--:-- Shamitza Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, October 22nd. I'm Shamitza Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Emily Glazer: On today's show, Trump's peacekeeping efforts seemingly in limbo, revoked rights for Afghans who helped the U.S. Army, and why the rate of childhood peanut allergies might finally be going back down. But first, to the power struggle over who should lead NASA, just as its next mission to the moon could be veering off course.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: There have been a ton of budget cuts and staff departures and leadership questions. And so the future of NASA and all that it encompasses has had a ton of uncertainty recently.
--:-- Emily Glazer: That's me, Emily Glazer, a reporter with The Wall Street Journal. Right now, there's no permanent head of the country's space agency. It's being led temporarily by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. He has no formal science or aerospace background, which is highly unusual for NASA leadership, but he appears to want the job on a permanent basis and has even suggested folding it into his government department.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Another name that's been floated to lead the space agency is Jared Isaacman, a man who once seemed perfectly placed and had the backing of President Trump. He's a billionaire. He's an entrepreneur. He's also an astronaut. And he is someone that people all thought he would just already be in this role.
--:-- Emily Glazer: His close ties with Elon Musk helped him at first, but may have eventually led Trump to cast Isaacman aside following Musk's exit in May. Now, after lots of relationship rebuilding, I'm told he's back in the running and is being interviewed for the role.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: And our understanding is that both of these men have been jockeying to lead NASA. And this weekend, advisors and lawmakers representing each of them called their contacts in the Trump administration, including President Trump himself, to really make the case for why they thought either Duffy or Isaacman would be best suited to run the agency.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Whoever Trump chooses will lead NASA as it pursues one of its most ambitious missions for decades, a lunar landing. Right now, the agency is racing to meet President Trump's goal of getting astronauts to the moon before the end of his second term in 2029.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Trump wants to beat China to it, which has its own 2030 goal. SpaceX secured the multibillion-dollar contract to develop the lunar lander needed for the mission, but it's reportedly running behind schedule.
--:-- Emily Glazer: SpaceX's Starship rocket has exploded multiple times in tests and has yet to carry any astronauts, though Musk says he's confident that it's making progress.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: On Monday, Duffy criticized SpaceX and said other companies like Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin should have a chance to step in. The problem is they're behind. They pushed their timelines out and we're in a race against China.
--:-- Emily Glazer: So I'm going to open up the contract. Whatever one can get us there first to the moon, we're going to take.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: That brought Musk back from a period of relative silence. Yesterday, he posted a tirade of insults against Duffy, who he said was, quote, trying to kill NASA and lacked the experience for the job.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Whoever leads the space agency will be taking it on as it grapples with major changes. Nearly 4,000 NASA staff have opted to leave this year through a recent deferred resignation program.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: And the White House has proposed deep cuts yet to be enacted that the Planetary Society, which is the nonprofit founded by Carl Sagan, says would kill off many missions and reduce the agency staff by a third.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Earlier this month, their CEO, Bill Nye the Science Guy, led a call to Washington urging Congress to resist the cuts.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: When it comes to exploration, there is no private option. There is no business case for the search for extraterrestrial life. There is no profit to be made studying Saturn's mysterious polar storm.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Yet NASA science is a bargain. For every dollar spent, at least three come back into the economy.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: For Trump, time is running out to decide who takes on these challenges, as Duffy's interim role expires at the end of the year.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Turning to international news, where President Trump's efforts to end two wars faced complications in recent days.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Yesterday, the White House called off a planned second summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Here's what Trump told reporters. I don't want to have a wasted meeting. I don't want to have a waste of time, so I'll see what happens.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to meet with European leaders later in the week and said Ukraine has agreed to Trump's proposal to stop the fighting, but blamed Russia for, quote, doing everything to avoid diplomacy.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Meanwhile, in Gaza, the ceasefire is tenuously holding. Yesterday, an envoy, including Vice President J.D. Vance, was in Israel, hoping to shore up what has proven to be a fragile agreement.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: What we've seen the past week gives me great optimism the ceasefire is going to hold. And if we get from where we were a week ago to a long-term, durable peace between Israel and Gaza, there are going to be hills and valleys.
