--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Friday, April 30th. I'm Shamita Basu. And I'm Duarte Giraldino. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The images coming out of India right now are catastrophic. Hospitals are running out of oxygen supplies and funeral pyres are burning through the night after more than 200,000 people have died.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today, we're bringing you three perspectives on India from Indian journalists and writers on why COVID-19 is roaring back in such a devastating way.
--:-- Rana Ayyub: I've been reporting on COVID in India since the very beginning. In Time magazine, I write, This second wave is like nothing I've seen before. In my analysis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top government officials in his party are to blame. They ignored the science, declared a premature victory against the virus, and allowed people to become complacent.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Her point here is that while the virus was quietly spreading, Modi and his party should have discouraged mass political and religious gatherings.
--:-- Arundhati Roy: This second wave was predictable, and Modi missed opportunities to shore up the public health system early on in the pandemic. Just one example I give, officials failed to prepare for an oxygen supply shortage, even though it had been flagged as a possible crisis a year ago.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But in India, larger structural issues also existed long before the pandemic. Roy argues, for years, the government underinvested in the public health care system. This strengthened the market for private health care, but it was mostly available for the rich.
--:-- Arundhati Roy: Everyone keeps claiming the health care system is collapsing under COVID, but as I see it, it's the government that failed through its neglect.
--:-- Vidya Krishnan: India's wealthiest citizens are complicit in the shift away from public health care. I write about the rapid expansion of the private health care industry in India, which I say led to a system of medical apartheid. People who could afford to pay for great care could get it at private hospitals. Everyone else went to poorly run state facilities. COVID in India has spared no one based on class. Politicians, journalists, lawyers, and doctors – they all took to Twitter pleading for hospital beds and oxygen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Krishnan argues, wealthy people ignored inadequacies in the healthcare system. Now it's failing them too. She writes, The pandemic showed us no one is safe until everyone is.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: Karen Cruz Caceras entered the United States from Honduras. She fled after getting death threats from gangsters. The U.S. granted her asylum. Even though she was safe, the same gang that targeted her threatened to kill her pregnant sister. So then the sister entered the U.S., but American authorities expelled her, just dropped her off in Mexico.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: And that's where a cartel quickly kidnapped her, demanded a ransom from her U.S.-based family.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Kidnappings like these are fueled by American policies that expel migrants to Mexico, even if they're not from Mexico.
--:-- Molly O'Toole: In January, Joe Biden issued a series of executive orders that were meant to undo some of the immigration policies that were enacted by the Trump administration. Biden ended what's known as the Remain in Mexico policy. That forced people seeking asylum to wait south of the U.S. border for a court date.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But immigration reporter Molly O'Toole of the L.A. Times says hundreds of thousands of migrants, like Karen's sister, are still being sent to Mexico just under a different program called Title 42.
--:-- Molly O'Toole: The danger these expelled migrants face in Mexico contrasts strikingly with the Biden administration's pledge to make border policy more humane. During the pandemic, the Trump administration used Title 42 to justify expelling migrants on public health grounds. By keeping this policy going, the Biden administration is following Trump's lead here.
--:-- Shamita Basu: See, under the Remain in Mexico policy, people at least had a court date. But when migrants are expelled under Title 42, they have no record of their asylum claim. And in Mexico, an entire industry has developed around extortion, kidnapping migrants and demanding ransom from their families in the U.S.
--:-- Molly O'Toole: And there's often no choice but to pay. Karen's lawyers calling this situation a gold rush for criminals. Karen had to borrow thousands of dollars to pay for her sister's release. Her sister is safe and in the U now still.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For thousands of migrants trying to make their way north, Title 42 remains the hand that can quickly expel them. This week Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced a new effort. This effort is designed to combat criminal smuggling networks.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: The L.A. Times asked him about Title 42, and he said the policy is going to stay until it's, quote, no longer needed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Celebrity couples break up, just like us. Except when they do it, it launches a thousand opinions about why they did and who's to blame.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: By now you've heard Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have agreed to separate and share custody of their four kids.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And out of all the things that have been written dissecting their six-year marriage, we're recommending this one piece by Allison P. Davis for New York Magazine.
--:-- Allison P. Davis: I avoid the sometimes mean-spirited nature of the celebrity relationship post-mortem. And instead, I make an insightful point. Davis says the dynamic at the beginning of their relationship, with Kanye more widely respected and Kim seen as a second-rate celebrity, has completely flipped.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Think back to the early 2010s when all this started. Kanye was riding high, getting widespread acclaim. Yeah, he was seen as a divisive figure, but also a legitimately talented and respected player in the music industry.
--:-- Allison P. Davis: Kim was many seasons into filming her family's reality show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians. She'd gone through a big fairytale TV wedding and then a TV divorce. She hadn't yet transcended the role of reality show star, and yet, Davis writes, when these two flawed people got together, it was like a pot finding its lid, reassuring, relatable, somehow genuine and bright.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Davis says it was that pairing that gave Kim a kind of legitimacy. Kanye rebranded her image and gave her access to new circles, most notably in the fashion industry.
--:-- Allison P. Davis: One major turning point was their first magazine cover as a couple. There they were on the cover of Vogue with the Anna Wintour stamp of approval. And in time, the whole Kardashian family would be sitting in the front row at fashion shows and collaborating with designers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As Davis sees it, at this point, culture was also generally starting to shift in Kim's favor. Cashing in on social media fame was reframed as empowerment. The Kardashians started spinoff businesses with makeup and clothing lines. Kim star was rising. But Kanye it was beginning to fall.
--:-- Allison P. Davis: He struggled through his 2016 tour eventually canceled it and checked himself into a medical facility. West said he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In 2018, he made a number of controversial statements, including when he said slavery was a choice. He also launched a short-lived bid for president in 2020.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Through all of this, Davis writes, Kim was the one who translated Kanye to the rest of the world. And she continued to create a more serious brand for herself, talking about studying law and advocating for criminal justice reform.
--:-- Allison P. Davis: Davis doesn't speculate what happened behind closed doors that dissolved the marriage. But she does say by the end of this epic, public, ego-filled relationship, it's easier to imagine a Kim presidential run than a Kanye one.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Everyone in football saw this moment coming. With the first pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, the Jacksonville Jaguars select Trevor Lawrence, quarterback Clemson.
--:-- Duarte Giraldino: Lawrence has been in the spotlight since he was a teenager. Top colleges started watching him as a high school sophomore. In Lawrence's three seasons at Clemson, the team only lost two games. As a freshman, he led them to the national title.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, the Jaguars, on the other hand, were the NFL's worst team last season. And The Ringer explains why having Lawrence is such a big deal for them.
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--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And while you're there, check out some of our audio stories, including that one about Kim and Kanye. Enjoy the weekend, and we'll talk with you again on Monday.
