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- [00:05]
Shemitah Basu
Good morning. It's Tuesday, January 28th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News today. On today's show, what Palestinians are finding as they return to Gaza how New York, a city of immigrants, is preparing for Trump's deportation crackdown, and why a new Chinese AI is disrupting American tech and financial markets. But first, Donald Trump is rapidly changing America's public health priorities at home and abroad. Already, Trump has temporarily blocked officials at Health and Human Services, the cdc, the fda, and the NIH from communicating with the public until at least February 1st. His administration scrubbed information about abortion from federal health websites and shut down a site created by the Biden administration dedicated to reproductive rights and resources. He's also halted the HIV AIDS prevention program pepfar, which distributes HIV medications in poorer countries, even going so far as to tell organizations on the ground not to distribute the medications even if they've already been purchased. And Trump says he'll pull the United States out of the World Health Organization. The AP reports that US Public health officials were instructed to stop working with the who, effective immediately.
- [01:29]
Dan Diamond
Most public health experts are alarmed by this.
- [01:33]
Shemitah Basu
That's Washington Post White House reporter Dan Diamond.
- [01:36]
Dan Diamond
The WHO plays a key role in identifying, say, the emergence of viruses abroad. Places that the US Isn't monitoring can't necessarily go. The WHO can and can report that up and share with the world an early warning on threats that may be coming.
- [01:53]
Shemitah Basu
For example, COVID 19, the WHO was instrumental in sharing data among countries. It also convinced China to release the genetic sequence of the virus in 2020. That paved the way for scientists here in the US to develop a vaccine. So why is Trump taking this stand against the organization?
- [02:12]
Dan Diamond
Trump blamed the organization, he said, for not being faster to identify the threat in China, deferring to Chinese experts on how serious the virus was, playing down the risks of, say, the virus spreading by air, criticizing the United States when the US Took measures like cutting down travel from China.
- [02:32]
Shemitah Basu
The World Health Organization has disputed claims that it was deferential to China. But diamond says a lot of the damage is already done because of Trump's criticism. Diamond writes who has become a punching bag for China hawks. One of Trump's lines is China doesn't pay its fair share. The United States contributes hundreds of millions of dollars to the WHO, roughly 20% of its entire budget, which while China contributes about 40 million, lots of public health experts agree that some kind of change is needed.
- [03:03]
Dan Diamond
There are some experts saying that this group has been overly bureaucratic, that it has been too favorable to China and that it needs to undergo some reforms.
- [03:12]
Shemitah Basu
But many have expressed grave concerns about the US Leaving altogether.
- [03:17]
Dan Diamond
Now, I've spoken to some of those people, like Ashish Jha, who led the coronavirus response under President Biden, who says he wants changes to the who, but he doesn't want the United States to pull out altogether. He thinks that could be catastrophic for WHO and also for global health.
- [03:32]
Shemitah Basu
In recent days, Trump has indicated he would consider rejoining the WHO if reforms happen. Dimon told us what he thinks that might take.
- [03:41]
Dan Diamond
I think the WHO would have to either make some notable concessions to Trump, perhaps make a vow of changing the organization in a way that would satisfy him, or the United States would rejoin the organization but give a lot less money than we used to.
- [03:55]
Shemitah Basu
As all of this plays out, senators in Washington are preparing to question Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump's nominee to lead Health and Human Services, who would play a key role in executing his domestic health agenda. That confirmation hearing begins tomorrow. Now to Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinian people have started to make the long and difficult journey back home. After many months, months of trying to outrun Israeli airstrikes, many are returning to rubble. Most of Gaza has been destroyed by Israel's intensive bombing campaign. NPR visited Rafah in southern Gaza for the first time in eight months. Producer Anas Baba described the scene for npr.
- [04:44]
Anas Baba
This street was called Paris street in Rafah. By now, it seems that the Israeli bombardment left nothing. From this Shenzhel e Zei of Rafah, we can see that the infrastructure, the streets, roads, water pipes, every single thing that's needed for a human in order to be inhabited in place is lacking here in Rafah.
- [05:06]
Shemitah Basu
Baba himself is one of many people returning to his home in Gaza City. Here's how he described what it felt like to be walking among massive crowds of Palestinians doing the same on npr.
- [05:17]
Anas Baba
I only want to move to my house together. City, just the happiness inside you driving you all the way. It just like after all of that patience, after all of that missing for Gaza City. Now we've been reunited again.
- [05:34]
Shemitah Basu
President Trump has said Palestinians should leave Gaza altogether, and he called on Jordan and Egypt to accept Palestinians as refugees so the world can, quote, just clean out that whole thing. But many Palestinians have always been determined to stay, to never give up fighting for their homeland. Here's how one Palestinian man reacted to Trump's comments when asked about them by the BBC.
- [05:57]
Anas Baba
We don't want to immigrate. Why should we do that? If we wanted to immigrate, we could have done that a long time ago.
