Good morning, it's Friday, April 19th. I'm Yasmeen Khan, in for Shumita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, how the shooting at Columbine changed America, tips for bouncing back from financial trauma, and a new Olympic event for Paris 2024. But first, to the Middle East and the growing threat of a wider regional crisis. Israel has launched retaliatory strikes on Iran. This has been confirmed by US and Israeli officials.
Iranian state media has reported explosions near a military base, and that Iran's air defenses intercepted several drones. The Wall Street Journal reports, there is a lot that's unclear right now about the extent and the impact of the strikes, but they come on the heels of two incidents in recent weeks. Israel destroyed Iran's consulate in Syria in early April, killing two Iranian generals and five officers, and Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel and retaliation last weekend.
This is a developing story, and you can follow the latest updates in the Apple News app. In the United Arab Emirates, roughly one year's worth of rain fell over the course of just 12 hours earlier this week, putting this typically dry country under water in many places. The government shut down offices, schools and banks. In many homes and businesses, there's no running water or power. At least 20 people died in neighboring Oman.
Meanwhile, the Dubai airport, one of the world's busiest, was thrown into chaos. Water levels in some areas have started to recede, and officials in the UAE are working on cleanup and recovery. But they say those efforts will take time. And here in the United States, a full jury has been selected for Donald Trump's New York criminal trial. This is the case where he faces 34 counts of falsifying business records. Trump has pleaded not guilty. The case is off to a quick start.
All 12 jurors were picked in this first week. One of the ongoing challenges has been protecting their identities. Judge Marshawn has ordered their identities to remain anonymous in this high-profile case. But this week, at least one juror was excused and replaced because people she knew figured out from media reports that she was involved in the panel. Today, the process will turn to selecting alternates. Opening arguments in the case could begin as soon as Monday.
Tomorrow marks 25 years since 13 people were shot and killed at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. It was not the first school shooting in America, but it was one that focused people's attention like nothing before. It prompted immediate calls for change, especially when the NRA, the National Rifle Association, held their annual meeting in Denver less than two weeks after the shooting. Tom Mauser's son, Daniel, was killed at Columbine High School.
Mauser was one of thousands of people who gathered in the days after the shooting to protest the NRA.
The time has come to come to understand that a Tec-9 semi-automatic 30 bullet weapon like that that killed my son is not used to kill deer. It has no useful purpose.
When President Bill Clinton visited Littleton, there was a feeling that politicians were listening and considering strong action.
All America has looked and listened with shared grief and enormous affection and admiration for you. We have been learning along with you a lot about ourselves and our responsibilities as parents and citizens.
But in the years since, gun advocates fought off many new restrictions and in many places got laws passed that expanded gun access. Columbine was not America's last school shooting or the deadliest. The death tolls got bigger. The victims got younger. No corner of the country has been immune. The communities affected have become household names, Newtown, Uvalde, Parkland and many more. And guns have only become more ubiquitous according to the Trace, which reports on gun violence in America.
The Trace is examining what happened at Columbine and the proliferation of guns over US history in a new season of the podcast, Long Shadow. Former Columbine principal, Frank DeAngelis, talks about how he preserves the victims' memories.
Every morning before my feet hit the ground, I recite the names of my beloved 13, and they give me the reason to do what I'm doing today. Cassie Bernal, Stephen Kernow, Corey DePooter, Kelly Fleming, Matt Kector, Daniel Mouser, Danny Rohrbach, Dave Sanders, Isaiah Scholes, Rachel Scott, John Tomlin, Lauren Townsend, and Kyle Velasquez.
In its reporting, the trace quantifies the growing prevalence of guns in America over the last 25 years. And the data tells a striking story. For example, in 1999, only one state allowed concealed guns without a permit. But since Columbine, 28 more states rolled back permit and training requirements. The number of guns produced and imported into America has increased by more than 300%. And there are far more guns showing up in schools today.
Close to 5,000 students were caught with guns at school in the most recent year of data. That's nearly double the numbers from just a few years ago. Many hoped the killings at Columbine would spark accountability for gun manufacturers, gun lobbyists and for elected officials. Instead, the traces reporting tells us how guns impact all corners of our lives now, from grocery stores to airports to political protests.
And today, 25 years after the shooting at Columbine, firearms are the number one cause of death for American children. Children. If you are someone who's lost your job, been evicted or experienced food insecurity, you may have something called financial trauma. Financial trauma can be brought on by major life events, like the ones I mentioned, but it can also come from smaller moments, like hearing your parents fight about money or having your wallet stolen.
It isn't always about the event itself, but how it affects you, your mental health, and how you feel about money.
We all have financial stressors or maybe some guilt around irresponsible behaviors around money, but when it shifts into shame where you have this negative feeling about who you are in your relationship with money that becomes generalized to other areas of your functioning, that's when it becomes a trauma.
That's Megan McCoy, our guest this week on Apple News In Conversation. She's a marriage and family therapist who specializes in financial therapy, a field that brings together money and mental health. She told guest host Julia Carpenter, who's filling in for Shumita while on maternity leave, about the ways financial trauma can lead to poor financial choices.
So even more than money impacting our mental health, the opposite is true too. When we're stressed or anxious, that's gonna make us manage our money worse. We might overspend to try to cope or things like that.
And McCoy shared advice for you, our listeners. She listened to the stories you shared with us about your financial traumas, like Jimmy from Grand Rapids, who went through a lengthy and expensive divorce.
I wanted to settle early, but it felt as though the attorneys prolonged the process, causing me a lot of stress and anxiety. I now consciously choose not to save too much, to prevent my assets from becoming a future source of suffering.
McCoy offers some thoughts on this situation. She says, even if Jimmy doesn't want to save money the way he used to, she suggests that he find outlets for spending that are aligned with his values.
The number at the end of the day isn't what's important, but spending with intentionality. Is he burning through his assets in ways that are not aligned with his values, or is he finding outlets for experiences, for giving to others, for charitable giving that we know makes us happier, or is it just wasting it?
For more tips on how to navigate financial trauma, keep listening after our show today. We'll have the full conversation queued up to play for you. Let's close on something you may have been hearing more about in the last few days, the Summer Olympics in Paris. We got the announcement of the men's basketball lineup. There was controversy around new track outfits for women. And we had the lighting of the Olympic torch in Greece to mark 100 days until the games.
With every Olympics, it seems like some new event is making its debut. This year, it's break dancing. This art form where dance meets acrobatics grew out of hip hop in the Bronx in the 1970s and evolved to become a competitive sport worldwide. At the games, it's officially known as breaking. And this summer in Paris, 32 breakers will compete for gold. The competition involves a freestyle dance off with moves like head spins, windmills and flares.
Oh, and dancers don't get to hear the music beforehand. They have to improvise. Here's Sonny Choi, one of four breakers who will represent the US talking with NBC. We battle head to head, so it's actually like one vs.
one on stage. And there's like a conversation that happens.
Sometimes we actually talk to each other, and we talk a little smack, and sometimes it's just like respectful, but you're like vibing off of each other when you're up there.
Break dancing is just one of the new events in recent years that organizers hope will attract younger audiences, along with sports like surfing and skateboarding. And fans of breaking will want to tune in this year because it will not be back for the 2028 games in LA. There, some other sports are debuting, including flag football and cricket. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the news app right now, stick around.
The episode of Apple News In Conversation that we talked about before is coming up next about how to cope with and bounce back from financial trauma. And if you're listening in the podcast's app, you can find that episode by searching for Apple News In Conversation. Have a great weekend, and we'll be back with the news on Monday.