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Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt, and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more. Let's learn about all of it and then some. Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search Grown Up Stuff. Grown Up Stuff. You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. ♪
Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. This edition is published in the early hours of Monday, the 15th of July. President Biden promises a swift investigation into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and announces an independent review of security at the rally in Pennsylvania. Mr Trump calls for unity.
The Israeli military says one of Hamas's top military commanders was killed in an airstrike in Gaza on Saturday. And Kenyan police say they're investigating a number of motives for the killing of at least eight women whose bodies were found in Nairobi.
Also in the podcast... It could very well be that when he did have the sexual episode where he failed, that he feels really miserable about it. Tributes are paid to the American broadcaster and sex therapist Dr Ruth, who's died at the age of 96.
Donald Trump has called on Americans to stand united after he was injured in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally on Saturday. The former president was hit in the ear as he spoke in the swing state of Pennsylvania. One Trump supporter died and two others in the crowd were injured. The 20-year-old gunman was shot dead by the Secret Service.
On Sunday afternoon, President Biden gave a televised address from the White House. There is no place in America for this kind of violence or any violence for that matter. An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation, everything. It's not who we are as a nation. It's not America. And we cannot allow this to happen. Unity is the most elusive goal of all.
But nothing is important than that right now, unity. But some senior Republicans accused the Democrats of raising tensions with recent election rhetoric. This was House Speaker Mike Johnson on NBC's Meet the Press. Down. We've got to turn the temperature down in this country. We need leaders of all parties on both sides to call that out. There's no figure in American history, at least in the modern era, maybe since Lincoln, who's been so vilified and really persecuting
persecuted by media and, you know, Hollywood elites, political figures, you know, even the legal system. The Republican convention is due to start later on Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Our correspondent, Neda Tawfiq, is there. She told me what she made of President Biden's speech.
This is very much him putting aside his role as a candidate for the Democrats and becoming commander in chief, hitting a number of key points in that statement. First, again, taking the opportunity to condemn political violence, saying it's not American, it's contrary to
Thank you.
Now, he did speak to the fact that there are concerns about how this could have happened. He said he's going to make sure that there is an independent review of national security, and he will share that with the American people, and that in the meantime, he's going to have the head of Secret Service review all the security measures here where I am at the Republican National Convention to see if there needs to be heightened security for former President Donald Trump in this entire event. So...
Again, him using that role as commander in chief, you know, he is trying to reassure a nation that is still very much shaken. And he's trying to address a number of questions and issues that have arisen since that shocking assassination attempt. Yeah, President Biden also hinted at the questions that the Secret Service will have to answer about how this was allowed to happen. But it does seem extraordinary a gunman was able to get
so close to such a high-profile rally? Absolutely. I mean, the FBI said it was shocking that the shooter could get near a building just 400 feet away from the stage where the former president was speaking, get onto that roof within minutes and carry out this attack.
What we have heard from Republicans is that they have summoned the head of Secret Service to testify on July 22nd. They say America demands answers to what happened. But keep in mind, Secret Service, this is their kind of number one priority, is protecting the former president, the president, whoever they're guarding. And so this was a massive lapse in many minds. And so people want to know how exactly that happened.
Nedda Taufik in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Well, the FBI has named the gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks. Authorities say that a motive has not yet been identified. The 20-year-old lived around an hour's drive from the site of the rally in the town of Bethel Park, from where Tom Bateman sent us this report. This ordinary suburb of Pennsylvania woke to news that one of their own tried to kill Donald Trump.
20-year-old Thomas Crooks lived here with his parents, now being told their son was dead. The FBI and state police raided in the darkness, trying to work out what motivated him and whether he acted alone. How does it make you feel knowing that... He's on the street? Yeah. Probably how anybody else would feel, you know, as far as...
