--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Tuesday, October 14th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, mounting trade tensions between the U.S. and China, why government ethics reform measures are failing across the country, and Halloween might be less chocolatey this year. But first, to the latest from Gaza and what comes next.
--:-- Yesterday, all the living hostages were reunited with their families. Around 250 hostages were taken by Hamas during the October 7th attack, but only 20 survivors made it through two years of captivity to see a peace deal finally emerge.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Among the 20 people released on Monday include 24-year-old friends Eviatar David and Guy Gilboa Delal, who were kidnapped from the Nova Desert Music Festival, where Hamas killed 400 attendees. A video Hamas released over the summer showed an emaciated David digging his own grave.
--:-- Also freed was 25-year-old Matan Zengaker. That's Matan embracing his mother, Einav, who'd become a household name in Israel as she demanded the release of the hostages.
--:-- Shamita Basu: For those seeking the bodies of their deceased relatives, though, there was little sign of closure. Only four bodies have been recovered and identified as hostages so far. The fate of the hostages has dominated Israeli politics for the past two years, as more and more citizens called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prioritize their release over the destruction of Hamas.
--:-- Yesterday, Netanyahu addressed the country and referred to the Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Bible.
--:-- Benjamin Netanyahu: And in this book, we read the immortal words of King Solomon. To everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. Et milchama ve et shalom. A time for peace and a time for war. The last two years have been a time of war. The coming years will hopefully be a time for peace.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, crowds of Palestinians came together in the West Bank yesterday to welcome home some of the 2,000 prisoners being released by Israel as part of the ceasefire deal. They arrived in international Red Cross buses and some flashed V for victory signs as they emerged.
--:-- Around 1,700 of those being released were detained after the war began and had been held without charge, and another 250 or so had been serving longer sentences that predated the war, mostly convicted for deadly attacks against Israel.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The majority of those will be deported to other countries. Just a few days into the ceasefire, with Israeli attacks halted and aid beginning to make its way into Gaza, thousands of Palestinians are returning home to northern Gaza and finding total devastation.
--:-- The home they knew likely damaged or destroyed, and family members lost to the war. The New York Times spoke with a number of Palestinians who said the release of 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, one justification for Hamas starting the war, wasn't worth the cost to Gaza.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In two years of war, more than 67 Palestinians were killed and around 450 Israeli troops. Yesterday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and leaders in the region traveled to Egypt to sign a peace agreement alongside President Donald Trump.
--:-- Mahmoud Abbas: The momentous breakthrough that we're here to celebrate tonight is more than the end of the war in Gaza. It's with God's help. It'll be the new beginning for an entire beautiful Middle East.
--:-- Shamita Basu: From this moment forward, we can build a region that's strong and stable and prosperous and united in rejecting the path of terror once and for all.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's a lot left to iron out about what happens next. Israeli troops have pulled back some but are still in about 50 percent of the enclave, and there's no official timeline for a full withdrawal.
--:-- Speaking to CNN, former Bush administration foreign policy advisor Dan Senor said a lot is riding on outside countries.
--:-- Dan Senor: Here's the real uncomfortable question that no one wants to talk about right now. Are they willing to risk their lives, risk the lives of their citizens serving in Gaza? Right, because the IDF can't do this, obviously, has been articulated for the implementation of the 20 point plan. So it's going to have to be these other governments.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So who are these governments going to be the ones sending forces into Gaza as part of this stabilization force to, for instance, disarm Hamas?
--:-- Dan Senor: As for the reconstruction in Gaza, the World Bank has estimated that at least $53 billion will be needed to rebuild. Egypt expects to host a future summit to discuss reconstruction plans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now let's turn to the trade tensions between the U.S. and China, which after a quiet period briefly sparked fears in financial markets.
--:-- Phelam Kine: We've gone from kind of a fragile, cold peace truce to really a bare-knuckle brawl.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's Phelam Kine, China and Indo-Pacific affairs correspondent at Politico. He told us that this latest tit-for-tat began on Thursday, last week, after China announced new export restrictions on rare earth materials that are essential for manufacturing, especially in defense-related projects.
--:-- Phelam Kine: China described it as a measure to safeguard world peace, while Trump's trade representative, Jameson Greer, described it as a power grab.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so that really kicked open a new front and a very fractious exchange between the Chinese government and President Donald Trump, who a day later announced that he was prepared to impose heavy tariffs of up to 100 percent on Chinese imports.
--:-- Phelam Kine: Kine told us that right now, average imports into China are taxed at around 55 percent, which has broadly allowed goods to continue flowing at a cost. But a 100 percent tariff would likely grind trade between the two countries to a complete halt.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Wall Street fell sharply following the announcement. And that, Kine says, led to a quick reversal from Trump, who pulled back on the threat and put back on the table an upcoming meeting between the two leaders.
--:-- Phelam Kine: Now, for a president that's really very, very sensitive to this idea of taco, which is Trump always chickens out, that looked like a speed taco.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And then this morning of course we saw Treasury Secretary Scott Besant saying that a meeting is going to happen and strangely blaming this rare earth export restrictions by China on quote unquote hardliners in the Chinese system rather than Xi Jinping, which is either a reflection of absolute abject ignorance of the Chinese system or extreme wishful thinking to try to put things back on track.
