--:-- [Up First theme music plays]
--:-- Michelle Martin: Thousands have been displaced as cross-border attacks between Israel and Lebanon intensify. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Tel Aviv. Can a U.S.-backed ceasefire deal bring calm to fighting on two fronts? I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And I'm Rob Schmitz. That's right, Michelle. The situation is getting more and more intense by the day.
--:-- Michelle Martin: The annual Southern Baptist Convention is starting today. And once again, cultural and political issues are on the agenda. Some churches are straightforwardly telling us that they are basically out of sync with the Southern Baptist Convention on the issue of women preaching.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Also on the agenda, a possible ban on IVF and the denomination's handling of clergy sex abuse allegations.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And Siri is about to get an AI upgrade. What changes are coming to Apple's virtual assistant? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
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--:-- Rob Schmitz: It's been more than eight months of Israel's war in Gaza after the surprise Hamas attack on October 7th. But Israel has also been fighting on another front, exchanging frequent fire across the Lebanese border with Hezbollah.
--:-- [Sound of explosion]
--:-- Rob Schmitz: NPR's Kat Lonsdorff was out near the border yesterday and joins us now from Haifa.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: Good morning, Rob.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: So, Kat, what did you see near the border?
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: Yeah, so my team and I started in a town called Kirat Shmona. It's mostly a ghost town right now. You know, all the shops are closed. There's no cars on the road. Apartment buildings are empty. It's a town that's gotten many direct hits from Hezbollah in the past few months.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: But there are still some people living there.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: Yeah, there are. You know, yesterday we had just arrived and a man walked up to us and started talking to us. And suddenly there was a big explosion.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And just to warn listeners, we're going to play a sound of that here.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: And, you know, you can hear the man, he just keeps talking. He was just like, yeah, that happens all the time now. We're used to it.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: You know, we also went down to a town on the Mediterranean, a town called Nahariyah. It hasn't been evacuated yet, but just yesterday, several rockets or drones were fired towards it.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: And as far as we know, most of those were intercepted. You know, Israel shoots down about 90 percent of those up here.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And Israel fires back, causing a lot of destruction on the Lebanese side too.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: And I'll also just add, Rob, just a while ago this morning, a siren went off here in Haifa and I watched a rocket get shot down outside my hotel room window.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: You know, that's unusual for something to be fired this far south. Yeah, I'm more than 80 miles from the border right now.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: Well, I mean, it certainly sounds like the situation there is becoming much more intense. What are Israelis saying needs to be done about this situation?
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Well, people here are anxious for the military to do more. There have been tens of thousands of people displaced for months now, and they're eager to go back home.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: You know, everyone every single person I talked to yesterday said they thought a war with Hezbollah was the only option to alleviate the tensions even though there already a war going on in Gaza like you mentioned.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Here 58 Sarah Ben Hamel She was back visiting Kirat Shmoni yesterday You know, she told us that she thinks war, not diplomacy, is the only way people in the town will feel safe to come back.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: I know that sounds a little counterintuitive, but a lot of people here remember the 2006 war against Hezbollah. It was a horrible war, but there was relative calm afterwards.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And that's what many here think would be the outcome if another war were to start.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several military officials have made it clear that they are preparing for a war in the north, that they're ready.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And the government recently raised the number of reservists the military can call up specifically for that purpose.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: So Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in your region today trying to bring an end to the eight-month conflict in Gaza. Are there signs that he's having any success there?
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Well, you know, there are some, but, you know, a lot remains to be seen.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: You know, talks about possible peace talks have been dragging on for weeks.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Yesterday, Blinken met with Netanyahu and reiterated afterwards that the U.S. and other countries are behind President Biden's three-step plan to end the war in Gaza.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: You know, this is the plan that Biden announced a few weeks ago and referred to as the, quote, Israeli plan, although I should note Israel has not agreed to it and neither has Hamas.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: You know, meanwhile, yesterday, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution backing the deal.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: And the feeling here is that a breakthrough in a ceasefire of some kind in the Gaza War would almost certainly ease the tensions up here.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Hezbollah started firing at Israel when the Gaza War began in what they said was solidarity with Hamas.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: That's NPR's Kat Lonsdorf reporting from Haifa in northern Israel. Thanks, Kat, and stay safe.