- [06:04]
Shemitah Basu
It's unclear if the president's comment signaled a formal change in U.S. policy. No recent president has supported or suggested long term departures of Palestinians from Gaza. But that idea has been suggested before by far, far right members of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's government. Meanwhile, leaders of Egypt and Jordan have flatly rejected Trump's proposal. It was also rejected by the Palestinian Authority. Beyond rebuilding, Palestinians remain in desperate need of aid and supplies. Starting this week, Israel says it plans to enforce a decision to close down the Gaza operations for unra, which is the primary aid agency for Palestinians. This decision came after the United nations fired nine UNRWA staff members for possible involvement in the October 7 attack on Israel. The agency has protested Israel's decision to shutter the Gaza headquarters in East Jerusalem. And the Guardian reports as part of that standoff, the United nations did not create a contingency plan for how to keep aid flowing to Gaza in UNRWA's absence. That could be a huge problem because to avoid a breach of the ceasefire agreement, at least 600 truckloads of humanitarian aid must enter Gaza every day for the next four or so weeks. Let's turn now to look at how New York City is preparing for the possibility of immigration raids and mass deportations, which President Trump made a cornerstone of his campaign. New York is a city of immigrants, home to a wide mix of people from the Caribbean to the Middle East, Asia, Africa and more. Since 2022, more than 200,000 migrants have arrived in the city, some sent by Republican governors along the U. S. Mexico border. More than 40,000 are children in recent years. To accommodate this surge in arrivals, several local hotels have converted into shelters. Gwen Hogan, a reporter for local outlet the city has been reporting on these shelters since Trump took office, and she's met families who are terrified of being separated.
- [08:14]
Gwen Hogan
I had heard, you know, people being like, I have to move out and where are we going? Are we going to untenable living situations? Are we going to basements? Definitely. People trying to leave what they perceive as like a pretty prime target for enforcement actions. It's just too soon to know exactly how this is going to play out. But the fear is very real and it's changing people's day to days.
- [08:37]
Shemitah Basu
Last week, the Trump administration cleared the way for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to conduct raids at places that were once considered out of bounds, like Churchill, hospitals and schools. Hogan spoke to some parents who are afraid to send their kids to school. One father told her he sent his kids with copies of their asylum applications.
- [08:56]
Gwen Hogan
In their backpacks and on a recent afternoon they were like 10 minutes late for dismissal and he said he was panicking. He was like, I didn't know if something happened to them. Like, I'm just like, what? And then they were fine. They just came out 10 minutes later. But it's sort of like everybody is extremely on edge.
- [09:14]
Shemitah Basu
Hogan told us how city officials have been preparing the community for encounters with ICE agents.
- [09:21]
Gwen Hogan
They've conducted trainings for principals and teachers. There's been all this updated guidance from the law department that's gone out to a variety of city agencies. If immigration comes, you have to call general counsel. You have to make sure it's a judicial warrant and a lawyer will determine whether or not to then allow the person into the building. But I think what has been confusing is that Mayor Eric Adams has not really said this out loud in any of his appearances.
- [09:50]
Shemitah Basu
Adams is a Democrat, but he has been cozying up to Trump in recent weeks, meeting with him, attending the inauguration. Adams was indicted in September for federal bribery, fraud and campaign finance charges, all of which he denies, and there is widespread speculation that Adams could be seeking a pardon from Trump. There's also public opinion to contend with. While many New Yorkers lean liberal and want to be accommodating to the mass number of migrants arriving, others have real concerns about resources being stretched too thin. At one recent town hall in Corona, Queens, a community with a large immigrant population, someone asked Mayor Adams what his message is to all of these parents who are afraid to send their kids to school. Adams said he thinks all kids should go to school, and he said the city would protect documented and undocumented students. In a local TV interview, Adams said he had been told that potential raids would only target people accused of criminal behavior. Beyond that, Adams has made no public show of support or opposition to Trump's promises to target a population that makes up a significant part of the fabric of New York City. Here are a few other stories we're watching today. Tech stocks took a big hit Monday after Chinese startup Deepseek released its latest AI models it claims are just as good and in some cases better than leading American technology. Deepsea claims it's cheaper to operate, too. The company's DeepSeek v3 is now more popular than ChatGPT in Apple's app Store. The announcements triggered a huge sell off of chipmaker Nvidia. The company sought shares plummet as much as 18%, according to NBC News. But American users quickly also saw the extent of Chinese censorship. The Washington Post reports that one user captured Deep seek deleting a response in real time about Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the app was unable to answer questions about the Chinese government's brutal crackdown of protesters at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Now to a workplace trend that we have been following rising interest in making the four day work week a reality. It's only Tuesday, but if you were in the uk, your work week could be halfway over by now. The Guardian reports 1,000 workers there are getting an extra day off with no loss of pay as part of the latest pilot program run by the nonprofit group Four Day Week Campaign. 200 businesses in the UK have already made four day weeks permanent, according to the campaign. Trial results will be presented to the UK's new Labor government over the summer in the hopes that it'll lead to reforms and finally, you may have heard an ad for something called AG1 while listening to your favorite podcast.
- [12:47]
Dan Diamond
Reason I started taking AG1 and the reason I still drink AG1 once or twice a day is that it provides all of my foundational nutritional needs. That is it provides insurance.
- [12:57]
Shemitah Basu
The uber popular diet supplement has become ubiquitous among the influencer and celebrity set and it's now headed for vending machines and grocery grocery stores all across the country. Fortune looks into the company's health claims. Some nutritional scientists say its so called science driven formula lacks rigor and that it's nothing more than an expensive multivitamin. But AG1's CEO tells Fortune the company conducts rigorous clinical studies and welcomes criticism. The powder costs about 100 bucks a month. 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 time takes a look at the struggle to diagnose long COVID patients and how some have been pressured to seek psychiatric treatment for little understood medical ailments. If you're listening in the Podcasts app, follow Apple News Narrated to find that story and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.