--:-- Traci Mumford: From the New York Times, it's the headlines. Today's Monday, September 2nd.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Israel is in the middle of a labor strike this morning, as protesters demand that the government reach a ceasefire deal to bring the remaining hostages home. Many schools and businesses are closed, some hospitals have cut services, and nearly all early flights out of the Tel Aviv airport were canceled.
--:-- Traci Mumford: The uproar has been spreading since the Israeli military announced this weekend that it found the bodies of six hostages in tunnels underneath the city of Rafa in Gaza. Israel says they were killed by Hamas shortly before soldiers reached them. And the news of their deaths brought thousands of people to the streets last night.
--:-- Traci Mumford: The protesters said the hostages could have been saved if the government had agreed to a ceasefire earlier, and that an immediate deal is the best chance to recover the 100 people living and dead still being held in Gaza. We demand the deal to be right now. That's why we're marching for, that's what we're shouting for.
--:-- Traci Mumford: The mood in Israel is generally somber and also angry as we witness what amounts to the biggest expression of dissent against the government since the war started.
--:-- Patrick Kingsley: Many Israelis are furious that Hamas has killed six hostages in captivity in recent days. And in addition to blaming Hamas for that, they blame their government, in particular Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for failing to compromise enough with Hamas in order to secure a ceasefire deal.
--:-- Patrick Kingsley: It remains to be seen how much this will affect Prime Minister Netanyahu's thinking. The protesters are basically saying that Israel cannot wait for the perfect ceasefire deal and that it better to make a quick compromise in order to save the lives of the remaining hostages.
--:-- Patrick Kingsley: On the other hand, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his supporters feel that it better to hold out for a better deal in order to weaken Hamas than it is to agree a flawed deal that would save the lives of a few dozen hostages.
--:-- Traci Mumford: The hostages who were found dead in Gaza include Hirsch Goldberg Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli-American citizen who was abducted from a music festival on October 7th. His parents campaigned widely for his release, and they spoke at the Democratic National Convention last month.
--:-- Traci Mumford: After his death was announced, Kamala Harris released a statement saying that, quote, the threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel and American citizens in Israel must be eliminated, and Hamas cannot control Gaza.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Harris and President Biden are expected to meet this morning at the White House with the American negotiators who have been participating in the ceasefire talks.
--:-- Traci Mumford: In Germany yesterday, a far-right party, the AFD, made major gains in state elections. It won one state outright, the first time since the Nazi era that a far-right party has done that in Germany.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Branches of the party have been classified by intelligence agencies as, quote, confirmed extremist, based on their outspoken Islamophobia and defamation of state institutions.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Other parties have said the AFD threatens the country's democracy and that they would shun the party if it won. But the AFD has been gathering support with its calls for cutting off military aid to Ukraine and cracking down on immigration.
--:-- Traci Mumford: And its surge in popularity in recent years has been part of a shift in political conversations in Germany. Some mainstream politicians are now talking about taking a harsher stance towards immigration and calling for tougher asylum laws.
--:-- Traci Mumford: A Times investigation has found that one of the largest chains of psychiatric hospitals in the U has been holding patients against their will to maximize profits.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Acadia Healthcare operates in 19 states and there have been dozens of reports of the hospitals detaining patients using laws meant for people who pose an imminent threat, even when they didn't meet that legal standard.
--:-- Katie Thomas: What we learned from speaking to these current and former employees was that it was very important to Acadia to keep these facilities full. They called that heads and beds.
--:-- Katie Thomas: It was the norm to not discharge a patient until their insurance had run out. So it wasn't really a question about whether somebody was medically ready to leave or psychologically ready to leave.
--:-- Katie Thomas: It was a question about how much more time would the insurance cover. Acadia pitched itself to hospitals and emergency rooms as a place where they could send patients when the facilities were struggling to keep up with a growing mental health crisis in the country.
--:-- Katie Thomas: Once patients were at Acadia facilities, the staff have used an array of strategies to keep them there. They've exaggerated patient symptoms, used buzzwords like combative or uncooperative on medical records, and said patients needed to be detained for things like skipping group therapy or not finishing a meal.
--:-- Katie Thomas: One woman in Florida with bipolar disorder was sent to an Acadia facility after she went to the ER to ask for help with her prescriptions. Acadia held her for six days, even though she begged to be released, and her medical records said she wasn't a danger to herself or others.
--:-- Katie Thomas: Her mother told the Times she's now terrified of trying to get medical help again because she doesn't want to be trapped. The Times found that Acadia charged her insurance $13,200 for the stay.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Acadia is really indicative of this major shift that has occurred in mental health care over the past decade or so, where traditionally governments or nonprofit organizations had run psychiatric hospitals, but increasingly today they're being run by large for-profit companies like Acadia.
--:-- Traci Mumford: One of the major things that has been driving that in the last 10 years is the Affordable Care Act which required insurers to cover mental health care.
--:-- Traci Mumford: When that happened, a lot of for-profit companies saw an opportunity there, and Acadia was one of them.
--:-- Traci Mumford: In response to questions from the Times, an Acadia spokesman said that the examples of mistreatment the Times found were not representative, but that, quote, any incident that falls short of our rigorous standards is unacceptable.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Earlier this year, Acadia said it tentatively agreed to settle a Justice Department investigation into its practices.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Meanwhile, Acadia's stock prices have been rising. It's now valued at about $7 billion.
--:-- Traci Mumford: And finally, we've entered a coffee shop arms race. Across the country, stores that specialize in coffee and tea drinks are one of the fastest-growing segments of the entire restaurant industry.
--:-- Traci Mumford: And it's not just Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts expanding. Smaller regional chains are also making a play, especially in the Midwest and South, which weren't as saturated with options.
--:-- Traci Mumford: For example, Dunn Brothers says it's blanketing the I-35 corridor from Minnesota to Texas. And in Tyler, Texas, there were just 17 coffee shops a few years ago. Now, there's more than 50.
--:-- Traci Mumford: And the shops aren't trying to win the coffee wars with just black coffee. Most of their sales growth is coming from iced drinks. That's syrupy, foamy, cookie-flavored lattes, fruit smoothies, and other creations that feel like a Willy Wonka caffeinated fever dream.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Consider a white chocolate pumpkin energy drink or a funnel cake macchiato. Some of the chains say they are ready to go head-to-head with Starbucks, though analysts point out that might be a tall order.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Starbucks already has more than 16,000 locations across the U.S. That's more than the next 10 biggest coffee chains combined.
--:-- Traci Mumford: Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.