--:-- Kat Lonsdorff: Thanks so much, Rob.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: The largest Protestant group in the U.S. starts its annual convention today, and it's expected to affirm its ban on women clergy.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: We're talking about the Southern Baptists. They're meeting in Indianapolis this week.
--:-- Jason DeRose: Good morning.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: So let's start with women clergy. Didn't they already vote to ban female pastors?
--:-- Jason DeRose: They did. They passed that ban last year, but it has to pass two years in a row to become policy.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Albert Moeller is the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He says this vote is about clarity, since a few congregations still give the title pastor to women.
--:-- Jason DeRose: Some churches are, quite honestly, straightforwardly telling us that they are basically out of sync with the Southern Baptist Convention on the issue of women preaching and women holding a pastoral office.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Mohler argues the Bible prohibits women clergy.
--:-- Jason DeRose: The measure is expected to pass again and therefore go into effect, so then they'll need to figure out how to enforce it.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: They're also taking up in vitro fertilization. What does that resolution say?
--:-- Jason DeRose: It calls on church members to advocate for human life, which, quote, necessarily includes frozen embryonic human beings.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Now, you remember earlier this year, the Alabama Supreme Court used similar language.
--:-- Jason DeRose: IVF usually involves creating more embryos than needed or wanted, so they're either kept frozen or destroyed or used in medical research.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And that's the ethical problem for people who view embryos as life.
--:-- Jason DeRose: This resolution also encourages Southern Baptists to quote consider adopting frozen embryos in order to rescue them
--:-- Rob Schmitz: I spoke with Erin Defoe Hunter who teaches Christian ethics at Fuller Seminary an evangelical school in Pasadena.
--:-- Jason DeRose: She worries moves like this actually scuttle moral deliberation over IVF.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: One of the things that this kind of resolution can do is shut down any kind of creative kind of imagining of what it might mean to invite people into a new way of understanding, say, infertility.
--:-- Jason DeRose: For instance, Defoe Hunter would like to see more compassionate pastoral care for infertile couples.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: So the Southern Baptist Convention has faced numerous allegations of clergy sex abuse in recent years. How has the church responded?
--:-- Jason DeRose: Well, they're actually having trouble responding.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: The task force charged with creating a database of abusive clergy has issued a report saying it hasn't published the name of even one abusive pastor.
--:-- Jason DeRose: The task force says its efforts have been hampered by a lack of funding, worries over legal liability, and a lack of will among church leaders.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Now remember, in 2022, a third-party investigation detailed numerous instances of Southern Baptist leaders mishandling clergy sex abuse allegations, and that report, in fact, sparked a federal investigation.
--:-- Jason DeRose: I mean, the church is dealing with all these difficult issues. So why are these votes important to people outside the Southern Baptist Convention?
--:-- Rob Schmitz: This church holds a lot of political sway. House Speaker Mike Johnson is Southern Baptist.
--:-- Jason DeRose: It's a conservative church that influences Republican policy.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: You know, there are nearly 13 million Southern Baptists in the U.S. who attend about 50,000 congregations.
--:-- Jason DeRose: And what's happening also illustrates the reality of polarization in the country.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: I was recently covering the United Methodist Church. Now, that group dramatically liberalized rules around LGBTQ clergy and same-sex weddings.
--:-- Jason DeRose: These two churches, Southern Baptists and United Methodists, are the first and second largest Protestant groups in the U.S., and they're examples of deep divides in American public life, including in religious life.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: That's NPR religion correspondent Jason DeRose. Thank you, Jason.
--:-- Jason DeRose: You're welcome.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Apple's digital assistant Siri may soon have a lot more to say. Yes, Siri is now getting revamped with ChatGPT, part of a major deal the company announced yesterday.
--:-- Dara Kerr: Good morning.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: So, Dara, tell us about what Apple has announced.