--:-- Phelam Kine: The markets have since rallied, but as economists wait for the two leaders to meet later this month, Kine says both sides are still making moves that could impact prices.
--:-- Phelam Kine: The U.S. and China, starting Tuesday, are imposing new port fees for each other's vessels. So that means Chinese-owned and operated vessels that are coming to U.S. ports are going to be assessed a port fee that, for your average cargo ship, is going to mean an extra $3 million in fees.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And that's just for starters. These fees will increase every year until 2028. So we're looking at substantial new costs for imports. It's not a tariff, but it's going to cost shippers, retailers, and consumers in the end.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When elected officials are transparent about their code of ethics, it boosts public trust. But time and again, at the federal level, various ethics reform measures have failed.
--:-- Tina Griego: A bipartisan bill to ban stock trading in Congress is still not passed. President Trump's various connections to family business deals in the crypto world have drawn tremendous scrutiny.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the White House repealed the last administration's ethics executive order and didn't replace it.
--:-- Tina Griego: A recent report from ProPublica found that this is a phenomenon happening at state-level legislatures, too, across the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: What we saw in some ways was a little bit of a smorgasbord. We found overall many efforts across many states, red and blue, to, in one way or another, stymie legislation that would boost ethics reform.
--:-- Tina Griego: Either legislation that was introduced to actually block reform or weaken, say, the power of ethics commissions, those bills basically just never got anywhere.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They didn't make it out of committee. They died on the floor of a chamber. In some cases, some did get to the governor's desk only to be vetoed by the governor.
--:-- Tina Griego: Then there are instances like in Louisiana where existing ethics rules were watered down.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The state passed a law that puts additional restrictions on its state board of ethics. So their law significantly weakens ethics standards by making it harder for the board of ethics to launch and conduct investigations.
--:-- Tina Griego: So basically it raises the bar for when the board can launch its own investigation and when a response is required to investigate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That state board is responsible for ethics charges that were leveled against then-Attorney General Jeff Landry.
--:-- Tina Griego: Last month, the commission agreed to drop the charges after reaching a settlement with Landry, who is now the governor.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A Republican who sponsored the bill said that the board's power needed to be checked.
--:-- Tina Griego: Then there are instances like in Virginia, where a bill that would have required officeholders to disclose digital assets like cryptocurrency was quashed by bipartisan pushback.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Griego explained that there were questions from lawmakers of both parties about how those efforts could lead to more disclosure requirements.
--:-- Tina Griego: The concern that this was a kind of slippery slope and then would they be required to disclose holdings in gold for example.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so he said that because of the concern over where this might lead, it failed.
--:-- Tina Griego: Riego did point out there were some successful moves to boost ethics reforms.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So in Maine, there was a bipartisan push for a waiting period of one year for legislative staff who wanted to become lobbyists. That won overwhelming support.
--:-- Tina Griego: In Rhode Island, the Democratic legislative supermajority and its Democratic governor agreed on a prohibition against bid rigging for state contracts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Oklahoma, lawmakers overturned a governor's veto to make self-dealing by government officials a felony offense, period.
--:-- Tina Griego: Still, ethics experts told ProPublica that threats to ethics standards and enforcement are growing across the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Tomorrow marks two weeks of the government shutdown, and airports are not only dealing with flight delays, as we've mentioned before on the show, but also political messaging.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post reports a number of airports are refusing to air a video featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for the shutdown.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Several airports say the video puts them at risk of violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits public resources from being used for political purposes.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Post reports about half a dozen airports, including Phoenix, Cleveland, and Seattle, so far have declined to air it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's not uncommon for DHS officials to appear on videos at airports, but they're typically reserved for things like safety-related messages.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Nearly two months after a massive measles outbreak in Texas was declared over, the disease continues to spread in other areas of the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In South Carolina, more than 150 unvaccinated school children at two schools are under a three-week quarantine after being exposed to the disease.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The State Department of Public Health recently reported its eighth confirmed measles case since the end of September.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, a large measles outbreak along the border of Arizona and Utah continues to grow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Both states have reported dozens of cases so far this year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The CDC has confirmed 44 measles outbreaks in 41 states this year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The vast majority of the reported cases occurred in people who were unvaccinated.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, we're just a couple of weeks out from Halloween, but if you've taken a browsing look at the candy aisle lately, you might have noticed something this year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's not all that chocolatey. The Atlantic reports as cocoa continues to climb in price coupled with dwindling supplies, it's pressuring candy makers to try to use less of the stuff and instead push flashy flavor mashups like lemon meringue pie flavored M&Ms or chocolate-free Hershey Kisses that tastes like cinnamon toast crunch.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Industry experts say the volatility of the cocoa market has made chocolate a huge risk for sweets makers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The outlook could be getting better. However, the Atlantic notes the cocoa harvest is looking up for next year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Esquire profiles actor George Clooney, who, after a legendary career in Hollywood, still worries, like many of us, about aging, the future, and what he has left to give.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