I trusted. I trust the neighborhood. I trust the people. There's never been anything happening that brought police down here. He rode my son's school bus. So what happened? Tell me what you were told. They said that the state police came to the door and told us that we had to evacuate, that there was a state of emergency. And they said there's a bomb on the street.
The police haven't confirmed a report that explosives were found in the family home, but it's known that Crooks followed a website about guns and detonations.
The FBI is searching the house. They've been here through the night. And a key question for them will be over any motive and whether Crooks' politics played any role. Records show that he was a registered Republican, but he also gave $15 to a progressive or liberal campaign group on the day Joe Biden was sworn into office.
In his high school yearbook, Crooks appears as a smiling teenager. One former classmate is baffled about what switched for this once diligent student. He was always getting good grades on tests, everything like that. He was very passionate about history, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. He was a nice kid and I had never had an experience with him where I was like, he, you know, isn't nice. He was always nice and I was always friendly to him.
America's suburbs were always set to decide this coming election. Now fear and angry division is deepening, not because of the ballot box, but the barrel of a gun.
Tom Bateman in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Well, images of the aftermath of the assassination attempt are going viral while social media is flooded with hate and conspiracy theories. For more details, we heard from our disinformation correspondent, Marianna Spring. She has created a group of fictional undercover voters with their own social media profiles so she can chart what information they are fed in the run-up to the US presidential election. There is an
absolute tidal wave of speculation, conspiracy theories, hate, disinformation of all stripes coming from all kinds of different places. And I actually think part of why that is happening, aside from this big unprecedented thing occurring, which obviously lots of people are kind of wanting answers and are worried about, is that people can't believe that that would be possible or believe that this has happened before.
because they're kind of aware of the usual security protocols and other stuff like that. And that's where a lot of the speculation, some of the more outlandish speculation is spawning from because people are saying, well, hold on a second, how come this was able to happen? And when this happened...
late in the kind of evening into the early hours of the morning UK time, I obviously powered up my undercover voters and started looking at their social media feeds. We know who the undercover voters are, are fictional characters with social media profiles across the main different platforms. And I'm able to investigate what they're being pushed and targeted with and understand
all of their feeds were overwhelmed with talk about Donald Trump and what happened at this rally. The word staged was trending on X, Twitter, people suggesting that this had been staged, that it had been planned. You know, all of the evidence available suggests that's not the case, but that this was something that
Trump had planned were what lots of these posts had seemingly falsely suggested. And that was a lot of people who don't like Donald Trump posting that, people who were left-leaning. And then a lot of people who support Donald Trump, and certainly some of the kind of very vocal people online, supporters, were then pointing to the idea that this was part of a plot or a plan to harm Donald Trump that was beyond any individual shooter, but
part of a kind of deep state cabal, part of other conspiracy theories we've heard a lot about in terms of this idea that, you know, there are lots of satanic people who are looking to do this kind of stuff to Trump and so on. So it's kind of aggravated a conspiracy theory school of thought about false flag attacks and staged attacks and so on. And
everyone is scrambling around a bit, you certainly have that feeling on X. And remember that X is different, certainly to how it was even two years ago, in terms of the kinds of stuff that's allowed and promoted and so on. And there's been that real frenzy. And I think my number one tip would be just to interrogate the sources, interrogate the posts popping up on your feed. Think about how they play into your own biases or views. And just sometimes we have to wait. We just don't always have the answer to all of these questions.
Mariana Spring. And still to come on the Global News Podcast... For the first time, the church is realising that the young people are serious and I feel also the church hasn't been really on our side. They have been sitting on the fence for a long time, actually. How young protesters in Kenya are challenging the relationship between Christian leaders and politicians.
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Hey, everyone. This is Molly and Matt, and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff, How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more. Let's learn about all of it and then some. Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search Grown Up Stuff.
We'll have more on the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump a little later in the podcast, but first some other news. And Israel says that a deadly airstrike in Gaza on Saturday killed the head of Hamas's Khan Yunus Brigade, Rafia Salameh. He was one of two commanders that Israel said it was targeting, the other being Mohammed Daif, head of Hamas's military wing. His fate remains unclear.