--:-- Dara Kerr: So, every year Apple has this big developer conference, and mostly it's for tech insiders. But a lot of people were watching yesterday.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And that's because it was rumored that Apple was going to announce a partnership with OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT.
--:-- Dara Kerr: And at the very end of its nearly two-hour-long keynote, that announcement came.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And we're starting out with the best of these, the pioneer and market leader, ChatGPT.
--:-- Dara Kerr: And I think people know why that's significant, but I'd like you to tell us why is that significant? What difference will this make for, say, the average iPhone user?
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Yeah, so with Siri now, you can ask it questions and it'll point you where to find answers on the web.
--:-- Dara Kerr: But when it gets integrated with ChatGPT, we'll have OpenAI's technology and be able to scrape the web and form its own answers So if you ask it something like how to make a Philly cheesesteak it will search recipes all over the web and come back with its own ingredient list and cooking instructions
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And like ChatGPT Siri will also be able to compose essays or stories
--:-- Dara Kerr: Here's how Apple software chief Craig Federighi explains it. Suppose you want to create a custom bedtime story for your six-year-old who loves butterflies and solving riddles.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Put in your initial idea and send it to ChatGPT to get something back she'll love.
--:-- Dara Kerr: Hmm. I think the jury's out on how many six-year-olds would love a chat GBT-inspired story, but it seems like we are hearing about the evolution of AI every day.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Has Apple been under the gun to compete?
--:-- Dara Kerr: Yeah, Apple definitely has been feeling the pressure. Other major tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have already rolled out AI tools.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: But I should say it hasn't necessarily been smooth sailing for all of these companies.
--:-- Dara Kerr: For instance, just last week, Google announced it was pulling back on its new AI-assisted search tool.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And that's because within hours of its debut, the tool is giving people all sorts of wacky and possibly dangerous answers.
--:-- Dara Kerr: Like it told people adding glue to pizza would keep the cheese from sliding off and that eating a small rock every day was healthy.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: A small rock? Yes, very healthy.
--:-- Dara Kerr: And, you know, ChatGPT itself has also been accused of all sorts of things, including plagiarism, copyright infringement.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: It's made things up and has given incorrect and biased answers.
--:-- Dara Kerr: So once Siri gets ChatGPT, and if it starts to do that, it could be really risky for Apple.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Yeah, it sounds like it. I mean, so is Apple basically outsourcing its AI development to this company?
--:-- Dara Kerr: No, not completely. It also announced its own batch of AI-centric tools yesterday.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: It's grouping all of this in what the company calls Apple Intelligence.
--:-- Dara Kerr: But these are tools that will be familiar to us because we've seen them in other companies' products.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: There's things like writing tools that can draft emails and letters or essays to your six-year-old.
--:-- Dara Kerr: There's also an image tool that lets people create things like animated avatars and emojis.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: So basically, what we're seeing is nothing really new, but it's the first time we've seen Apple really take a hold of AI.
--:-- Dara Kerr: And why this is significant is that millions of people own Apple's iPhone and its other products.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: So essentially, the company will be bringing ChatGPT and its other AI tools to a huge new group of people. Trying to turn artificial intelligence into Apple intelligence.
--:-- Dara Kerr: NPR tech correspondent, Dara Kerr, thank you.
--:-- Dara Kerr: Thank you so much.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: And that's Up First for Tuesday, June 11th. I'm Rob Schmitz.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And I'm Michelle Martin. For your next listen, check out NPR's Consider This podcast.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: On the latest episode, our colleague Mary Louise Kelly digs into how this week's events in Gaza and the resignation of Israeli War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz impacts U.S. efforts to broker a ceasefire deal.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Listen to Consider This.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Hannah Block, Cheryl Corley, Gabriel Spitzer, Mohamed El-Bardisi and Alice Wolfley.
--:-- Michelle Martin: It was produced by Ziad Butch, Ben Abrams, Christopher Thomas, and Julie Devenbrock.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: We get engineering support from Carly Strange.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Our technical director is Zach Coleman.
--:-- Rob Schmitz: Join us again tomorrow.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Thanks for listening to Up First.
