--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Friday, June 13th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamit Abassu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: On today's show, the stunning story of the sole survivor from the Air India crash, how Trump has wielded military force in his second term, and the dentist teeing off in this year's U.S. Open. But first, to the Middle East, where Israel has attacked Iran's nuclear program in a series of strikes, raising the prospect of a new war in the region.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Israeli military planes hit a number of military bases around the capital of Tehran, residential homes of military commanders, and some other residential buildings, according to senior Iranian officials, all shortly after 4 a.m. local time.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Israel afterwards. Moments ago, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In recent months, Iran has taken steps that it has never taken before, steps to weaponize this enriched uranium. And if not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. Israel says it struck at least 100 targets, including military bases, missile depots, and nuclear facilities.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And it says its operation could continue for days. The strikes killed nuclear scientists and at least three senior Iranian commanders, including Major General Hussein Salami, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. That's according to Israeli and Iranian state media.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Iran says civilians, including children, were also killed in the strikes. In response, Iran has launched more than 100 drones towards Israel, according to the IDF, which says it's working to intercept them.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Ayatollah said there would be harsh punishment for Israel's actions. And Israel said it expects counterattacks. It declared a state of emergency, closed schools, and temporarily banned public gatherings.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And the Israeli military is calling up tens of thousands of soldiers to prepare for what might come next. The scale of Israel's operation reportedly surprised both Israelis and Iranians.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Shortly after Israel's operation began, NBC's chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel explained why Israel might have chosen this moment to attack.
--:-- Richard Engel: The reason this is happening right now is because Iran is much weaker than it used to be. Iran has lost its military might. It has lost its allies, its proxies in the region. It no longer has the ability to launch as much power, reject as much power.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's in part because last year, Israel launched strikes on Iran that damaged much of Iran's air defense system. But there were signs Iran was ramping up its nuclear development.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Earlier this week, the world's nuclear watchdog found that for the first time in 20 years, Iran was in breach of its non-proliferation agreements. And the International Atomic Energy Agency has recently ramped up its criticism of Iran, saying it has not been cooperating.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Israel's attack comes as the U.S. has been engaged in talks with Iran to come to a new deal to limit the country's nuclear development. And tensions were already high throughout the week.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The defense minister of Iran said earlier this week it would consider striking U.S. bases within their reach if a, quote, conflict is imposed on us. The U.S. started to remove non-staff from its embassy in Baghdad.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And when Trump spoke with Netanyahu about Iran earlier this week, he expressed concern that an attack on Iran could imperil nuclear talks.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: After the strikes, Trump said on social media that Iran should come to a deal before any further damage happens. According to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S. was not involved in Israel's attack.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Israel's Gulf neighbors, like Saudi Arabia, condemned the attacks, and other nations are urging caution and restraint. The U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was concerned by the attacks, while diplomatic talks were still underway.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: For more on this quickly moving story, you can find additional updates in the Apple News app. And now to India, which is surveying the wreckage after one of the deadliest aviation disasters in recent history.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Yesterday, a Boeing plane that was bound for London crashed shortly after takeoff, killing 241 people on board and dozens more on the ground after it crashed into a medical school in western Ahmedabad.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We don't know the full casualty toll yet. Authorities are still searching the rubble for survivors and conducting DNA tests. But Air India has said there was just one survivor from the plane, a British national named Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who was traveling to India with his brother to visit family.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Ramesh told the Hindustan Times that shortly after takeoff, he heard a loud noise before the plane crashed. Then he says, quote, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Officials say he managed to climb out of the emergency exit. And Ramesh told the local media outlet NDTV he couldn't believe he made it out alive.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Since the crash, more details have begun to emerge. Video footage captured the Air India plane losing altitude less than a minute after takeoff.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And just before impact, the pilot issued a mayday that said, no thrust, losing power, unable to lift. The images emerging from the crash site are shocking.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Here's how BBC correspondent Yogita Lame described the scene last night.
--:-- Yogita Lame: As soon as you arrive here in Ahmedabad, you get this smell of burning. Things are still smoking around us. It's really quite hard to breathe here right now.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Really, the scale of devastation, very hard to describe. And families of passengers are just starting to digest the reality of the disaster.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Amara Taju spoke to the BBC about her grandparents who were on the plane.