According to Hamas, at least 90 people died in the airstrike, which hit a designated humanitarian safe zone. I heard more about the significance of the attack from our correspondent in Jerusalem, Nick Beek. What the Israeli military are saying, Oliver, that the man they say they have killed, the commander of the Han Yunis Brigade, is someone who was a mastermind, in their words, of the October 7th attacks.
and they say that his death significantly impedes Hamas's military capabilities. So that is what they've said today. Notably, they haven't said anything more about Mohammed Daif, the head of the military wing of Hamas. Now, he would be a much bigger prize for Israel because he's been a top target for decades. He's escaped multiple attempts on his life dating back nearly 20 years.
And as of now, his fate is unclear. Benjamin Netanyahu last night, the prime minister in a press conference, said that the information simply wasn't there at the moment. But I think striking that today they've said they've killed one of these commanders, but not the much more senior figure. And of course, this is significant because Hamas are saying more than 90 people died yesterday. And Hamas say that half of those people were women and children.
So that would raise questions once again about the proportionality. In other words, the price that Israel is willing to pay to eliminate senior Hamas figures. Many critics of the way that Israel are carrying out this campaign say, you know, this cost is simply too high. And what could it mean for the hostage and ceasefire negotiations, which we had been told were making some progress in recent weeks? Yes, well, I think there's a few ways of looking at this. Hamas have said yesterday that...
These recent strikes have shown that Israel simply isn't serious about any sort of ceasefire and a deal in which the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7th could be
There are some who think that the killing of high-profile Hamas operatives doesn't really affect anything on the battlefield. However, just reading the Israeli military today, a lot of people, assuming that Mohammed Daif, the head of the military wing, has been killed, some are arguing that this actually puts Israel in a stronger position, that maybe Hamas feel weakened and they're more likely to go for a peace deal.
As you say, there were talks last week. There was some optimism that maybe they were moving in the right direction, but certainly no imminent sign of another round of talks starting in the coming days. Nick Beake in Jerusalem.
Kenyan police say a religious cult or serial killer might be behind the dumping of eight mutilated corpses found at a former quarry in the capital, Nairobi. The eight corpses are all female. Richard Kagoe reports. The decomposing bodies were found wrapped in plastic socks floating at a rubbish dump. The search for more bodies is ongoing at the site, which is less than 100 metres from a police station.
The bodies are being kept at a city funeral home pending post-mortem examinations. Police say their preliminary investigations suggest possible links to a religious cult, rogue medical practitioners or serial killers. This gruesome discovery has horrified the East African nation. Kenyan police have come under scrutiny lately following assajin cases of mysterious disappearances and alleged abductions during recent anti-government protests. Richard Kugawi.
Kenya is currently in a state of political turmoil after those huge anti-government demonstrations. President William Ruto was forced to scrap a planned tax rise and sack his cabinet. But the protests also served as a wake-up call for the church. The young demonstrators accused it of siding with the government and criticised politicians for using the pulpit as a political platform, as Barbara Platt-Usher reports.
Hundreds of young people crowded into the Holy Family Basilica on a recent Sunday afternoon. Catholic leaders organized this special mass for the youth from Nairobi churches to honor those who'd been killed by police in the anti-tax protests. We pray for the soul of Brian Ramayan Kassian. We pray for the soul of Austin Makoha.
The service was responding to a movement that is challenging the church. Just weeks earlier, Sunday Mass was interrupted by chants from the altar of the basilica. An unprecedented protest from young people. The digitally savvy generation known as Gen Z. They felt the church didn't back their campaign against tough tax hikes.
Now, Bishop Simon Kamamoy said they had been heard. To renew our commitment in serving you, God give us. Do you think the church is taking you seriously? I feel like for the first time the church is realizing that the young people are serious and I feel also the church hasn't been really on our side.
