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--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Wednesday, January 24th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: On today's show, Trump gets a key win in New Hampshire, understanding Israel's controversial plans for Gaza. And fans want to know why Barbie's star and director were snubbed by Oscar voters.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: First, to the New Hampshire primary, where former President Donald Trump won that contest, getting a double-digit win over Nikki Haley.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: USA! USA! USA! Well, I want to thank everybody. This is a fantastic state. This is a great, great state. You know, we won New Hampshire three times now. Three.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Haley did a bit better than polls indicated, but Trump still managed to win by around 10 percentage points. And this was in a state where moderates and independents play a big role, seen as favorable territory to Haley.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Future contests look much tougher in states with a larger share of conservative voters. Still, Haley says the race isn't over.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: At one point in this campaign, there were 14 of us running. And we were at 2% in the polls. Well, I'm a fighter.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: As for President Biden, he won the state easily. We talked yesterday on the show about how his supporters had to vote for him as a write-in candidate. That was because of the dispute between the National Democratic Party and New Hampshire over timing of the primary.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And there are a couple of new developments in Donald Trump's legal cases. A federal appeals court is declining his request to reconsider its decision to mostly uphold a gag order on Trump. This is in the federal election interference case.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The order limits what he can say about prosecutors, court staff, and potential witnesses. Also, the defamation trial involving E. Jean Carroll is now on hold until tomorrow.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Trump was expected to take the stand yesterday or today, but the case has been postponed because of illness with a juror and one of Trump's lawyers.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Abroad, Russian officials say a military plane carrying dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war, as well as Russian crew members, has crashed near the country's border and that everyone on board was killed.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Moscow says the POWs were being transferred for a routine exchange of prisoners. Now to Gaza where fighting has intensified in the south.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Israel has moved forward with its biggest operation in a month there. This is in Khan Yunis an area to where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled seeking shelter from the earlier attacks on Gaza City in the north.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Israeli forces have the area surrounded, and tanks have cut off a key road blocking an escape route for civilians. Palestinian health officials say around 200 people were killed in 24 hours, with thousands more feared lost under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In the background of all this, diplomats from the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt have been talking for weeks with Israel and Hamas about a potential ceasefire agreement.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Reuters reports that the two sides seem closer to a deal. That could mean a 30-day truce, which would include the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But that would only be a temporary ceasefire. Reuters also reports that both sides are far apart on any deal that would permanently end the war in Gaza.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Also, we're learning more about the 21 Israeli soldiers killed on Monday. Israel says they were rigging explosives in order to demolish two buildings in Gaza near the border with Israel.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The explosives went off during crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Hamas. That's drawing attention to Israel's reported plans to make a buffer zone between Gaza and Israel.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This would potentially involve destroying a lot of buildings near the border. That would include Palestinian homes, potentially entire neighborhoods.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Israeli supporters of a buffer zone say it's needed to prevent another cross-border attack, like the one on October 7th, and that a buffer zone would make conditions safe enough for Israelis who fled their homes near Gaza to return.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Reuters reported in December that Israel told Arab neighbors about a plan for a buffer zone, raising concerns that it could be a step toward another mass displacement of Palestinians.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The United States has also opposed the idea, saying the buffer zone would reduce the already small size of Gaza, further crushing an overcrowded population.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Here's State Department spokesperson Matt Miller last month. There must be no reduction in the size of Gaza. And that remains our position, and it will remain our position.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: So if any proposed buffer zone was inside Gaza, that would be a violation of that principle, and it's something that we oppose.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The White House says it's still against a buffer zone, though Secretary of State Antony Blinken seemed to be open to a temporary one this week.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It is totally appropriate and something we support that those people be able to return to their homes and that the necessary security arrangements be in place to give them the confidence to do that.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But when it comes to the permanent status of Gaza going forward, we've been clear. We remain clear about not encroaching on its territory.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: A U.N. official told The New York Times that systematic destruction of homes could constitute a war crime.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Cancer rates for young adults under the age of 50 are climbing at an alarming pace worldwide. But the medical community doesn't know why.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Wall Street Journal health reporter Brianna Abbott has been talking with doctors who are racing to better understand why a disease associated with aging is now a rising risk for people in their 20s and 30s.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: They suspect that sort of changes in the way that we live, including less physical activity, more ultra-processed foods or change in diet, maybe new environmental toxins are contributing to this risk.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But on top of that, obesity and lifestyle cannot fully account for this because a lot of what doctors are seeing are patients in their clinics who are young and otherwise healthy without any other obvious risk factors.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And so that is sort of a major concern there. A recent report from the American Cancer Society shows over 20 years, between 2000 and 2019, cancer diagnosis rates for people under 50 years old climbed nearly 13 percent.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Doctors are seeing higher rates of more common cancers in younger patients, like breast cancer, prostate cancer, and melanoma, and spikes in less common forms of cancer, like pancreatic, buterin, and gastrointestinal.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Abbott told us about Maylynn Keene, who was diagnosed with stomach cancer when she was 27. She had to postpone the bar exam that she was studying for.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Chemotherapy sort of made it difficult for her to do her legal work at her job, and she had to get her stomach removed in December.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Gastrointestinal cancers, like stomach and colorectal cancer, are growing at the fastest rates among younger Americans.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In 2019, one out of every five new patients was younger than 55, and the diagnosis rate for that group has nearly doubled since 1995.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This has doctors scrambling to figure out what, exactly, is making younger people sick and how to identify the risk factors.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Doctors are thinking about everything from inactive lifestyles to microplastics. And another theory that a lot of doctors are considering is sort of changes in the gut microbiome, you know, all of the microorganisms that live in your digestive tract.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Changes there from diet or widespread antibiotic use among kids that sort of thing could be changing our microbiomes increasing inflammation and sort of making folks more susceptible to cancer.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: For younger people, cancer can be more deadly because cases are often diagnosed at later, more advanced stages when the cancer is more difficult for doctors to treat.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: One step being taken to improve the odds of detecting cases sooner has been to lower the recommended age for certain cancer screenings.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Medical groups now recommend breast cancer screenings starting at age 40 and colorectal screenings starting at 45.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It's now officially Oscar season, with nominations out yesterday. And now that people have had a chance to take it all in, they have a lot to say about the Academy not quite grasping the message of last year's number one movie.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Hi, Barbie. Hi, Barbie. Hi, Barbie. Hi, Barbie. Hi, Barbie.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Barbie was a movie all about female empowerment, about the recognition women often fail to get. It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The woman who played Barbie, Margot Robbie, did not get a Best Actress nomination. Greta Gerwig didn't get a nomination for Best Director, either.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: A nomination did go to Ken, played by Ryan Gosling, who was very good, by the way. But even he pointed out the irony, saying, There is no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Their work should be recognized, along with the other very deserving nominees. Barbie did get other major nominations, including Best Picture, and America Ferreira was nominated for her supporting role.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The Academy has often been criticized for being too slow to recognize women filmmakers. Only one woman is up for Best Director this year, though three of the Best Picture nominees were directed by women.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: One thing the Academy cannot deny? Barbie's financial success. It brought in close to $1.5 billion around the world, by far the number one movie of 2023.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: As a lot of fans have noted, this snub could lay the groundwork for a great Barbie sequel.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: 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 New Yorker about LSD.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: With interest in psychedelics growing, the story looks back at the strange history of acid. If you're listening in the podcast's app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And we'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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