Migrants want help after 20 months stuck on an island “hell”

Good morning! It's Thursday, June 15th. I'm Gideon Resnick in for Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." On today's show, the plight of asylum seekers stuck on an island for 20 months, how the surprise awakening of a psychiatric patient may change medicine for a generation, and why some elephants do yoga.

But first, we're gonna take a look at some major stories in the news. The Supreme Court voted to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act. In a 7-2 decision, the majority held that Congress has the authority to enact the law, which gives preference to Native families if a Native child is up for adoption. The plaintiffs in the case had argued that the law discriminates against non-Native parents. Ahead of the decision, we spoke with Rebecca Nagle, the host of the Crooked Media podcast "This Land" and a citizen of Cherokee Nation. She explained the importance of the legislation.

There is a long history of the U.S. federal government systematically separating Native children from their families, which I think it's really important to point out is an internationally recognized form of genocide, to remove the children of a people. You can't continue to exist as a people, as a tribe, if you don't have your children.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken leaves for China tomorrow. He'll be the highest-ranking American official to visit the country in five years. A previous visit was rescheduled after a spy balloon was shot down over U.S. territory. And tension over that raises the stakes of what's already a contentious relationship here, with other disputes including trade, human rights, Taiwan's security and China's support for Russia.

That deadly shipwreck is a reminder of how dangerous it can be for migrants traveling by sea. But that danger doesn't always end for those who make it to shore. There are dozens of migrants who have been stranded for 20 months on a tiny island in the Indian Ocean in difficult conditions. A warning here that this story involves suicide and sexual assault.

Two of our clients have written to us, and I understand you've seen these letters as well, expressing torment. I mean, utter, utter desolation and feelings of no hope whatsoever.

Migrants have been living in tents initially intended for COVID isolation for military personnel. Anyone who leaves the area must be accompanied by a guard. And migrants say the poor conditions on the island are causing severe mental distress. Lawyers say they are aware of at least 12 suicide attempts, several hunger strikes and allegations of at least two sexual assaults within the camp. One of the migrants told the "BBC" that she was sexually assaulted, and she had to live in the same tent as her attacker for a week before authorities moved him. The British government did not respond to the "BBC's" questions about this.

After a traumatic event when she was 21, April Burrell became a patient in a psychiatric hospital. She developed psychosis as well as auditory and visual hallucinations. The former high school valedictorian was diagnosed with severe schizophrenia. Neuroscientist Richard Sima writes for "The Washington Post" and told us April's story.

She was catatonic. She wouldn't respond very much to the outside world. She would be unblinking. Like, she wouldn't smile. She'd be just standing at the nurses' station, and she would have to be physically moved.

For close to 20 years, April stayed at a long-term psychiatric center. A series of treatments had failed. Dr. Sander Markx, a psychiatrist at Columbia University, wanted to change that, so he ordered new tests and consulted with dozens of experts. Finally, the psychiatrist saw something that other doctors had missed. April's bloodwork showed that her immune system was producing excess antibodies that were attacking her body. That was a big clue she had lupus.

What was strange was that the lupus seemed to only affect her brain. There's no external signs of the disease, which is probably why it was missed by previous doctors. So, it seemed that these antibodies were attacking her brain and causing damage and inflammation in the areas that might cause these psychiatric symptoms.

Now, finding lupus was a major breakthrough because there are very effective treatments for it. Her doctors started treating it, hoping that the psychiatric symptoms might get better. And April began to dramatically improve. As Sima put it, she woke up from years of illness.

She's just so different because she's engaging and asking questions and awake.

April's family was happy to see elements of her personality and memory return. And now, she's giving hope for psychiatric patients who've been written off as untreatable.

That is really game-changing for the patient, the family, but also as an approach to psychiatry, to look for different underlying causes and give as precise a treatment as you can to those causes.

There's a whole lot more to April's story, including how two chance meetings decades apart helped set up the medical breakthrough. You can read all of it on the Apple News app.

She's almost 40 years old, she weighs 6500 pounds, and she loves to show off her famous handstand. I'm talking about Tess, an elephant at the Houston Zoo. Like a lot of humans out there, she and her herd do daily yoga to stay limber as they age.

You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app, stick around. We've got a narrated article coming up next on student debt. The Supreme Court will issue an opinion on Biden's loan forgiveness plan any day now. Tens of millions of people could be affected by that decision. "Mother Jones" looks back at the story of Jessica Madison, a pioneer of the loan cancellation movement. That story is cued up for you next, and Shumita will be back with the news tomorrow.