--:-- Emily Glazer: There are going to be moments where it looks like things aren't going particularly well. But given that and given the history of conflict, I think that everybody should be proud of where we are today.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Let's stay with Gaza and what this week has looked like so far. Israel and Hamas have each accused the other of violating the ceasefire in recent days, and tensions have flared over the slow progress in returning the remains of 15 deceased hostages that are still in Hamas' possession.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Israel cited that as a reason for temporarily closing the Rafah border crossing and cutting off aid to the enclave last weekend.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Vance said between that and the even more difficult prospect of disarming Hamas, more time will be needed.
--:-- Emily Glazer: We know that Hamas has to comply with the deal, and if Hamas doesn't comply with the deal, very bad things are going to happen.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: But I'm not going to do what the president of the United States has thus far refused to do, which is put an explicit deadline on it, because a lot of this stuff is difficult. A lot of this stuff is unpredictable.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Meanwhile, another big point of contention has been the flow of aid into Gaza. NPR reports humanitarian organizations are saying Israel is now taking steps to deregister certain groups for ideological reasons.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Which could lock major providers out of both Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli officials cite security concerns as a reason for re-registering aid groups.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Earlier this year, Israel, without providing evidence, accused the UN's Agency for Palestinians, the biggest aid group providing shelter, mobile medical clinics, and other assistance in the region, of being associated with Hamas.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: The UN agency says Israel's claims are unsubstantiated.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Vice President Vance's visit to Israel this week was slated as a step to move the ceasefire forward, but one key part of that is the security and governance of Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Kenneth Katzmann is a senior fellow at the Sufan Center, a think tank focused on world security issues. He told Al Jazeera English that he sees only one way to really push the ceasefire agreement forward and ensure that Hamas follows through with disarmament.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Pressure the Arab states to make sure Hamas complies, agrees to the rest of the plan, and complies with it. Or they will be kicked out and maybe persuade Qatar to kick out Hamas, persuade Erdogan to kick out the Hamas leaders, persuade the Arab states, the Muslim states, that this is over.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: You have to disarm. That could be complicated, though. The New York Times reports representatives from Arab nations are so far weary about sending troops to secure the region without a clear mission or idea of what they'll be tasked with doing.
--:-- Emily Glazer: One of the main concerns is they don't want to put their troops in situations where they'll have to fight Hamas.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Now to the uncertain future facing Afghans who had been granted legal status here after helping U.S. forces. Some 200,000 Afghans have found refuge in the United States since 2021 when the U.S. withdrew from the country.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Many people fled as the Taliban regained control and the Biden administration worked to extend a humanitarian parole program for qualifying evacuees, who helped U.S. forces there by working as interpreters, drivers, or contractors.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: The Washington Post profiled one of those people, who is now concerned about the prospect of being deported back to Afghanistan and fears reprisal from the Taliban.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Reporter John Woodrow Cox told us about him.
--:-- John Woodrow Cox: If he were to be sent back, his wife and his children were to be sent back, he could be killed, his wife could go hungry, his daughter could be taken as an old man's third or fourth wife, his son could be forced into working for the Taliban.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Like, these are the worst-case scenarios in his mind. And, you know, they're not a stretch based on the experts, certainly, that I've talked to.
--:-- Emily Glazer: The Taliban remains an incredibly repressive regime.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: The Post only identified this man as H in an effort to protect his identity. He fears the Taliban will seek to punish him because of his support for the U.S. in Afghanistan for years.
