11 seeds have had a lot of success.
--:-- Justin Williams: But whether you're picking an 11 seed or a 13 seed or a 12 seed, just make sure you pick a double-digit seed to make a sweet 16 run.
--:-- Justin Williams: It happens every year.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: For the women's tournament, staff writer Sabrina Merchant told us you're going to basically want to do the polar opposite with your bracket for the first two rounds.
--:-- Sabrina Merchant: There's kind of this rule of thumb on the men's side that a quarter of the games are going to end in upsets.
--:-- Sabrina Merchant: I would not expect that to happen on the women's side.
--:-- Sabrina Merchant: Because the top four seeds host the first two rounds on their home courts, it is much less likely to see upsets.
--:-- Sabrina Merchant: Feel free to pick upsets by the seed lines in the second weekend and the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight.
--:-- Sabrina Merchant: And when in doubt, just get a little silly with it.
--:-- Sabrina Merchant: Pick your favorite colors, your favorite mascots, your favorite cities.
--:-- Sabrina Merchant: Just focus on having fun and you could end up lucky.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: You can get live tournament scores super fast on the lock screen of your iPhone by downloading the Apple Sports app.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: And if you're listening to today's show in the Apple News app, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: What happens when young people aren't interested in dating?
--:-- Shemitah Basu: The Atlantic has a story on how Gen Z in particular is withdrawing from the dating scene, begging the question, does becoming a well-rounded grown-up require romantic experience?
--:-- Shemitah Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shemitah Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
