Loading summary
Transcript24 lines
- [00:05]
Shemitah Basu
Good morning. It's Monday, July 28th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News today. On today's show, how to get ready for the big changes coming to student loan repayment programs. The men released in the Salvadoran prison swap speak out and why this year doesn't have a definitive song of the summer. But first to Gaza, where Israel paused military activity in just a few parts of the enclave to allow more aid in. As Palestinians have been dying from acute malnutrition by the dozens in recent days and international outrage is building. This is the first time Israel has let up on the restrictions that have been in place for months now. The UN reports that nearly one in three people are going multiple days without eating. Half a million people are experiencing experiencing famine like conditions. The Gaza Health Ministry recorded six new deaths from malnutrition yesterday, bringing the total to at least 133. That includes at least 87 children. Doctors without Borders says severe malnutrition in children under the age of five has tripled in the past two weeks. And Steve Dorsey with the International Committee of the Red Cross told Meet the Press what their staff is seeing in Gaza is heart wrenching.
- [01:28]
Cory Turner
Seeing these malnourished bodies of little children wasting away. In some cases they are too weak to even cry. Imagine being a parent unable to feed yourself, let alone your own, your own children and not only that, but our staff too. There's simply just not enough food getting.
- [01:46]
Shemitah Basu
Into Gaza now in at least three parts of Gaza, Israel says it will stop military action for 10 hours a day to allow more aid in. Israel says new secure aid corridors will be opened for agencies to distribute supplies supplies and it's allowing foreign countries to airdrop aid, which both Jordan and the UAE have already done. But how effective these changes will be in stemming the starvation crisis in Gaza is uncertain. Aid agencies say not enough aid can be distributed to Gaza by air to make a meaningful impact. Only distributions by land can. UN officials estimate that roughly 120 trucks per day are required to cover basic human needs. Before the war, Israel allowed 500 to 600 truckloads of aid to Gaza daily. Now, aid agencies say that number is more like 28 trucks a day to feed over 2 million people. Secure aid distribution routes could help aid agencies get more supplies to people in need safely. But it's not the only element of the distribution process they found challenging to navigate over the course of the war. Here's how the spokesperson for the UN Secretary General recently described it. The Karim Shalom is not a McDonald's drive thru where we just pull up and pick up what we've ordered, right? There are tremendous bureaucratic impediments. There are tremendous security impediments. As NBC explains, Israel controls almost every part of the distribution process, like how much aid is allowed in, what types of aid and when aid groups can pick up supplies. These groups say the process is often riddled with delays and constantly changing schedules, which makes their work difficult. And the UN Says half of the requests they made to collect aid in the last week were denied. Israel, meanwhile, has blamed the United nations and other aid groups for issues with distribution. And Israeli officials have blamed Hamas for the food shortages. They've long claimed that Hamas is stealing aid. New analysis from USAID found no evidence that Hamas is systematically stealing aid, and multiple Israeli military officials told the New York Times that they have never found evidence of it either. These officials told the Times that the UN Aid delivery system was in fact largely effective in providing food to Gaza's desperate and hungry population. It's a big week for Americans with student loans. If you're one of nearly 7.7 million people enrolled in the Save Plan, NPR education correspondent Cory Turner says it's time to get out now.
- [04:28]
Cory Turner
Interest for the first time is going to start accruing on their loans this Friday.
- [04:33]
Shemitah Basu
The Save Plan was created by the Biden administration and it's the most generous repayment option available to borrowers. But it's shutting down in 2028 after Republicans successfully argued in court that it's too generous. And experts told Turner, anyone who's on the plan now shouldn't stick around until then.
- [04:51]
Cory Turner
They're going to see their loans start to grow, and I don't think anybody wants that. So that's, I would say that's the first priority as we stare this week in the face.
- [05:01]
Shemitah Basu
So which repayment plan should you turn to instead? This is where things get complicated because Trump's tax and spending package introduced sweeping changes to the federal student loan system. And Turner says the government has done a pretty poor job of communicating your new options.
- [05:16]
Cory Turner
There are still folks inside government trying to get their heads around what this will look like. So the alternatives for Save borrowers aren't super clear.
- [05:25]
Shemitah Basu
For new borrowers, here's what you should know. Under the new law, there are tighter borrowing limits and far fewer options for repayment plans. Right now there are seven plans available, but Republicans in Congress voted to cut those down to two.
- [05:39]
Cory Turner
One is just a good old fashioned oatmeal standard plan. It works kind of like a home mortgage. Your monthly payment is the same every month and your repayment term just depends on the size of your loan.
- [05:50]
Shemitah Basu
The other option is called rap, which stands for the Repayment Assistance Plan.
- [05:55]
Cory Turner
There are a couple of things in here the borrowers are actually really going to like. One is Congress has finally decided they did this under the SAVE plan. They're waiving interest that's left over after you make your monthly payment. So nobody's going to see their loans grow. And then there is something really new here for really lower income borrowers whose monthly payments really don't make much of a dent in their principal. The ED department is going to give them up to 50 bucks a month against their principal. So, like, not only will lower income borrowers not see their loans grow, but they'll also see their loans go down.