--:-- Amara Taju: I feel like I'm talking about this, but it still doesn't feel real. Like, no, I'm going to speak to them one day again. I will see them again.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Like, I haven't had a chance to say bye. And it's just really sad. Like, they're together on that flight. I just hope and pray this brings families together.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In at least one case, an entire family on the flight was killed. A pair of doctors and their three young children, who were just getting ready to start a new life together in London.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: When the plane hit the medical college, a doctor at the school told the New York Times the back half of it hit the dining hall, where students were sitting down for lunch.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And the front hit a residential building, where doctors live with their families. According to the dean of the school, at least five students were killed.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And the Federation of All India Medical Association says dozens more are injured or missing. To figure out what happened, authorities will be looking for answers in the plane black box which Reuters reports has been located.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The data recorder keeps tabs on what the pilots are saying as well as things like the plane movement and speed. It going to take some time to work out what went wrong.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And for families seeking answers, it will be a painful wait. Now to the dual birthday party taking over Washington, D.C. tomorrow.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Army will celebrate its 250th birthday with a massive military parade along the National Mall.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And President Donald Trump will be celebrating his 79th birthday. This will be the largest military parade in the nation's capital since 1991, at the end of the first Gulf War.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Thousands of soldiers from every army division will parade down Constitution Avenue, alongside more than 100 tanks and armored vehicles, with helicopters flying above.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Officials said there would be capacity for hundreds of thousands of spectators. And the parade is expected to cost somewhere between $25 million and $45 million, according to the Army.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Although Trump's birthday has not officially been linked to the parade, and Army officials have distanced the event from his birthday, a large military parade has been on his wish list ever since his first term.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Army started planning this celebration well before the 2024 election, but until recently, it did not include a parade.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And right up until April, White House officials were denying reports that one was in the works. Trump, meanwhile, recently told soldiers at Fort Bragg it's his goal to show off the force of the U.S. military.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: President Trump has long loved the military, has long sort of taken this personal possessive ownership of the military in the way that he talks about it.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's Megan Messerly with Politico, who spoke with us from the White House Rose Garden.
--:-- Megan Messerly: Trump, like all presidents before him, uses the military's power on the international stage with other nations. But now we're also seeing him much more willing to wield it domestically.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That maybe is more unusual for a president, but sort of speaks to, I think, the way he sees the military as sort of this tool to tamp down unrest, to be this show of force as he carries out his agenda.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: He has been willing to use soldiers, whether it's the National Guard at the L.A. protests, whether it's deploying troops to the southern border to secure the border, whether it's to carry out these mass deportations.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: For example, there are protests planned for Saturday nationwide in hundreds of cities against what demonstrators call Trump's authoritarian tactics.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And Trump has pledged to meet any protesters with force. They're going to be met with very big force.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And I haven't even heard about a protest. But, you know, this is people that hate our country. But they will be met with very heavy force.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And Messerly reports these displays of military force speak to another theme of Trump's second term. His desire to force a range of American institutions to line up behind his agenda, from elite universities and cultural centers to the federal bureaucracy and the military.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: During his first term, you know, he was advised to work with Congress, to sort of approach the job the way that other presidents had.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And really this time around, I think we're seeing him take a different tack, which is what can be accomplished through executive order? What can he do without needing Congress's approval, sort of seeing them as a blockade to his agenda?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Of course, we've seen a lot of these get challenged in court to varying degrees, including the president's response in Los Angeles.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But I think this really speaks to sort of his overall philosophy and the overall approach that he's been taking to this administration.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard in Los Angeles is now in legal limbo. Overnight a federal judge ruled the move is illegal and ordered him to return control of the Guard to California Governor Gavin Newsom.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But for now, an appeals court blocked that order. Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In Congress, House Republicans narrowly passed a bill that seeks to cancel over $9 billion in previously approved federal spending.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It marks the first time that Congress has attempted to codify doge cuts. The proposal would cancel federal spending on foreign aid and money that goes towards the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which in turn provides funding to NPR and PBS.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: CNN reports that the bill very nearly did not pass. And in fact, House Speaker Mike Johnson had to convince one Republican member to change his vote in real time.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It now heads to the Senate, where some Republicans have voiced concerns about the proposed cuts.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Also of concern to some senators yesterday was the dramatic removal of California Democratic Senator Alex Padilla from a Homeland Security press conference.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: He can be heard here attempting to ask a question to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem before being removed.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I have questions for the secretary, because the fact of the matter is a half a dozen selling criminals that you're rotating on your hands off.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: According to the New York Times, he was handcuffed but not detained. And Noem said that she spoke with him after the incident occurred.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And finally, how an athlete at the U.S. Open went from teeth to the tee.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Matt Vogt is a full-time dentist and unlikely qualifier at this year's Open.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As a kid, he caddied at the very club where the Open is taking place. After quitting his college golf team, he went to dental school and opened a practice just outside of Indianapolis.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But the 34-year-old never put down his putter. He nailed back-to-back rounds of 68 or four under par in Washington this month to qualify for the Open.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: An amateur golfer has not won in 92 years, but Vogt's swing and his smile will be one to watch this weekend.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening to the News app right now, stick around for the latest episode of Apple News in Conversation.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: This week, our host Shamita Basu talks to Scott Payne, a retired FBI agent who worked over 22 years undercover in some of the country's most violent criminal and extremist groups.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Payne told Shamita that when he joined the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, his job was to infiltrate neo-Nazi groups like the base and to try and take down members who planned violence.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: How do you know out of all that hate being spewed online, how do you know if there is one that's going to take the next step? It's going to be that shooter or that person that does a massacre.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And what ended up happening is after I gained good trust, I started getting brought in on several murder plots.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Payne is out with a memoir that he co-wrote with journalist Michelle Shepard. It's called Codename Pale Horse, How I Went Undercover to Expose America's Nazis.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening in the news app, we'll queue up that conversation to play for you next. Enjoy the weekend, and we'll be back with the news on Monday.
