--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Thursday, April 18th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: On today's show, finger-pointing over the lack of aid to Gaza continues. A teenager describes life after surviving a shooting. And how junk from space made its way to Florida. But first, the endeavor by House Republicans to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has come to an end.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In the Senate yesterday, lawmakers voted to reject impeachment charges against Mayorkas, deeming them unconstitutional. GOP lawmakers accused Mayorkas of failing to enforce immigration laws, making false statements to Congress, and obstructing oversight into DHS policies, all charges that he denied.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Some Republican lawmakers protested the outcome of the vote. The White House and Democrats say this Republican effort was a remarkable misuse of impeachment powers.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: In the Arizona legislature, House Republicans yesterday blocked attempts twice to repeal a near-total ban on abortion from the 1800s, a law that predates the state and women's right to vote.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Since the Arizona Supreme Court revived the law, House Democrats there have vowed to repeal it and keep trying. Here's Representative Oscar de los Santos.
--:-- Representative Oscar de los Santos: We are committed to doing everything we can to protect reproductive freedom, to save lives, and to repeal this abhorrent 1864 law that was written at a time when the age of consent was 10.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: A number of Republicans in the Arizona Senate crossed over to vote with Democrats yesterday, kick-starting the process to pass a repeal on the abortion ban. But the Arizona Republic reports there was no appetite among most House Republicans to take that action.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The law bans abortions at any stage of pregnancy, with exceptions only for the life of the person who's pregnant. Doctors and anyone who aids in an abortion could face three to five years in prison.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And in sports, the NBA doled out its harshest punishment in decades for Toronto Raptors player Jonte Porter. He was banned for life yesterday for betting on NBA games and sharing inside information.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He's the first player to be expelled since the 1950s. The NBA says Porter privately told a sports bettor he was injured and removed himself from a game to control bets placed on his individual performance. And the NBA says he placed his own wagers on NBA games.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Porter has not commented on the league's investigation since it began.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This week, Israel and the United Nations are trading blame for the delay in getting humanitarian aid into Gaza. More than six months into the war, experts say there hasn't been nearly enough aid getting into the enclave.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Before October 7th, Israel allowed about 500 trucks of supplies into Gaza per day. Throughout the war, the average has been around 100, according to the Washington Post, and people are starving.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Under mounting international pressure, Israel has ramped up the number of trucks allowed in recent days. Then, yesterday, its government claimed on social media that the UN was responsible for delays in distribution.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Let's take a step back to understand how aid even gets into Gaza and into people's hands. Israel has maintained a total blockade for years, with strict rules on what's allowed in.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Food, water, and blankets do not require approval, but most other basics do. This is where aid agencies say things get murky. They say the process has been unpredictable, and if one thing on a truck gets rejected, Israel may turn away the whole truck.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: That means things like medicines, water filters, and sleeping bags have been turned away at checkpoints. A spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council told the Post it's like nothing they've had to deal with before.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Senator Chris Van Hollen from Maryland made a similar comment after his recent trip to Rafa, calling the approval process totally arbitrary.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It's been quite clear that the Netanyahu government, for a very long time, put up unnecessary restrictions to getting aid into Gaza and failed to properly make it safe to deliver that aid.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Which brings us back to all of that finger-pointing happening this week. As Israel has increased the aid it's allowing into Gaza, it's calling on the U.N. to pick up and distribute aid faster within Gaza, saying the U.N. needs to do its job.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The UN provides almost all of the food aid in Gaza at the moment. It and other aid agencies have told the Post it Israel that controls their movements when they can pick up aid and the routes used to distribute it.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And the destruction caused by Israel's offensive makes distribution difficult. Here's Andrei de Domenico, the head of the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs in the Palestinian Territories.
--:-- Andrei de Domenico: I was driving a couple of weeks ago to the north of Gaza, and you have to do a slalom not only between debris of cars and buildings smashed down and everything, but also piles of garbage.
--:-- Andrei de Domenico: And in a few weeks, it will be very hot. I cannot even imagine what it means in terms of disease and sanitation. So it's much bigger than simply bringing in flour and bake a few loaves of bread or pita.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It was one year ago last April that a Kansas City teenager named Ralph Jarl made the mistake of ringing the wrong doorbell. He was 16 then and attempting to pick up his younger brothers from a friend's in the neighborhood.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Jarl, who is black, ended up on the wrong block, on the front porch of then-84-year-old Andrew Lester, who is white. Within moments of opening the door, Lester fired multiple gunshots, hitting Jarl in the head and arm.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Lester told police he was scared of the teenager. The shooting sparked protests around the country, with many worried that it was racially motivated.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Jarl survived with a traumatic brain injury. And over the last year, he's worked to recover from that shooting, both physically and mentally.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He spent some time with NBC News talking about it. The audio is a little tough to follow, but he says it's been an uphill battle.
--:-- Ralph Jarl: I've tried to keep a sense of normalcy so that I can continue being the person that I am and that I used to be.
--:-- Ralph Jarl: That sense of normalcy for me means being a top-tier student and musician. At the time of the shooting, educators said I had a stellar GPA, even while taking mostly college-level classes.
--:-- Ralph Jarl: Now, I struggle to study more than I used to and have suffered from debilitating headaches at times. Sometimes I can't sleep.
--:-- Ralph Jarl: I did make the Allstate Band this year. I play the bass clarinet, and I'm preparing to graduate high school next month.
--:-- Ralph Jarl: But I want justice for this shooting and for other acts of gun violence that have happened in Kansas City since then, like the shooting after the Chiefs won the Super Bowl or one last month that happened outside of a high school basketball game.
--:-- Ralph Jarl: These events continually remind me of my own shooting, and I feel a wave of anger.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: His mom Cleo implored people not to become desensitized to this violence.
--:-- Cleo Jarl: We are tired of people saying that you're in my thoughts and prayers. We need to get out of your thoughts and your prayers and get into your actions.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: As for justice in Jarl's case, Lester, the shooter, was charged with felony first-degree assault and armed criminal action. His trial is set for this coming fall.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Finally, to a story that is mystifying NASA. A piece of space junk from the International Space Station recently tore through a home in Naples, Florida.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It's a small piece of equipment that NASA intentionally released three years ago, assuming it would burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: That's what happens to most of the debris in space. But this piece, a 1.6-pound blob of metal, made it through somehow.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: It came crashing through the home of Alejandro Otero in March, punching a hole through his roof and two floors.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: His son was nearby when it hit, and Otero told CBS News about the shock of coming home to the wreckage.
--:-- Alejandro Otero: I was shaken. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage?
--:-- Alejandro Otero: And totally, I'm super grateful that nobody got hurt.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Massa says it will investigate how the metal managed to withstand the heat in the atmosphere, though no word on whether they'll help to patch up Otero's house.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But Otero says space junk is now officially on his watch list of potential threats, along with hurricanes.
--:-- 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, a narrated article is coming up next.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Tomorrow, Taylor Swift plans to release her new album called The Tortured Poets Department. It's widely expected to chronicle her breakup with actor Joe Alwyn.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And New York Magazine looks at a different kind of breakup, how strong feelings that people have about Swift have been ending friendships.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: If you're listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
