--:-- Yasmin Khan: Good morning. It's Friday, April 12th. I'm Yasmin Khan, in for Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: On today's show, the legacy of O.J. Simpson and the murder trial that divided America. How one finance writer got scammed out of $50,000. And bluey fans worry about the future of the show. But first, the largest and most advanced medical facility in Gaza, Al-Shifa Hospital, is in complete ruin after a weeks-long siege by Israel last month.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And we should warn you that the reporting on the aftermath is graphic. Health workers spent this week pulling bodies from the rubble of the destroyed facility and from mass graves they were forced to dig on site during the raid.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Gaza authorities say they've recovered at least 400 bodies from the hospital complex and surrounding area and expect to find more. Israel raided Al Shifa because it claimed to have intelligence of Hamas militants hiding and operating there.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Under international law, hospitals cannot be targeted during a war. But if a hospital is being used illegally for military purposes, it can be attacked. Hamas officials and staff at the hospital deny Israel's claims.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But Israel says troops found weapons inside El Shifa, killed hundreds of Hamas militants, and arrested hundreds more. And a spokesperson for Israel claimed there was not a single civilian casualty.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Health workers and eyewitnesses of the raid have said this is false, and they've challenged Israel's overall narrative of the siege. The hospital has reported several casualties among its staff.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: A nurse told NBC she watched soldiers shoot four people and take her husband, who's a volunteer paramedic. She said she doesn't know where he is, if he's alive, and what crime he's been accused of.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The World Health Organization reports that 21 patients died during the siege, and more than 100 patients were trapped without access to adequate food and water. Gaza officials say close to 3,000 people were in the facility in all, between patients, medical staff, and displaced Palestinians seeking shelter from the fighting.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But the true death toll is not known and may never be. Meanwhile, hospital personnel are working to exhume and identify bodies and document possible war crimes.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Officials in Gaza tell CNN that work has been difficult because some victims were crushed by Israeli tanks to the point where their bodies are unidentifiable.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: One physician spoke to NBC. He said the smell of death is everywhere. The hospital has become a cemetery.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Israel is calling the siege at El Shifa Hospital a successful operation, executed with surgical precision. But across the international community, the siege has drawn widespread condemnation as the death toll in Gaza climbs higher.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Americans are reflecting on the death of O.J. Simpson, who was accused and acquitted of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: For years, Nicole had reported domestic abuse to California police. O.J. Simpson was the prime and only suspect in the murder investigation.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: A jury later found him liable for their deaths in a separate civil case and ordered him to pay more than $30 million in damages.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Days after the deaths, 95 million people tuned in to watch Simpson run from the police in a white Ford Bronco on the L.A. freeway, a chase that the L.A. Times says changed L.A. forever.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Here's KTLA journalist Eric Spillman reporting live on that epic car chase from 1994.
--:-- Eric Spillman: It is an amazing sight. Along the right-hand shoulder, people have pulled over, many of them carrying signs such as signs reading things like, Save the Juice, Go OJ. People are literally cheering him on as he travels north down on the 405, and we can only assume that he plans to get off at sunset and go towards perhaps his home.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Millions also tuned in to what became known as the trial of the century, which quickly became a symbol of racial divisions in the country.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Ta-Nehisi Coates later wrote for The Atlantic about the ways racism pervaded Simpson's case.
--:-- Ta-Nehisi Coates: It was just a few years after the police beating of Rodney King. Black Angelenos were still angry, which made alleged police racism an effective defense in the courtroom.
--:-- Ta-Nehisi Coates: As Coates wrote in 2016, the notion that, quote, the LAPD might frame a black man was completely within the realm of possibility for black people in Los Angeles.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And as sports reporter Sean Gregory writes for Time, the Simpson trial accelerated our obsession with celebrity culture.
--:-- Sean Gregory: It was broadcast on TV and went on for nine months. The lawyers, the judge, the victims – they all became household names.