--:-- Emily Glazer: His brother worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, and he attended the American University of Afghanistan.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: H had applied for asylum in 2022 and had sought the help of a lawyer earlier this year to figure out why the application was taking so long.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Then, over the summer, he was arrested by ICE as the Trump administration ended the humanitarian parole program for Afghans.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Cox sent a detailed list of questions to DHS about the case. They didn't address the specifics. They described H as an illegal, unvetted alien from a high-risk country.
--:-- Emily Glazer: When I asked them to explain to me how he was illegal, what they said is that he was illegal because they had revoked his humanitarian parole.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: He had a valid work authorization. He had a valid driver's license at the time of his arrest. So what DHS has alleged is that essentially they made him illegal.
--:-- Emily Glazer: H is now in an immigrant detention center in Virginia. Away from his wife and two children. He will soon face a judge who will hear his asylum case at a time when The Post reports a higher percentage of these cases have been denied than in the past, citing data compiled by Syracuse University.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: That's probably because the way the system works is unlike federal judges who receive these lifetime appointments that are meant to ensure their independence, immigration judges actually work for the Justice Department, which means they under the executive branch under the White House.
--:-- Emily Glazer: And the Trump administration has fired dozens of them since he took office.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: H's lawyer has been preparing him to discuss the dangers he could face should he be deported to Afghanistan.
--:-- Emily Glazer: And more than a dozen people have sent letters to the judge in his case, including his boss and his children's doctor.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: One who worked alongside H's brother in Afghanistan wrote, he is not only hardworking and honest, but also hopeful and deeply patriotic.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: President Trump's pick to lead the federal watchdog agency, the Office of the Special Counsel, has withdrawn after a number of Republican senators made it clear he did not have their support on Tuesday.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Paul Ingrassia, who currently serves as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security came under fire for texts he sent, which included messages that the January federal holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. should be tossed into hell and that he had a, quote, Nazi streak in him.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Ingracia is a lawyer and former podcaster who, if confirmed, would have led an office that investigates discrimination complaints.
--:-- Emily Glazer: In a statement posted to X, he said partially, quote, I do not have enough Republican votes at this time. I appreciate the overwhelming support that I've received throughout this process.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Peanut allergies among children have dropped sharply in recent years, and scientists think they know why.
--:-- Emily Glazer: In the 90s and 2000s, the rates were skyrocketing. At the time, parents were advised against exposing babies to peanuts, but in 2015, researchers published evidence challenging that guidance.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: Here's the report's sponsor, one Dr. Anthony Fauci, speaking to PBS 10 years ago.
--:-- Dr. Anthony Fauci: It's almost paradoxical because the study says that if you give them early on in life peanuts, you dramatically lessen the likelihood that they will develop an allergy and then will subsequently have to avoid.
--:-- Emily Glazer: That helped change the advice. And now, a decade later, PBS reports that the rate of allergies in children under three fell by more than 40 percent after that guidance was embraced.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: And finally, the NBA season tipped off last night with a doubleheader featuring the Lakers, Warriors, Thunder, and Rockets.
--:-- Emily Glazer: But as teams get ready for the long season, many are waiting to learn the answer to a strange question. What happens when one of the biggest, most dominant young players gets even bigger?
--:-- Shamitza Basu: 21-year-old French sensation Victor Wembenyama, the San Antonio Spurs star player, reportedly grew over the summer from 7 feet 3 inches to 7 feet 4 inches.
--:-- Emily Glazer: The Wall Street Journal notes this is jaw-dropping for a number of reasons. First, because Wembe Nyama doesn't play like a man of his size. His game so far has been one of finesse and shooting like a much smaller player.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: However, Wembe, as he's known around the league, also spent the summer working on the rest of his game, developing moves that great centers like Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, and David Robinson used to dominate with.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Only he's a half a foot taller.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Emily Glazer: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a Narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: GQ details how gangs in the Netherlands have figured out how to rob ATMs with explosives and are targeting isolated rural areas across international borders.
--:-- Emily Glazer: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamitza Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
--:-- Emily Glazer: Cofficacy Dream.
