--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Thursday, July 31st. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, what to know as we hit Trump's tariff deadline, how mass starvation in Gaza could impact Palestinians for generations, and why that huge earthquake off Russia's coast wasn't as bad as so many feared. But first, to an issue almost all Americans agree is a problem, even in these divided times, affordable housing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are four and a half million too few homes right now, according to the Chamber of Congress. The median age for a first-time home purchase is nearly 40 by some estimates. And about half of people renting are cost burdened, meaning more than 30 percent of their income is spent on rent.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: Lawmakers in Congress agree something needs to change. And now there's an unlikely bipartisan alliance forming around a bill to address the shortage that's gaining momentum.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: A sort of unusual thing happened in the Senate, which is that a major piece of legislation passed a committee unanimously. That's Liz Goodwin, who covers Congress for The Washington Post.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: She told us about how two senators on the banking committee, Republican Tim Scott and Democrat Elizabeth Warren, came together to write this measure.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: She's the highest ranking Democrat on the committee and he runs the committee and kind of said, you know, can we agree on anything? And they basically found that they both agreed that the housing crisis is really bad and that the solution to it is just to build more houses.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: And this bill tries to do that primarily through deregulation, which appeals to both Republicans who are eager to cut red tape and Democrats who also think regulations have gone too far and are holding back the housing market.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: It proposes things like loosening the rules to build prefab or factory-made homes, tax incentives for development in poorer areas, and a $1 billion innovation fund. If a local government does a good job building housing, they get more money.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: So there's sort of a carrot and stick situation here where they're trying to incentivize places to build more affordable housing.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: And while the national conversation about housing affordability often centers around urban areas where rents are so high, this bill is pretty broad.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: There's a lot in this bill that deals with rural housing because a lot of the members of this committee are from rural states.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: A lot of times these housing bills are more geared towards like urban issues, and this is not one of them.
--:-- Liz Goodwin: People really stacked it with all of their different priorities.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: Goodwin says the bill wouldn't make dramatic changes to anyone's neighborhood anytime soon or create new zones for housing.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: Housing advocates say the legislation won't fully make up for recent moves to cut housing programs for lower income Americans or make up for the recent substantial cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: And many of the barriers to housing are state-led initiatives, not easily changed by Congress.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: Still, the bill itself has a good chance of making it to the floor, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledging its unusually strong support.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: But now that the Senate is about to take a break, the earliest it could reach a vote would be in September.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: Now to President Trump tariff deadline He given nearly 180 countries until tomorrow to reach trade agreements with the United States or else face steep tariff hikes
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: Remember, he announced these tariffs back in April, but paused most of them after they triggered a massive sell-off in global markets, wiping out trillions of dollars in value from the U.S. stock market alone.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: Wall Street has since recovered and hit record highs. And Trump's administration has spent the last few months trying to negotiate deals.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: He's announced eight so far with the EU, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, the UK, South Korea and Pakistan.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: He has touted them as major victories. But Politico points out only one of these agreements has been signed, which means most are not really official yet.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: It's not clear how much they might benefit the U.S., and the terms could still change.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: The devil is in the details, and these details can really affect how impactful some of these wins that President Trump has claimed in these deals are.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: That's Daniel DeRocher, international trade reporter with Politico.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: It's very much like the president says, I made this great deal, here's what they're going to do. And then the other countries will say, well, you know, yes, kind of.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: Take the framework agreement with the EU Trump announced last weekend, for example, which would put a 15 percent tariff on almost all imports from the 27 member nations.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: He said that the EU is going to eliminate all tariffs on U.S. goods that are sent over there.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: And the president of the European Commission then later clarified, well, no, it's not all goods, you know, it's some things.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: And some of those things still need to be ironed out, you know, specifically agricultural product.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: That means that we don't really know where the tariffs are going to be on, say, wine from Italy or France or whether or not bourbon will be tariffed when it goes over there.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: The White House has released very few details on its recent agreement with the Philippines.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: Indonesia is disputing some of the details released on theirs.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: De Rocha reports that it's not clear if Japan can guarantee the private sector investments in the U.S. that they've promised.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: They, too, seem to have different interpretations of the deal that Trump announced.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: And Vietnam has not confirmed the U.S. tariff rate that Trump says it agreed to.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: As for the deal just made with South Korea, the U.S. will charge a 15 percent tariff on imports, and Trump has said they had agreed to invest in U.S. projects.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: But even the U.K.'s deal, that's the one that's been formally signed, is murky on the details.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: The U.K. is still pressing for the U.S. to make good on its commitment to eliminate tariffs on steel and aluminum.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: And the two countries are still haggling over restrictions on agricultural goods and other key sectors.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: With so little information on what's happening with these tariffs, DeRocher says businesses are suffering.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: Because even if you have a handshake agreement, say that even gets put down on paper, but the U.S. is still maintaining that they have the right to raise tariffs whenever they want.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: And that just creates this environment of uncertainty.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: Businesses don't really know how high the tariffs are, how high they're going to end up.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: They're trying to make these bets and hedge of like, OK, is this the lowest rate that we're going to have?
