--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Good morning. It's Monday, June 10th. I'm Yasmeen Khan, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: On today's show, what to know about COVID this summer, Caitlin Clark left off the U.S. Olympic team, and how one man's endeavor to be a better dad landed him national TV show. But first, major new developments in the war in Gaza, from the battlefield to politics and diplomacy.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Over the weekend, Israeli troops entered a refugee camp in Gaza to rescue four hostages held by Hamas. A firefight broke out with militants on the ground. One Israeli officer was shot and killed. Airstrikes from Israel hit the area.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: The freeing of the hostages was met with celebrations in Israel and praise for the operation from Israeli politicians and military leaders. But Palestinian medical officials say the operation killed more than 270 Palestinians, which would be the deadliest 24 hours of the conflict in months. Officials in Gaza say more than 100 of those killed were women and children. Hundreds more people were injured.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: He and Hudari reported on the aftermath for Al Jazeera. A spokesperson for the Israeli military, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, told CNN that Hamas' decision to operate in densely populated areas is a factor in civilian casualties.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner: Hamas intentionally puts the hostages in houses of civilians with the house owners in the same houses at the same time.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Also on CNN, retired U Air Force Colonel Cedric Layton said that the rescue mission could have been accomplished with far fewer civilian deaths even considering that Hamas holding captives among civilian populations makes it more challenging.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Retired U Air Force Colonel Cedric Layton: That presents some other difficult problems when you're going in to conduct a hostage rescue operation. So that might have exacerbated the civilian count. Plus, of course, there was a lot of firepower the Israelis were using. And that should have probably been a lot less to achieve the same end.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: After the rescue operation, there was a major political development in Israel. Benny Gantz left the government's emergency war cabinet. Gantz was seen as a more moderate voice in the three-person cabinet formed to make decisions on the war in Gaza.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: It's not clear how Gantz's departure will affect the possibility of a ceasefire deal with Hamas. This week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting Israel and Egypt. He's pushing for an agreement that would release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, rebuild Gaza, and eventually lead to a permanent end to fighting.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Now, to some other major stories in the news. In European Union elections Sunday, far-right parties made major gains in the EU parliament, particularly in France, where the results set off a political earthquake.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: President Emmanuel Macron immediately moved to dissolve his country's parliament and call snap elections.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: To sports, where the list of players on the U.S. women's basketball squad for the Olympics shows a roster stacked with veterans. But it does not include the WNBA's newest star, Kaitlin Clark.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: I'm excited for them. I'm going to be rooting them on to win gold. I was a kid that grew up watching the Olympics. So, yeah, it'll be fun to watch them.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: But apparently the news was motivating. Her coach said she got a text from Clark after the news came out, saying, "They woke a monster."
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Staying with sports, Carlos Alcaraz is the new men winner of the French Open, his first title there. Earlier, Iga Shiontek took the women title, her third consecutive win at the French Open.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Summertime will likely mean a rise in COVID cases. This is a virus that ebbs and flows throughout the year, but hospitalizations tend to go up in the summer months, when more people are traveling and gathering indoors to avoid the heat.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: So it's a good moment to talk about what we know, especially with new variants in the air. The current dominant variant is called KP.2. You might have heard this referred to as a FLIRT variant. It currently accounts for roughly one in four cases and has mutations that could make it more infectious.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: And there's good news, at least for the moment, according to CNN's medical correspondent Meg Terrell. We are currently at very low levels of COVID in the United States. That is monitored in one way through wastewater to see how much virus is circulating around the country.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Meg Terrell: And the CDC says right now that's at minimal levels. But that could change quickly. If you look at the trend line in wastewater monitoring, though, we do often see a bump in the late summer. And we have seen that in cases in the past.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: And this summer, there are a number of reasons to be concerned about how prepared we are to deal with the rising cases. For one, there's far less data being collected and shared today by hospitals and governments around the world.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: In the U.S., our government is putting fewer resources toward testing and limiting transmission. Another thing to keep in mind, a federal program responsible for providing free vaccines to low-income people will end this August, months earlier than planned due to a lack of funding.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: USA Today reports on how this means some people will have to pay around $100 out of pocket to get vaccinated. The Biden administration says it's looking into permanent funding to keep routine vaccinations free for adults.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: In the meantime, the best way to take care of yourself and others is to follow some familiar guidance. Here's what Dr. Kavita Patel told NBC.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Dr. Kavita Patel: I think the moral of the story here is have those rapid antigen tests handy so that you can do some of this testing at home. But if you're in doubt, just get it checked out because we can run the rapid tests in a clinic setting and literally let you know in minutes.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: And for some patients, that means you could have access to treatment like Paxlovid or some other treatments that might be appropriate. And you can also make sure that you restrict your movements so that you don't get other people sick, especially if you're immunocompromised, older, or have chronic conditions.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: When a new Philadelphia father named Joe Gajunas wanted some ideas for how to build a strong relationship with his young son, he started asking around. Role models he knew of in popular culture and his personal life felt lacking in some ways.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: His own dad worked hard and traveled for business, sometimes being gone for weeks at a time. So he wanted to hear how other dads were navigating modern fatherhood, while avoiding stereotypes about gender roles and shelving outdated definitions of masculinity.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Gajunas realized other dads had the same questions, and his endeavor led to a TV show where he talks to other fathers like this one.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: I'm in a state of shock. Like, what do I do? Like, I don't know anything about being a dad.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: The new show on PBS is called Grown Up Dad. It'll debut in Philly on Father's Day, this Sunday, and air nationally later this month.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: As Kajunas learns, his son Gabe, who's now seven, is ultimately the final judge of how well things are going. And he's a tough but fair critic.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: Gabe told the Philadelphia Inquirer that his dad is pretty good, like 60 to 70 out of 100%.
--:-- Yasmeen 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, stick around for a narrated article from The Hollywood Reporter. It's a profile of Jake Gyllenhaal and a look at what's shaping up to be a new era in his career.
--:-- Yasmeen Khan: If you're listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story. Enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow. Thank you.