They have been sitting on the fence for a long time, actually. In fact, some church organizations did lobby against the tax bill. But it was the protesters taking to the streets that forced President William Ruto to back down. And that's not all. They're condemning what they see as the cozy relationship between religious and political leaders. We believe...
The president is buying the church. He'll always use the church as his vessel. So the church leaders, others, I've seen, they're holding envelopes with the executive leaders and the prominent members of the government, and that's not what we want as the youth. Now it's time to change. 50,000. 100. 200. One change they demanded, and got, was an end to this. One million children. 100.
Politicians making a show of giving large sums of money to the church. Here, a member of parliament hands over bags full of cash. Such donations can buy political influence on Sunday mornings. Gen Z protesters organized to stop that. President Ruto said they were right. On matters of politics on the pulpit, I am 100% aligned. We shouldn't be using money.
pulpits in churches or in any other places of worship to prosecute politics. It is not right. But the president has been part of the political culture, converting the pulpit into a campaign platform. His political messages was actually driven within the church. So people feel that they have a Christian government. Reverend Chris Kinyanjui is general secretary of Kenya's National Council of Churches.
He says Mr. Ruto's Christian narrative has made it difficult for many pastors to hold his administration to account. Our president speaks from the pulpit. You know what the pulpit means? He cannot be questioned. So he has become a very powerful figure in Kenya's politics and church circles. The
The BBC asked for a government response, but the spokesman said he was unable to comment right now.
Kenya's young people have found a voice and it's a powerful one. They make up the vast majority of the population but many don't see the country working for them. The president is listening to the protesters now and so is the church. We are the church, you know. The church shows that they don't support us, we draw away from them. And if there's no us, there's no the church. So they have to listen to our grievances because we are the church.
A report from Kenya by Barbara Pletasza. Tributes have been paid to the American broadcaster and sex therapist Dr Ruth, who has died at the age of 96. Ruth Westheimer was born in Germany, but as a girl was sent abroad for safety. Her Jewish parents later died in the Holocaust. Starting in the 1980s, her ability to talk with good-natured candour about intimate sexual matters that had long been considered taboo made her a big hit on American radio and TV.
Vincent Dowd looks back at her life and work. Hello, I'm Dr Ruth Westheimer and I'm going to answer some of your questions. Starting in 1980, Ruth Westheimer had a weekly advice show on radio WYNY New York called Sexually Speaking. This is a serious problem. It could very well be that when he did have the sexual episode where he failed...
that he feels really miserable about it.
Soon, Dr Ruth moved to TV. Audiences loved her unshockability, her accent and her sense of fun. But there had been traumatic origins. Born in 1928 into a German Jewish family, Ruth Siegel, aged 10, could only watch as her father was hauled away to a Nazi labour camp. I do remember looking out the window and seeing my father pushed onto a truck.
He, with a faint smile, waved. That was the very last time that I did see my father. She was sent to neutral Switzerland. When, in 1941, family letters ceased, Ruth guessed what had happened to her mother. Post-war, she moved to America, studying and teaching psychology and the new field of sexual studies. Please welcome Dr Ruth Westheimer. APPLAUSE
On countless chat shows, Dr Ruth dispensed advice about intimate problems mainstream TV had never been able to discuss. Sexual functioning and how to become better lovers and how for women to have orgasms and how men not to be premature ejaculators. LAUGHTER
Ruth Westheimer remained in demand into her 90s. She'd known awful personal tragedy, but Dr Ruth retained a defiant energy which audiences loved and she had a seemingly irrepressible appetite for life. Vincent Dowd on Dr Ruth, who has died at the age of 96.
Are travel guides making a comeback? Apparently, publishers of them around the world saw 95% of their revenues disappear during the Covid pandemic, when there were widespread travel restrictions. There were even reports that Google planned to end the print run of the revered Fromer's Guides in the US.