- [06:30]
Shemitah Basu
And if you have existing student loans to pay off, there's one more option Turner says you should strongly consider which offers loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years, depending on the size of the loan.
- [06:40]
Cory Turner
It's called ibr. It's safe because it is the one plan that was created explicitly by Congress and in law. It wasn't created by the education secretary. There was no extrapolation of legal authority. Congress made it. Nobody can touch it. IBR is an island of legality.
- [07:01]
Shemitah Basu
Come Friday, another big change affecting the Education Department will go into effect.
- [07:06]
Cory Turner
August 1st is going to be the day when the roughly 1400 employees of the department the Trump administration tried to riff can actually finally be terminated. And this is also true of the office within the department that manages student loans. It's going to be about half the staff it was six months ago, and that's going to be a challenge for implementing the entire student loan system.
- [07:38]
Shemitah Basu
Let's turn now to the recent release of 252 men from Venezuela, the notorious Salvadoran prison Sakat. They left as free men for the first time in four months in a prisoner swap deal between Venezuela, El Salvador and the US Reached earlier this month. While detained, they say they were denied access to lawyers, given little food, and routinely physically abused. They say it was torture. And before we go further, I should warn you this segment includes graphic descriptions of violence. Atlantic editor Gisela Salim Peier recently spoke with some of these men about their experience.
- [08:15]
Gisela Salim Peier
The four people I spoke with described a punishment cell called the Island. They described it as a dungeon. It was a room without water and no light, and they had to sleep on the floor.
- [08:33]
Shemitah Basu
They told her they sometimes spent days in the cell. One of the men she spoke to was Cater Alexander Flores, who applied for an appointment to enter the US legally in 2023, when he was 17 and settled in Texas, he started applying for asylum but never completed the process and found a job laying carpet djing in his spare time. He was arrested last December and detained by ice. He told Salim Peier he thought they would send him back to Venezuela, and he had no idea he was going to El Salvador until his plane landed. He says a riot broke out in the prison back in April after guards beat a man so badly he started convulsing. Flores and others staged a hunger strike in protest.
- [09:16]
Gisela Salim Peier
They agreed to end the hunger strike if the guards promised to tone it down with the beating. The beating never stopped, but things got a bit calmer, like it was not as constant as before. Cayder Flores said. No de jaron vivir por un tiempo. They let us leave for a time, but then, you know, the beating resumed in May.
- [09:43]
Shemitah Basu
Some of the detainees attempted to break the locks on their cells using metal rails from their beds. They knew they wouldn't be able to escape. El Salvador's security minister has said people only leave Sakat, quote, inside a coffin. But they were hoping to stage a rebellion.
- [09:57]
Gisela Salim Peier
They were punished very harshly for six days. They were beaten up for many hours, and on the last day they brought in female guards to do the beating for them, to humiliate them. And if they would cry or complain, they would start again.
- [10:19]
Shemitah Basu
The government of El Salvador did not respond to Salim Peier's request for comment about these claims. When the Trump administration deported these men back in March, it repeatedly made allegations without providing evidence that they were violent gang members, and it invoked a rare wartime law to facilitate their removal, with little to no due process involved. And Trump paid El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, $6 million to detain them. Since then, journalists have learned there was little evidence these men were connected to gangs, and the vast majority, at least 197, were never convicted of crimes in the U.S. only 6 had violent criminal records. At least one of the men is now taking steps to sue the United States. He filed a claim Thursday with the Homeland security department accusing U.S. immigration agencies of violating his due process rights, which is a precursor to taking legal action against the government in federal court. Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. The United States and the European Union have agreed to a new trade framework that would impose a 15% import tariff on most EU goods, but averts some of the bigger threats President Trump made. Earlier this month. Trump said the EU had promised to spend $750 billion on US energy and hundreds of billions in arms purchases. He made the announcement with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at his golf club in Scotland. But the two leaders offered a different tone on the deal itself. Trump described it as the biggest deal ever, while von der Leyen said it was the best we could get. The EU had been hoping to keep tariffs at 10%. Close to a dozen people were stabbed at a Walmart in Traverse City, Michigan on Saturday. As of Sunday, two of the victims were in serious condition, although doctors said all the victims are expected to survive. The local sheriff called it a random attack and said the victims had not been selected ahead of time. They've arrested and charged a 42 year old man with terrorism and assault with intent to murder police. The sheriff praised bystanders who cornered the suspect in the parking lot and held him until law enforcement arrived and finally, we're almost up against August and this deep into the season, you might be wondering where is the song of the summer? The Wall Street Journal found big hits from 2024 and even 2023 are simply too popular and are crowding out the room for new releases in the listening charts. Take a bar song by Shabuzzi and die with a smile from Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars, two hits from 2024, which have been mainstays on the Billboard Hot 100 since their release. Executives told the Journal that with 99,000 new tracks delivered to streaming services a day in 2024, it might just be that people are overwhelmed and we're clinging to what we know. 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, we've got a narrated article coming up next. Many AI chatbots are now equipped with safeguards in place for minors. One Atlantic editor writes about how easy she found it to pose as a teen and bypass those protective measures. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News narrated to find that story and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
- [13:50]
Gisela Salim Peier
It.