--:-- Sean Gregory: Gregory calls this trial one of our first real doses of reality TV.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And it just so happens that one of O.J. Simpson's attorneys was Robert Kardashian. Yes, that Kardashian.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Ezra Edelman, who made the documentary OJ Made in America, spoke with NPR's Code Switch several years ago about the influence Simpson has had on our culture.
--:-- Ezra Edelman: I look at O.J.'s sort of trajectory as, you know, you look at sort of our culture. He created this idea of I'm going to protect mine. I'm all about me. I'm all about sort of furthering my image to make myself palatable to everyone in America, to be safe so I can be famous and I can be rich.
--:-- Ezra Edelman: And that's something that is a model that people use going forward.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The murder trial overshadowed everything O.J. Simpson had previously achieved on the football field or in the world of movies and commercials.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Simpson would go on to spend almost a decade behind bars for other crimes unrelated to the killings, including kidnapping, burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: He was released on parole in 2017.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: As the reflections and obits pour in, Fred Goldman, father of Ron Goldman, told Rolling Stone, The only thing that is important are the victims.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Now to a story about getting swindled and how it can happen to any of us, no matter how smart we think we are.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Charlotte Coles never thought she'd fall for a scam. She's well-educated, savvy about money, and she even writes a financial advice column.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But last fall, she lost $50,000.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Extremely sophisticated scammers convinced her to withdraw the money, put it in a shoebox, and hand it over.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: I know it sounds far-fetched. In retrospect, it sounds crazy. I still can't believe that I fell for it.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coles wrote about her story for The Cut, and she recently shared what happened to her for our latest episode of Apple News in Conversation.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Coles also offered some tips on how to make sure this never happens to you.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Whenever someone is putting you in a stressful spot or makes you feel like you have to act quickly and you can't tell anyone what's going on, really stop and do a gut check and have someone who you trust who you can reach out to in situations like that.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And research shows that is one of the best ways to protect yourself.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: To hear her full story and more ways to protect yourself, check out this weekend's episode of Apple News in Conversation.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can find it in the Podcasts app. And if you're listening in the News app right now, it's queued up to play for you after our show.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Finally, if you have young children in your life, there's a good chance you know this tune. It's the theme from Bluey, the cartoon about a family of blue healer dogs.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Since its Australian debut in 2018, it's become a global phenomenon. It was the most watched kids show in the U.S. last year and the second most streamed show of any kind.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: But now there's some uncertainty about Bluey's future.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: This weekend, the creators are releasing a special to cap off season three, and then going on hiatus.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The team says it just needs a break, but no fourth season has been announced, and fans are worried, panicked even, that it's actually the end.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And this is where I'll mention that I am someone who is also a little in love with this show, along with my children.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Because over the course of an eight-minute episode, Bluey manages to reflect back to kids how they think and play.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Like when the purchase of a new box of pens inspires a whole backyard world called Rug Island.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Even the dad gets in on the act.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: I gotta say, this place looks pretty chill. What's for breakfast? Listen, grown-up. If you want to stay on Rug Island, you have to work. I set up. Oh, man, ripped off.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: That's the winning formula, and why fans are so afraid to see Bluey go.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Children get to see themselves on screen, and in many ways, so do parents.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Bloomberg Businessweek reports that between the show and the merchandise, Bluey's estimated to be worth about $2 billion.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And as Dave McCormack, who voices Bluey's dad, put it to Jimmy Fallon a couple of years back, the show got so much bigger than anyone ever expected.
--:-- Dave McCormack: I thought, oh, this will be nice. This will be on YouTube as some sort of one-off, you know, short animation. And then here we are. Bigger than the Beatles.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: The Beatles didn't hang it up after three albums.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: And Bluey fans of all ages are really, really hoping this show doesn't end after just three seasons.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: You can read the whole story of Bluey, including how the show almost ended up getting turned into an R-rated Peppa Pig on the Apple News app.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: As I mentioned, Apple News & Conversation is playing next, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
--:-- Yasmin Khan: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
