--:-- Gideon Resnick: Good morning. It's Monday, July 8th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shamit Abassu. Hope you had a nice holiday weekend. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: On today's show, Boeing's guilty plea involving two deadly crashes, how one state's abortion ban is driving doctors away, and the place where a six-day work week is underway. But first, in a series of campaign events and a major interview, President Biden tried to steady his candidacy over the long weekend amid panic for many Democrats that he is on a path to lose the election.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Biden's debate performance at the end of last month and his immediate response to it led to a drumbeat of donors, elected officials, and supporters questioning whether Biden should stay in the race and whether he would be able to serve another four years in office.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That drumbeat has only grown in recent days. On Sunday, a number of senior House Democrats reportedly said on a private call that Biden should withdraw from the presidential election. Nearly a dozen Democratic members of Congress have said he should reconsider.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As lawmakers return from the July 4th recess today, the chatter from Democrats about Biden's campaign will likely only grow louder. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy talked about the stakes of this moment for Biden on CNN yesterday.
--:-- Chris Murphy: I love Joe Biden. I don't know that the interview on Friday night did enough to answer those questions. And so I think this week is going to be absolutely critical. I think the president needs to do more.
--:-- Chris Murphy: I'm not advising this campaign, but if I were, I would probably suggest that the president get out there and do a town hall, that he do a press conference, that he show the country that he is still the old Joe Biden, one of the best retail politicians this country has ever seen.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In the interview Murphy refers to, Biden told ABC that he was adamant about remaining in the race.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Look, I mean, if the Lord Almighty came out and said, Joe, get out of the race, I'll get out of the race. The Lord Almighty's not coming down.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And Biden was often dismissive when George Stephanopoulos asked him about troubling poll numbers.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Mr. President, I've never seen a president with 36% approval get reelected. Well, I don't believe that's my approval. That's not what our polls show.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And if you stay in and Trump is elected and everything you're warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?
--:-- Gideon Resnick: I feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest jobs I know I can do That what this is about
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But a growing number of Democrats who talk about Donald Trump as a threat to democracy don't quite feel that way.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now let's take a brief look at some other stories that are in the news. Boeing will plead guilty to misleading air safety regulators before two deadly crashes. 346 people died in the 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: As part of the deal with the Justice Department, Boeing will spend hundreds of millions on fines and improvements to its compliance and safety programs. The agreement falls short of what some victims' families had wanted, who were arguing for a fine in the tens of billions.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In France, people woke up to a surprise election result today. A group of left-wing parties won the most seats in Parliament.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We spoke to Wall Street Journal reporter Noémie Bissereb in Paris about what happened to the far-right party called the National Rally.
--:-- Noémie Bissereb: This is definitely a big surprise. Every polling firm in the country was expecting the National Rally to win the most seats in the National Assembly, even possibly win an absolute majority, which would have meant that they could have taken the reins of government.
--:-- Noémie Bissereb: So clearly, the results of the far right is much weaker than expected.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: She said that high voter turnout helped drive those results.
--:-- Noémie Bissereb: I think that if there's one lesson to be learned from this election here in France, is that, well, it's that elections are becoming increasingly hard to predict.
--:-- Noémie Bissereb: And so we should be careful of what polling firms tell us ahead of elections.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: President Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance placed second, just ahead of the far-right party. France now has a sharply divided parliament and a weakened president, so the road ahead will be complicated.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Moving to Ukraine, where at least 20 people are dead after a series of Russian missile strikes on several Ukrainian cities, it was a rare daytime assault.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Among the buildings hit was a large children's hospital in Kiev.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And in the U.S., Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas early this morning.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The storm came ashore between Houston and Corpus Christi This comes after Beryl cut a deadly and destructive path through the Caribbean Killing at least 11 people
--:-- Gideon Resnick: In the West, the danger is extreme heat A motorcyclist died during a trip through Death Valley National Park It was 128 degrees at one point over the weekend, which is a record
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Many communities in California are suffering through triple heat and seeing long records broken And forecasters say the extreme heat is going to continue through much of the week
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Now to some local reporting from KFF Health News about a growing health care problem for people in Idaho.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Republican lawmakers in the state banned nearly all abortions. The law is one of the strictest bans in the country, and doctors face the threat of prosecution.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And OBGYNs started to leave in droves, more than 20 percent over the first year or so. And actually their maternal fetal specialists dropped by an even higher percentage, by over 50 percent.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That's Jasmine Orozco Rodriguez, a rural health correspondent. She told us about Dr. Amelia Huntsberger, an OBGYN who left Idaho last year.
