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Remembering the lives lost in the Buffalo mass shooting · Apple News Today

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  [INTRO MUSIC FADES IN]
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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, May 17th. 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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  The attack in Buffalo was the 198th American mass shooting in 2022. That means this year, the country is averaging about ten mass shootings a week. We wanted to highlight a "Washington Post" story that's not about the suspect or the investigation. It's about the victims and how their families want them to be remembered.
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  One of the people killed in Saturday's attack was 86-year-old, Ruth Whitfield. She'd spent the day taking care of her husband at a nursing home. Her children said, she was the rock for the family.
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  [START WASHINGTON POST ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Ruth Whitfield's Daughter: I felt the need to let you know, my mom was my best friend. We went fishing together. We went camping together and you know, Black people don't usually camp, but we did.
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  Unidentified Speaker: Yes.
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  Daughter: And I'm gonna miss that. He… took away my mother and my best friend. How dare you? How dare you? This needs to be fixed as ASAP.
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  Unidentified Speaker: Amen.
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  [END WASHINGTON POST ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  77-year-old, Pearl Young, was also killed. Her son told "The Post" that she was an active member of her church. She volunteered for the church food pantry, handed out boxes of food at a park in town. She had eight grandchildren.
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  Aaron Salter Jr. was the security guard on duty that day at the grocery store. The retired police officer fired on the gunman, but the shooter was wearing a bulletproof vest. Buffalo's police commissioner called Salter a hero.
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  After Katherine Massey lost a family member to gun violence last year, she wrote a letter to the "Buffalo News" advocating for better gun control measures. Massey was shot and killed on Saturday. Her niece told "WGRZ-TV" that she someone that the community relied on, and her loss is painful.
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  [START WGRZ-TV ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  Katherine "Kat" Massey's niece: I hope that as a nation, as a community, just people at home, they teach their kids to love instead of hate, because that's not what she represented and that's not what I teach my kids. And that's not how our family do things. We love everybody, you know, and for her to go like this, it was really sad.
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  [END WGRZ-TV ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  There's more about the victims and the lives that they led in the full "Washington Post" story, which you can read in the Apple News app.
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  Russia is now in control of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, following months of bombing. Across Ukraine, people have been killed and communities have been damaged. Now, scientists are warning of the long-term environmental impact of this conflict.
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  Anna Conkling: The air pollution and the destruction of natural resources and the pollution of water, all of these things, aren't going anywhere.
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  That's Anna Conkling. She recently wrote about this issue for "Rolling Stone." Conkling points to data from Ukraine's Environmental Ministry, recording at least 1,200 environmental disasters since the conflict began. The ministry has found that pollutants released into the atmosphere could pose lasting health risks.
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  Conkling: The explosive devices that have gone off and the aircraft bombs and the missiles, they all contain toxic fumes. Carbon, nitrous oxide.
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  Attacks that hit oil depots and gas pipelines can start fires that send dangerous chemicals into the air.
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  Conkling: So, when a fire breaks out, typically people would have to flee the area. They would have to go out of the direct zone to other towns, but they can't do that because their towns are under Russian occupation or there's missiles dropping all of the time. So, they have to just kind of sit in these areas and breathe in all of these chemicals from these explosions.
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  The government estimates that 1.4 million people in Ukraine don't have access to safe drinking water. And that's in part because of incidents like the one Conkling told us about, after a Russian missile attack near a river.
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  Conkling: It hit a truck that was carrying mineral fertilizers in it. And those mineral fertilizers got into the water and it carried downstream. And so, this pollutant contaminated the water for people that were living downstream.
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  "The Wall Street Journal" reports, in recent days, more people have returned to Ukraine than have left the country. They're going back for all kinds of reasons: to be reunited with family, to help their country, to return home, as Russian troops leave parts of the country. But as this environmental impact reporting shows, their homeland is changed, and the effects will be felt for generations.
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  The NBA Conference finals are here. Tonight, it's Miami against Boston. Tomorrow night, Golden State takes on Dallas. Now, after the games, winners and losers usually face the press. And lately, the players have been letting it fly with the foul language. F-bombs being dropped left and right. Here's Howard Beck, a senior writer with "Sports Illustrated."
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  Howard Beck: NBA officials understand that NBA players like any athletes are going to curse, that this is a sport with a lot of passion involved in it, and they certainly want their players to speak with an authenticity and an emotion when appropriate. But where the NBA draws the line is they don't want them using certain profanities in a public setting.
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  So, the NBA is turning to an old method: the swear jar. So far, the league has fined players $95,000 for foul language this season. A league official tells "SI," going after players who swear in press conferences, it's about decorum and upholding standards. Officials say they've noticed an uptick in aggressive language and behavior since the pandemic began. And it might have something to do with all that time spent with no spectators in the stands.
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  Beck: There were no fans sitting there if a player got upset and threw his mouthpiece into the stands or threw the ball into the stands, and they weren't there to hear players chirping at each other or at the referees. So, with no fans in the building, the way the league saw it was that their standards of decorum in many aspects of the game had just kind of eroded a little bit. And this season, as they started the year with fans back in arenas, they thought it was the right time to kind of emphasize these decorum rules once again.
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  Beck spoke to an English professor who studies profanity. As you might expect, he calls 'BS' on the league's policy. He says swearing is a natural element of language. And centuries of policing efforts, they've failed. And now, a common refrain here would be: but think about the children! Well, a brain scientist says that studies show exposure to swearing has no measurable negative impact on adults or on kids. Beck told us, now the players' union is getting involved, and it might push back on this crackdown.
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  Beck: The league did not tell the union in advance that it was going to have the crackdown. There's nothing explicitly in the labor agreement that prohibits players from cursing publicly. And so, I do think this is an area that the union is going to try to maybe clean up a bit in the next labor deal.
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  In 2015, Navy pilots were flying off the coast of Florida when they saw something that seemed un-explainable.
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  [START THE NEW YORK TIMES ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  [WHITE NOISE]
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  Navy Pilot 1: There is a drone bro.
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  Navy Pilot 2: There's a whole fleet of them. Look on my SA.
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  1: My gosh. They are all going against the wind. The wind is 120 mph west.
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  2: Look at that thing, dude.
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  [END THE NEW YORK TIMES ARCHIVAL CLIP]
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  It's a little hard to make out but they are saying there's a whole fleet of drones that are somehow flying against super strong winds. And they can't believe what they're seeing.
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  Today, Congress holds its first public hearing on UFOs in more than half a century. This hearing comes after a report that was released last year, by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, that reviewed dozens of cases of mysterious flying objects. Now, the report didn't reach a solid conclusion, officials are not saying it's aliens but they're not saying it's not aliens.
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  Now, some recommended reading for you before you tune into this congressional hearing. You can give at least a little bit of credit to the guy from blink-182. Frontman, Tom DeLonge, has been talking about UFOs and the need to study them for years, and he's poured a decent amount of his rock-star income into research. He founded a group that brings together scientists and former intelligence officials to see what's out there. "Esquire" profiled DeLonge last year and we pulled that article for you to check out.
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  You can find that story and more in the Apple News app. There's also full coverage of today's primaries. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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