But Fromas was bought back by its founder, and now guidebook revenues are returning to pre-pandemic levels. Julian Warwicker spoke to Tony Wheeler, co-founder of another guidebook brand, Lonely Planet. So, do travellers still want to hold a book in their hand as they explore new places? I think, you know, these days people have many different ways of gathering the information they want. And, you know, we all know about
using the various internet sources and guidebooks, even when they're the solid form rather than the ephemeral form, can be print or digital. It isn't a question of just being one thing. And yeah, people are taking the solid guidebook seriously
back into use again, which I think is terrific. Why? I mean, is it possible to trace that resurgence and where it comes from? I think some of it is that, you know, a guidebook is completely dependable. You're never out of range. The batteries never go flat. If you drop it in the river, you can fish it out and dry the pages off and it will still work.
So there is that element of it. And two places I've been just in the last couple of months, I've been in Nigeria and I've been in South Sudan. Both places were not places where your internet connection was always really good. And I found the old fashioned guidebook really worked there. The physical guide, you know, has a it's had a long history. And I certainly see that in two ways. One is talking to Lonely Planet writers, even though I really have no connection with Lonely Planet anymore. I don't.
I sold out. I'm long gone. But I do still see quite a lot of the writers. And one of the things they were saying, even a year or so ago, was that people buying the guidebooks, they want to know that it was researched post-pandemic.
You know, there's a real fear. When was that done? But this is true of the things on the Internet. You know, we sort of feel, oh, it's on screen. It must be today. It certainly is not. You can find lots of things on the Internet that are very, very much out of date. In the sort of creation of the guidebook of today, how conscious are those creators of the apps, of everything else that's available, and thereby adjusting what they offer to try and make it slightly different?
Oh, look, absolutely they are. And I think there are many things, you know, you wouldn't think of. I mean, if I want to find out what time the flight goes, I go online for it. You know, I don't look up in a guidebook which tells me there are three flights a week or three flights a day, which we used to do, of course, because that was the only way to provide that information. So it really does vary on what you're looking for. But both things have a place.
I mean, the good ones as well in my mind, when I've used them a lot over the years, is when you get the sense that the person who's written it
absolutely lives and breathes this country that he or she is talking about. And that's something you can't necessarily get. That is 100% correct. So many of the writers, I am just so impressed with people's involvement with the places they write about. They've spent time there. They've studied it at university or something. They've lived it. They've lived the experience. Tony Wheeler, co-founder of The Lonely Planet Guidebook.
Let's return now to our top story, the failed attempt on the life of presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has just arrived in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention. Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, has this assessment of what the shooting means for the presidential campaign. Donald Trump's raw political instincts were on display when, as he was being rushed off stage, he deliberately stopped to defiantly raise his fist in the air.
creating an image that casts him as both a hero and a martyr. He will almost certainly benefit from an initial boost in support, from voters appalled by what's happened and impressed by his response, while his supporters are expressing new levels of devotion and admiration. This incident will inevitably reshape the entire election campaign.
Donald Trump had already sought to define this vote as a choice between his strength and machismo versus what he describes as Joe Biden's weakness in advancing age. And those calls for Mr Biden to step aside as the Democrats presidential candidate will at least have to be paused now, if not silenced completely.
The Biden campaign is taking down TV adverts that attack Donald Trump, while Mr Trump's political allies are directly blaming the president for the shooting, saying it was inspired by rhetoric that describes Mr Trump as a dangerous authoritarian fascist. This is a volatile and frightening moment in American politics. This outbreak of political violence will further inflame an already volatile campaign for the White House. Sarah Smith in Milwaukee.
And that's all from us for now, but the Global News Podcast will be back very soon. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll and produced by Alison Davis. Our editors, Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. Hey, everyone. This is Molly and Matt, and we're the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts. It's a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
Like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more. Let's learn about all of it and then some. Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app and search Grown Up Stuff.