--:-- Jasmine Orozco Rodriguez: Amelia really opened up about just how difficult it was to provide the care that she needed to provide as a doctor under these circumstances of, you know, facing felony charges and potentially losing their license.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: According to the Idaho Medical Association, it's taking twice as long as usual to fill vacancies.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The number of applicants has plummeted, and that's putting residents in difficult and sometimes dangerous positions.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The growing healthcare desert impacts people who are pregnant, but also those who rely on these providers for all kinds of issues, like endometriosis.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Rodriguez told us about Jonel Anderson, who found a mass growing in her uterus this year.
--:-- Jasmine Orozco Rodriguez: Before Roe was overturned, Anderson could find care within 10 minutes of home. But in this case, the OB-GYN was an hour away.
--:-- Jasmine Orozco Rodriguez: Anderson had to find childcare. Her car broke down on the way, almost forcing her to reschedule to a different day.
--:-- Jasmine Orozco Rodriguez: Her husband had to leave work to help, and even though she ultimately made it to the appointment, it was only the first of several that she'd end up needing.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Getting testing for a mass growing in her uterus was already really stressful and scary, and she was already feeling really anxious about it.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And so this whole experience just kind of compounds the scariness of that, what she was going through.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: People like Anderson, who live in smaller communities, often have no choice but to rely on specialists elsewhere in Idaho.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But Rodriguez reports those providers were already struggling to meet demand before Roe v. Wade was overturned.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: She says Republican lawmakers have swept this issue to the side, and they've made the point to her and other local reporters that no one has been criminalized under Idaho's strict abortion law yet.
--:-- Jasmine Orozco Rodriguez: Saying that they should just continue to do their work and you know obviously work within the limits of the law but I think there's a disconnect there
--:-- Gideon Resnick: These providers have tried having conversations with their lawmakers and explained to them what they would need to feel comfortable providing this care that they provide.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But it's been a couple of sessions now that have gone by and the law has not been changed.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Finally, a phrase that might inspire some concern as you return from a holiday weekend, six-day workweek.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: We've talked a lot on the show about experiments with four-day workweeks. Trials have been done in several countries, and by a lot of metrics, the results are positive for workers and for companies, which is why it might surprise you that one country is moving in the opposite direction.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: A new law in Greece allows some companies to introduce a six-day work week with a pay bump for workers.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Journalist Anthe Karasava spoke to DW News from Athens about the reasons why the government says this is needed.
--:-- Anthe Karasava: A, because of Greece's shrinking population and ailing workforce demographics. and B, because of a severe shortage in skilled workers.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: But critics say it's a move in the wrong direction.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Around the globe, momentum is building for a four-day workweek. Belgium became the first country to officially approve it back in 2022.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: More recently, Japan, Iceland, and South Africa have been experimenting with it. And in America, a whopping 77% of people say they are for it in a recent Gallup survey.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: The Washington Post spoke with one workplace expert who says she's eager to see the results of Greece's move.
--:-- Anthe Karasava: Maybe it will help the economy. But she points out that increased hours often lead to more stress, more errors, and more exhaustion.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: That includes coverage of Wimbledon, where American Coco Gauff lost in an upset yesterday.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And if you're already listening to the News app right now, we have a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: It's an unusual one from Smithsonian Magazine. about what happens to the pet hippos of a drug lord after he's gone.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: Pablo Escobar smuggled them into Colombia decades ago. They've multiplied, creating a dangerous problem for the local ecosystem.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: If you're listening to the podcast app, you can follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Gideon Resnick: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