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: And so it's making the business scene really, really complicated.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: It's making the investment scene really, really complicated.
--:-- Daniel DeRocher: The White House has said it stands by their descriptions of the deals announced and it threatened to raise tariffs on countries that don follow those terms
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let turn now to Gaza
--:-- Shamita Basu: And before we go further a warning that this story contains graphic descriptions of people suffering from hunger.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Local health officials say the Palestinian death toll from Israel's military offensive has surpassed 60,000 people, although experts widely agree that the true total is higher.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Authorities say thousands of bodies are still buried under rubble.
--:-- Salma Altawil: I'm not able to help myself or feed my children. I'm talking about starvation that is not a specific area or for a group of people. It covers all, everything in Gaza, humans, animals.
--:-- Salma Altawil: We've seen images of mothers holding emaciated children, babies in pediatric wards that appear skeletal and barely have the energy to cry.
--:-- Salma Altawil: The AP recently told the story of a five-month-old girl who died weighing roughly one-third less than her birth weight.
--:-- Hani al-Madun: We are excited to hear about the news about aid being allowed into Gaza. But remember, the Palestinians cannot eat announcements.
--:-- Hani al-Madun: We need to go back to 500 to 600 trucks of aid. So far, this has not happened.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some countries are starting to put more pressure on Israel.
--:-- Shamita Basu: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the country will recognize Palestine as a state by September if Israel refuses to announce a ceasefire among other terms
--:-- Shamita Basu: Canada says it will do the same
--:-- Shamita Basu: And France made a similar announcement last week
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady between 4.25 and 4.5 percent for the fifth consecutive time.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But for the first time in more than 30 years, the vote saw dissent from two officials on the board.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump appointees Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller both voted to lower rates, in line with the wishes of President Trump, who's put intense pressure on the committee.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Hill reports both are in the running for Trump's pick for the next Fed chair.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the current chair, Jerome Powell, played down the significance of their dissent and said they laid out a clear case for their decisions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: After one of the strongest earthquakes in modern history hit Russia yesterday, the massive tsunami that many feared would materialize ultimately didn't come.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Scientific American spoke with experts about the geological reasons for that, and they say the magnitude of an earthquake alone cannot necessarily tell you how much water will be displaced or where waves will concentrate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Tsunamis can be affected by the shape and nature of the coastline and seafloor they pass over, and more generally, the way we measure earthquakes is not linear.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A small increase in magnitude causes a huge jump in energy unleashed, which could explain why Tuesday's 8.8 magnitude quake was far less catastrophic than the 9.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Japan in 2011, killing over 15,000 people.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, Beyoncé made history as the first Black woman to top the Billboard country charts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now her Cowboy Carter tour is officially the highest-grossing country tour of all time.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Louisiana. I used to say I spoke to country. And the rejection chain said I wasn't country enough.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Said I wouldn't settle up. What is that a country? Tell me what is it?
--:-- Shamita Basu: The tour earned just over $400 million after 32 stops, 1.6 million tickets sold, and one pretty memorable flying car mishap.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She created this record after getting snubbed by the country music industry almost a decade ago, with the goal of highlighting the long-ignored contributions Black Americans have made to the genre.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And this latest accolade joins a long list of records.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Beyoncé was the first Black artist to win Country Album of the Year at the Grammys for Cowboy Carter.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And Live Nation says she is now the highest-grossing Black artist of all time.
--:-- 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: For years, thousands of North Koreans secretly worked remote jobs for hundreds of U.S. companies under false identities, and they funneled millions of dollars back to North Korea, which is under heavy U.S. sanctions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: An Arizona woman who helped them was recently sentenced to more than eight years in prison for her role in the scheme, and she shared her story with Bloomberg Businessweek.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, Follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
