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Good morning! It's Thursday, October 20th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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Britain is set to get yet another prime minister. Today, Liz Truss resigned after just 44 days in office, by far the shortest span in British history. She lost the support of her party and investors after her economic plan got a disastrous response. The pound sunk and markets went into turmoil after she proposed massive tax cuts. She reversed course quickly, but didn't have enough Conservative Party support to stay on.
Things got pretty intense in Parliament in the leadup to this announcement. At one vote yesterday, allies of Truss were accused of physically intimidating members of Parliament into supporting her on a measure. Before Truss said she was leaving, her fellow Conservative Party member, Charles Walker, blasted her and her supporters.
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I think it's a shambles and a disgrace. I think it is utterly appalling.
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Britain has had a carousel of prime ministers in recent years, with politics thrown into turmoil after the Brexit vote. It's not yet clear who will succeed Truss.
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Election officials are ramping up security measures ahead of the midterms. They want to make sure election workers and voters stay safe, after getting threats from people who deny the 2020 election results. Andy Sullivan from "Reuters" is reporting on this.
This did not used to be an open question here in the United States of America. We just assumed that we could have elections, choose our leaders, we'd all agree on the outcome, and we'd move on. The fact that these election offices feel like they need to do things like install bulletproof glass I think is a real warning sign for our democracy. Sullivan found that election offices are hiring security guards, coordinating with local law enforcement, and more.
One office in Arizona had Kevlar walls, several had panic buttons like you might have in a bank where the bank robber comes in and you can quietly hit the button that sounds an alarm. The Justice Department says it's investigated more than 1,000 messages to election workers, and a few charges have already been filed. Recently, a Nebraska man got 18 months in prison for threatening an election official.
This is something they haven't really had to worry about in the past, but after the 2020 election, when you saw hundreds of threats against election workers by people who are upset about the outcome or nursing various conspiracy theories, this is now really a top concern for them. Some election officials say they haven't gotten as much federal aid as they would like to beef up security. An Illinois clerk says election workers are on the front lines of democracy, but they feel like targets.
Still, election workers across America are working hard to make sure that polling stations are safe and ready for voters to have their say in November. We've pulled together resources on how to cast your ballot in all 50 states. You can find it on the Apple News app.
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Today, Ukraine's national energy company is telling people to cut energy use and brace for more blackouts. Russian drone strikes have been hitting civilian infrastructure across the country, knocking out about a third of the country's power stations. Families worry about staying warm as brutal cold sets in. PBS NewsHour spoke to a 9-year-old living with his grandmother. They don't have heat or electricity, so they have to cook outdoors over a fire.
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It's really cold. I'm sleeping in my clothes in my apartment.
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Dr. Hans Henri Kluge of the World Health Organization has warned of a potential humanitarian crisis.
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The destruction of houses and lack of access to fuel or electricity due to damaged infrastructure could become a matter of life or death if people are unable to heat their homes.
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Russia's weapons are targeting Ukrainian energy. It's also using its own energy supply as a weapon against Ukraine's allies in Europe. It's cut off supply to countries that rely heavily on Russian gas, and that has governments and ordinary people bracing for a nasty winter, taking unusual steps to strike deals with other energy providers and conserve. Maybe you've heard about Paris cutting the lights early on the Eiffel Tower, or Germans stocking up on firewood, or Italians experimenting with cooking pasta using less energy, turning off the stove once it reaches a boil. It all underscores how worried people are about a winter without Russian gas.
Today, European Union leaders meet for another summit on how to lower energy prices. They're considering major new steps, including a controversial cap on gas prices and emergency spending. The EU is 27 countries with nearly half a billion people, so as you'd expect, there is a lot of disagreement on how to handle this problem. But as the summit chairman put it, in a grave situation like this, "division is not a luxury we can afford."
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A new investigation from "The Washington Post" finds hundreds of retired U.S. military personnel have been taking big-money jobs with foreign governments, primarily countries known for human rights abuses and political repression.
These are not democracies. These are places where there's no political parties, where you can't protest, there's no freedom of speech, and in particular, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. That's Craig Whitlock, an investigative reporter for "The Washington Post."
There's always been a revolving door between people who serve in the military, a lot of times when they retire, they go work for defense contractors, for people in the arms business. But what we found that there's this new kind of revolving door where people who had served in the military, particularly over the last 20 years when we were in Afghanistan and Iraq, they're now looking for jobs and they're getting highly paid jobs to work for foreign governments, including foreign governments with terrible human rights records.
Some retired military personnel need U.S. government permission to take these foreign jobs. And it's easy to get. The "Post" found 95% of recent requests were approved. The "Post" sued the Armed Forces and the State Department to get these records. And this is something that the Pentagon and the State Department have tried to keep hidden. They don't want the public to know about this or the extent of it.
One high-profile example is Keith Alexander, a former four-star Army General. He led the National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command. He had a very, very sensitive position, and yet he applied for and received permission to advise the Saudis to set up a new college for cyber warfare. And this college was called the Prince Mohammed bin Salman College of Cyber Security.
That's the same crown prince who American intelligence agencies say ordered the killing of "Washington Post" journalist and Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. So on one hand, you have the U.S. government objecting and protesting to
this horrible assassination. On the other hand, you have people in the State Department and the military approving General Alexander's application to work directly with the Crown Prince on something as sensitive as cyber security. So there's a real disconnect there. A spokesperson for Alexander's company says its deal with the Saudis was focused on developing the college's educational efforts and ended in 2020. She says Alexander didn't work directly on that contract.
There is a lot more from the "Post." You can read the whole multi-part investigation on the Apple News app.
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We already know how dogs are good at sniffing out bombs, drugs, guns, even COVID. Now, a new study finds that dogs also seem able to smell stress in humans. Researchers found that canine noses could pinpoint changes in our breath and sweat, the chemical clues that we're stressed. ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jen Ashton says this research tracks with what a lot of people intuitively feel like they're getting from animals.
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Any pet owner will tell you, when you are upset, when you are sick, when you're stressed, your dog, your cat tends to be really right next to you. And this just lends some scientific evidence to that.
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These findings could help train service dogs who assist people dealing with anxiety and PTSD. And future research could explore whether dogs can discriminate between different emotions. This was a pretty small-scale study, and many of dogs didn't finish the experiment because they had anxiety from being away from their humans, a reminder that, yes, dogs have this incredible ability to help us, but sometimes they need us too.
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You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app now, don't go anywhere. We've got a narrated article coming up next. "Vox" explores why buildings can make us sick, and how to fix them. So sit back, enjoy listening to that, and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
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