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Good morning! It's Friday, December 15th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is “Apple News Today.” On today's show… What the U.S. is saying, and what it's actually doing, about Israel's war in Gaza… How failures in police training impacted the Uvalde school shooting… And the questions we should be asking our family members.
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Let's start with the war in Gaza, and a look at some key differences in the Biden administration's rhetoric and action when it comes to how Israel is waging war. In public and private, the administration is encouraging Israel to dial back its attacks to spare more civilian lives. National security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday. Sullivan talked to Israel's “Channel 12” about what they discussed.
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The issue really is, when does Israel shift from the high-intensity military operations that are underway today to a different phase of this conflict, one that's more precise, more targeted.
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Sullivan's visit also follows some of the harshest rhetoric from President Biden on the war. As mentioned earlier this week, Biden said Israel is risking losing global support because of what he called "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza. But at the same time, the U.S. continues to take concrete steps to support Israel, militarily and politically. After the meeting with Sullivan, Netanyahu thanked the U.S. for voting against UN calls for a ceasefire, and for continued weapons supplies.
Weapons deals often come with heavy restrictions. For example, Ukraine got some weapons under the condition that they were not to be fired into Russian territory. But “NBC News” explains that the Biden administration hasn't put strict conditions on military aid the U.S. is sending to Israel, even though many Democrats want this. The administration says there's a general expectation that all countries receiving American weapons, including Israel, must comply with the laws of war. But human rights groups say that Israel's heavy bombing of Gaza may be a breach of international laws to minimize human suffering and protect civilians.
Calls to stop the fighting from Democratic lawmakers and even from within the White House are also getting louder. A group of political and career appointees in the Biden administration held a vigil Wednesday night in front of the White House to demand a cease-fire. Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter to the White House urging the President to withdraw support for a $10 billion proposed Israel aid package. He referred to Israel's military actions in Gaza as a "mass atrocity."
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When a gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas in 2022, students and teachers did what they'd been trained to do in active shooter drills. They moved away from windows and doors, turned the lights off, and were silent. In Room 112, 10-year-old Khloie Torres helped to keep her classmates calm.
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I remember telling everybody that we're going to get through this and just don't make a sound. Just be as quiet as a mouse.
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They were so quiet, that some responding officers later said they didn't think children were still in the classrooms, just one of many law enforcement failures that day.
So many officers because they didn't realize that maybe this was their training or didn't think about it in those moments, thought that because it was so quiet that meant no one was in and it took longer for them to rescue them.
That's Lomi Kriel, an investigative reporter with “ProPublica” and “The Texas Tribune.” She's on the team of reporters who've by now gone through hours of body camera footage and gained access to materials from the state-led investigation into what happened that day in Uvalde. And they found a massive disparity playing out across the country. Dozens of states require more training to prepare students and teachers for a mass shooting than they do for the police who are expected to respond to them. Only two states have laws mandating additional training after the police academy on how to respond to shootings. The law in Texas is the strongest, and it came as a direct result of the failed response in Uvalde.
And even though many officers in Uvalde had active-shooter training, there were lots of problems on the day of the shooting. They failed to set up a clear command structure. Wrong information about the shooter spread. And no one initially engaged the gunman even though police are supposed to do so as soon as they believe someone could be hurt. Safety experts told Kriel, that's why consistent practice is critical for law enforcement. Active shooter best practices change often, and training gives officers a chance to learn from mistakes.
These situations are so stressful that even if you think, as a police officer, you can handle it because you've made dangerous traffic stops or whatever before, because of just everything that is happening in such a short space of time, you really need to practice this regularly to be able to overcome freezing in that moment.
In Uvalde, officers told investigators, when they realized the gunman had an assault- style rifle, they decided to wait for reinforcements. That's partly what allowed over an hour to pass before law enforcement took on the shooter. Kriel told us, asking police officers to confront active shooter situations involving AR-15-style weapons, places a huge expectation on them.
And so, I think the question we're posing is, are we adequately preparing officers enough for this experience that is, in some cases, more like a war, kind of combat type situation. You can read the full investigation from “ProPublica,” “The Texas Tribune,” and “FRONTLINE” in the Apple News app.
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Now, let's take a quick look at some other stories in the news.
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Hungary is blocking a $54 billion European Union aid package for Ukraine, a potential setback to the country's efforts to keep up the fight against Russia. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is seen as Putin's closest ally in the EU. The move to block the aid package came hours after talks opened that could lead to Ukraine joining the EU. Leaders in Europe will reconsider aid to Ukraine next month.
In the U.S., the House has passed the $886 billion defense bill. Earlier it was approved in the Senate by a strong margin. There were concerns that GOP hard-liners would tie up the spending bill with language about abortion, diversity, and LGBTQ+ rights. But the final bill passed Congress without these provisions.
On to medical news, where a new study points to potential treatment for morning sickness. Nausea and vomiting happens in the majority of pregnancies. In some cases, morning sickness can be so severe that it leads to hospitalizations. Scientists found a link to the hormone GDF15, which surges during pregnancy. This research could help lead to the development of drugs that block the hormone in the brain, which could reduce or eliminate morning-sickness symptoms.
And in New Jersey yesterday, the commute got pretty weird. A giant bull was spotted on the tracks at Newark Penn Station, causing delays and a lot of excitement. The loose longhorn ran along the tracks for a couple miles before being captured. He was tranquilized and is now in the care of an animal sanctuary, which named him Ricardo. The sanctuary says Ricardo probably made an escape on the way to a slaughterhouse. But now, he's set to live a long life at a pasture.
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How much do you know about the lives of the elders in your family, the people like your parents, your grandparents? Do you know about their childhood? Their home life, growing up?
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We don't realize how much we don't know about our parents and grandparents and how much we've put them into the role of mother or father or grandparent, and not really examine them outside of that role.
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Elizabeth Keating is an anthropology professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She had this realization herself, when her own mother died, and she wanted to make sure that other people didn't have the same regrets. So, she wrote a book all about the value of recording your elders while they're still alive and asking them questions about the stuff that seems so mundane, so ordinary, we may have never thought to ask before. Stuff like “what was the house you grew up in like?” “How did your family greet each other in the morning?” “What's the first sound you remember hearing when you'd wake up?” Keating gave one example from an interview she did with one woman.
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She said that she and her brother slept in the bedroom with their parents. And then she added, “yes, and my mother had the knitting machine in there and most of the time we would go to sleep to the sound of the knitting machine, shh, shh, shh." And she made the sound, and it was a wonderfully evocative memory.
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You'll hear more on this week's episode of “Apple News In Conversation.” It's an episode that'll get you ready for your end-of-the-year family gatherings, and maybe even inspire you to interview someone in your family. There's plenty of example questions to get you started. If you're listening in the News app, it's queued up to play for you next. If you're listening in the Podcasts app, just search for “Apple News In Conversation” to find it.
Have a great weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.
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